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Here are five things that all of us can learn from the amazing life and tragic death of the great Whitney Houston:

1)      Never assume you’re always going to be on top: Even when you’re out kicking butt, taking names and making money hand-over-fist, things can always start heading south.  When we get on top of the world, we sometimes think that the good times will never stop and that the future is going to be just as shiny as the present.  I am willing to guess that in the 1980s, when Houston was the most popular singer in the United States, she never would have guessed that she’d go out in this way.   Success can make us complacent.

2)      Who you choose to spend your life with is one of the most important decisions you’ll ever make: I’m not sure if the chicken or the egg came first when it comes to how Whitney and Bobby ruined each other’s lives.  Some say Bobby turned her into the person she became, but others are saying that Whitney was already that woman when Bobby met her.  What we do know, however, is that they were not good for each other and likely enabled the poor choices of their partner.  The lesson?  Think carefully about who you choose to date or marry, for this can literally determine how you go to your grave.

3)      Say no, no, no to drugs and perhaps even alcohol: As a college professor, I’ve seen drugs and alcohol ruin countless lives over the years.  It’s painful to watch incoming freshmen become influenced by the excitement of campus parties that may put them into an early grave or rehab center later on down the road.   There is nothing good about illegal (or many legal) drugs, and I argue that even the liquor bottle can be left to the side.  Anything that alters your brain chemistry, makes you feel like you’ve been poisoned the next day and causes you to do things that you aren’t going to remember is not good for your body, mind, soul or your life.  Find your happiness elsewhere.

4)      Think about how our actions impact our children: I don’t know much about little Bobbi Christina, the daughter of Bobby and Whitney.  But when I read stories about Bobbi getting into trouble at an early age, my heart weeps for this poor child.  It could not have been easy for her to grow up watching her parents do things that made people shake their heads and I hope that we are not witnessing an intergenerational pattern of poor choices.  We should all realize that we are passing a lot of ideas, choices and habits onto our children, and they may not always be good.

5)      It’s never too late for a comeback: When Whitney died, she was on her way back.  Like a phoenix rising slowly (and a bit clumsily) from the ashes, Whitney had committed herself to becoming the woman that she could have been.   As the female musical Mike Tyson, Houston saw the greatness that she took for granted and was working to make things right again.  Unfortunately, time ran out and I speculate that Whitney’s poor choices of the past played a role in her death.  Either way, she went out of the world loved and missed by millions, in large part because we saw her confronting her struggle head-on.  We were saving all our love for Whitney’s comeback and she almost got there at the end.

God bless you Whitney Houston.  May the Pearly Gates light up on your arrival.  With yourself, Etta James, Don Cornelius and Michael Jackson all making sweet music in the afterlife, I have no doubt that heaven is going to have one heck of a party.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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One thing I love about “our” people is that we like to keep things simple: Since the Obama presidency began, there has been a “stop snitching” code enforced on anyone who has the audacity to ask the White House to do a better job.  Tough love is not allowed, only a coddling, protective voice of unconditional, relentless support.  This support must be granted with a perpetual hope that the White House bureaucrats will do the right thing.   We don’t give our agenda to the White House, the White House gives their agenda to us.

The new code of black politics in America is that anytime one critiques the White House, about anything, for any reason, they are automatically reduced to being a hater. If Yvette Carnell writes an article critiquing Al Sharpton’s cozy relationship with Obama, she must be doing so because she’s jealous of Sharpton. When Cornel West speaks of poverty, which he’s done for the last 30 years, he must be “hatin on Obama cause he’s flossing” in the White House.  Even if you voted for Obama, you obviously did so because you hated him and are jealous of his “presidential swag.”  You just don’t want to see a black man succeed.

The next time my doctor tells me that I need to lower my cholesterol, I’m going to tell him that he’s just a hater and then maybe he’ll shut up. In fact, anyone who ever criticizes anything that I ever say must be doing so because they’re just mad and want to get what I got. I should have used that argument with my mama when she told me that my grades weren’t good enough in elementary school: “Mama, you’re just hater and mad because I didn’t give you tickets to my inaugural birthday party.”  That would have set her butt straight.

The fact of the matter is that the Obama presidency belongs to all of us, and not just those determined to be unconditional cheerleaders.  Those who voted for the president deserve respect, even if they choose to use their democratic voice.  The antiquated and awkward notion that supporting a politician means that you should sit to the side and just hope for the best is clearly an invention that came out of some pimp-in-the-pulpit dictatorship.  President Obama is not Pastor Jackson with the collection plate; he is a candidate elected for the people, by the people and beholden to accountability that must come directly from the people.

Martin Luther King said that when it comes to politics, ‎”I feel someone must remain in the position of non-alignment, so that he can look objectively at both parties and be the conscience of both—not the servant or master of either.”  The translation is that giving too much loyalty, too easily is a flawed way to use you democratic power.  Even if you give a politician your support, you are supposed to evaluate their choices critically and ensure that the politician is doing work on behalf of those whom you care about.

Dr. King wasn’t the only politician who would have been considered to be a “hater” by Obama cheerleaders today.  Another black public figure of the past, WEB Dubois, actually said that he refused to vote until a politician earned his support by advocating policy that clearly pursued racial equality in America.  So, black people do not have to think in lockstep, we don’t all have to see the world in the  same way, and your decision to use your voice doesn’t mean that you’re somehow jealous of those in power.

Maybe one day we can elevate the discussion…..Black politics should not be discussed like a hip hop music video. Defending your points with sound logic, reason, research and facts is far more valid than presuming that anyone who disagrees with you is only doing so because they are jealous.  All that’s just silly and it’s time for our community to grow up.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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Kids are still going to be tested, but the tests are not going to be measured against federal standards.  Instead, state standards will be used, giving states the right to define their own objectives.

The original No Child Left Behind Act was signed by former President George W. Bush in 2002.  It sanctions schools that fail to meet particular standards by busing students to better schools and replacing staff.

“If we’re serious about helping our children reach their potential, the best ideas aren’t going to come from Washington alone,” Obama said.

“The question is, did kids win?” Amy Wilkins from the Education Trust said to USA Today. “We won’t know that until we see how it plays out in classrooms across the country.”

There are also those who wonder if it is inherently contradictory for President Obama to dismantle No Child Left Behind, while continuing with a system that focuses on testing and uniform standards as the sole measures of student performance.  Professor Christopher Emdin of Columbia University applauds the decision made by Obama but still has his reservations.

“No Child Left Behind was the most powerful systematic way to keep students of color in the position that they’ve been … not successful.  It really focused on one single form of assessment.  It has never considered the fact that students are more complex than just receiving information and spitting it out,” said Dr. Emdin. “The big issue we have in education is acknowledging that our kids are different.”

Dr. Emdin is also concerned that President Obama’s move might be considered contradictory, given that his new system also relies on tests.

“His attempt to try to get rid of No Child left behind means he’s talking out of two sides of his mouth.  He created another system that is just another version of NCLB,” says Emdin. “The new system is just a reincarnation of the current system.  You’re saying, ‘No more teaching to the test,’ but your Race to the Top program is built on a single test.”

On the issues of racial inequality, economic inequality, and mass incarceration, the Obama Administration has come up short.  These issues have rarely been mentioned by the administration and this continues to be a disappointment.  But in the area of education, there is clear evidence that the Obama Administration is seeking to create productive change.

One can’t rightly determine Obama’s reasons for tip-toeing his way to an end to NCLB, but the president’s value systems appear to be in line with the notion of improving the educational system for all students of every background.

What is certainly clear, though, is that improving the educational system, particularly in the inner city, is critical for our nation’s future.  When we don’t educate our children, our national security is threatened and our economic future gets dimmer by the second.  The “War on Terror” during the last decade should be replaced by the “War on Inferior Education.”  It is a war we simply cannot stand to lose.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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The first Black POTUS has always been considered the holy grail of African American achievements.  Most of us didn’t think we’d have a Black president for another 100 years.  We also didn’t consider the fact that the first Black president could have easily been a Republican (Former Secretary of State Colin Powell). Yet here we are, with some of us having more access to power than we’ve ever had before, and it’s turning into a mess.

One of the great challenges of being Black in America is that we sometimes become heavily dependent on our historical oppressors to validate our success.  We forget that the most successful African American on the plantation was not the one who made it into the big house; it was actually the one who escaped.

African Americans contributed heavily to the success of the Obama presidential campaign, but millions of white Americans had to give their stamp of approval before he was allowed into office.  So, to consider the first Black president to be the most accomplished African American in history moves us dangerously close to saying that getting approval from white America somehow makes you into a better human being.

Another thing we must be careful about is comparing Barack Obama to Martin Luther King, Jr. Not that one (a Civil Rights Activist) is better than the other (President of the United States), but in many cases, they are diametrically opposed.  No one can say what the relationship between Dr. King and President Obama would be if King were alive, but given that one of them (Dr. King) spoke endlessly about the ills of poverty, militarism and racial inequality, it’s not hard to imagine that the two might be at odds with one another.

A final area in which the Obama presidency has made its impact on Black history is through the tremendous divide that has been created in Black leadership.  The battle between Cornel West and Al Sharpton is both sad and counter-productive, as one man (West) has been marginalized by the administration and the other (Sharpton) has publicly stated that he refuses to say anything critical about the president (a promise that has never been made by any civil rights activist with access to the White House).

Both of these men have been politically neutered, as we live in a nation that refuses to listen to West and has simultaneously sought to control the voice of Sharpton.   If a man leaves his wife to date her sister, the sisters should not be fighting one another.  More plainly, Sharpton and West should be standing together, not battling one another as the White House sits without accountability for its actions.  Both men should be presenting a Black agenda to the president that is offered in exchange for their endorsements.  If the first job is to get Obama into office, then the second job should be pushing the administration to act on behalf of our community.

Obama is certainly an important part of Black history; we all know that.  But his presidency tells us more about our future than anything.  Similar to the Malcolm/Martin divide during integration, we are being invited to sit at important tables, as long as we are willing to eat the scraps.  We must be smarter now than we were 50 years ago, when we formed deep partnerships with our oppressors without stating our conditions in advance.

Black history is made, at least in part, by advances in the fight against racial inequality; so, racial inequality must be a consistent part of the national conversation to allow President Obama an opportunity to make more than a symbolic contribution to African American history.   Being a Black man in the big house is a wonderful thing, but it matters more that we get off the plantation.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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In what might be his strongest public comments yet, West referred to Harris-Perry as a “fake” and a “fraud” for allowing herself to be used by the liberal establishment to shoot down his critiques over our nation’s decision to overlook racial inequality and poverty.

I was quoted in the article, but only as a supporter of Dr. West.  Anyone who evaluates Cornel West’s track record will see that he has consistently advocated for Black, Brown and poor people long before “hope” and “change” slogans were thrust on to our TV screens.  In fact, Dr. West and Pastor Jeremiah Wright serve as our strongest modern-day embodiments of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Similar to King, both of these men must endure the public volatility that comes with not running in lockstep with any flashy political trend.

When I heard what Cornel said about Melissa, my neck snapped like Nene Leakes bumping into a bill collector at a night club.  I was both impressed and shocked that West had been so strong in his position on Harris-Perry, and I was glad to see that even millionaires aren’t afraid to tell the truth.

Sometimes when diplomacy fails and your people are being attacked, it’s time to go to war.  When Cornel West spoke up honestly about the challenges of poor, Black and Brown people, alarm bells went off in liberal elitist America.  As a professor at an elite university, West was supposed to do what the other elites have done:  consider the poor only as an afterthought to planning your next vacation at Martha’s Vineyard.

In the cute and contrived world of academia, poor people are only secondary theoretical constructs that you discuss during research symposiums; they aren’t real human beings that you should actually fight for in public.

West had run off the plantation by speaking freely, not as an enemy of the Obama Administration (he campaigned heavily for the president), but as someone who demanded that we give a voice to the voiceless.  But when you have 96 percent of the Black vote, there is almost no incentive to do anything for Black people, especially those who are poor or in prison.

It’s much easier to convince Black people to be quiet by using political goons to terrorize any voices of dissent.  I can just hear someone at a closed-door meeting making the statement, “The negroes are getting upset, what do we do?  Perhaps we should find one of our personal negroes to fight him.”

Well, in full overseer tradition, the Democrats have created well-paid African-American attack dogs willing to defend their actions at any cost.  Since Harris-Perry and her friends had no legitimate defense to the critiques of Dr. West, they presumed that it would be easier to simply discredit him.  You see, if you kill the messenger, you never have to deal with the message itself.

Harris-Perry allowed herself to be used by the liberal establishment and their media channels to paint Professor West as irrelevant, petty, and ignorant in his critiques.  She never actually addressed the issues that Dr. West brought to the table.  That’s like my doctor saying, “Boyce, you’re gaining weight” and me responding with, “You’re just a quack divorcee who doesn’t know how to raise his kids.”

If I want to honestly confront my doctor’s argument that I’ve gained weight, all I’d need to do is stand on a scale — unless I am afraid to do so. Harris-Perry knows that Cornel West was right about poverty and inequality.  But because she is a highly paid scholar who doesn’t have to confront the issues being brought forth by Dr. West, she likely sees poor Black families as an acceptable casualty to her own political ambitions.

Let’s be clear:  Disagreeing with Cornel West is not a crime.  Supporting the Obama Administration is just fine.  But avoiding the issues of racial inequality and poverty by simply discrediting anyone who brings the topics to the table is pathetically harmful to millions of Black families that are affected by economic inequality, poor educational systems, and mass incarceration.   Someone has to speak up for these people, even at the expense of their own career opportunities, and we should all be thankful that Cornel West has the integrity to lose important friends in order to do what is right.

His willingness to do that which is unpopular (as Dr. King did before his death) will put Cornel West in the history books as a visionary activist and scholar; Melissa Harris-Perry will simply be remembered as another talking head.

In the worst African dictatorships, European corporations seeking to drain a country’s resources realized this simple fact:   There is no need to compensate a country’s citizens for their resources if you can simply pay off greedy dictators and figureheads who control what the people think and do.  As a result, there are countries where billions of dollars in oil are extracted every year, yet the majority of the country’s citizens remain in poverty.

In the Black community, leading Democrats have learned the dictator lesson well: If we hijack a few figureheads in the Black community and convince them to always speak in support of our agenda, we don’t actually have to do very much for Black people themselves.

It’s much easier to take care of the Head N*gger In Charge (HNIC) than it is to take care of the people they represent – just give them big media guns and have them aim those guns at any of the field negroes who choose to participate in the rebellion. That’s what makes Melissa Harris-Perry so harmful.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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My daughters all like Nicki Minaj.  I don’t necessarily like the fact that they like her, but I figure that an appreciation of Nicki Minaj is not as bad as other habits they could have developed, like smoking crack or voting Republican.  Nicki might be a bit strange and might need to learn how to blink consistently, but she’s one hell of a rapper.

I was admittedly intrigued and somewhat confused by the recent decision by BET to ban Minaj’s new video “Stupid Hoe” from their channel.  Obviously, after hearing the title of the song, I was taken aback.  I wondered if being a stupid hoe was worse than being an intelligent hoe.  I also figured that BET had chosen to ban the video because the content was just as bad as the title.

So, like every other hip hop fan who hears that a video has been banned, I rushed online to watch it (getting banned is a great way to get media attention).  I watched the video, nearly went blind from all the odd colors and bright lights, and then sat there at the end, like a fat kid in a restaurant who was given a napkin and then abandoned by the waitress.

I wondered, out loud, what it was in this video that caused it to be banned.  Not to say that the term “stupid hoe” is the kind of thing we want to hear blasted on the airwaves, but it’s not as if BET hasn’t aired worse.  The standards of decency in hip hop have sunk so low that we no longer have the right to use the word “standard.”

For BET to ban Nicki Minaj after allowing for nearly every other sexist image imaginable is like a porn star telling her boyfriend that she doesn’t want to have sex till marriage.  It just doesn’t make any sense.  I sat and watched Wiz Khalifa on the BET show, “106 & Park,” as he told a room full of impressionable teenagers how he was a “Big joint rollin, Bombay sippin, No blunt smoking, Bad b*tch getting” typa n*gga.  He also told them how the gin had gotten him “drunk as f*ck stumbling out the bar,” looking for the keys to his car.

What’s so funny is that I didn’t even get to the good parts of the song, where Khalifa’s “mentor” Too Short talks about getting women high on drugs so he can have sex with them (“Cocaine, mushrooms, ecstasy, GHB, Marijuana.  She can suck it if she wanna”).   And we wonder where the most trifling among us learn creative ways to be even more trifling:  Nothing like positive reinforcement through the airwaves to convince a kid that behavior that might send you to prison is normal.

So, the network that has no problem with an artist going onto national television and doing a teen public service announcement in favor of drinking and driving and excessive drug use suddenly has an issue with a relatively mild Nicki Minaj video.

Give me a damn break.

I’m not here to say that the content of Nicki Minaj’s video is acceptable.  As I look forward to doing a public debate on the state of hip hop this month (Feb 23) at Brown University with Michael Eric Dyson, I admit that about 75% of what we hear in commercialized hip hop has become a wasteland for African American children. But the idea of banning one of a small number of successful female rappers, while allowing the men to hang their testicles to the floor is nothing less than a mind-boggling exhibition of blatant sexism.

So, if we are going to ban the “Stupid Hoe” video from BET, we need to do some serious hip-hop content reparations:  Maybe we can retroactively ban all the other videos that show women’s booties more than the artists’ faces, that glorify getting high whenever possible, that make it cool to go to prison, and that have turned ignorance into a fashion statement.

While some might question Don Cornelius’ decision to kill himself, the truth is that millions of us are committing suicide slowly by allowing ourselves and our children to absorb consistent messages that serve as nothing less than a recipe for self-destruction.   If BET wants to do the right thing, their leadership can confront all of the ills of hip-hop and find a way to clean up the toxic waste that has somehow disguised itself as “black culture.”

You can even say that we’re all a bunch of “stupid hoes” for allowing our culture to be degraded like this in the first place. Yep, I said it, so ban me.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Your Black World Coalition. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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“I don’t think there’s a better time than African-American History month to consider the tremendous progress we’ve made through the sacrifices of so many, or a better time to recommit to the challenges we face right now,” said Obama in a video to his supporters.

It is expected that the Democrats would work to shore up their Black base right before the president’s bid for re-election. The dampened enthusiasm among Black voters who are facing 15.8 percent unemployment and rapidly declining wealth levels is also expected. The Black unemployment number is more than double that of white Americans, which stands at 7.5 percent. Throughout the Obama presidency, White unemployment has improved, while Black unemployment has gotten markedly worse.

Ironically, the “African Americans for Obama” website says that the president has been fighting “to restore economic security that has been eroding for American families for a decade.”

President Obama won 96 percent of the Black vote in 2008. His approval rating today stands at 91 percent. The black community continues to be the strongest and most loyal base of the Obama Administration.

Political commentator, Yvette Carnell, has something to say about the issue:

“I have no problem with Obama targeting African-American voters. None. He needs us and he knows it,” said Carnell. “What I do have a problem with, however, is how most of the targeting begins during campaign season and ends on election day. We’re more than just a voting bloc. We’re real citizens with real needs, needs which I hope the President begins to acknowledge and address.”

Columbia University Professor Christopher Emdin doesn’t agree with Carnell’s assessment.

“I do not believe the ‘frustration and dampened enthusiasm’ cited within Af-American communities is as pervasive as we are led to believe. With that being said, these facts do not negate the fact that these communities are dealing with serious issues related to education and poverty,” said Dr. Emdin. “I do not believe that Obama’s campaigning in Af-American communities is reflective of some ulterior agenda to “use them when he needs them.  It very well may be an effort to make a shift to explicitly focus on the needs of this community.”

The pending re-election of Barack Obama has put Black voters in a quandary. While many would agree that conditions have worsened for the Black community under Obama, the Republican Party provides no reasonable alternatives. In many cases, Black people have become the political orphans of America:

You can either live with the parents who abuse you or live with the child molester down the street. While one fate is clearly worse than the other, there is no end to the pain in sight.

It is actually logical for the Obama Administration to keep Black voters on the back-burner. When a group gives you 91 percent approval and asks for nothing in return, there is almost no political incentive to do anything for them. This calculation likely played a role in the statement that the “rising tide will lift all boats” made three years ago, when the president was asked about inequality in wealth and unemployment. The “lift all boats” policy was a clear and miserable failure, for most economic experts can tell you that racial inequality is not going to fix itself without targeted economic policy.

Right now, in the Black community, there are at least two types of people: those who are suffering and those who are not. The suffering group consists of the poor, unemployed, and those who live under the thumb of the criminal justice system. The rest of us have jobs, food to eat and are not impacted directly by mass incarceration. If you’re in the second group, it’s difficult to find fault with the Obama Administration, for a Black president grants the symbolic comfort that comes along with the “Mama I Made It” syndrome that justifies the trade-offs many of us make for the sake of economic and social progress in a White supremacist society.  Being the first Black president is the granddaddy of all “proud mama” moments, so there are millions willing to forgive nearly any short-coming of the Obama White House to maintain access to the throne.

For those who care about the poor, there is almost no redemption when the president barely mentions poverty in his speeches.  For the unemployed, it’s hard to imagine how your life will get better by supporting an administration that helped white folks find jobs while letting the Black numbers reach levels approaching those of the Great Depression. For those suffering with the effects of mass incarceration, it’s hard to get excited about a president who has not directly confronted the debilitating effects of the drug war, which has destroyed millions of families and an entire generation of children.  All of these issues indicate a state of emergency in the Black community; but thus far, we’ve only given White Americans the right to express dissatisfaction with their condition.

The implicit African American slogan for the Democratic Party is “You should just stop complaining, because the Republicans are even worse than we are.” The threat of political punishment is clearly enough to secure the Black vote without doing a thing. But at the same time, the Black political orphans of America do have a choice. WEB Dubois, when faced with few quality political options 50 years ago, simply said that he refused to vote at all.  Rather than behaving like a teenage girl who shares her body with the first man who buys her a cheeseburger, Dubois advocated for the idea that we save our votes for politicians who have truly worked to earn them.

After a mass holdout from conscientious Black voters, perhaps the Democrats will then strive to honestly earn the Black vote instead of simply telling us that they are not as horrible as the Republicans.  It should not be taboo to request that Black voters have enough self-respect to demand that all politicians give priority to the issues that lead to our suffering. There are no victims, just volunteers, and we don’t have to be political orphans forever.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here,

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1) How to start and build a business: “Soul Train” was not a show that some big corporation gave to Don Cornelius. It was his baby. Cornelius started off in Chicago with a hot local show and eventually took the show to national syndication.  He saw a void in entertainment and filled it.  He carried his dream to the national level, and now his vision remains a perpetual piece of Black entertainment history.   Most of us have dreams, but most of those dreams die. Find your dream, learn how to create your dream, and then put your heart into building that dream.  You’ll be amazed at what you can do.

2) Edu-tainment really does work when it’s done properly: “Soul Train” did what BET’s “106& Park” should have done – it entertained Black people while encouraging us to develop our minds.   I recall seeing the video of a 19-year old Rev. Al Sharpton on the show, and another with Jesse Jackson sporting the coolest Afro I’d ever seen.  Don understood the importance of maintaining a double bottom line of social responsibility and corporate profitability, and he earned his millions conscientiously.

3) There is a lot of value in creating your own platforms: Most Black entertainers are excellent at performing their craft but know very little about the business models that bring their work to a wider audience.   Rather than hoping that some other show would grant media space for Black entertainers, brother Don took matters into his own hands. As a result, scores of Black superstars were born who never would have existed otherwise.  That’s what you call making something out of nothing.

4) Black is always beautiful: The ongoing theme on “Soul Train” was “Blackness.”  Cornelius always kept it authentic. The show allowed us to be cool, funky, intelligent, progressive, wild, and creative without being endlessly scrutinized by the descendants of our historical oppressors.  Don used his opportunity as a chance to tell all of us that we can be special if we choose to be, and for that, I’ll always be grateful.

5) The true power of Ujamaa: Ujamaa is the concept of unity, working together, and supporting one another, especially in the area of economics.  When we created our Ujamaa initiative to support Black-owned businesses, we were inspired by the  likes of Don Cornelius, whose show got off the ground via sponsorship from the Johnson Products Company, a Black-owned enterprise. By conjoining Black consumers with Black businesses and Black entertainment, Cornelius was able to create one of the greatest economic and entertainment empires in Black American history.  There’s no limit to what we can do when we work together.

Goodbye Don Cornelius, you were oh so special to all of us.  You were the guardian of our collective soul, and a piece of that soul will be carried with you into heaven.  May you always rest in peace.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Your Black World Coalition. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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Jeffrey Goldberg of “The Atlantic” does a wonderful job of describing what he refers to as racist “dog whistling” by leading Republicans.  The writer explains the manner by which America has walked away from blatant race-baiting, but is fully willing to elect a candidate who engages in “dog whistling,” or referencing race in ways that allow him to avoid accountability for the harmful effect of his remarks.

Golberg references the antics of Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, who has taken dog whistling to another level.  In the world according to Gingrich:

Black people have lost the desire to perform a day’s work. Black people rely on food stamps provided to them by white taxpayers. Black people, including Barack and Michelle Obama, believe that the U.S. owes them something because they are black. Black children should work as janitors in their high schools as a way to keep them from becoming pimps. And the pathologies afflicting black Americans are caused partly by the Democratic Party, which has created in them a dependency on government not dissimilar to the forced dependency of slaves on their owners.

There is something beautifully educational about the presidential candidacy of Newt Gingrich.  The fact that his tactics are working serves as a clear reminder that racism is alive and well in America, and I rarely find anyone who (like three years ago) tries to convince me that we live in some kind of post-racial society.   The subtle racism that has frustrated many millions of African Americans for decades is being laid out on the table for all to see.  Like the five-year old who snaps a photo of the boogeyman under his bed, black people are able to point to right wing reactions to President Obama as all the proof of racism they need.

What we’re also seeing in America is a bit of a civil war.  The irrationality of racial hatred runs so deep that there are some who would rather see America crash and burn than to see a black man standing proudly in the White House.   The talk of assassinating our leader and defying the federal government has rarely been greater than it is right now.

Simultaneously, the battle against racism leads many black people to blanketly support any policy of the Obama Administration as if they are trying to score points for a basketball team.  Democracy has been thrown out the window in exchange for a state of racialized Martial Law, where people are not voting for Obama as much as they are voting against racist Republicans.  Like slaves huddled up in fear of their masters, we are terrorized by those who seek to use Republican racial animosity as a threat to get us to run for cover with the Democratic Party.

All the while, there is hope for America.  When a doctor gives you medicine to cure a virus, the disease typically flares up before it disappears.   When a vicious wild animal is being killed, it fights for its life before it dies.  The disease of racism is being directly confronted by the mere existence of a bi-racial president.  Like any disease, America’s racial virus has flared up and those who hold onto to the ideologies of our past are fighting like hell to keep those ideas alive.

What doesn’t kill a nation usually makes it stronger. One only wonders if this difficult period in our nation’s history is going to have a positive or negative long-term effect on our country.  Men like Newt Gingrich are naturally able to fuel the fire of racial animosity that burns inside those with a threatened sense of entitlement.   The evidence that America continues to heal is the fact that for millions of Americans, Newt Gingrich’s racial dog whistling simply does not work.

It is for all of these reasons that Gingrich’s racial politics may earn him a few fans in the south, but it won’t get him anywhere near the White House.  America is becoming a better country because of the Obama presidency, whether we like it or not.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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Davis, a 29-year-old man, was sentenced on 14 counts of felonious assault in this case, after it was determined that at least a dozen of his partners were not made aware of his HIV status.

Davis claims that he is a sex addict and that his addiction was also driven by losing his dream of becoming a pro-wrestler after testing positive for HIV:

Drugs and alcohol are terrible, but sex is something everybody wants. I am not a monster, he said.

Davis tells the world that he is not a monster, but he certainly acted like one.  His decision to be so terribly irresponsible with his body has ruined countless lives and made our society a little less safe.  What’s most frightening about this “monster” is that there are thousands of other monsters in our society, some of whom have no idea that they are walking bio-weapons of mass destruction.

Quite a few men, especially those who are athletes and entertainers, have been taught by media to pride themselves on how many women they can sleep with.  When our kids are bombarded with lyrics like “I wish I could F*ck every girl in the world,” (thanks to Lil Wayne) they are filled with a warped sense of masculinity that teaches them that you are to have sex from any attractive woman who offers it.  If women are attracted to you, your rolodex is never too full.

Unfortunately, many women become so hypnotized by the amount of “swag” that a man has, how well he dresses, what he’s driving, or how good he looks, that they don’t take the time to find out if he might send her to the morgue.

Most of us know men who’ve had a lot of sex with a lot of women and haven’t been to the doctor in years.  For some, sex is the perpetual hunger that can never be fully satiated.  While most women grow up accustomed to regular doctor’s visits for pap smears and other routine check-ups, many men do not. Therefore, Davis is actually unique in that he even knows his HIV status in the first place.

Given that he lost his job as a wrestler because of his status, chances are that he was forced to take a test that he would not have gotten otherwise.  How many other Andre Davis-like men are out there who never took the test and will never be prosecuted for spreading HIV because they had no idea of their status?

So perhaps an honest reflection on our sexual decisions might be called for in the strange times in which we live.  Is Andre Davis a monster? I’m not sure.  What is most frightening is that he might not be a monster, abnormality, or uniquely malevolent human being – he might actually just be a regular guy.  I’m sure Davis has quite a few friends just like him.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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And he’s right, Limbaugh added, they do that well.  Mom and Dad and the two kids.  It’s a good-looking family.

Limbaugh then went in on the First Family, stating that Mrs. Obama needs to get rid of her nutritional standards to combat childhood obesity.

That’s not the kind of teamwork, you see, that the people of this country want.  They don’t want their government telling them what they cannot eat.  They don’t want the government telling them what they must eat.  Even little leftist robot kids don’t.

Then in a really insulting remark, Limbaugh went back to the hypocritical Republican position that poor people simply need to learn family values:

You know, the best thing Michelle Obama could do — and I’m not joking here — the best thing Michelle Obama could do for people in poverty is to simply highlight the solid nuclear family that she has with her husband, Barack, and the two kids.

It’s easy to see why Limbaugh wouldn’t be happy about Michelle Obama’s nutritional standards: She and her family are healthy, and Rush Limbaugh is not.  The poor man has fought with obesity, drug addiction, and nearly every other symbol of a gluttonous, self-absorbed life.  His position on disciplined family values is heavily contradicted by the way he’s lived his own life — but that’s essentially what makes him a good Republican.

Limbaugh is correct that the Obamas have the kind of family that even most Republicans can’t criticize.  They are not defying the norms of the Black family; they are reflecting them.  Millions of Black families across America consist of good, normal people who want to do what’s best for their children.  Limbaugh’s code language involving the use of words like “poor,” “urban,” and “unprivileged,” are nothing more than modern day manifestations of the same old self-righteous racism that has held our country back for the last 400 years.

Limbaugh may want to take time to reflect on his own values.  If every poor family in America decided to take on the ethical disposition of Rush Limbaugh, then God help us all.  The man almost went to prison for his drug addiction for goodness sake, and it’s amazing that so many Republicans are listening to him.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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Over the last 15 years, the real wage of the average American worker has remained stagnant. Programs have also been sliced for the poor in record numbers. All the while, the wealthiest 5 percent of all Americans have accumulated more than half of our country’s wealth.  Simultaneously, the bottom 40 percent only hold 0.3 percent of that wealth. This, my friends, is not healthy American free enterprise; this is the making of an oppressive society that is hell bent on self-destruction.

If we are going to criticize President Barack Obama when he comes up short, we must applaud him when he shows extraordinary vision. The challenge to America’s festering economic inequality problem is, quite simply, a matter of national security. Tax laws must be changed to allow the rich to pay their fair share. Our nation’s newfound belief that “greed is good” should be replaced with a concern for the well-being of our fellow man.

The millionaires and billionaires who’ve somehow been led to believe that buying gas for your private jet is more important than feeding starving children must be forced to see their value systems for what they’ve become: our society has, quite frankly, become a sick place to live.

One can only imagine what kind of battles the president is going to face in the coming year. Republicans are determined to be counter productive and obstructionist. They don’t like taking orders from black people, and they’ve convinced a few Bible-thumping hypocrites to support them in their desire to protect the rich.

But at the end of the day, the American people must support the president’s quest to put a real discussion of economic inequality on the table, for we are fighting for the soul and survival of our nation.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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1)      Poverty: Last year, you were the first Democratic President since Harry S. Truman not to mention poverty during your State of the Union Address.  Please don’t make that mistake again.  Poor people do exist, no matter how much we think we can wish them away, and they must become part of the conversation.  If you can’t bring poor people to the table, then this gives every future president an excuse to ignore them as well.

2)  Existing Threats To American Civil Liberties: Your signature on the National Defense Authorization Act was probably one of the most un-American decisions made during your presidency.  The provision allowing Americans to be held indefinitely on suspicion of terrorism is simply frightening.  I can’t imagine how many lives will be ruined forever as a result of this new law.  Your liberal base may never forgive you for this one.

3) Poverty, Again: Oh yeah, I know I mentioned poverty earlier, Mr. President, but I’d like to make one more point if I may.  Income inequality is a huge problem along both racial and non-racial lines.  The gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow and the wage of the American worker has remained stagnant as corporate profits continue to shoot through the roof.   All of this creates a clear recipe for an unstable society and endangers the future of our country.

4) Our Uneducated Children (And Adults): You’ve done a good job of emphasizing the importance of fixing our dysfunctional school systems.  You might also be able to gain a few points by helping families deal with the spiraling cost of college education and massive student loan debt.  The inflation of educational costs has become too much for most families to bear.

5) Keeping America Healthy: Everything I just said about educational costs growing out of control, make that ditto for health care.  Americans can’t afford to get sick anymore, especially if they don’t have jobs.  With more and more Americans facing the despair of joblessness, the future becomes an economic abyss with no hope in sight.

6) The Justice System, Particularly The Prison Industrial Complex: Mr. President, there are millions of Black men who look just like you and are just as intelligent as you, rotting away in America’s prisons under unjust drug laws from the Ronald Reagan years.  Perhaps it’s time to end modern-day slavery and seek out serious reform.

7)      Poverty, Just One More Time: Oh yea, Mr. President, I hate beating a dead horse, but I’d like to mention one more thing about poverty.  Did you know that the wealth gap between Blacks and Whites has actually increased during your presidency?  I’m not sure if the dream of a first Black president included such a grim reality.  This problem is not as much of a reflection on you as it is on our nation’s long-standing commitment to butt-naked racism, but still, we must all face the issue head-on and not simply avoid the matter by arguing that the “rising tide will lift all boats.”

8)      Putting America Back To Work: We know that when it comes to getting elected, job creation is one of the most-important keys to success.  Thus far, your work on job creation has been mediocre at best.  America needs a strong vision for its economic future.  This is the year that I expect the economic tide to turn for our country, and this could keep you in the White House for another four years.  Let’s hope they are another four years of strong change for the country and not just another episode of self-absorbed, highly symbolic, political cronyism among the Harvard/Chicago political elite.

9) The Deficit: The spiraling national debt is one of the most-serious economic problems facing our government today.  Republicans blame your spending, but they are incorrect in this assessment.  Raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans is the only way to solve this problem, not taking support away from the most vulnerable.  The divisiveness of American politics gives a grim prediction on whether this problem can ever be solved, but it must at least be laid on the table for discussion in hopes that we can find a way to deal with it without allowing wealthy fat cats to walk away without responsibility.

10) Guts: You’ve become a better president over the past two years.  You’re maturing right before our eyes.  You seem to understand more clearly that some of your enemies will never learn to like you and that Americans are more willing to withstand a bad leader than a weak one.   I’d love to see a voice and vision that communicates that you are the tough leader that America deserves – one who can maintain the moral high ground and still be tough enough to stand up to a racist bully like Newt Gingrich.  Being the first Black president is not for the faint of heart, and not everyone wants to hold hands and sing “we shall overcome.”

So, taking a stand for what is right can go a long way … and it might even be OK to admit that you’re a Black man who seeks to confront some of the ills of racial inequality in America.  Some in our community want to compare you to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, but we must remember that Dr. King said and did what was right, even when it wasn’t popular.  That, my friend, takes courage.

Good luck, Mr. President, we’ll be watching.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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Despite the fact that Gingrich just won the South Carolina primary, Christie described Gingrich as an “embarrassment” to the Republican Party.

On “Meet the Press,” Christie went in with his attacks on Gingrich, turning the Republican party on its head:

He was run out of the speakership by his own party, said Christie. This is a guy who has had a very difficult political career at times and has been an embarrassment to the party.

Christie mentioned that Gingrich had to pay $300,000 to settle allegations resulting from an ethics probe in 1997.  He also stated that one of the key benefits to endorsing Mitt Romney is that he doesn’t carry similar baggage.

I think Newt Gingrich has embarrassed the party, over time, Christie said. Whether he will do it again in the future, I don’t know. But Gov. Romney never has.

Christie, in spite of the sharp tone of his words, was actually being polite by only pointing out one or two of the problems with Gingrich’s past.  Many of us also remember this “family values Republican” as the man who cheated on all of his ex-wives and abandoned one of them while she was on her death bed.  Gingrich is also the man who has attacked Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac publicly, after taking money from both companies.

To sit and list all the evidence of Newt Gingrich’s hypocrisy would be like counting the number of Black people at Freaknik.  This candidate, unlike any other, causes all of his conservative peers to hold their noses while endorsing him.  At the same time, Gingrich is simply guilty of shedding a clear and unambiguous light on the double standards applied by many of the self-righteous participants in Right Wing politics.

Social commentator Yvette Carnell believes that Christie’s remarks are right on point:

Chris Christie is right. Newt Gingrich’s career as a politician was all but dead until it was revived by the right wing fringe, better known as the Tea Party.

How could a hypocritical, philandering lobbyist ever be thought of as the savior for the conservative movement? A lot of people know this and have been whispering about it quietly, it’s just that Christie, always blunt and forthright, was the first to say it.

Carnell’s statement helps us to all make sense of how a political calamity like Gingrich could get this far in the race for the White House.  Unfortunately, Gingrich’s presence has created a “race to the bottom” in Republican politics, where high-quality candidates are being forced out, and political caricatures like Gingrich and Herman Cain are being pushed to the top.  The lunacy should come to an end soon as the party realizes that Mitt Romney is the only reasonable candidate available, but the Tea Party continues to make its presence felt in the circus that has been created on the right side of the aisle.

Obviously, the confusion on the right works well for the Obama Administration.  In spite of their flaws, the Democrats provide a relatively sane, stable contrast to the ugly racial politics being played by the right.  Black people, as insignificant as we are made to be, have become the perfect whipping children for those who make it their quest to prove that they are superior to other human beings.

Rick Santorum’s and Gingrich’s remarks about black people being on welfare and food stamps are sad, unAmerican, and uncalled for.  But then again, it’s what we’ve come to expect from the most primitive among us.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Your Black World Coalition.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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Moore, 21, called in to report an officer who’d groped her breast while responding to a domestic disturbance at the home she shared with her boyfriend.   But rather than receiving justice, Tiawanda was charged with violating the Illinois eavesdropping law, a felony that carries a stiff penalty of up to 15 years in prison.

After recording her conversation with the officer and being charged for it, Moore was later acquitted in August.  One of the jurors called the trial “a waste of time.”

Moore spent two weeks in the Cook County Jail.  She eventually got out and filed suit against the city and the police department.  She is alleging unreasonable seizure, false arrest, and malicious prosecution and claims that the law specifically exempts those who record police officers “under reasonable suspicion that another party to the conversation is committing or is about to commit” a crime.

Prominent Chicago attorney Karen Cecile-Wallace says that Moore was right to record the officer:

The Illinois eavesdropping statute is a double-edged sword. It prohibits persons from being recorded without their knowledge and permission, but Moore was within her right to protect herself from the officer’s blatant unlawful and egregious acts. I commend the jury for reaching the right decision.

I am in agreement with attorney Wallace.  It’s interesting to see legislators creating laws that serve to protect themselves at the expense of the American public.   This woman did nothing wrong, and it’s frightening to live in a world where a woman who records a police officer seeking to cover up a crime, can end up in jail.  Welcome to the end of American democracy; our country is no longer the standard bearer as it pertains to civil liberties.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Your Black World Coalition.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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As expected, Cornel West joined Tavis as one of the panelists for the event.  West is a long-time political partner in crime with Smiley, and in spite of any criticism they might have received for their challenges to the Obama Administration, you must give them both credit for being lone voices in the woods on the important issue of poverty.  With 40 percent of Black children living below the poverty line, African Americans cannot allow the political elite of Washington to fool us into forgetting about those who are suffering the most.

One thing that seems to keep Tavis in power is that even when Black people are tired of hearing from him, there’s always a group of powerful white folks who love him to death.  Joining Dr. West on the panel were financial guru Suze Orman and filmmaker Michael Moore, both of whom had something to say about the issue.

Orman is certainly a well-branded financial expert, but not an expert on poverty.  Ryan Mack’s objection to Orman’s seemingly exploitative debit card serves as additional evidence that Orman was only on the panel because she’s famous.  There’s not much in Suze’s track record to confirm, on any level, that she cares one bit about Black people or poverty. She should have been replaced by someone who has a history of actually giving a damn.

Tavis’ efforts on poverty are being applauded by some, including Dr. Julianne Malveaux, President of Bennett College for Women:

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. hated poverty. He described it as ‘an abomination greater than cannibalism.’ Tavis stands on the shoulders of Dr. King in his fight against poverty, and I commend him for his efforts.

Over the last two months, the Obama Administration has received credit for the fact that the unemployment data for the entire nation has improved.  During the same time period, Black unemployment has actually gotten worse.  This is the headline that the Obama Administration does not want you to see, but it’s the only headline that any of us need to see as it pertains to our people.

One of the challenges that Tavis and Cornel are set to face in their fight against poverty is that America is not a country that is wired to take care of the poor.  Capitalist societies are structured to focus almost exclusively on maximizing shareholder wealth, even if it is at the expense of workers, customers, and the environment.  Also, the distorted values of our society have led us to a place where we seem to believe that greed is good and that there’s no reason to care about our fellow man.

Washington has given up on its fight against poverty, and I’m not optimistic that they will ever escape the grasp of corporate greed.  Now that the Supreme Court has told political leaders that corporations can feed their coffers in excess, we’re going to see our society crippled by economic inequality unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.  Income inequality could ultimately come to destroy America as we know it, and no one in Washington seems to care.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Finance Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Your Black World Coalition.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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1)  She’s just as smart as her husband: Barack Obama went to an Ivy League school, and so did Michelle.  Barack is a highly trained attorney, and so is Michelle.   In fact, Michelle actually mentored Barack when he first got his job at Sidley Austin, a fancy law firm in Chicago.  I’m sure she can go toe-to-toe with him in any debate.

2) It’s about time we let a woman lead our country. Given that women are now the majority of the American workforce, it is about time for us to let a woman run the country.  Who knows?  Maybe choosing the best person for the job without discriminating based on gender will actually make us better off in the end.

3) She has guts. Michelle has stated that there is nothing shameful about being a strong black woman.  She doesn’t feel the need to make others unnecessarily comfortable or to give in to the irrationality of racism.  Quite frankly, there are times when the president folded in situations where I truly believe Michelle would have stood strong.  She’s not in Washington to make friends, and sometimes, that can be a good thing.

4)  She would choose better advisers. Every time I see a silly decision being made by the Obama Administration or hear that they’ve chosen yet again to ignore the growing Black unemployment problem, someone tells me, “It’s not President Obama, it’s the people around him.”  I don’t disagree:  Obama’s cabinet is whiter than an episode of the TV show “Happy Days.” Reports that Michelle Obama has had friction with the president’s cabinet are not surprising, since she appears to be the one willing to tell them the ugly truth about their choices.

5) She’s not afraid to be Black. Throughout her life, Michelle has written about diversity issues and fought for them. Her graduation thesis at Princeton was titled, “Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community.” She has protested against the Harvard Law School’s atrocious record of not hiring African-American professors and seems genuinely concerned about the Black men and women who can’t find jobs.  In fact, Michelle is likely the one who remembers that during the last two months when the country celebrated improvements in the unemployment rate, Black unemployment actually got worse — I’m not sure if the rest of the Obama Administration got the memo.

While no one can prove that Michelle is more qualified than Barack, the fact that being Black and female amounts to automatic disqualification from the presidency reminds us that we are a long way from fulfilling the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Still, I’m going to go out and find me a “Michelle Obama for President” T-shirt.  Somehow I’m sure I won’t be the only one wearing it.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Your Black World Coalition.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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Our honorees are the bridge builders and the nation healers.

CHECK FOR MORE HONOREES AS THEY ARE REVEALED BEFORE MLK DAY HERE.

——————

Name: Ryan Mack

Age: 32

City of Residence: New York

Occupation: Financial Adviser

His Work: Mack facilitates economic empowerment and financial literacy through national workshops and programs.

His Brotherly Walk With Dr. King:

There is a reason I was inspired to create a national 13-city tour called “Less Talk…More Action,” which looks to connect with local organizations that provide services for people in need. There are too many people talking about the problems of society, and too few presenting and implementing solutions. God gave me an ability to communicate the principles of building wealth to multiple demographics, and I have made a commitment to use it as a tangible solution for the economic problems we face.  Whether it is in front of a group of gang members, Harvard University students, low-income families, corporate executives, on CNN, or on CNBC, I am committed to reaching out to ALL people to teach these principles.

On Inspiration:

Dr. King is more than an expensive statue in D.C. (where the funds could have been used to send some needy youth to college). Dr. King represented the adage that “none of us is as strong as all of us.” He understood that the youth were not his competition, but were his asset in the movement. Too few of those who came after him have taken the time he did to make sure that he could effectively pass the torch to the next generation.

Many times I have met those who came after Dr. King and have been met with resistance. Dr. King was never an obstacle to the next generation, but was a bridge for the next generation creating opportunities for others. He represented the best of what this country had to offer and the best way to honor him is not with a march, a moving speech, a status message on Facebook, or a material T-shirt purchased with his face on it. The best way to honor Dr. King is to get up off your *ss and DO SOMETHING to empower not only yourself, but your community. Dr. King was the epitome of “less talk…more action.”

On How We Can Continue The Work Of MLK:

It is problematic for me when we continuously point out what the government is not doing to fix our problems, as opposed to pointing out what we can do to fix our own problems. I am a strong fan of accountability and holding our elected officials accountable, but never should there be a time when we ever hold anybody more accountable for our future than we hold ourselves accountable for our future. Nobody should ever care more about you, than you care about you. Financial literacy is a means of showing through tangible action just how much we love ourselves and communities by doing the right things to empower ourselves and communities.

“I would rather help you than help self. However, I cannot help you until I help self. So that I can better help you, I will help self.” — Ryan Mack

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As I reminisce on the spankings my mother gave me as a child, I wonder if there could have been a better way.   I remember the terror in my skull that emerged upon hearing the belt jingling as she walked down the steps, and I remember feeling that there was no purpose to the pain I felt whenever I did something wrong.

But then I think about my life.

I consider the fact that the sons of most of my mother’s friends didn’t do very much with their lives.  Many of them are in prison, unemployed, or even dead.   Starting as a 17-year-old single Mother in a housing project, my mother has raised a doctor, an Ivy league graduate and a university professor — not bad for a woman who allegedly “abused” her kids by spanking them.

I also think about the little kid that we all know in the supermarket.  The boy who tells his mother what to do, throws boxes of cereal across the aisle when he doesn’t get what he wants, calls his mother names in public because she pissed him off.  I think about his mother, feeling as helpless as a prison inmate, forced to live under the ruthless dictatorship of an angry 3 year old.  I think about how this child wouldn’t have lived past the age of four if he were born and raised in my mother’s house.

Unfortunately, we’ve becoming a country that has forgotten that sometimes learning to respect authority is not a comfortable process. Parents need a credible threat to support their ability to effectively run their households.  Spanking should not be the only way to maintain control, but it should certainly be a part of a good parental arsenal.

As it stands, our nation has an obesity problem, we are falling behind in education, and we are financially gluttonous.  We’ve raised our kids to enjoy the spoils of excess and instant gratification.  It only makes sense that in this kind of world, any kind of serious discipline is frowned upon, and parents feel the need to become best friends with their kids.

I’m not here to pretend to be an expert on parenting, but an examination of our parental outcomes might lead us to naturally conclude that strong, disciplined parenting is clearly a necessity.  Whether spanking is a part of the plan or not is up to the individual.  If your teenager is telling you what they will and won’t do or your 3-year-old is pulling rank on a regular basis, though, you might want to reconsider your options.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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1)  Is this the second coming of Baby Jesus? No, it’s not. When Blue Ivy Carter was born, I expected the North Star to shine prominently and for Three Wise Thugs to show up at the Manhattan hospital looking for her.  I’m really, really hopeful that the Carters themselves don’t buy into the idea that the birth of their child is the most significant event in human history.

2) Shutting down an entire hospital wing? Give me a break: Some of us can partially understand the need to protect the Carter family from an ever-so-hungry media salivating over the chance to get just one photo or video clip.   But if any of the reports are true about Beyonce and Jay-Z shutting down a massive chunk of the maternity ward, then I am angry for the other parents.  The last thing I’d want to see if I were trying to deal with the stress of a newborn child are bulky security guards telling me where I can come and go.  This is silly, disrespectful and pretentious.

3) The lies and rumors: Did Beyonce have a surrogate?  Did they rent out private helicopters to fly in custom-made, solid-gold baby booties?  The rumors about this child’s birth have been beyond outrageous, and I’m sure that a few years from now, Blue Ivy will be amused to read about how crazy the world went over her birth.  By then, she’ll be 100 percent celebrity, wearing sun glasses  to kindergarten, and sporting a weave as long as her body.  Children are already born thinking that they are the center of the universe.  This poor child actually has reason to believe it.

4)  The lies in response to the lies and rumors: Beyonce and Jay-Z have announced that they had a natural birth, but they never really explained the video where Beyonce’s stomach dropped like my grandmother’s face when my daughter got her first tattoo.  The family has maintained their “silent, yet mysterious” disposition on almost every front, seeming to want the attention that their child is getting, while pretending to dislike it.

5)  Blue Ivy’s million-dollar-marketing plan: Beyonce used her pregnancy to steal the show at the MTV Music Awards the way a single man borrows his neighbor’s puppy to pick up pretty girls.   Then, of course, Jay-Z had to release a song right after the baby is born.   Pretty soon, Blue Ivy will be in the studio busting rhymes with her daddy; well actually, Jigga did use her voice on the audio already.  So, put that on the “already did that” list.  The only thing left is for Kanye West to bust into the maternity ward and demand that everyone acknowledge that Blue Ivy is, in fact, cuter than the other babies.  Kanye’s latest outburst has been scheduled for next week.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Your Black World Coalition.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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1) Al Sharpton: Rev. Al and I fight … all the time – the fights are usually over President Barack Obama – but I have to give respect where it’s due.  Sitting and speaking with Rev. Sharpton is one of the most-fascinating experiences I’ve ever had.  Every sentence is a goldmine of understanding on politics, celebrity life, civil rights, and everything else.  I’ve rarely seen anyone with the ability to process information as quickly or manage as many relationships as Rev. Sharpton.  Had he not been a Baptist minister, Rev. Al could have easily been a professor.

2) Yvette Carnell: Political analysis Yvette Carnell has a mind so sharp that she can cut your head off from 20 feet away.  A student of philosophy and political science, Yvette can understand the intricacies of modern politics and social commentary in ways that are rarely seen in public discourse.  As our community works to find ways to incorporate more Black women into the leadership structure, I expect Yvette to be one of the great thinkers of our generation.

3) Marc Lamont Hill: I met Columbia University professor Marc Lamont Hill five years ago.  To this day, I’ve rarely seen anyone with the ability to think so swiftly and then back up his thinking with sheer hustle.  Marc started with almost nothing and created opportunities out of thin air.  He spars with Bill O’Reilly with the discipline and skill of a Kung-Fu master, sneaking in brutal jabs and counter punches as if he were starring in a Bruce Lee movie.  I don’t know Marc’s IQ, but I expect that he’s smarter than the average brother.

4) Barack Obama, I mean, Michelle:  As an American, I am happy to have Barack Obama as my president.  As a black American, I would rather have Michelle.  My speculation is that the source of tension between Michelle Obama and President Obama’s advisers (as stated in the recent book by New York Times writer Jody Kantor) is that Michelle is a brilliant leader trapped in a First Lady’s body.  She’s not meant to simply read books to school children and appear on Nickelodeon episodes.   She’s meant to be in the driver’s seat.

5) Michael Eric Dyson:  I still remember the day when I saw scholar Michael Eric Dyson for the first time on BET 17 years ago.  From that moment, I wanted to become a public scholar.  The man spit four syllable words with the skill of the greatest Brooklyn MC and dropped knowledge like a piano being tossed off a 10-story building.  Mike is one of the great scholars of our day, and it wasn’t by coincidence.

6) Wendy Williams: I’ve been on media personality Wendy Williams’ radio show about six times.  As ghetto-fabulous, raunchy, and trifling as she can be, I could see her brilliance from our first interaction.  Beyond the “interesting” public persona is a sharp, cool, calculated businesswoman who knows how to work her brand.  She was chased out of the New York media market only to come back years later and take it by storm.  Those neurons in her skull made it all possible.

7) Harry Belafonte: Do you know anyone else who can flow, fight, and articulate this well at the age of 84?  I thought not.  The only word that comes to mind when I think about singer and social activist Harry Belafonte is “deeyamm.”

8)  Cornel West:  When I ask myself, “What would Jesus do?”  I look at American philosopher Cornel West.  When I think about the greatest modern day embodiment of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (another activist, scholar, and man of God), I look at the man with the crazy hair and black suit.  Cornel has lost a significant amount of money from his willingness to put it all on the line to stand up for black, brown and poor people.  Unfortunately, too many of us are afraid to stand with him.

9) Dr. Julianne Malveaux: Right after seeing Michael Eric Dyson on BET and deciding to become a public scholar, I read “Sex, Lies and Stereotypes” by Bennett College President Dr. Julianne Malveaux.   Few of us fully understand how hard it is to get through a PhD program in Economics at MIT, but Dr. Malveaux knows this well – imagine studying 12 hours a day, seven days a week and still not being prepared for the exam.  Julianne is the new Dorothy Height and the woman who should be leading all of us into the 21^st century.

10) Rev. Jesse Jackson:  How a man fights on an issue every day for 45 years straight is beyond me.  Rev. Jackson has never flinched, buckled, folded or lost focus.  He’s faced the haters, the conspirators, and those who want to see him fail only to emerge victorious every time.  He’s even been listed as one of the top three men on earth most likely to be assassinated.  Even after making mistakes, he gets right back up and keeps going as if the blip on the radar screen wasn’t even a real blip.  I learn a lot from watching Rev. Jackson and know with almost complete certainty that I could never replicate what he has accomplished.

That’s my list, love it or hate it.  But I argue that these individuals help form the body of black intellectual icons of this decade.  There are others out there, some whom are just as good.  It is my hope and expectation that they will use these models as examples of how Black people do it in the 21^st century.  All of us are meant to be great.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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Cuddly elementary school kids have let go of Sesame Street in exchange for an AK-47 with a condom on top.  The great challenge is finding a way to be a good parent in a world that provides influences that run counter to everything you want your child to believe, and believe me folks, it ain’t easy.

The formula presented in commercialized hip-hop is simple:  Drink and use drugs in excess; have as much irresponsible sex as possible; don’t ever show any respect toward women; for God’s sake, don’t ever educate yourself; make sure you’re “strapped” whenever possible, in case some fools try to roll up on yo’ spot; spend all your money and don’t think one second about saving or investing it.

It’s hard to disconnect the beats, rhymes and messages being absorbed by our kids with the fact that Black people are broker than we’ve ever been, getting less educated by the minute, going to prison like cattle, killing one another at record speed, and running back and forth to the club every other day.  Hip hop is not entirely to blame for these problems, but yes, there is a connection.

Dr. Towanna Freeman, who professionally mentors young women, has strong feelings about the music and spoke openly about how she dealt with her daughter’s decision to download music that she found to be objectionable:

Whether you know it or not, your subconscious is absorbing the stuff this music is saying to you.  What goes in eventually comes out. One day you will find yourself cussing someone out or acting in a way that responds to the music you’re listening to.  That’s why when someone is being brainwashed, they have them listen to headphones.  You absorb what you hear.

Columbia University Professor Dr. Christopher Emdin says that the music provides a teachable moment for parents:

The chief thing for parents to understand is that there is a major distinction between rap and commercially hip-hop (which is driven by corporate interests and caricatures of blackness) and black music and its complexity, its history, and its wide ranging messages. Parents who have children who are interested in music/hip-hop have to make the music sharing/listening activity a family activity.

Dr. Emdin goes on to say that there are ways that parents and kids can work together to inspire critical thinking as it pertains to hip-hop culture:

Create playlists with wide-ranging Black music together. Listen to their music, and then suggest something that you like. If a child likes a song, find the original sample and develop an appreciation for the original music. Teach them to listen and then critique the messages in music. Teach them not to be a consumer, but a critic.

Dr. Julianne Malveaux, president of Bennett College for Women, also sees the music as a chance to teach your children about values:

Parents are responsible for transmitting values to their children, despite the challenges of hip hop and black radio. When vulgar language is used, parents should be the ones to point it out and discuss why it is vulgar. When sex and sexuality are on display, parents have the opportunity to talk about their values about sex.

While the debate over hip-hop isn’t going to end anytime soon, there is no debate regarding whether or not some things need to change.  There’s nothing in the theory of Psychology stating that you can recite lyrics over and over again without this message having some impact on your subconscious thinking.  Black people don’t own media, but we own the right to reject the media that is serving to destroy our children.  Our voices must be louder than the radio.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University.  To have Dr. Boyce articles delivered to your email, please sign up here.

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Now that some of the best Republican candidates have been sent packing, we can talk about the sad souls who may have a chance at running the most powerful nation in the world.  Where is Colin Powell when you need him? Here are some quick dysfunctional takeaways from the GOP convention:

1) It’s OK to be a racist,  and you don’t even have to apologize for it: The GOP has a great way of rewarding candidates for disrespectful quips toward people of color.  If you tell them to get off their lazy butts and stop asking for welfare, you are credited for helping to civilize the savages.  Thank God for Republicans.  Without them, we wouldn’t know the first thing about living as decent, hard-working Americans.  I think I’ll send Rick Santorum a thank-you card right now.

2) The less you’re willing to compromise, the more other Republicans will support you: There is little concern about how our nation’s extremist divisions threaten to shake our democracy at its very core.  Little thought about how our disrespectful foreign policy has made much of the world hate us.  All that matters is that we are Americans, damnit, and we can do whatever the hell the want.

3) Any sin or hypocrisy can be forgiven if it’s far enough in the past: Can someone please explain why Herman Cain having one girlfriend is a problem, but Newt Gingrich‘s numerous affairs and abandonment of his dying wife are not?  Oh yeah, Gingrich’s indiscretions happened in the ’90s and the other one was more recent.  If I had to choose between my sister marrying Herman Cain or Newt Gingrich, I’d have to tell her to go with the brother – at least he keeps paying the bills after he cheats on you.

4) It’s cool to be unpatriotic: If you can hate President Barack Obama more than the next person and find creative ways to blame him for every one of the nation’s problems, you are a sure winner in the Republican race for the White House.  Disrespect for the presidency is at an all-time high now that a black butt has tarnished the seat in the Oval office.

5) If only we could get rid of those pesky poor people: Many Republicans live under the premise that if every American simply chose to work hard, none of us would be struggling economically.  The idea that poor, black or brown people also have good values has been thrown out the window for the last 30 years.  The Republican anti-poverty plan is to inject each of these poor kids with a big fat dose of Christianity, ambition and common sense, which would surely lead them to the top of the country that gives them more opportunities than they deserve.  If they reject it, then the plan is just to build more prisons.

Feel free to add your top dysfunction GOP takeaways below — after all, they are many!

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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In 1993, the school board agreed 5-0 to return Acker to the classroom after the molestation allegation, because in the original hearing, there were no witnesses or physical evidence and the alleged abuse occurred during babysitting, rather than during Acker’s teaching duties.  School board Vice President Steve Martin also says that there were numerous students who turned out as character witnesses for Acker, which led to him being reinstated.  It also shouldn’t be left out that at the time, Acker’s father was the county commissioner. School board President Lee Doebler adds:

Looking back, given the evidence we had I would have made the same vote,” Doebler said to the Associated Press. “I wish we had some evidence, but unfortunately, we didn’t.”

After 25 years in the school system, now Acker is being accused of molesting two females under the age of 12.  In addition to four counts of first-degree sexual abuse, Acker has admitted to molesting more than 21 young girls throughout his career.

Columbia University Education Professor Marc Lamont Hill says that our nation’s habit of avoiding conversations on sexual abuse could be the problem:

A school’s primary responsibility is to educate and protect it’s children,” said Dr. Hill, who is the author of the book, “The Classroom and The Cell.” The problem is that our nation has a long history of silence sexual abuse.  As a result, we end up being protective.

The hope is that in the future, we take a more proactive approach to sexual misconduct. Imagine if we had the same vigor when pursuing sex abuse cases that we have toward keeping black kids from bringing weapons to school? We’d take huge steps to avoiding situations like this one.”

This unfortunate situation in Alabama is a reminder that no matter how well we think we know a person, you almost never know the tip of the iceberg when it comes to that individual’s sexuality.  Sexual preferences and desires are the kinds of things that most human beings keep deep within their psyches, almost never allowing these matters to hit the light of day within their social circles.  So the kind, friendly person you know down the street might be a sexual deviant without giving so much as a hint to what lies beneath.

The people of this community were mistaken in their decision to jump forward to defend Ackerman, as if there were no chance he could have committed this crime.  The ability to say that you know someone as a relatively decent human being is very different from being able to confidently say that the person could never have committed a particular sex act.  I also doubt that his father being county commissioner went unnoticed during the proceedings.

As a result of the negligence of the board and this community, a child predator has been on the loose for another 18 years, doing irreparable harm to a multitude of students.  Had the board even taken the precautionary measure of reinstating Ackerman to a different set of responsibilities, there is a chance that he may not have been able to so easily gain the trust of fourth grade girls.  There is enough blame to go around, and this situation could have been avoided.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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Since then, both Long and Cain have been found to be nothing more than self-proclaimed men of God who spent their spare time doing the work of demons. Eventually earning nicknames like “Eddie Long Stroke” and “Pee Wee Herman Cain,” these men would be the center of one sex scandal after another, often accused of waving their powerful penises at every man, woman (and child) who happened to want a job, some financial support or a little extra “mentorship.”

Mind you, Herman Cain was not quite as bad as Eddie, given that Cain at least harassed grown women. While Cain simply ruined careers of women under his authority, Long appears to have gone even further by taking advantage of young boys who once considered him to be a father. In spite of their differences, both Cain and Long can be accused of embarrassing themselves and their families for living lives that were nothing less than entirely hypocritical.

We can also note that in addition to being powerful, wealthy, “men of God” from Atlanta, both of these men also happen to be conservatives (remember that picture of Eddie Long hugging George W. Bush?). Now, this doesn’t mean that liberals don’t cheat on their wives or live life on the downlow, but it does remind us of the risks of bible thumping condemnation of those who are different from ourselves. Cain spent years telling black people that we are brainwashed and undisciplined, while Long spent his time attacking the same gay community where his boyfriends reside. Only the blindness caused by wealth and power could make either man think that their secrets would never get out.

This kind of hypocrisy appears to have been over the head, out of the view or stuffed into the subconscious of Mrs. Cain and Mrs. Long, who ended up looking as silly as their husbands, standing next to these men as they confessed to an undisciplined, unhealthy, and unethical lifestyle that would put Tiger Woods to shame. One can only wonder what it’s like to have to get tested for STDs every six months, even though you’ve been married to a preacher for decades. Even worse, none of us can say for certain what the results of those tests happened to be.

Mrs. Vanessa Long seems to be the most confused, given that she filed for divorce, reversed her filing hours later, and then changed her mind once again. Mrs. Cain has at least been consistent, seemingly convinced that her husband is righteous, while all those other women are lying gold diggers. It’s hard to figure out whether these women are victims, heroes or dummies; but then again, marriage can make us into all three.

Love is a complicated thing, and I speculate that it gets more complex as you get older. Most of us have grandparents who stayed married through thick and thin, even as grand daddy’s male instincts drove him to find physical companionship outside the marriage. I have no doubt that the fairytale delusion was shattered for these women decades ago, and at this point, it may be a matter of sticking by the screwed up man you know, rather than taking a chance on other screwed up men you meet after the divorce. Their experience may also serve as a cautionary tale for women who are fascinated by men with money and power, for they should realize that wealth, influence and an infinite number of options can corrupt the souls of even the most righteous men.

Herman Cain and Eddie Long, the two black male prides of Atlanta, are actually just the tip of the iceberg. Most of the Eddie Longs operate in stealthy silence, condemning others on Sunday because of an internal self-hatred for the part of themselves that they don’t want to accept. The Herman Cains of the world enjoy being tools of racial oppression, claiming that black people have no personal responsibility, yet refusing to take responsibility for the long string of women falling out of the closet. I am disgusted by both men, not because they are sexually undisciplined, but because of their hypocrisy. You shouldn’t spend so much time making others feel bad when you yourself are up to no good.

Both Herman Cain and Eddie Long are birds of a feather.  Their narcissistic disregard for the pain they’ve caused so many others is a sad reminder of how we can be influenced by Christian leaders who’ve abandoned the spirit of Jesus.   Perhaps we need to ask ourselves why we gave these men so much power.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Your Black World Coalition.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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But a radio conversation I had this afternoon with Santita Jackson (the daughter of Rev. Jesse Jackson) led me to reflect on the buzz that this case has suddenly created within the African American community. Black folks are increasingly concerned about the fact that many of the victims were Black boys, and wondering if race created an additional layer of vulnerability. In light of this, I thought about a few things that I’m asking myself about this pathetic and tragic situation.

1) How many of those boys were Black?

Many of my associates noticed that media reports of the Penn State/Sandusky sex scandal featured a great deal of code language: At-risk youth, under-privileged kids, etc. In many circles, and in a country that enjoys hiding from racial realities, these words effectively mean “Black boys.” This is supplemented by the fact that many programs to “help” Black youth are also feeder programs for universities seeking to extract wealth from the extraordinary abilities of the Black male athlete. Based on my (as my friend calls it) “negro intuition,” I’m willing to bet that more than a few of these boys were Black.

The fact that the children might have been Black boys doesn’t make the scandal any worse than it already is. But it does create a heightened reaction from a community that is sick of seeing Black men victimized in far too many walks of life. It also leads some to wonder if race played a role in Sandusky’s fetishes, or the tone of the university’s response.

2) How did NCAA economic power play a role in the cover-up?

It’s a common fact that the NCAA earns hundreds of millions of dollars each year on the backs of unpaid athletes. Many of these athletes come from underprivileged communities, and already find themselves dominated by the massive financial power of this professional sports league. Yes, I said “professional:” everyone in this league makes professional money except for the individuals who actually do the work. We can’t let a mere technicality keep us from calling out the system for what it is.

Former Penn State coach Joe Paterno and other administrators likely swept Sandusky’s activities under the rug because they were trying to protect their massive cash cow. In that regard, the university came to the concerted conclusion that protecting the reputation of the Penn State University football program was more important than protecting the innocence of young children. Only a keen addiction to the power of money can make a group of educated men and women do such an evil thing.

If the Penn State program were truly amateur (as the NCAA would like for us to believe), there would not be millions of dollars on the line and the Penn State football program would not have an economic value that matches many professional sports organizations. This would have made a difference in the degree to which administrators felt pressured to make unethical decisions to protect a billion dollar brand. In other words, the Penn State University sex scandal was yet another example of just how far NCAA members are willing to go in order to protect their wealth.

The Penn State/Sandusky child sex scandal is simply among the worst and latest of a slew of ethical compromises regularly made by universities that earn millions from collegiate athletics. Over the last 20 years, I’ve seen students taken out of classes for big games, having their majors changed to fit their football schedules, and even leaving college without ever learning how to read with administrators hiding the fact that the star on the team barely knows his A-B-Cs. The pattern is reprehensible, and reminds us of how NCAA athletic money has served to corrupt numerous institutions, turning them into a glaring hypocritical embodiment of capitalism gone wild.

3) Did race play a role in the way Penn State responded to the abuse?

One can only hope that race wasn’t a factor in the decision of leading Penn State officials to overlook a serial child predator in their ranks. But African Americans have good reason to be concerned and skeptical. When Black kids go missing, the media almost never notices. When Black children are being shot in “the hood,” nobody cares. Black men are incarcerated at holocaust proportions, but few politicians show even a hint of concern. In light of these realities, it’s not entirely inconceivable that Sandusky chose his targets for the same reason that many serial killers murder prostitutes with no family — it’s easy to get away with the unthinkable when you go after the victim that no one cares about.

This leads me to my final question.

4) What if Jerry Sandusky was a Black man having sex with white boys?

While I hold that we don’t know the race of all the abused children, I truly believe that many of these young men were Black. While the race of the victim has no impact on the severity or relevance of the crime, it has been proven in numerous academic studies that race does impact the magnitude of the punishment. For example, had OJ Simpson not killed a white woman, his case would have been in the media for about a week.

The NCAA has ruined the careers of numerous Black male athletes over even the tiniest of infractions: Getting free tattoos, taking a few hundred dollars from a booster, or asking to be compensated in a manner that is remotely consistent with their massive market value. You would expect that an institution (the NCAA) that has the ability to catch an athlete taking free lunch would also be able to identify a man who has been sexually abusing children in campus facilities for decades. The truth, however, is that we tend to only find the things that we’re actually looking for, and I suspect that the desire to protect young men and women hardly inspires as much passion as the NCAA’s desire to protect its money – for example, the NCAA has no problem seeing the star player’s mother being evicted rather than share its money with the players and their families.

I can’t help but wonder if the Penn State scandal would have been swept under the rug had a Black coach (or athlete) been found abusing a young white kid in the showers in the same manner as Jerry Sandusky. Would the free passes Sandusky has received from the judge (who volunteered with his charity), prosecutors and the university have come to pass if the situation had been shaped differently? While we might presume that any Penn State coach would have been protected in the same way, it’s not difficult to speculate that race might be a factor in a case such as this.

Only time will tell how Penn State University overcomes one of the most tragic scandals in the history of college sports. But I hold to the premise that these kids were sold out for money, and it is for this reason that we should all be ashamed. If Penn State were truly an amateur athletic organization, such a terrible cover-up would never have happened.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Syracuse Professor and founder of ALARM, the Athlete Liberation Academic Reform Movement.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

“There’s a f——— art to the first term because you’re always running for a second term the whole time. It’s like Clinton’s first term. You can’t really do your gangsta sh— until your second term. Even Bush couldn’t really f—- up the world until his second term. That’s when he put the hammer down,” said Rock.

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Rock is the latest in a slew of Black comedians and public figures who’ve come out to support the president. Steve Harvey regularly uses his radio show to argue that anyone who doesn’t support President Obama is selling out the race; and Tom Joyner went as far as stating that we should support President Obama solely because he’s Black.

Rock’s comments reflect his comedic brilliance, but also display a disturbing habit of millions of other African Americans who tend to make President Obama into the man they hope he is, rather than the man he has proven himself to be. President Obama is not a “gangsta” politician. He is a deliberate, calculated, (somewhat) inexperienced, highly-intelligent, non-confrontational, relatively self-serving man who sometimes gets things done. Most interestingly (and perhaps sadly), he’s probably the best candidate that either of the two major parties has been able to produce in a decade.

President Obama, by working to find common ground with his fellow politicians, is exactly what our dysfunctional government needs. Unfortunately, he’s become the man carrying a peace treaty to the middle of a war zone, and it’s simply not working out very well. Republicans have certainly been “gangsta” with President Obama, but his decision to back down in numerous showdowns with the opposition have left even his most enthusiastic supporters disillusioned.

Rock’s comment reminds us of exactly what happened in 2008, when African Americans tried so hard to read between the lines of the Obama presidency. Barack promised us almost nothing, but we believed he would give us everything. We were like the woman who sleeps with the perpetual playboy over and over again, assuming that he’ll one day change his mind about marriage. President Obama can’t be blamed for the naïve expectations of the African American community, but he can certainly be held accountable for doing nothing to dispel those expectations.

On one hand, should President Obama become the “gangsta” that Rock wants us to believe that he is, he would be a perfect fit in the destructive political climate created by his peers in Washington. The only way to respond to a gun fight is to bring a bigger gun, but at the end of the day, everyone ends up getting shot. The inability of our political leaders to work out their differences productively may serve to be the downfall of our great nation.

Chris Rock and others who wish to give President Obama credit for things that he has not yet done would be best served to provide evidence of their assertions. The president has a three-year track record for us to observe, and every intelligent voter should simply check the record to decide what kind of president he is. Most of us know scores of people who want you to believe that they are going to engage in progressive action once their chains have been lifted, but in the end, we usually find that the chains are psychological constraints of their own creation.

President Obama is an amazing man, but he is certainly not anyone’s “gangsta.” Chris Rock is a great man and an amazing comedian, but like Steve Harvey, his political analysis is a bit of a joke. The last thing we need to do is allow public figures to do our thinking for us, for the proof of Obama’s qualifications is in the political pudding. At the end of the day, our trusted public figures and celebrities should just stop playing with our heads. The only thing that’s been “gangsta” about the last three  years is the terroristic manner by which self-serving Black celebrities have tried to convince us to check our brains at the door. People can make their own decisions about Obama, and we don’t need anyone to tell us how to perceive his presidency.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and national spokesperson for the Ujamaa Deals Initiative, advocating for Black consumers to support Black-owned businesses.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

To the American Public,

Just a few weeks ago, I was worried. I couldn’t figure out how to sell books or command higher speaking fees, and I’d been nothing more than a political wannabe trying to get on the map. My campaign managers then helped me realize that insulting Black people is a great way to rise in the polls, especially as a Republican. Sure, a few Black folks might be offended, but we learned long ago that what Black people think really doesn’t matter all that much, unless you’re talking about dance moves, the latest slang, or how to find the closest hip-hop club.

First, I began by letting Black people know that they are all brainwashed by the Democratic plantation. Black folks are not smart enough to think for themselves (except me, of course), so I wanted to help them by suggesting that they let myself and Rick Perry think for them instead. I also made it clear that racism isn’t a significant impediment to your ability to succeed in this darn fair country of ours. White Americans have been very nice to us, and all we do is complain, complain, complain. I went to Morehouse, so I’m Black enough to make this statement: Stop playing the race card, get off your lazy butts, and pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Black scholars like Cornel West don’t like me because I keep it real with you people. I’m kinda like Moses or Jesus, leading the lost negro sheep and your wooly afros to an abundantly better reality.

My comments might be offensive to some, but I don’t want lazy Negroes using racism as an excuse for the reasons that Black people are several times more likely to be incarcerated and twice as likely to be unemployed as whites. If everyone worked as hard as I do, they would also be able to realize their wildest dreams, like receiving an endorsement from Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour. Haley wants what’s best for Black people and he truly respects me; he even keeps a statue of me on his front lawn wearing a jockey cap. I love the ground that man walks on, really I do…..nobody betta be talkin ’bout my Haley Barbour.

Not long ago, I made another statement that might have taken some less forward-thinking people aback. I wanted the spineless hippies in the Occupy Wall Street Movement to realize that if you’re not rich and you don’t have a job, you should only blame yourself for your pathetic circumstances. The wealth gap in our country has nothing to do with the gap in your empty-ass, hippy, pockets. The same thing is true for Black people….if you simply put down your kool-aid, learn to read and take the gold teeth out of your mouths, you’ll find that there are plenty of opportunities for you to be just like me.

Well, since I made my previous statements, I’ve learned a few things.  A few nameless bit&@%es….I mean, women, from my past had the audacity to completely fabricate multiple stories about me harassing and fondling them on the job over and over and over again.  They may have been paid a settlement to remain silent, but I had no idea that this money was being paid out of the bank account of the organization under my control. They’re all liars I tell you….all four of them….and anyone else who comes out to support their story is nothing but a liar too.

Of course, the liberal media wants to murder my chances to become the first authentically Black President of the United States. It’s all racism, fa real dawg. All these haters just wanna see a brother go down, and this is nothing more than a high-tech lynching, committed by Facebook and I-phones; a conspiracy to take down a Black man who was smart enough to get off the plantation. We as Black people have survived numerous atrocities in this country that President Barack Obama’s African ancestors never experienced:  the devastation of the middle passage, the horrors of slavery and the sexual harassment allegations against myself and Clarence Thomas. When is the terror going to end?

Racism should not be used as an excuse for any other Black person, but I am an exception to the rule…..kinda like a chosen negro if you will. I am allowed to play the race card because the rules don’t apply to me…..sorta like Clarence Thomas using affirmative action but then saying that it should be abolished (he too is a chosen negro, my brother in the struggle, ordained by Bill O’Reilly).  I am different from others who use the race card because I only use it when it is being CORRECTLY applied. There’s clearly a difference, and you’d understand that if you weren’t so brainwashed by da man.

Haley and Rick and Mitt and George all tell me that Black people are just brainwashed into believing things that aren’t true, and they also tell me that if I don’t want to be brainwashed, I need to be sure to recite the Republican message in public every chance I get. They too tell me that I am special, unlike those brainwashed Black people on the Democratic plantation. I believe these smart men because mama tells me that stupid is what stupid does and life is like a box of chocolates.

Also, I take absolutely no responsibility whatsoever for the numerous sexual harassment allegations thrust against me by multiple women who were paid on repeated occasions to remain silent. They are all lying….just trying to hate on a playa on his rise to the top. I got 99 problems but a white woman ain’t one.

Here’s the deal: I am a victim of racism, but you are not. You have to take responsibility for things that happen to you, but I do not. I am the chosen negro, and that’s why white people love me, and not you. If you weren’t so brainwashed by the Democratic plantation, you would understand what I’m saying. My campaign manager explained to me the difference between the Jews and the Palestinians, so I am now officially qualified to be your president. Please don’t let these bigots keep me out of the White House.

Sincerely,

Your Future Commander-in-Chief: Herman Cain

Cain’s actions seem to fit the standard hypocritical Republican recipe for political redemption: When women from your past come out and reveal that you’re an undisciplined sexual deviant whose private life is in stark contradiction to your self-righteous public life, you get your wife to stand next to you at a press conference. Rather than dealing with the person that Cain really is, the media might actually be tempted to focus on his wife, who is simply another lifelong victim of “The Hermanator” and his antics.

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I feel badly for Gloria Cain. The poor woman is, quite honestly, being made to look like a fool. She’s the woman standing by her man even though he himself has been standing by a slew of other women over the years. She’s the new Ginni Thomas, Clarence’s wife, who supported her husband as the nation heard stories about his fascination with porno flicks and Long Dong Silver.

I don’t condemn Herman Cain for liking women, Lord knows there’s nothing wrong with that. I condemn him for pretending that he’s better than the rest of us, lying about the allegations, and destroying the careers of women who came into his path. That’s what makes me lose respect for him, at least in the workplace.

Mrs. Cain has been absent from the Cain campaign until now. I presume it must be because they were saving her for a special occasion. She’s stood beside this oddity of a man for the last 43 years, so she’s already too far invested to run for the hills. So, there the poor woman sits, forced to lie to the world by telling us that Cain’s other female victims are making things up. In spite of the evidence, witnesses and a lack of serious denial on the part of her husband’s team, Mrs. Thomas, I mean Mrs. Cain, is being asked to dumb herself down and pretend that she doesn’t know the things that she’s probably known since the 1970s.

Rather than attacking one another, these women should be dealing with the man in the middle. Cain’s wife should not be forced to deal with his messes.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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“Nanny Annie” Coulter’s remarks (which make her sound like a character from “Gone with the Wind”) also spoke to the peculiar fight between liberals and conservatives, who are trying to toss around the Black community like two pimps arguing over a prostitute. Rather than adjusting their platforms to fit issues that matter to Black America, each party is only able to point out the fact that they believe the other group abuses Black people more than they do. In that regard, neither conservatives nor liberals are innocent when vying to put Black folks on their own plantation.

When Coulter makes reference to “her Blacks,” which include the always-entertaining Herman Cain, she is referring to Black folks who embody the values that Coulter and her friends believe to be true. When someone like Cain attempts to genuinely lead the party in a different direction, he is spit out like a sex offender at a debutante ball. An example is when he challenged Rick Perry over the “niggerhead” controversy and was quickly told to sit down and shut up. Political analyst Yvette Carnell described things beautifully when she said, “The rendering of Black people as the ornaments of diversity, rather than incarnations of it, is one of the essential reasons why Blacks clash with conservatism.”

So, all of the conservatives jumping to defend Herman Cain only stand up for him when he does what he’s told, not when he represents an independent Black voice that has been wired for true leadership. Almost nothing that Cain brings to the conservative side of the table represents anything other than a puppet-like recitation of the ideals that Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity already embody, and this puppy dog paternalism is exactly what one expects to hear in a racist society. When Colin Powell, another conservative, attempted to help shape the direction of the Republican Party, he too was attacked and chastised for not knowing his place.

Ann Coulter’s reference to “our Blacks,” is an interesting, powerful and extraordinarily telling statement. Ann Coulter’s remarks, while certainly designed to get ratings for a TV show, actually capture the essence of what happens across the board in American politics. Both liberals and conservatives love playing the tacky and insulting game of Black political ownership, so I can’t say that Coulter is alone in her condescending view of the second class citizenship of the African American community. African Americans are like customers at McDonald’s who are told to choose between the Happy Meal and the Value Meal, but never allowed to go into the kitchen to cook the food they want to eat.

At the end of the day, I don’t want to be one of Coulter’s Blacks or one of the Blacks under ownership of the Democratic Party.  We belong to no one and we deserve to have the freedom and liberation that we’ve been seeking for the last 400 years. Black American politics must grow beyond the task of simply choosing the better pimp, and any party that isn’t seriously committed to pursuing racial equality through deliberate and progressive action is just speaking the same old fluff.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Your Black World Coalition.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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So, in Michael Arrington’s small and polluted reality, Black people must not succeed because we have tiny brains and an even tinier level of ambition. So, I’m sure Arrington would have a great pow-wow with Herman Cain, who also believes that if you’re not receiving riches and glory for your work, you only need to blame yourself. You already know my thoughts on the Arrington issue, as well as those of  my colleague, Yvette Carnell, so let’s just talk about Soledad.

After she humiliated him in public, Arrington struck back at O’Brien in a way that reminds me of the infamous “&*$@ you set me up!” statement made by Marion Barry when he was busted smoking crack in a hotel room many years ago. Rather than admitting that he made a mistake and could use this as an opportunity for reflection, Arrington responded with the arrogance of an entitled white male by arguing that O’Brien deliberately misled him during  the interview and that he did nothing wrong.

Well, Soledad wasn’t having any of it. She came back at Arrington with a well-written blog post on CNN’s Financial page, where she said the following:

“As the conversation heated up, Arrington wrote a blog post — titled “Oh sh*t, I’m a racist” — in which he accuses me of bullying him in our 30 minute interview.

But the reality is very different. Our interview was pleasant, not the light-in-the-eyes third degree Arrington is now recounting in his blog. We were at an AOL office with the publicists who negotiated the interview.”

Soledad also notes the fact that Arrington accused CNN of being unprofessional in the way they approached the interview:

In his blog Arrington says CNN “went to great lengths to hide the topic of the interview.” He posts an early e-mail from one of my producers asking him for a general interview about the tech industry.

He omits the second e-mail we sent four days before the interview that spells out that the documentary is about a “group of entrepreneurs we are following who are participating in the NewMe accelerator. The first accelerator of its kind set up specifically for entrepreneurs of color. Their inspiring stories will be the focus of this CNN Black in America documentary.”

I didn’t ambush Arrington and I don’t think he’s a racist. He’s a realist.

Soledad goes easy on Arrington, to a point, by mentioning that only 1 percent of all tech companies are started by African Americans. But she then asserts that many experts don’t buy Arrington’s argument that Silicon Valley is a meritocracy.  In fact, she mentions Duke University Professor Vivek Wadhwa, who actually encourages African Americans to find a white man to front for their companies.

This is where Soledad and I connect — the idea that you need a white man fronting for you in order to be successful is directly indicative of Black people possessing a form of second-class citizenship. Being Black continues to be a social liability that many of us are forced to carry on our skin, and when we are not as successful as the white guy down the hall, we become the target of accusations that we aren’t smart enough, creative enough or otherwise worthy of the rewards that are granted to others.

Making this complex phenomenon even more interesting is the fact that many African Americans are fooled into buying into our own inferiority. From an early age, we are taught to accept the falsehood of an American meritocracy, which then leaves us banging our heads against the wall when we find that our outcomes are not in alignment with our efforts. So, when the well-intended folks in charge tell us that our test scores, performance evaluations, and qualifications are not quite up to snuff, we end up concluding that it’s because we simply aren’t good enough. I recall my mother being told when I was in school that I wasn’t smart enough to go to college or keep up with the other kids; it continues into adulthood when the companies and institutions we work for are more critical of our abilities than they are of their own racially-exclusive hiring and promotion records.

Whether any given African American is qualified to receive a particular opportunity is a debatable factor that varies widely within the societal cross-section. But one fact that is undeniable is that most of the economic infrastructure in America was built on a highly-racist and asymmetric foundation. So, when the company, law firm, etc., is revealed to have only had one or two African American hires in the last 50 years of existence, only a racist will conclude that this outcome occurred because no Black person on the planet was qualified to receive that particular job or promotion. Even the Harvard Law School has only granted tenure to two African American women in the last 194 years of existence — Black female attorneys should not be blamed for a hiring record that would make David Duke proud.

The bottom line is that men like Arrington must be confronted at every available opportunity, because most of us work with a version of Michael Arrington within our own organizations. The goal is not to attack them or make them feel bad; but rather, we should push them out of the comfortable bubbles created by an unacknowledged economic aristocracy. If Arrington truly wishes to create the great Silicon Valley meritocracy that he loves to brag about, he’s going to have to open the door for everyone to compete and stop making excuses for dismal outcomes. Blaming Soledad O’Brien for pointing out the obvious is clearly a losing strategy.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Your Black World Coalition.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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Keenen Ivory Wayans is going to be the executive producer for the show. Fox has ordered two half-hour specials to be shown as part of its 25th anniversary celebration. There are options in the contract such that if the show is successful, it may come back on the air for good.

‘In Living Color” hit the scene in April of 1990. It was responsible for bringing hip hop dancing into the mainstream with the ever-so-famous “fly girls,” and also brought the kind of comedy that you didn’t see on TV back then or even now. The height of the show’s fame occurred when the cast pulled in 25 million viewers during halftime of the 1992 Super Bowl. Although some shows can get away with severe political incorrectness (Southpark, Family Guy), this liberty hasn’t always been true for Black actors and directors, especially on issues of race. Eventually, Fox got rid of the show after the Wayans family irritated a few too many big shots.

As a college student, I remember the show setting trends and making waves in ways that made us all proud. I’ve always felt a kindred spirit with the Wayans family, for most of their films and television shows have been witty, sharp and downright hilarious. “Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood” continues to be the movie that has me on the floor laughing while all my friends look at me cross-eyed. Believe it or not, I’d always known that, one day, I would meet the Wayans family up close so I could tell them personally how much I love their style of comedy.

In 2006, I had the chance to sit with Damon Wayans for 30 minutes as we waited to appear on the ESPN Show, “Quite Frankly with Stephen A. Smith.” The chance meeting allowed me to tell Damon that I consider the Wayans family to be the most brilliant family in all of show business. It broke my heart to see a highly successful show destroyed because the powers-that-be were unable to digest direct and intelligent social critiques from African American entertainers. My favorite skit?….You can probably guess it: “Homie the clown” – it’s hard to think that a clown would provide such an extraordinary and hilarious display of the frustrations of being a Black man in America.

Today is a new day (or so we think). Let’s hope that the Wayans family is not punished for being creative and empowered. There is no show I can think of outside of Saturday Night Live that has produced as many stars as this one, and its achievements have rarely been paralleled. Fox is a network that has put shows on the air that have offended nearly everyone (two of their shows, “Family Guy” and “American Dad” are beyond edgy). I am sure the members of the Wayans family are no less socially conscious and critical than they were in the early 1990s, so it’ll be interesting to see if Fox gives the Wayans family the same creative freedoms being granted to everyone else; after all, we do live in a “post-racial America,” right?  Let me go ahead and slap a big “LOL” at the end of that one – I doubt the show lasts for half a season.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Your Black World Coalition.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

Players from prominent athletic programs such as Kentucky and UCLA have joined with the National College Players Association to sign the petition, which was sent to the NCAA last week.

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Among other things, the petition asks the NCAA to put aside funds from an estimated $775 million in new TV deals into an ‘”educational lock box” for athletes in revenue-generating sports. The money could be used to cover educational expenses for the athletes if the athletes use up their eligibility before they graduate.  Most significantly, the players get the money with no strings attached once they graduate.

“I really want to voice my opinions,” said Georgia Tech defensive end Denzel McCoy. “The things we go through, the hours we put in, what our bodies go through, we deserve some sort of (results). College football is a billion dollar industry.”

McCoy says that the other players on his team signed the petition “with ease,” as they are starting to learn their economic value.

Currently, the NCAA earns more money during its post season than the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball. The Pac 12 Conference just signed a $3 billion dollar television rights deal with Fox Sports, with coaches and administrators making their families wealthy with the proceeds. At the same time, a large percentage of the athletes who actually earn the money have families who live in poverty.

A 2010 study done at Ithaca College showed that the average NCAA athlete in revenue-generating sports operates at a personal deficit, paying $2,951 per year in school-related costs. They are also not allowed to get jobs or receive money from outside sources, so their scholarships do not cover their entire cost of attending college. All the while, many universities receive hundreds of thousands of dollars from every single nationally-televised basketball or football game, and NCAA executives live a lavish lifestyle with very high salaries.

NCAA spokesman Bob Williams said the NCAA “redirects nearly all of its revenue to support student-athletes.”

“Of its approximately $775 million in annual revenues, the NCAA invests 96 percent, or 96 cents of every dollar, in student-athletes through direct distributions to individual campuses and conferences; the funding and administration of national championships; and other direct support, such as the Student Assistance and Academic Enhancement funds in Division I.”

What I find so interesting about Bob Williams’ “funny math” (I’m sure he himself earns a few hundred thousand dollars per year off the backs of NCAA athletes) is that if it were true that most of the NCAA revenue were going to student athletes, then he would not have millions of dollars to pay NCAA coaches. The list of the highest paid coaches in college football shows that even the poorest of coaches on the list (Jeff Tedford at The University of California), earned $2.3 million dollars last year. The highest paid coach (Nick Saban at Alabama) earned over $5 million. When you’re forcing yourself to share misleading information or tell flat out lies to protect the “integrity” of a deeply flawed system (as well as refusing to debate your position in public - we couldn’t get the NCAA to appear with us on CNN or ESPN), you’re pretty much working to defend something that simply can’t be justified.

As a professor at the college level for the last 18 years, I can say that the NCAA is likely the most corrupt system in America, behind the prison industrial complex. Even ignoring the glaring racial divides, I’ve seen countless cases in which athletes have had a tremendous amount of pressure put on them by coaches who are only hired to win games and earn their multi-million dollar salaries.  Studying becomes an extracurricular activity for the athlete who is being coached by a man who is only rewarded for a high winning percentage, not graduation rates. By systemic design, any athlete who tries to put academics ahead of athletics is severely punished for doing so.

The NCAA seems to want to maintain a principle of equity through amateurism. I have no problem with this idea if it is applied fairly. So, if the multi-million dollar basketball player must have a compensation level that matches the kid on the soccer team, then the basketball coach should have the same salary as the soccer coach. Also, athletes should not be asked to play games on school nights, and they should be allowed to miss games if they have an exam. Finally, the same rule stating that athletes are not allowed to receive gifts or benefits from their work should apply to coaches and the NCAA itself, who are quick to sign every endorsement deal they can get their hands on. You can’t have it both ways.

But of course my ideas represent a fantasy world.  It would cost too much for the NCAA to actually make education a top priority. If education were the dominant focus of the NCAA, they would restrict coaching salaries to less than $100,000 per year, and structure contracts that reward coaches for educating players, not winning games. The NCAA loves to put professional pressure on the backs of young athletes, while keeping nearly all the professional rewards for themselves. They ask the athletes to do all the work, while administrators, coaches and commentators keep the bulk of the money; all they have to do is maintain the label “amateur student athlete,” even if every aspect of the athlete’s existence serves as evidence to the contrary.

Athletes deserve labor rights, they should be allowed to unionize, and they should have the same rights as any other American to earn money from whomever they please. It should not be a scandal whenever a player bringing millions to the university is able to get a few thousand dollars from a booster to keep his mother from being evicted.  To accept the system in its current form is nothing less than entirely unethical and un-American. NCAA administrators should be ashamed.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of ALARM, The Athlete Liberation Academic Reform Movement.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

So, my improper thinking kicked in when I heard Sharpton refer to Tyler Perry critics as “proper negroes.” Tyler has been hit with the kind of haterology only reserved for a Black man who was able to stealthily rise to become the highest paid man in all of Hollywood. Not the highest paid Black man; he is the highest paid man, period. Since then, Perry critics have come out in full force, finding creative ways to build their fame by attacking him at every turn. A great example is the commentator Toure, who referred to Tyler Perry films as “cinematic malt liquor for the masses.”

As they say in China, “The fattest pig always gets slaughtered,” so I’m sure Perry understands that you can’t be the king of the mountain without having a few enemies. Personally, I didn’t like Toure’s remarks, not because I didn’t understand where he was coming from, but rather than dig through Perry films to try to understand them, he would rather sit on the side of the road and throw rocks. But jeering from the stands is all you can do when no one invites you into the game.

On the flip side of it all, Sharpton classifying all Perry critics to be “proper negroes” is nearly as problematic as Toure’s malt liquor comment. Perry isn’t just being criticized by “proper negroes,” he’s being critiqued by conscientious negroes. Even Perry himself (I’ve only spoken to him once, for roughly 15 minutes, to try to get an understanding of his rationale) has admitted that some of his more problematic characters are an entertainment sacrifice that he makes in order to reach young adults on issues such as depression, abuse, and addiction. While this doesn’t clear Perry of his responsibility, it does say that he might be sacrificing the battle in order to win the war.

Idris Elba, who starred in one of Perry’s films (“Daddy’s Little Girls”), has himself said that while he likes working with Perry, he chooses not to participate in that which he considers to be buffoonery. Elba’s British accent might make him sound like a proper negro, but it would be unfair to write off his balanced critique as mere jealousy or disconnected thinking. There are plenty of good, decent, down-to-earth African Americans who can’t watch Madea on film without throwing up in their own lap. That’s ok, because not every Black movie is a fit for every Black person – that’s where the term “target audience” comes from.

So, the bottom line is that Sharpton probably should have found a more careful way to describe his disappointment toward Tyler Perry’s critics. Some of them have gone over the top, which Perry doesn’t deserve. But class warfare is not the solution either. I remember Sharpton defining his dispute with Cornel West over Obama to imply that he doesn’t relate to Black scholars, which unnecessarily extrapolates the fight to be about more than just two people. Sharpton, one of the smartest people I know (he’s actually sharper than most of the PhDs I’ve encountered), is wise enough to realize what he’s doing, and I’d be surprised if he himself doesn’t have an issue or two with some of what he sees in Perry flicks.

So, those who have a problem with Tyler Perry’s films have a right to express their concern without being unfairly labeled. But I encourage Perry critics to take a deeper look at the movies to realize that they are not all the same, and that he might have a secondary agenda. Tyler Perry is not a traitor to his race, and the fact that he is so sensitive to the criticism implies that he does care about his people. If these films were coming from “Herman Cain Productions,” we would all be “talking to the hand” right now.

All the while, I plan to miss the next Madea flick, and I certainly hope this doesn’t make me into a “proper negro.” Instead, perhaps we should realize that being Black doesn’t mean we all share the same brain, and we all have the right to disagree.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Your Black World Coalition.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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Bishop Long and his church sponsored a “Wealth Tour Live” seminar in 2009, which some congregation members allege was nothing more than a Ponzi scheme. Ephren Taylor is the former CEO of Capital City Corporation in Chicago. Congregation members allege that Bishop Long told them that, ”I am responsible for everyone I bring before you and what they say.”

While the church was compensated for allowing Taylor to speak, those who invested lost the bulk of their money.

Art Franklin, a spokesperson for New Birth, says that they aren’t ready to comment on the lawsuit. He also points out a YouTube video showing Bishop Long pleading with Taylor to “ do the right thing by quickly resolving this matter with a positive outcome.”

Although Taylor did the presentation for the members of New Birth, the suit alleges that he was not licensed to sell investments or give investment advice in Georgia or any other state. In an interview Taylor did with me last year, he insists that he did not have a personal financial relationship with any members of New Birth. He was, however, the CEO of a company that received the funds, which directly connects him to the scandal.

This is part of what Taylor told me last year:

“I, in no way, came to New Birth or any other stop on the tour with the intent to scam anyone out of money. I certainly feel a great amount of compassion for anyone who suffers losses from opportunities that were tied to my stamp of approval, which is why when there seemed to be a collective outcry from the church, I instructed City Capital to respond accordingly, prior to my departure. I cannot speak to what has been done since that time, but at the end of the day, when most people in the business world would have ignored these individuals, I responded, only to face a storm of media ridicule for lack of adequate facts presented.”

One of the investors, Lillian Wells, told the Wall Street Journal that she’d received a promissory note from Capital City for $122,000 that guaranteed 20% interest at maturity. She’d put her retirement savings into the account. Taylor claims that when she tried to get her money back, Capital City representatives kept persuading her to remain invested.

“I’ve seen more money stolen in the name of God than any other way,” Joseph Borg, Alabama securities commissioner and a past president of the North American Securities Administrators Association said to the Wall Street Journal. “Seven out of 10 of our cases involve affinity fraud, and in the South, probably 40% to 50% have a religious angle.”

I’ve been in the field of finance for a very long time. I’ve taught a lot of the students who now work on Wall Street, my father is a pastor, and I’ve followed the career of Ephren Taylor. While we can’t clearly ascertain the ones most responsible for what happened here, there are a few things we can learn from this situation:

1) When it comes to your money, be careful who you trust. There are certified investments advisers and those who are not. According to the suit being filed by members of New Birth, Taylor did not have the necessary licenses needed to even give the presentation in the first place. I’m sure this will be settled in court, but this is a clear red flag that someone should have noticed from the beginning.

2) Only trust your pastor if he is worthy of being trusted, and even then, realize that he may not be fully aware of everything himself. Far too many of us are quick to believe anything our pastor says, and anyone the pastor endorses. There is no doubt that Long trusted Taylor, but this endorsement should not justify giving anyone the bulk of your retirement savings. The sexual coercion suit filed against Bishop Long is yet another example of misguided trust being placed in him by members of his congregation (yes, I do believe that Bishop Long abused his power and coerced many of these young men into sexual acts, right under their parents’ noses). The truth is that when it comes to your money and your kids, you should be careful about completely trusting anyone.

3) Talk to an outside investment adviser before giving away your money. Not every person who gives an investment seminar in the church is trying to rip you off.  I don’t even know if Ephren Taylor was trying to harm anyone (his company could have just made some bad investments with the money they’d received). But it is helpful to either ensure that you fully understand what you’re getting yourself into or at least talk to someone who does. Most investments are not risk-free, and there is almost always a chance that things aren’t going to work out.  So, if someone offers you a “guaranteed” return of more than five percent per  year, there is usually some fine print that should concern you.

From where I stand, it’s difficult to presume that either Long or Taylor were trying to hurt the members of New Birth.  What I see are a bunch of investors who might have trusted their pastor too much, a pastor who trusted a member of the congregation more than he should have, and a member of the congregation (Taylor) who may not have fully understood the legal restrictions on what he could do with other people’s money.

What I also see in this case is blame being thrown around from one party to another: The congregation is blaming Bishop Long (in the lawsuit). Bishop Long is blaming Ephren Taylor (in the YouTube video). Ephren Taylor appears to be blaming Capital City, as if the CEO doesn’t directly control what a company does with its resources. This “accountability hot potato toss” is interesting, since it appears that there is plenty of blame to go around.

In the court of law, I suspect that both Long and Taylor will be held responsible for misguiding the flock, even though the flock should have been a bit more careful. Seeing someone punished for a financial calamity doesn’t always mean that there was ill intent. Taylor and Capital City may have simply taken more risk than they should have, leaving New Birth Members wiping the financial blood up off the floor. But this is the culture of Wall Street, where risks are taken every day with our money, and we don’t even know about them until things go wrong.

This situation is unfortunate for everyone.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Your Black World Coalition.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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My only interaction with Commissioner David Stern came in 2007, when a professor released a study arguing that NBA refs call more fouls on Black players than white ones. I was on the phone that morning with Stern, the professor who did the study and the Rev. Jesse Jackson. I listened carefully to Stern, as he smoothly explained away the study by seeking to fully discredit the scholar who wrote the article. Although I sided with Stern that the statistical significance of the study implied that the disparate impact was not nearly as great as some were trying to believe, I got a close look at just how dirty this man can be.

David Stern, in my opinion, is not a racist. But you don’t have to be a racist to be an overseer. Stern wouldn’t care if the players in the NBA were white, Black or any other race, since capitalist exploitation is designed to enslave anyone who is not positioned to fight back. But what Stern fully understands is that it’s easier to be a capitalist overseer when controlling Black men than for any other group of people. America doesn’t care how you treat Black men, because many already believe that there is something wrong with us – Stern would likely hear more complaints if he were trying to abuse puppies.

The media loves to report on Black men doing bad things (while ignoring the good), they applaud when the commissioner implements a paternalistic dress code, and Stern is allowed to work with billionaire team owners to conspire with the NCAA to restrict athletes’ rights to free labor mobility.  One perfect example is the NBA age limit of 19 years old, forcing players to give away millions in marketing and branding value to the unpaid multi-billion dollar farce of an academic institution called the NCAA. In fact, if the NBA is a sports plantation, the NCAA is not much more than an athletic brothel.

Gumbel’s public outburst toward Stern is a valuable shot across the bow that will surely snatch the attention of everyone involved.  Stern will have to dodge allegations of racism as he seeks to collude with NBA owners to further erode players’ share of league revenue, and Gumbel might find himself (like millions of other Black men) in the unemployment line. But the beauty of this interaction is that Gumbel has been willing to use his power to make statements that will serve to help end (as William Rhoden at the New York Times calls it) the era of the $40 million dollar slave.

Gumbel’s remarks about Stern are a continuation of the drama that has been unfolding during the recent NBA lockout negotiations. NBA star Dwyane Wade lashed out at Commissioner Stern during a meeting, telling him that he’s “not his child.” The strong response by NBA players is an improvement over the horrible manner by which owners put the economic hammer on them during the last lockout in 1998.  Since that time, salaries have barely increased and the rookie caps are ridiculously relative to the revenue being generated by top young players.  Owners won the last battle by doing something that players simply could not do: Stick together.

Things have changed since 1998.  Players now have international brands that they can sell around the world, giving them more opportunities than any overseer would like for his workers to have. Also, players like Dwyane Wade, Chris Paul and LeBron James have found that working together is better than being crabs in a barrel. When I taught a class in Chinese five years ago, I was stunned by the number of Chinese boys who love basketball (even more than Black boys do here in the United States), so there is a global market for their ability. Players know they have options and have shown their willingness to exercise them.

In addition to stronger marketability and a greater willingness to stand up for themselves, NBA players now have something else on their side: Education. While the stereotype of the deliberately ignorant Black athlete still does exist, more and more players are learning from the mistakes of their fathers. They’ve learned the value of ownership and also fully understand that how you play the game off the court is just as important as your ability to hit jump shots and free throws.

Bryant Gumbel has done a wonderful thing for the players by acknowledging the racial writing on the wall of the NBA lockout. Both the NCAA and NBA are effectively groups of rich and powerful white men seeking to control the economic options of a group of young Black men. Sure there are some exceptions, but anyone can see the dividing line of race. David Stern and men like him are accustomed to calling the shots and controlling Black men in the same ways that we are managed in the school and prison systems, which are thinly-veiled derivatives of the institution of slavery itself.

If men like Bryant Gumbel continue to stand up and speak truth to power as they did in the 1960s, we may see plantations being cracked at their very foundations. Black people as powerful as Gumbel are supposed to be afraid to confront race and to tip toe on this delicate, unforgivable terrain, like wimpy DC politicians. But Gumbel is breaking the unwritten rule stating that honest discussions of race by men in Gumbel’s position are strictly forbidden (even as we build memorials for Dr. King with Walmart money and refuse to include the words “black,” “negro” or “racism”), and this lays out a frightening scenario for those who’ve become accustomed to being able to control the thinking and actions of educated Black men.

Welcome to Part 2 of “The Rise of the Planet of the Athletes.” I have a feeling the Gumbel’s outburst might be just the beginning.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University and a Black Scholarship in Action resident for YourBlackWorld.com.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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As a people, I argue that too few of us possess the passionate desire to fight the tough battles necessary to see Dr. King’s dream come to fruition. No differently from those who attend church every Sunday vs. those who do the hard work to live a good Christian life, America gives us a license to embrace rampant hypocrisy. America has not taken very many steps to fulfill the dreams of Dr. King and in some ways, we are worse off than we were when he was alive. It is for this reason that I question our decision to celebrate the building of a group of granite statues paid for by those who continue to treat Black people as second-class citizens.

It is because of my concern for this hypocrisy that I’ve chosen to stay home on the day that the Dr. King Memorial is dedicated. I am not sure if Dr. King would attend this ceremony himself if he were alive today. I speculate that instead, he might be spending the week protesting on Wall Street, fighting for labor rights or battling the epidemic of mass incarceration.

Here are a few questions I think Dr. King might ask about this memorial if he were alive today:

Dr. King Question #1: Is there anything better we could do with that $120 million dollars, given that 40% of all Black children are in poverty?

The MLK memorial is going to cost a cool $120 million. That’s enough to pay $10,000 on the mortgages of 12,000 Americans who’ve lost their homes from foreclosure and predatory lending, enough to buy a meal for 24 million hungry children, or enough to pay the salaries of 2,400 inner city school teachers who’ve lost their jobs due to budget cuts. I’ve always been impressed with Dr. King because he seemed to work to embrace the spirit of Jesus, another revolutionary who was rarely welcome into anyone’s fancy church. Although not a perfect man, Dr. King fought for the poor, stood up for children, and did what was right without concern for the consequences.

If Jesus were walking the earth today, he wouldn’t want us to build another temple or statue in his honor. Instead, he might ask us to stay home and do God’s work instead. While Dr. King is certainly not Jesus Christ, he is a man with enough integrity that I believe he would reject this corporate memorial in the same way that he would not accept a BET Award being presented by Lil Wayne.

Like those men who are conditioned to have sex with any beautiful woman who offers it, some of us are also tempted to accept awards and honors from anyone who gives us a little money and fame. Being honored in this way is good for the ego, but not so good for the soul. So, there are some situations where it might be best to just walk away.

Dr. King Question #2: Why is Walmart on the list of major donors for the monument, in spite of the fact that they are entirely disrespectful of my positions on labor rights?

Walmart, who gave a full 10% of the funds necessary to build the King Memorial (they actually signed the first letter of credit that opened the door for the monument to be built), has a long list of multi-billion dollar labor and human rights violations that have served to make the company into the economic behemoth that it has become today. They’ve been connected with numerous sweatshops around the world, their workers are underpaid and not allowed to unionize, and they’ve been accused of massive amounts of racial and gender discrimination. If Dr. King were alive today, he’d be standing in front of Walmart with a picket sign, not asking them for money to build a statue.

I came face-to-face with Walmart power when we fought on behalf of Heather Ellis, the college student who was going to get 15 years in prison after cutting line in one of their stores. I watched as the host of a major Black radio show seemed to throw Heather’s life and future under the bus because Walmart was one of his major corporate sponsors. I also watched as Walmart (a company that is notorious for having intense camera security) “accidentally” lose the video footage showing Heather being slammed to the ground by police outside the store.

As a Finance Professor, I can tell you that Capitalism 101 teaches us that the King Memorial is an easy investment for Walmart if their $12.5 million dollar donation compensates for the billions they’ve stolen from all of humanity with egregious labor practices. Also, how many Black folks lost their jobs and livelihoods after the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf Coast last summer?  The memorial is being built on money from BET, which has created an entire generation of anti-intellectual Black youth and (admitted by Sheila Johnson, the founder’s wife) even served to fuel the Black HIV epidemic by promoting a lifestyle of sexual irresponsibility with non-stop booty-shaking videos.  Accepting money from corporate crooks to build a memorial for Dr. King is no different from praising the local drug dealer for giving away a few toys at Christmas.

Dr. King Question #3: Do you even have a clue about what my dream really means and do you really think it’s anywhere near being fulfilled?

Dr. King fought for American equality in all areas that mattered, including education, economics, and incarceration, among others. As it stands, African Americans continue to be oppressed in ways that would make David Duke blush. Black children are not being educated, the wealth gap has grown to a level almost as high as when Dr. King was alive, Black unemployment is the highest that it’s been in a quarter-century and there are more Black men in prison than there were enslaved back in 1865.

Whose dream is this?

I also could not help but notice that the words “racism” and “Black” were completely left out of the list of quotes that were placed on the King memorial.  Was this deliberate?  Did the organizers not realize that racial justice was an important part of King’s work, or is he just another white liberal who should host a show on MSNBC?

Dr. King Question #4: Why have people come to value style over substance?

What should a series of Walmart statues and monuments really mean to us anyway? Our anxious, knee-jerk reaction to symbolic signs of respect is in deep contrast to the fact that Black folks are rarely willing to collectively fight for any meaningful cause.  Like our teenage children, we’ve become addicted to status symbols and somehow use these symbols to give us the humanity that has been denied us for the last 400 years.

Any corporation being allowed to donate to the MLK dedication ceremony should be able to show that it has an equally honorable track record when dealing with the issues that Martin Luther King cared about the most.  The company should have a solid track record on corporate responsibility, labor rights, diversity and other issues that would matter to Dr. King.  Would a man let me steal his dying mother’s estate and then use the funds to pay for her funeral?  That’s what we’re doing when we allow companies like Dutch Shell (who was linked to the murders of African activists who peacefully protested the company’s exploitation of the Nigerian people) to help but Dr. King’s memorial.

Also, Black folks might want to stop believing that money is somehow the trump card which justifies any ethically-questionable decision. The choice of powerful companies and organizations to back the King memorial does not, in any way, increase the relevance of the venture itself. It is both sick and sad that we continue to seek validation from the descendants of our historical oppressors, and then wonder why almost no one in America respects us.

Dr. King Question #5: What are you going to do now?

Unfortunately, many Black folks love to gather for a party and then go home. There is a cognitive disconnect that creates significant distance between what we should be doing and what we choose to do. Even within the most educated among us, we have quite a few PhDs, but very few “Ph-Dos.” Many people have a hard time understanding that ideas without action are effectively worthless.

Perhaps the day has come for us to practice what Dr. King once preached. Rather than popping bottles at the clubs every other night, we can start filling up the libraries instead. Instead of just politely listening to what the pastor says on Sundays, we can replicate pastors like Jeremiah Wright and Father Michael Pfleger, who have worked to implement the visions of a higher power. Maybe we can learn that without sacrifice, there is no progress, and that no one will give us respect until we learn to truly respect ourselves.

It is forgivable that we are choosing to build the Dr. King Memorial under such a dark period in American economic history – I am choosing not to attend the ceremony, but I have complete respect for those who disagree. But like a man with bad credit who’s been given a loan that he doesn’t deserve, America has created this memorial as a promise to reach a higher standard when it comes to our commitment to social justice.

We must be sure to keep this promise to Dr. King, and truly memorialize his life by making America into a nation that acts on the vision he laid out before his death. But creating that vision is going to require hard work, and it’s not something that we can buy at Walmart.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Your Black World Coalition.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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As the date for the Martin Luther King Memorial dedication approaches, I am finding ways to convince myself that I should be excited and inspired. I think about the extraordinary life of the man whose speeches my mother made me recite when I was 12, and how Dr. King’s intellect was accompanied by the courage and action necessary to impact a nation. Although I wouldn’t dare compare myself with this amazing man, I can say that Dr. King’s commitment to putting his academic and spiritual training to work for the masses serves as a perpetual model for nearly everything I do each day.

But there’s another part of me that becomes saddened and even disgusted by our decision to celebrate Dr. King’s life in a way that would probably insult him. Economic inequality has actually worsened over time, and the very politicians who claim to admire the life of Dr. King are quick to urinate on the ideals for which he stood. In fact, I venture to say that if he were alive, King would not attend this ceremony himself.

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As it stands today, Black male unemployment is now over 40 percent in many urban areas, African Americans are being incarcerated at holocaust proportions, and inner city children are leaving school without even learning how to read. All the while, the political predators who care nothing for our issues are more than happy to stand and smile at the dedication ceremony for a man they would ignore and ridicule if he were alive right now. The truth is that they are glad to honor Dr. King with a memorial, as long as both he and his spirit remain in the grave.

We commemorate the life of Dr. King without having the license to do so, like the pastor who recites the word of God as he molests his children and cheats on his wife. We don’t deserve Dr. King, and our decision to memorialize him while rejecting him is entirely reflective of the hypocrisy to which our nation has become accustomed. One must also wonder how Dr. King might feel about a country that continues to oppress the people he claimed to represent. We can’t profess to love a man and simultaneously destroy the people he cares about the most.

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African Americans may also want to take a moment to reflect on why we are very quick to get excited about America’s commemoration of Dr. King (we unfortunately still need white American validation to feel entirely human), but remember almost nothing about the life of Malcolm X. Most of us know that without Malcolm, there would be no Martin, but Martin had the unfortunate job of presenting a less-digestible form of Black leadership. But by accepting Dr. King’s message of integration while forgetting Malcolm’s message of economic independence, we’ve effectively committed ourselves to a more sophisticated form of slavery.  As a result, we scream about chronic unemployment without having a clue as to how to create our own jobs. We also find that the milk and honey dream of integration has become nothing more than a nightmare of second-class citizenship.

The point here is not to say that the King Memorial is a waste of time and money. It’s to remind all of us that we must deeply reflect on the state of the world around us, reclaiming our collective reality without pompous and empty celebration. Substance must be valued over style, and the duel Pyrrhic victories of having a Black president and a memorial for Dr. Martin Luther King must be balanced with a clear assessment of exactly what’s happening in our country. The monument for Dr. King must not be made of granite — it must be a monument of the mind in which all of us seek to understand and IMPLEMENT the ideals for which Dr. King gave his life.

Right now, the imagery of a Martin Luther King memorial is as false as a church built in the middle of a brothel. We must earn the right to honor Dr. King in the same way that a man must complete his course work in order to put a degree on his wall. Dr. King gave us an assignment many decades ago, and we have failed miserably. So, it is out of respect for Dr. Martin Luther King and his memory that I will pass on the dedication ceremony altogether.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is as Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Your Black World Coalition.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here

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Jones had been accused of stealing Nike flip flops, and another assistant coach for the team watched  it all go down without doing anything to intervene.   In the fight, Jones’ prosthetic eye was damaged and his tooth was knocked out.  Fenger High School is also notorious for the beating death of 16-year old Derrion Albert in 2009.

When I read about this beating, my stomach turned.  I’m not sure if Darion stole the flip flops or not, but the idea that this kind of vigilante justice was endorsed by members of the coaching staff is beyond shameful.  The incident speaks to the fact that Fenger, as well as other schools around the country, are unable to provide adequate protection for young Black children who are regular targets of this form of bullying.

Scores of Black children die in Chicago every year, yet there is very little national discussion of these tragedies. In South Central Los Angeles, thousands of youth grow up with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after wondering if their walk to school is going to be interrupted by an AK-47.  All the while, most of the conversation about bullying tends to focus on gay kids in the suburbs.  Yes, all plights are worthy of discussion, but one has to wonder if Black youth were factored into our nation’s sudden decision to begin discussing this problem (I don’t recall seeing any Black kids on the AC360 discussion on bullying, nor have I seen the issue of urban bullying featured on any national media outlet).

It must be made clear that Darion and millions of other children in urban communities across America are regular victims of a type of bullying that is rarely seen in the suburbs.  His mother has already lost a child to gun violence, and the fact that we’ve come to accept this as a normal part of “growing up in the hood” should sadden us all.  The national discussion on bullying should bring forth specific conversations and action plans for children in urban communities, so that they can feel as safe as the middle class kids whose coaches DON’T arrange for them to be beaten in front of their moms.

The kids in the suburbs don’t have gun shops and liquor stores on every corner, conjoined with massive unemployment and low educational quality to accelerate the chances that they might find themselves being beaten or shot by a bully who’s not even in school anymore.  A well-known example might be the scene in the famous film, “Boyz in the Hood,” where one of the teen characters is murdered in an alley after getting into an altercation with a 27-year old man.  This story is played out repeatedly all over the country, yet some seem to believe that for young Black men in America, dying is simply a part of life.

Kids like Darion Jones need help.  They need our protection and they need to feel safe.  Additionally, getting rid of the guns, improving educational quality and reducing the massive Black teen unemployment rate (regularly over 40%) might be a step in the right direction.  So, not only should bullies be confronted for their behavior, we should also stop turning urban neighborhoods into “bully incubators” that create the destructive characters who end up slaughtering and traumatizing our children.

For every Darion Jones whose story makes the national news, there are a thousand other Black youth whose stories are never told.  Many of these kids are left with the difficult choice of being judged by 12 members of a jury or being carried by six pallbearers at their own funeral.  We must give good kids better options, better policies, and signals to show that their lives are just as valuable as the kids who have a little money.  Being picked on is obviously depressing, sad and hurtful, but our kids are the ones who are being regularly beaten and shot.
Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Your BlackWorld Coalition.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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The world has become uncomfortable with the “revelation” that Dr. Martin Luther King’s family has been paid several hundred thousand dollars for the new memorial built for Dr. King in Washington. It turns out that the family is being paid a “management fee” of a little more than $800,000, partly in exchange for their support of the monument.  I’m admittedly surprised by the recent public reaction to the payment, since the information was revealed by the press nearly two years ago.

One can understand the justified public outrage that the King children (who have made a series of questionable choices over the years) stand to profit from the memorial that is being celebrated by all of us. It comes off as distasteful that the blood and sweat of those who marched with Dr. King has been translated into Mercedes Benz payments, expensive vacations and indoor swimming pools.

While I have publicly stated that I do no plan to go to the King Memorial dedication ceremony, my absence is out of protest, not disrespect for those who genuinely appreciate Dr. King’s contribution. I’m not comfortable standing shoulder-to-shoulder with profit-hungry, predatory, racist politicians and profiteers who pretend that they’ve absorbed the lessons of Dr. King, but have no interest in advocating for policies that Dr. King would have supported. With Black unemployment being the highest that its been in the last 27 years, almost no politician in Washington can claim to represent the legacy of Dr. King.

The King family claims that the funds are being used to compensate their foundation for lost donations they would have received had the memorial not been built.  They are not charging for the use of King’s likeness, but are charging for the use of his words and image.

“I don’t think the Jefferson family, the Lincoln family … I don’t think any other group of family ancestors has been paid a licensing fee for a memorial in Washington,” said Cambridge University historian David Garrow, who wrote a well-respected biography of Dr. King. “One would think any family would be so thrilled to have their forefather celebrated and memorialized in D.C. that it would never dawn on them to ask for a penny.”

Garrow goes on to say that Dr. King would have been “absolutely scandalized by the profiteering behavior of his children.”

One area in which I must disagree with Garrow is in his comparison of Dr. King with Lincoln and Jefferson. First, Lincoln and Jefferson were both dead at least 150 years ago. It would be difficult for their families to maintain the rights to their images after such a long period of time. Dr. King’s children are…well…his children, so a first-generation wealth transfer is far more acceptable than Dr. King’s descendants seeking to get paid in the year 2100.

Secondly, Jefferson and Lincoln are former Presidents of the United States. Their decision to enter into official government service led to compensation for their families, and also to the relinquishment of some of the rights to their own images and likenesses. Sasha and Malia Obama can’t rightly claim to own the rights to their father’s image, in part because their father officially “gave himself to everyone.”

While Dr. King certainly belongs to all of us, I am not convinced that any efforts by King’s family to be compensated for the memorial amount to pure extortion. Dr. King was never fairly compensated in life for his sacrifices to the public, so I am sure he would like for his children to be taken care of. I certainly know that if the name “Dr. Boyce Watkins” were to ever become a multi-billion dollar commodity, I’d want my kids to get paid before everyone else. And believe me, everyone is making a profit from the mass commercialization of Dr. King’s image, which has served to water down his legacy.

The King children can be defended to a point, but the reality is that most of us are and should be uncomfortable with the idea that they’ve been quick to collect cash, but very slow to engage in the same leadership sacrifices that made their father famous. To some extent, the King children appear content to just sit back in the shadows and soak up the dividends from their father’s legacy, like preppy private school children with a huge trust fund. They do not appear to be equipped for battle in the same way as their father.

Is the King family payment unconventional? Yes. Is it criminal or patently unethical? I’m not so sure. The truth is that if these children were from the Kennedy or Bush families, they would already be wealthy beyond belief. But being the descendants of slaves, where family wealth was stolen from us for over 400 years, you have to make your money wherever you can.

In other words, the King Memorial costs $120 million to build, so I could care less about $800,000. It’s always a scandal when some Black family collects a tiny sum of money, but no one pays attention to the multi-billion dollar crooks on Wall Street and Capitol Hill. This is no different from the NCAA, who can pay a coach $5 million dollars for recruiting a star athlete, but finds it unconscionable that the mother of this star player received a payment of $10,000. One of the artifacts of racism in America is that any perceived ethical short-coming of Black folks is magnified, while other groups have their shady behavior overlooked (hence, why Black men fill up the penitentiaries for some of the very same drug crimes that are committed on college campuses every weekend).

So, the point here is that I don’t personally agree with the King family’s decision to take money for the memorial. But before we criticize the King’s, we should criticize the corporations, politicians and others who engage in far more heinous activity. There are far dirtier players in this game then Dexter King and his siblings.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Your Black World Coalition.  To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.

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