Opinion

I Do Not Believe you are a Racists

Published

5 years ago

July 4, 2019

At the Miami Democratic Presidential Debate, Kamala Harris questioned Joe Biden about his opposition to integrating the schools through court-ordered busing. Biden responded: “I did not oppose busing in America. What I opposed is busing ordered by the Department of Education.” After the debate, Biden spoke at the Rainbow Push Convention in Chicago. He said, “I want to be absolutely clear about my record and position on racial justice, including busing. I never, never, ever opposed voluntary busing.”

As Harris noted in the debate, Biden is not a racist. He served the country well as a senator and as Barack Obama’s vice president. On this question, however, he has lined up with the opposing team.

In the struggle for civil rights, the stakes were clear. After the Civil War brought an end to slavery, the Reconstruction — the effort to integrate the slave states of the South — was resisted widely, and rapidly brought to an end. The former slave states claimed to have state’s rights over laws concerning labor, voting rights, education, health care and civil rights. Under the banner of states’ rights, they enforced legal segregation — apartheid, stripping black citizens of their rights. Blacks were banned from restaurants and hotels. Schools were segregated. Voting rights were suppressed. Blacks were forced to sit at the back of the bus.

In 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation — specifically segregation of schools — violated the Constitution. Separate but equal was inherently unequal. They ordered communities to integrate their schools. Once again resistance was immediate and widespread. African Americans were forced to go to court to enforce their rights. One result was court-ordered busing.

For Dr. King and the civil rights movement, the claim of states’ rights was always the segregationist dodge.

It took federal intervention to gain the right to public accommodations, to enforce the right to vote, to enforce desegregation of schools. To this day, federal intervention is vital, as Vice President Biden knows, to deal with the structural racism of police forces, voting rights, racially motivated hate crimes and more.

When Ronald Reagan opened his presidential campaign in Mississippi talking about states’ rights, everyone got the message. There were two sides of history and he was on the other side from those seeking equal justice for all.

As a senator, Biden initially supported busing. Then the white backlash grew. Racially separate communities in the North — often forged with red-lining and restrictive covenants that effectively segregated communities — started to get challenged in court.

The schools in Black communities were often more crowded, shabbier and less well-funded than those in the white suburbs. Communities resisted integration — and so courts began to order busing and redistricting to integrate schools.

Communities like Wilmington, Delaware faced the threat of court ordered integration, so the pressure on Biden grew to oppose busing. It was then that he called busing “asinine,” and voted with segregationists like Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond on resolutions designed to prohibit the federal government — specifically the Department of Education -from enforcing court-ordered busing.

The problem wasn’t busing. Children are bused to school across America every day. The problem was where the bus was going.

As Matthew Delmont, author of “Why Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation,” concluded, “Describing opposition to busing as something other than resistance to school desegregation was a move that obscured the histories of racial discrimination and legal contexts for desegregation orders.”

In 1975, Biden offered his own amendment to the education bill, mandating that no funds could be used to “assign teachers or students to schools … for reasons of race.”

When the Biden amendment passed, Massachusetts Republican Edward Brooke, the only African American in the Senate, called it the “greatest symbolic defeat for civil rights since 1964.” It was later stripped from the bill.

Court-ordered busing to integrate schools has remained unpopular, and courts have retreated from enforcing it. Schools, particularly in the North, remain deeply segregated by race.

And too often, schools populated by people of color are still unequal — with fewer resources, dilapidated facilities and less prepared teachers than those in the suburbs.

Like Harris, I don’t believe Biden is a racist. But I do know that he was on the wrong side of history.

Invoking states’ rights or community choice is not a defense. It is an admission.

(You can write to the Rev. Jesse Jackson in care of this newspaper or by email at jjackson@rainbowpush.org. Follow him on Twitter @RevJJackson.)

Rev. Jesse L. Jackson

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Oakland Post: Week of December 25 – 31, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of December 25 – 31, 2024

Published

1 day ago

December 26, 2024

Oakland Post

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OPINION: “My Girl,” The Temptations, and Nikki Giovanni

Giovanni was probably one of the most famous young African American women in the 1960s, known for her fiery poetry. But even that description is tame. The New York Times obit headline practically buried her historical impact: “Nikki Giovanni, Poet Who Wrote of Black Joy, Dies at 81.” That doesn’t begin to touch the fire of Giovanni’s work through her lifetime.

Published

4 days ago

December 24, 2024

Oakland Post

Nikki Giovanni. Courtesy of Nikki-Giovanni.com

By Emil Guillermo

The Temptations, the harmonizing, singing dancing man-group of your OG youth, were on “The Today Show,” earlier this week.

There were some new members, no David Ruffin. But Otis Williams, 83, was there still crooning and preening, leading the group’s 60th anniversary performance of “My Girl.”

When I first heard “My Girl,” I got it.

I was 9 and had a crush on Julie Satterfield, with the braided ponytails in my catechism class. Unfortunately, she did not become my girl.

But that song was always a special bridge in my life. In college, I was a member of a practically all-White, all-male club that mirrored the demographics at that university. At the parties, the song of choice was “My Girl.”

Which is odd, because the party was 98% men.

The organization is a little better now, with women, people of color and LGBTQ+, but back in the 70s, the Tempts music was the only thing that integrated that club.

POETRY’S “MY GIRL”

The song’s anniversary took me by surprise. But not as much as the death of Nikki Giovanni.

Giovanni was probably one of the most famous young African American women in the 1960s, known for her fiery poetry. But even that description is tame.

The New York Times obit headline practically buried her historical impact: “Nikki Giovanni, Poet Who Wrote of Black Joy, Dies at 81.”

That doesn’t begin to touch the fire of Giovanni’s work through her lifetime.

I’ll always see her as the Black female voice that broke through the silence of good enough. In 1968, when cities were burning all across America, Giovanni was the militant female voice of a revolution.

Her “The True Import of Present Dialogue: Black vs. Negro,” is the historical record of racial anger as literature from the opening lines.

It reads profane and violent, shockingly so then. These days, it may seem tamer than rap music.

But it’s jarring and pulls no punches. It protests Vietnam, and what Black men were asked to do for their country.

“We kill in Viet Nam,” she wrote. “We kill for UN & NATO & SEATO & US.”

Written in 1968, it was a poem that spoke to the militancy and activism of the times. And she explained herself in a follow up, “My Poem.”

“I am 25 years old, Black female poet,” she wrote referring to her earlier controversial poem. “If they kill me. It won’t stop the revolution.”

Giovanni wrote more poetry and children’s books. She taught at Rutgers, then later Virginia Tech where she followed her fellow professor who would become her spouse, Virginia C. Fowler.

Since Giovanni’s death, I’ve read through her poetry, from what made her famous, to her later poems that revealed her humanity and compassion for all of life.

In “Allowables,” she writes of finding a spider on a book, then killing it.

And she scared me
And I smashed her
I don’t think
I’m allowed
To kill something
Because I am
Frightened

For Giovanni, her soul was in her poetry, and the revolution was her evolution.

About the Author

Emil Guillermo is a journalist, commentator, and solo performer. Join him at www.patreon.com/emilamok

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In addition to his work with the NAACP, Rick Callender is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Valley Water in San Jose. In that role, he oversees an integrated water resources system with functions that include managing the supply of clean, safe water; instituting flood protections; and handling environmental stewardship of waterways for Santa Clara County’s 1.9 million residents.

Published

4 days ago

December 24, 2024

Oakland Post

Rick L. Callender, Esq., President of the NAACP CA-Hawaii, addressing attendees at the state convention, October 2024. Photo by Rich Woods.

By Edward Henderson, California Black Media

Rick L. Callender holds multiple influential roles. He is the President of the California/Hawaii State Conference of the NAACP (Cal-HI NAACP) and serves on the National NAACP Board of Directors.

Under his leadership, Cal-HI NAACP operates 74 branches and youth units across the state to push initiatives focused on racial justice and equality.

In addition to his work with the NAACP, Callender is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of  Valley Water in San Jose. In that role, he oversees an integrated water resources system with functions that include managing the supply of clean, safe water; instituting flood protections; and handling environmental stewardship of waterways for Santa Clara County’s 1.9 million residents.

Recently, California Black Media (CBM) interviewed Callender. He reflected on the organization’s accomplishments, challenges they have faced, lessons learned this year, and goals moving forward.

Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Looking back at 2024, what stands out to you as your most important achievement and why? 

One of the things I’m most proud of is the support of policy changes related to the Ebony Alert, which went into place this year. That legislation ensured that Black girls and missing Black women would have their own alert. Often, when they go missing you don’t hear about it for weeks later.

How did your leadership and investments contribute to improving the lives of Black Californians? 

It’s not my leadership, it’s the NAACP’s leadership. We’ve helped with legal consultations. Often, when you have something that occurs to you, some people can’t afford a legal consultation. We’ve cleared that hurdle for folks, so they don’t have to worry about the fee.

What frustrated you the most over the last year?

The pullback of a commitment to our community and the pullback from corporations on financing DEI initiatives, equity and civil rights. People have tried to make DEI sound like a salacious word. When you see these funds disappear, it’s because people erroneously think that they promote racism.

What inspired you the most over the last year?

The resilience and the determination of our youth. The youth have always led — not only the civil rights movement — but they have been the ones who will always be willing to step up.

It’s seeing a new Black leadership step up and being able to continue to fight.

What is one lesson you learned in 2024 that will inform your decision-making next year?

This is one thing: we can’t get distracted. We have to stay focused.

In one word, what is the biggest challenge Black Californians face?

Equity. Put anything in front of the word equity, and that’s what we face, from educational equity, criminal justice equity. Equity as it deals with economics. And just being able to make sure that we have the access to do what we need to do.

What is the goal you want to achieve most in 2025?

Staying focused on organizing around elections – and winning.