Community Checkup

Much has been written about black men cavorting to Brazil and the Dominican Republic for sex tourism and some authors have suggested the negative impact that this has on black relationships.  To me, this article provides a more interesting and global perspective on the matter and how we should not let this become the new “thing” (like “Down-Low brothers”) perceived to be the main cause of the destruction of  black romantic relationships:

Modern relationships are complicated. In looking for explanations for why black men and women can’t get together, we cannot scapegoat sisters who speak Portuguese. We also can’t fall victim to the salacious stories that overstate the effects of sex tourism on African-American women in the United States. The real concern here is the poverty and desperation of our brothers and sisters in Brazil, Colombia and the Dominican Republic. [Source: TheRoot]

More to the point:

These books and articles largely miss the point. People should be free to sleep with whomever they choose. Those who are married or in relationships, have their own conscience to answer to, but that is not my business. I have heard of no case where some otherwise married man leaves his happy home for a Brazilian “girlfriend” met on the beach. The real problem with sex tourism isn’t sex at all. It’s that it exposes the glaring problem of inequality and exploitation in the global economy. We rarely hear the stories of poverty and desperation from the women who must choose sex work as a route to a better life. Even the tourists never really hear their stories because of the substantial language barriers and the true tales of poverty and inequality are too depressing for revelers on vacation.

Might this become the only black news channel?

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Former U.S. Rep. J.C. Watts is developing a cable news network focusing on a black audience.

Black Television News Channel, scheduled to launch in 2009, will provide “original news programming with a distinctly African-American perspective,” according to a news release. It recently announced a multiyear agreement with Comcast Corp.

“With this agreement, Comcast continues to demonstrate its commitment to working with independent programmers with diverse points of view,” Watts said in a news release.

Watts, a Republican, served as Oklahoma’s 4th Congressional District representative from 1995 to 2003 in the U.S. House and now heads the J.C. Watts Cos. in Washington, D.C. He was not available Thursday for additional comment.

The news release said BTNC expects to be added to Comcast systems in key markets for black audiences such as Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Baltimore.

I’d like to pose two questions to the readers of this blog that I found myself wrestling with after hearing of this news: Should there be a black news channel? And if so, what should it look like?

I’ve come to the tentative stance that my ideal news channel would not be a black one per se, but one that seriously analyzes black issues in the context of broader news and connects to others beyond blacks.  News about black folk and black issues should not just be for a black audience.  The issues that affect blacks are also American issues that others should be aware of and concerned about.  Black people and their issues do not exist on some mythical American island.

In the spirit of Obama’s famous race speech, to really heal the racial divide, racial issues need to be laid out on the table for all to chew on and deal with.  And don’t get me wrong, this is not about appeasing whites and others or making black issues more palatable and less threatening to them. It’s about creating a frame that simultaneously expresses the uniqueness and commonality of black issues.

Maybe Watts’ news channel will do what I wish for, but I doubt it since a name like Black Television News Channel will only attract a black audience.  Or maybe my wish is too much to ask of a news channel at this time or ever.  What say you?

It’s graduation season. What better (or worse) time to examine the value of time spent in higher ed. I recently read this op-ed by Marty Nemko, a career counselor on this issue that was so on point. In fact, I think every college aspirant and their parents should read it. Here’s how it starts:

Among my saddest moments as a career counselor is when I hear a story like this: “I wasn’t a good student in high school, but I wanted to prove that I can get a college diploma. I’d be the first one in my family to do it. But it’s been five years and $80,000, and I still have 45 credits to go.”

I have a hard time telling such people a killer statistic: Among high school students who graduated in the bottom 40 percent of their classes, and whose first institutions were four-year colleges, two-thirds had not earned diplomas 8 1/2 years later. [Source: AJC]

At first, when I read this I thought, “So this guy just wants us to send the ‘best and the brightest’ to college and say screw the rest? That’s elitist as hell.” But as I continued to read, he made more and more sense. One his main points is that universities many times overstate or misrepresent themselves as institutes that offer individuals advantages in the work world. This is only true for some and for many others it can prove to be a loss in the long run (as in the example above). According to him, high school grads and their parents should do a serious costs-benefits analysis before deciding to attend college and universities should provide them with the information to do so.

On the university’s part, Nemko says they should regularly provide the public with: (1) the results of a value-added analysis of attending that school, (2) the average financial aid students receive broken down by demographics, (3) retention data by race and gender, (4) employment data, and (5) results from student satisfaction surveys. The idea is that this will not only inform prospective students but also make universities better. No school likes to be embarrassed so providing this info will force them to do a better job at what they are supposed to be in the business of doing–producing highly employable, knowledgeable, and critically thinking citizens.

On the parents’ side, Nemko says to not rule out other less expensive training options that could prepare students just as well, if not better, for a career. This is especially true for students who are not motivated by academics or the idea of college. He suggest that for those solely seeking employment, a four-year college is not likely the most beneficial route. Technical training or an apprenticeship might be the better move as they can provide better job preparation.

I’ve always been a believer that college is not for everyone. Rather, everyone should be given a fair shot to have the opportunity of attending college. In some sense, I agree with Nemko that a college degree is overrated if we’re talking about it as a necessity for success.

On the other hand, college has tons of value beyond employment opportunities. If a student is prepared and open to it, college can provide amazing intangible benefits in the sense of broadening one’s perspective of the world and one’s place in it. But the key phrase is, “if they are prepared and open to it.” If not, college can be a costly and regrettable experience. But we rarely hear this side of the story to balance all the upside stories. Nemko gets points in my book for being real about this.

What’s your perspective?

For some time now the black community has been bemoaning the lack of involvement of black fathers in the lives of their children. A recent Newsweek article spoke to this issue in the context of discussing a new book, “The Beautiful Struggle” (which looks very interesting) as well as a recent study on the topic.  From the article:

A 2007 study noted that a black father’s ability to financially contribute is one of the biggest determinants of whether he stays in the home. “There’s a host of evidence noting that men who cannot fulfill the breadwinner role often experience distress and interruptions in positive engagement in family life,” says Boston University professor Rebekah Levine Coley, who worked on the study. Low-income, low-skilled men are culturally expected not to care about being good fathers, and those who do care feel like failures when they cannot meet a definition of successful fatherhood in which being the breadwinner is the sole metric. This conundrum gives rise to the absentee father, the lion who would rather be proud than lead his pride. [Source: Newsweek]

This analysis is a fairly common one that addresses how the interaction between financial hard times and beliefs about what it means to be a father (e.g. financially supporting a family) can lead black men to be less involved.  I buy this to some extent.  I do think there are many men, black and white alike, who mostly view fatherhood as financially providing for their children.  And it is true that black men are really financially struggling.  Yet, I don’t know that this fully explains the issue or that it is the best explanation.

An element that is missing from the quoted analysis is how conflict in the mother-father relationship also can lead to one of the parents being uninvolved (usually fathers).  This kind of conflict can take a toll on both of the parents (the child too) to the point that one of them decides to just up and dip out.  Underlying this issue is a more general tension between black women largely influenced by the lens through which we sometimes view each other that is colored by negative stereotypes.  You’ve heard them before–the no-good dog father and the belligerent gold-digging mother just to name a couple.   And we must accept that there are very real elements of misogyny and male-bashing in the culture that bolster these stereotypes.

So in terms of how to best support families and kids with this issue, I question whether it would be more important to improve the financial condition of the father than to improve the relationship between the mother and father (or more generally between black men and women).  The quality of the relationship between parents and the emotional environment it creates for a child is critical and can’t be ignored.  At the end of the day kids need financial resources and a healthy emotional environment. But if I had to bet on one of the two, I’d bet it all on healthy emotional environment.

Enough with my rambling.  What’s your view on the nature of, consequences, and solutions for the black fatherhood situation?

*Shoutout to E for passing on this article.*

No, he’s not light-skinned (or “light-skindid”)…

[Josh] Packwood will graduate as the 2008 valedictorian, the first white student to do so in the 141-year history of Morehouse, which has never counted more than a handful of white students among its enrollment of roughly 3,000. [Source: KCStar]

So what’s the word? Is this a good thing or a bad thing for HBCUs? Does a white Valedictorian or more generally, the admission of whites at one of the premier HBCUs somehow diminish the purpose and culture of the school? Or should we celebrate the small but growing diversity of HBCUs and embrace excellence in whatever color it comes?

Let’s go at it…

To those of you who have looked forward to my posts here, I sincerely apologize for the extended leave.  I won’t bore you with the details of why I’ve been MIA, but just know that I have not given up on The Checkup.   In the words of Carlito Brigante, “I’m reloadeddddd!”

Bloggingheads recently posted a great discussion between Glenn Loury (Brown University economist) and Heather McDonald (of Manhattan Institute) about the NYC school system incentives program. Since this program was implemented last June, it has been something that has bothered me to no end. From a 2007 NYT article:

NEW YORK CITY has decided to offer cash rewards to some students based on their attendance records and exam performance. Diligent, high-achieving seventh graders will be able to earn up to $500 in a year. The plan is the brainchild of Roland G. Fryer, an economist who has been appointed as “chief equality officer” of the city’s Department of Education.

The assumption that underlies the project is simple: people respond to incentives. If you want people to do something, you have to make it worth their while. This assumption drives virtually all of economic theory. [Source: NYT]

Yep, a Harvard economist touted as one of the best and brightest up-and-coming black academics thinks it’s a good ideas to pay kids to learn. As this article points out, it ignores compelling research pointing to this being ineffective, or worse yet, counterproductive. But it doesn’t take an in-depth understanding of the research to come to the conclusion that this might be a bad idea. And the problem isn’t with the concept of incentives. Incentives are used all the time to motivate children and adults. The problem is with money as the primary incentive for getting children to learn. Of all the means to motivate children, money is probably the least effective way to do so and the most rife with potential negative side-effects (e.g. diminished caring about learning, sense of entitlement to payment).

Monetary incentives is also out of touch with one of the key factors needed to best promote achievement in youth–an intrinsic desire, or at least an appreciation, for the endeavor of learning. It takes building an academic culture in schools to nurture this, not building a payment structure.

This quote nicely sums up the what’s really wrong with this program:

[T]the plan will distract us from investigating a more pertinent set of questions: why don’t children get intrinsic satisfaction from learning in school, and how can this failing of education be fixed? Virtually all kindergartners are eager to learn. But by fourth grade, many students need to be bribed. What makes our schools so dystopian that they produce this powerful transformation, almost overnight? [Source: NYT]

Now for a more lighthearted post as the weekend comes to an end. Many of you have probably already seen the website, Stuff White People Like. Well, now there is a black counterpart called, Stuff Educated Black People Like .

I found it to be pretty hilarious (and humorously true), but judging from some of the comments on the site, some found it pretty offensive. C’mon folks, It is okay to laugh at ourselves sometimes. We don’t need to be so serious 24/7.

Anyway, I noticed there were some key things missing from the list and thought I’d help out with filling some in. Feel free to add your two cents. [Read more →]

This judge must truly have been fed up when he decided to kick white lawyers out of his court room so that he could lecture the black defendants on their wayward lifestyles.

On CNN, the judge, Marvin Arrington, had this to say:

I came out and saw the defendants, and it was about 99.9 percent Afro-Americans, and at some point in time, I excused some lawyers — most of them white — and said to the young people in here, ‘What in the world are you doing with your lives?’

More from Arrington:

“I didn’t want them to think I was talking down to them; trying to embarrass them or insult them; be derogatory toward them,” said Arrington, explaining his decision to send the white lawyers out of the courtroom, “and I was just saying, [Read more →]

How backwards is this?

Some Katrina survivors are being asked to pay back government grant money that was in excess of what they were supposed to have received. The contractor for managing the grants is looking to hire companies to get the loot:

The contractor, ICF International of Fairfax, Va., revealed the extent of the overpayments when it issued a March 11 request for bids from companies willing to handle “approximately 1,000 to 5,000 cases that will necessitate collection effort.”

The bid invitation said: “The average amount to be collected is estimated to be approximately $35,000, but in some cases may be as high as $100,000 to $150,000.”

The biggest grant amount allowed by the Road Home program is $150,000, so ICF apparently believes it paid some recipients the maximum when they should not have received a penny. If ICF’s highest estimate [Read more →]