Analyze This!

The neighbors look at this guy.....

And they see this guy......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Originally published 2006 The Biloxi Sun Herald

Analyze this: Sixty percent of black men surveyed say black males place too much emphasis on sex.

And 57 percent of them believe black men try too often to maintain a tough-guy image.

And 54 percent of them say black males put too much importance on sports.

These statistics offer a window into a survey conducted by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University. The poll was part of a recent series of compelling front-page articles published by the Post titled, “Being a Black Man.”

This self-flagellation is startling. All too often, racial and ethnic groups who feel as if they are under siege, whether real or imagined, circle their provincial and collective wagons.

The usual M.O. is to deflect and deny. Or deny and deflect.

But the Post, for example, quotes Reggie Hall, a 36-year-old Web site developer from Cleveland, as saying, “I can’t remember the last time I heard a good word about black men. If we’re out in public and see young black guys – the way they talk or act, we always discuss that lack of respect… .

“I can’t remember the last time we said anything positive about black men as a whole. It’s always about isolated individuals. But, as a group, no.”

Now, this is not the Ku Klux Klan’s manifesto being quoted here. These are words from, yes, a black guy in the United States.

Is this the residual effect of the Bill Cosby Doctrine seeping into the deepest conscience of black males? Remember, on May 17, 2004, when Cosby, speaking at Constitution Hall in the nation’s capital, passionately implored black people as a whole to partake in personal responsibility and individual self-improvement. He was a one-man crusade that festive night.

The event was the 50th anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, which essentially struck down legal segregation in this country. Now, two years later, we read comments such as Hall’s.

Would this have been a normal response pre-Cosby?

Perhaps not.

And perhaps many black males are tiring of paying for the sins of others.

Perhaps many black males feel the perpetual and ubiquitous images of negativity from black gangsta rappers and out-of-control hip-hop sex and sports freaks invading their hard-earned level of comfort and positive livelihoods.

In fact, Cosby’s last remarks during his speech at the Brown gala invoked a line of demarcation when he said, “And you are not my brother.”

That aforementioned invasion has reached the point where many upstanding black males feel the broad brush of stereotyping because of the vileness, self-destruction and thuggery of the gangsta-video culture.

You can call it “guilt by association.” That would not be inaccurate.

You also can live in the real world.

Dr. Alvin Poussaint is an esteemed professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He has served as a television script consultant for “The Cosby Show” during its heyday on NBC. And he marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

“I think Dr. King would be profoundly disappointed in that they (young black males) weren’t making more of their opportunities,” explained the 72-year-old Dr. Poussaint, who co-authored the book “Raising Black Children.” “He would want them to take the high road, and not succumb to decadence.”

The pervasive image of black males is one of the MTV-BET planet. It’s easy for outside observers to surmise, well, “If they willingly portray themselves as thugs and ingrates, then they all must operate in that vein.”

As Dr. Poussaint says, “If you feel you are a nobody… and you have nothing else and to feel like ‘I am somebody,’ you may play up to sex. You will play up your (sexual) conquests.

“In gangsta rap, it’s really not playing up sex, it’s more about degrading women. It’s trying to attain a feeling of dominance. It’s ephemeral in a superficial way, but it’s done all over the world.”

Self-stereotyping, because of a few image-grabbing video misfits with the inflammatory word “Thug” tattooed in their arms, has become the ruination of a people. It has affected the other side – the Real Side – of the black community that was not complicit in the demolition of its own civility.

“The (entertainment) industry helps create and promote these images,” Dr. Poussaint says. “It’s being promoted by an industry that’s more about money.

“Black youth see this and these guys become role models for them.”

That means that broad brush of danger appears again. That means the sane segment of a black-male population bears the burden of the sins that its misguided black-male brethren produce, creating an unfair vulnerability for the former.

Which ultimately means perception often is stronger than reality.

Says Dr. Poussaint, “I’m a professor at Harvard, but walking the streets of Boston at night, I sometimes see a white woman clutching her purse more tightly when she sees me. Being a professor at Harvard doesn’t protect me from that.”

Now, analyze that.

Gregory Clay is assistant sports editor for McClatchy-Tribune News Service

(202) 629-1365, (202) 383-6091 and (202) 550-5196   gregoryclay6@gmail.com

or ImaginePublicity at 843.808.0859  

 

Operating in the Major-College Cocoon of Reality


Originally published Anchorage Daily News

Today’s major colleges essentially are de facto corporate-industrial complexes, based solely on their No. 1 sports team on campus.

That means if the school wins national championships in football, then its main corporate industry is football. If it wins national championships in basketball, then its main corporate industry is basketball.

As corporations seek tax shelters, major colleges seek privacy and privilege. That is to say, in many ways, the college life is anti-reality. In some respects, colleges are shelters of their own. Many of them harbor a Culture of the Cocoon, like the enclave of a gated community. That shelter mentality would help perpetuate the alleged criminality at Penn State and Syracuse.

Think about it:

Many major-college students are insulated by scholarships, dorm rooms, resident advisers and financial aid through federal grants – and their parents, of course. Need a hundred dollars for a Madonna concert? Just ask Mom and Dad.

Major college cocoons are often nestled within university towns – such as State College, Pa. The main employer in university towns is just that: the university. These colleges have their own meal plans, their own university police, their own game plans, their own protocol of governance, their own honor code, their own rules of engagement.

Those factors contributed to the Penn State maelstrom and the Syracuse soap opera that dominate the news these days. Those factors would make it easier for some to look the other way if child abuse is alleged. Hey, who wants to upset the apple cart? Who wants to take the gravy off the train? Especially when there is money and prestige involved.

Penn State had a program-changing coach, Joe Paterno, who put big-time college football and big-time money on the map at the school. Paterno, major college football’s all-time winningest coach, ultimately became an institution himself before he was fired on Nov. 9. Hey, notice he’s a football coach, not a world-renowned Nobel laureate professor of physics.

According to the Wall Street Journal, legendary Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes once told an anti-sports professor on campus: “I can do your job, but you can’t do mine.” Remember when we talked about that privilege factor. A major-college coach can be both tyrant and dictator operating unabated.

Syracuse has a well-respected Hall of Fame coach, Jim Boeheim, who won a national basketball championship in 2003. We’re still awaiting his fate as the Syracuse investigation, or saga, plays out. We will see if he keeps his absolute-power card.

Why are football and basketball so important at major colleges? Because they produce huge revenue streams, mainly through television contracts and athletic apparel deals. In 2010, CBS and Turner Broadcasting combined for a 14-year, $10.8 billion deal for the rights to televise the NCAA’s wildly popular basketball tournament, also known as March Madness. Penn State’s overall football revenue for 2010 was $70.2 million, with $50.4 million profit, with each the most in the Big Ten conference, according to Forbes.com.

It isn’t difficult to figure out that those with the most money also make the most rules. As more money floods in, then the bigger the floodgates. And in order to exhibit wide floodgates, these schools must do one thing well and often: win and win big. If they don’t … well, the money piles won’t be as deep.

So, the bigger the monetary floodgates, then the more influential are these gated communities. Look at powerhouse Alabama, which will be playing fellow powerhouse LSU for the football title in the BCS National Championship Game on Jan. 9, 2012. Alabama has an eight-year deal for approximately $30 million with Nike apparel. Wear the Nike swoosh on your uniforms, and you make approximately $3.75 million per season.

Who’s bringing home the bacon for Alabama? That would be football coach Nick Saban, surely the most recognizable face on campus – and compensated well for it. When Saban joined the Alabama Crimson Tide in 2007, he signed an eight-year contract for $32 million; that $4 million each year could balloon to a possible $5 million per season with incentive clauses and performance bonuses. Just think of all the regular students who chose to attend Alabama to be vicariously associated with such a prestigious football program.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Alabama school president Robert E. Witt earned $611,000 in 2008 and then-Gov. Bob Riley $105,000. So who do you think controls the gates to the Alabama community and keeps fans chanting “Roll Tide”?

He’s the coach of the No. 1 corporate-industrial complex on campus. That automatically means he’s the gatekeeper of the revenue flow. That’s Nick Saban; no, he isn’t the school’s official chief financial officer, too.

With that, remember colleges essentially can lock their gates to outsiders whenever they want in most cases. Whatever the No. 1 coach says goes, more often than not; the No. 2 on campus doesn’t count. We know who has that unilateral power for lockdown mode.

Just observe the bizarre goings-on at State College and in upstate New York.

Gregory Clay is assistant sports editor for McClatchy-Tribune News Service

(202) 629-1365, (202) 383-6091 and (202) 550-5196   gregoryclay6@gmail.com

or ImaginePublicity at 843.808.0859  

Steve Jobs Was Jordan-esque

This one is easy.

You don’t have to be a computer freak or super gadget-lover to admire the late Steve Jobs.

He was one-quarter Isaac Newton (brilliantly innovative), one-quarter Walt Disney (visually intuitive) and one-half Michael Jordan (keenly competitive). Like Jordan, Jobs was a walking commercial; they both knew how to sell their products.

With Jordan, it was parlaying his incredible basketball skills into a marketing bonanza that transcended sports. With Jobs, it was producing high-tech instruments that made our lives easier and made the world smaller.

After Jobs died on Oct. 5 of pancreatic cancer, impromptu shrines of flowers, photos and thoughtful R.I.P. notes dedicated to him sprang up at Apple stores all over the word. And, in the aftermath, CNN, with its unmatched global coverage of this event, asked children in China, Japan and Hong Kong: “What do you like most about America?” They said the iPhone. The iPhone is Steve Jobs, co-founder of the Apple technology company.

While kids in Southeast Asia knew the score, someone should clue in Michael Oher, an offensive lineman for the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens and the inspirational subject behind the Academy Award-winning movie “The Blind Side.” He Tweeted, “Can somebody help me out? Who was Steve Jobs!” And yes, if you figured he Tweets from an iPhone, you would be right.

When Jordan was on the 1992 U.S. Olympic basketball squad (also known as the “Dream Team”), opposing players from other nations often would seek his autograph – sometimes DURING the doggone game. Jordan was the one individual most responsible for making basketball a global sport.

Similar to Jobs, with Jordan, you don’t have to be an ardent basketball fan to fully understand his significance. Jordan defied gravity with his high-flying dunks, he won multiple championships, he wore designer suits, he sold Nike sneakers, Gatorade and Hanes underwear through countless television commercials, he spoke like a corporate CEO and ultimately became a ubiquitous marketing magnet for the NBA.

And, for style, he made being bald cool for the in-crowd.

Jobs made the letter “i” the hippest one in the alphabet during his stage presentations – you know, iPad, iTunes, iPhone, iPod, iMac . . . iThis, iThat. As today’s young people would say, “He knew how to represent.”

Just ask the 18-to-34-year-old U.S. demographic; they represent the public clamor in some corners for an international memorial service in Jobs’ honor.

After being ousted as Apple managing director during a 1985 power struggle, Jobs returned to the company in 1996. Apple was near bankruptcy at that time; now, it’s a $400 billion techno-giant.

When Jordan retired the first time from the NBA in 1993, his Chicago Bulls had just won the league championship for a third consecutive season. While he was off playing minor-league baseball during his “second career/retirement,” the Bulls didn’t sniff the NBA Finals. When Jordan returned to the NBA in 1995, the Bulls eventually won three more consecutive NBA championships with him.

You can see the parallels. Like Jobs, Jordan was imperious to the nth degree. In other words, he was demanding (read pushy toward the art of perfection.)

John Sculley, former CEO of Apple, once said of Jobs: “In his level of perfection, everything had to be beautifully designed even if it wasn’t going to be seen by most people.”

Michael Jordan once said of himself: “I play to win, whether during practice or a real game. And I will not let anything get in the way of me and my competitive enthusiasm to win.”

Legendary scientist and Nobel Prize winner Albert Einstein kept a photo in his study of Isaac Newton, an English mathematician-physicist-astronomer-theologian who has his own statue at Oxford; Walt Disney (the “Golden Animator”) revolutionized artistic animation and visual display to the masses; and Michael Jordan, with six championship rings, during his playing days had his own song and ad campaign catch-phrase, “Be Like Mike.”

In 2005, Jobs offered a stirring commencement address to graduating students at Stanford University. In one of his more poignant passages, Jobs related: “Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers.

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it.”

With that, how about “Be Like Steve” … and Mike didn’t settle either.

by Gregory Clay, McClatchy-Tribune

A Time Capsule Moment

Originally published May 2, 2011 Standard-Examiner

WASHINGTON — The Fourth of July came early on a cool spring night in the nation’s capital on Sunday.

There were people entrenched in front of the White House joyously waving the American flag; there were people across the street perched in trees and draped with Old Glory at Lafayette Park in a scene of immense pride.

There was a guy strolling on pink stilts on the sidewalk.

Digital cameras flashed second by second.

Balloons flew overhead. Bells and whistles pierced the late-night air.
One guy shouted, “We killed the (blankety-blank).”There were primal screams.

That “blankety-blank” was Osama bin Laden, the world’s chief symbol of terrorism.

President Barack Obama announced at approximately 9:35 p.m. MDT that a U.S.-launched military operation killed bin Laden in a firefight. That’s when a gaggle of Flash Gordon types blazed its way toward the north-side fence of the White House.

With that, you could hear the sound of honking cars as a screaming mass of people rushed down New York Avenue toward the White House. Washington police and Secret Service officers patrolled the White House perimeter on the surrounding streets.

Matthew Dhaiti of Syracuse, N.Y., Michael Maslar of Cleveland and Jason Maney of Orange County, Calif., all were staring at final exams today at nearby George Washington University, but they weren’t going to miss this celebratory occasion for the world in the wee hours of the morning.

For them, it was one of those time-capsule moments.

“It’s one of those things when you know exactly where you were when it happened,” Maslar said. “We have finals tomorrow, but this is something you can’t miss.”

Added Dhaiti: “We heard about it in our dorms. We were so pumped up, we just had to go to the White House.”

There were hundreds, if not thousands, of onlookers and celebrants basking in unbridled joy on this night.

What struck me was the vast number of young people on the streets showing such a visceral response that many Americans have waited 10 years to witness — often times impatiently. Many of us thought bin Laden surely would have been captured or killed way before the 10th anniversary year of the brazen and malicious Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in Manhattan and the Pentagon, just outside Washington. Especially so with a $25 million bounty on bin Laden’s head.

Greg (wouldn’t give his last name), an undergraduate student from West Chester, Pa., attending Catholic University in Washington, was only 10 years old on that Sept. 11, but he said age is irrelevant in relation to such a cataclysmic event.

“You still know about it,” said Greg, as he sat on a curb at Lafayette Park.

“It’s a big moment. I’m sure it means a lot to the people directly affected by 9-11.”

Chants of “U-S-A, U-S-A” reverberated, then would slowly dissipate. But when someone started pounding on snare drums, the “U-S-A, U-S-A” cries of jubilation revved up again like a race-car engine. Many sang the “Star-Star-Spangled Banner” and “Hey, hey, goodbye”, and chanted “One, two, three strikes, you’re out.” This night was reminiscent of when major universities, such as a North Carolina or a Connecticut, win the euphoria that’s called March Madness.

There were people with dogs, people on bicycles, people sitting on top of sculptures in the park and people simply just releasing pent-up emotions.

However, Andrew, who works at a Washington hotel, offered a more measured tone in responding to the news of bin Laden’s demise.

“I don’t know how I feel about this, to be honest,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s right to celebrate death like this.”

Still, the overwhelming sentiment in this human sea was that “it finally happened.”

As Sylvia Hall, a retiree from Jackson, Miss., visiting her daughter here, so vividly expressed: “I think it’s great. I’m glad people here have such passion for freedom.”

A passion that was on display in full force on this first night in May.

By Gregory Clay: McClatchy-Tribune

(202) 629-1365, (202) 383-6091 and (202) 550-5196   gregoryclay6@gmail.com

or ImaginePublicity at 843.808.0859  

Legendary Sports Broadcaster, Jack Buck, Answers September 11 Question for America

Originally published September 11, 2011 Pantagraph

On the night of Sept. 17, 2001, legendary sports broadcaster Jack Buck approached a podium on the field at St. Louis’ Busch Stadium and asked a most simple question: “I don’t know about you, but, as for me, the question has already been answered: Should we be here? Yes!”

In that seminal moment, the crowd went into a Monday night frenzy of approval. Buck, wearing a bright Cardinal red jacket and fraught with frailness from battling the debilitating effects of lung cancer and Parkinson’s disease, answered a query many Americans had wrestled with for the previous six days.

“Should we play?”

Sports and games had taken a back seat in the wake of the brazen terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in Manhattan and the Pentagon in northern Virginia on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001.

With his declaration, Buck became the unofficial, but respected, face of sports in the aftermath of tragedy. Buck, quite adroitly, unilaterally ended a national current of American ambiguity.

Remember the circumstances: Many people thought sports, especially the NFL and major league baseball, should have allowed more time for a shocked and wobbly nation to mourn; others said play the games, we need a distraction. Still others were undecided. Heck, perhaps the NFL should have just canceled the remainder of a season that had just completed its first weekend slate. And perhaps major league baseball should have at least postponed its final three weeks of the regular season and the playoffs to a much later date.

Were six days off for the two key pro sports of record really enough (there were no Sunday or Monday night NFL games that weekend)?

Well, Jack Buck gave us the answer in no uncertain terms.

Before Buck asked that famous question, he wrote a poem that he recited at the stadium that night.

Pete Rozelle, then commissioner of the NFL, roiled through an internal debate on whether to play games on the Sunday after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Friday, Nov. 22, 1963.

Two days after Kennedy’s death, the NFL played on …

… However, Rozelle went to his grave regretting that decision.

The closest confidant Rozelle had was President Kennedy’s press secretary, Pierre Salinger, who advised Rozelle to play the Sunday games. “Absolutely, it was the right decision,” Salinger said in Sports Illustrated. “I’ve never questioned it. This country needed some normalcy, and football, which is a very important game in our society, helped provide it.”

Obviously, there’s no right answer; there’s no wrong answer. Sometimes it comes down to a gut feeling. It’s all subjective, for sure.

That’s what makes Buck’s salient poem was so apropos:

“Since this nation was founded … under God,

“More than 200 years ago,

“We have been the bastion of freedom,

“The light that keeps the free world aglow,

“We do not covet the possessions of others,

“We are blessed with the bounty we share,

“We have rushed to help other nations,

“… anything … any time … anywhere.

“War is just not our nature,

“We won’t start . . . but we will end the fight.”

Jack Buck, with his eloquent and forthright style, told us so – 10 years ago.

A “Dream” Remembered: Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial

Originally published October 23, 2011 in The New Citizens Press

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Project Foundation dedicated a monument in his honor on the National Mall on October 16, 2011. It took five years to make the memorial that honors Dr. King and his life and his legacy.

The vision of a memorial in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. is one that captures the essence of his message, a message in which he so eloquently affirms the commanding tenants of the American Dream — Freedom, Democracy and Opportunity for All.

As a national monument honoring Martin Luther King Jr. opens in Washington, D.C., a look back at his legacy and his star power

During the turbulent decade of the 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was about the gleam — in the eyes, that is. He was about the cadence in his speech intonations — a rapper of social consciousness before Kurtis Blow, before Public Enemy, before Queen Latifah, that is. He was about “The Dream” — the iconic speech at the Lincoln Memorial on that sweltering afternoon of Aug. 28, 1963, that is. He was about the rhythm of the civil rights movement — played to the spirit of Motown and the serenity of Burt Bacharach, that is.

King was about star power. That means he knew how to captivate an audience in the palm of his hand on a hot, humid day when most Americans would rather just abandon the city for the beach. In other words, King was a minister by trade, an entertainer by necessity. And he garnered assistance from the best.

Harry Belafonte was in his corner; so were Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Charlton Heston, Gregory Peck, Lena Horne, Leonard Bernstein, James Baldwin. And that was before it was even cool to be associated with the movement.

Yes, we’re talking serious star power of the transcendent ’60s.

“When an artist showed up of the caliber of a Burt Lancaster or Marlon Brando,’’ actor-singer Belafonte recalled during “King,” a documentary hosted by former NBC News anchorman Tom Brokaw for the History Channel (now available on DVD), “people paid attention, and if they were anointing you with their approval, then that carried us a long way.”

Clayborne Carson is the founder and director of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University. He also is editor of the “MLK Papers Project,” which Coretta Scott King entrusted him with before her death. Contacted at Stanford, he explained that the celebrity/entertainment factor “added money to the movement; it provided access to a wider audience.”

Carson, who helped design the layout of the King Memorial on the four-acre site in Washington D.C., then poignantly noted the historical significance: “(President John F.) Kennedy and King were the first figures to tap into the Hollywood industry during the Cold War era. They both recognized the importance of it.”

King became the face — and voice — of the civil rights movement in this country as an idealistic minister at age 26 in 1955; he spearheaded the fight against the taut chains of customized segregation in the South; he implemented the principles of non-violence and civil disobedience gleaned from India’s Mohatma Gandhi for his own revolutionary U.S. movement; he, ultimately, stood tall as an erudite moral arbiter of our nation — and the greatest orator of our time.

Except, before most of those majestic accolades, then-25-year-old Coretta Scott thought he was too short. Before a “star was born,” Coretta initially wasn’t impressed with a young, 5-foot-6 King, but they eventually married in 1953.

Now, King has a holiday every third Monday in January and a memorial bearing his name on the National Mall, located near the President Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial, and not far from the Lincoln Memorial, which exhibits a subtle inscription identifying where King stood 22 steps up in ’63.

Says former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the “King” documentary: “This country was born with a huge birth defect — slavery. It really was not until the ’60s that America finally lived up to the principles on which it had been founded.”

On, King spoke in reverence in 1963:

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident — that all men are created equal. …
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. …”

It was a “Dream” sermon, but it arguably wasn’t his best speech.

During the ’60s, Belafonte used his fame to start what was loosely called the “New York delegation.” It was his job to make sure the stars came out. The “delegation” was a collection of entertainers and public figures who met at Belafonte’s New York home and gathered to support King’s cause. Bernstein, the legendary conductor-composer, was a “member”; so was world-renowned author Baldwin.

“It was my task to make sure that I had a strong celebrity core,’’ Belafonte explained in “King,” “that I had a lot of artists to bring validation to the table. King understood the great value in that.”

Legendary singer Sinatra, for one, staged fund raisers for King; regal actor Peck marched with King during several demonstrations; actors Belafonte, Heston and Sidney Poitier attended the March on Washington, as did singer-actress Horne; folk-music trio Peter, Paul and Mary sang at the March, and King wrote Davis a famous letter, thanking him for his support of the civil rights movement and acknowledging the integral power of entertainment. The letter, in part, stated, “Art can move and alter people in subtle ways because, like love, it speaks through and to the heart …”

When black actress Nichelle Nichols — also known as Lieutenant Uhura on television — was considering resigning from her TV role on “Star Trek,” King, himself a “trekkie,” implored her to stay: “Don’t you realize you have the first non-stereotypical role on television. Don’t you realize that not only for our own little black children but for people who don’t look like us, for the first time they will see us as equals,” according to Jet magazine.

King gave his last public speech on April 3, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn. We sensed both an eerie fatalism and a futuristic promise in what was his seminal “Mountain Top” speech.
In excerpt, King said that night:

“… Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place.

“But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the Mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land!
“And so I’m happy tonight.
“I’m not worried about anything.
“I’m not fearing any man!
“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!!”

The next night, April 4, 1968, King was struck by an assassin’s bullet in Memphis.

Has King’s legacy remained relevant the past 50 years or has it been rendered dormant, like a volcano?

As Bono, lead singer of the rock band U2, wondered during the “King” documentary: “Is he a historical figure or is he, in fact, a very present challenge to our way of seeing the world, because inequality and injustice are more pervasive now than they’ve ever been”

As Bono suggests, legacies are open to interpretation. But one aspect of King’s persona is finite, that is to say, in his own words, “The time is always right to do the right thing …”
And “only in the darkness can you see the stars.”

Symbolism Abounds

The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial is situated along the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C., among the famous cherry trees— a gift from Japan as a sign of peace and unity. Each spring, the season of hope and rebirth, the trees bloom with delicate pink and white flowers for two weeks, often coinciding with the anniversary of King’s assassination, April 4. During the summer and early fall, blooms from newly planted crepe myrtles will offer a colorful display and sense of enduring faith.

The symbolism doesn’t stop with the trees. The memorial’s address, 1964 Independence Ave., is a reference to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The site also creates a visual “line of leadership” from the Lincoln Memorial, where King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963, to the memorial honoring Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence.

The memorial’s sculpture also plays a symbolic role,

inspired by this line in King’s “Dream” speech: “With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.”

Visitors enter the site through a split boulder (the “mountain of despair”) to find a solitary stone (the “stone of hope”) from which King’s image emerges.

There also is a 450-foot long, crescent-shaped granite inscription wall containing 14 of King’s most notable quotes on justice, democracy, hope and love.

Celebrity Support

The entertainment community’s support for King didn’t end with his death in 1968. Entertainers have come out in
droves, donating their time and resources to help promote the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. This “Dream Team”
includes celebrities such as Muhammad Ali, Maya Angelou, Chris Brown, Laurence Fishburne, Harrison Ford, George Foreman, Whoopi Goldberg, Dustin Hoffman, Peter Max, Al Roker, Martin Sheen and Dionne Warwick.

The group held a series of “Dream Dinners,” as well as a “Dream Concert” at Radio City Music Hall, to raise funds for
the memorial. — MCT

MLK MEMORIAL

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.National Memorial
Opened: October16, 2011
Location: National Mall, Washington, D.C. The memorial is located across the Tidal Basin from the Jefferson Memorial.
Online: www.mlkmemorial.org

SOURCE: WWW.MLKMEMORIAL.ORG

By Gregory Clay: McClatchy-Tribune

(202) 629-1365, (202) 383-6091 and (202) 550-5196   gregoryclay6@gmail.com

or ImaginePublicity at 843.808.0859  for media interviews or commentary.

The Racial Politics of Basketball

Originally published March 18, 2011 Statesman

It’s become routine, an annual rite of spring. When the nation becomes engrossed in the NCAA’s hallowed basketball tournament, more commonly known as March Madness, we revisit a small, smug, aristocratic university nestled in the tall Carolina pines of Durham, N.C.

It’s an uncomfortable process but with a simple label: the politics of Duke.

The latest topic: Uncle Tom.

The background summary goes like this: On Sunday, ESPN aired a college basketball documentary called “Fab Five,” which focused on the five, groundbreaking and trend-setting super freshmen who started for Michigan in the early 1990s. ESPN commentator Jalen Rose, a member of that Fab Five ensemble, blurted during one segment: “I hated Duke and I hated everything Duke stood for. Schools like Duke didn’t recruit players like me. I felt like they only recruited black players that were Uncle Toms.”

Whoa, check the buzzwords, then follow the outcry.

Based on Rose’s logic, a Duke syllogism would go something like this: A) Duke recruits black players who are Uncle Toms, B) David Henderson is a black player.

Conclusion: “David Henderson is an Uncle Tom.”

Henderson grew up in a poor, rural county in North Carolina and reached his lifelong dream of playing basketball for Duke in the mid-1980s.

Now who is foolish enough to tell him to his face that he’s an Uncle Tom?

During March Madness of 2010, the hate escalated so much that Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski vehemently defended his program, saying, “We’ve got great kids that go to school, they graduate. If we’re going to be despised or hated by anybody because we go to school and we want to win, you know what? That’s your problem. …”

Duke is a great academic institution with one of the most idyllic campuses in the United States. That school undoubtedly has one of the five best medical centers in the world. That school is global.

All I know is that I am a North Carolina guy. But if Duke offered me a full scholarship for four years to play basketball, I would accept it. And those detractors could call me anything they wanted. They could use any words of denigration used by some black folk vs. other black folk: “Uncle Tom,” “house negro,” “knee-gro,” “Stepin’ Fetchit,” “Oreo,” whatever the hell they want to call me. I wouldn’t care. Which brings us to something else that’s in play here: the IRS.

That means “IntraRacial Stereotyping,” one of the most under-covered aspects of the black subculture by the general and national media. We don’t have to rely upon the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi types or other hate clowns to stereotype us anymore, because we have some facets of the black community that do it for us without provocation — and incessantly.

As Washington Post sports columnist Jason Reid so eloquently wrote: “In discussing the movie since its production, Rose explained his thinking has changed with maturity, but he seemed to hold firm to his flawed belief that the experiences of some African Americans are ‘more black’ than those of others. The premise, misguided as it is, asserts that academic achievement, professional accomplishment and affluence somehow reduces or eliminates a person’s ‘blackness.’ ”

It’s a question of authenticity. Many black people in this country believe that you are only “authentically black” if your roots are in the ghetto and you can’t conjugate a verb on the side. Therefore, if you live an American dream kind of life — you know, go to a nice college, procure a good job and speak the King’s English — then you suddenly lose your highly valued “black authenticity card.” And the only way to regain it is to act like a fool.

Yes, it sounds totally ridiculous and misguided, but it’s real.

I guarantee you if Duke recruited some black players who were hard-core head-cases like a certain number of other major colleges annually do, there would be a sudden bulge in black Duke fans across the nation. However, because the majority of Duke’s black players — a la Grant Hill, Seth Curry, Brian Davis, David Henderson, Shane Battier, Thomas Hill — act like they have some sense, it foments a form of warped resentment.

Strange but true. Some people say, “Well, these black guys act too goody-good.” The message, simplistically: A black guy can’t act like a good person to accumulate authenticity. He must be a Snoop Dogg or Lil Wayne or some other gangsta rapper to gain that oh, so important “street cred.” Could a Grant Hill gain that “street cred”? No, didn’t think so.

And there is the issue of the SQ: the “Sellout Quotient.”

Many in the black community are quick to label others as “sellouts.” Are you a sellout if you are a black person who squealed to the cops about another black person whom you witnessed commit a crime? Are you a sellout if you are a black male who marries a white female? Or a black female who dates a white male? Are you a sellout if you prefer Barry Manilow over Barry White?

So are you a sellout if you are a black basketball player at Duke? And that’s where Duke’s basketball program could suffer in terms of future recruiting. Suppose you are an urban, black basketball player from, say, Chicago, with high academic achievement in grades and extra-curriculum activities and a 1,100 SAT score. But you face a quandary: You have always been a fan of Duke basketball. But in the wake of this “social enlightenment” from a couple of clowns from the “Fab Five,” you ask yourself, “Would I be a sellout if I choose to play for Duke?”

You know that other schools in the Midwest, such as Marquette, have a long history of accepting black players from urban areas. What would you do as a player? What would you say as a black parent? The answer should be Duke if that’s your passion.

Also, as the hip-hop crowd would say, don’t hate but congratulate.

Better yet, especially if you are a black parent of an academically inclined star basketball player: Appreciate.

Young, Determined, Ready

Originally published June 18, 2011 Merced Sun-Star

OKLAHOMA CITY — God, they look so young.

And their idealism is utterly amazing, especially during a time when national cynicism and skepticism are racing at an all-time high among an often jaded and sometimes unforgiving American public. One soldier who graduated from nine weeks of basic training at Fort Sill in Oklahoma said he was 24 years old, married with three children. Except he didn’t look a day over 18. 

Another soldier was 19, another had just turned 20 and set to ship off to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio for Advanced Individual Training to learn his job as a medic for the next five months. A female soldier with Shirley Temple’s curly top was only 5-foot-3, 20 years old, with eyeglasses, replete with an unabashed eagerness to also learn medic duties.

This gaggle of U.S. Army uniforms, combat boots and bright eyes to match is armed with an unwavering hope coursing through their veins. They are young at heart but fiercely determined in mind.

You want determination? One bespectacled soldier, who just graduated the day before, was headed to San Antonio to learn his new craft: carpentry. He couldn’t wait to learn how to build military housing for soldiers abroad, or other structures such as schools, most likely in some war zone in some faraway place.

During the actual graduation ceremony at McMahon Auditorium in Lawton, Okla., newly minted soldiers sit at attention in the middle rows of the audience, hands palms down on kneecaps, staring straight ahead. They head to the graduation dais row-by-row at strict attention, announce their names via microphone and ultimately meet their commanding officers.

One soldier set to ship out for the next phase told me he had lost 40 pounds during the rigorous basic training. As he said, “When we are not working out, we are working out.” Many miles to run before you recite the “The Soldier’s Creed” on graduation day (usually held on Thursdays and Fridays at Fort Sill).

Another soldier told me the military, partly due to the weak economy with the uncertain jobs front, is a hot spot for young people these days. He said there is a waiting list of up to a year and a half for basic boot camp to join the Marine Corps; another soldier said the Air Force waiting list can be up to two years.

One newbie soldier who resembled former New York Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte said he eventually would be deployed to Afghanistan as a medic. He already knows this, he said. However, the clincher for me was when he said he would have volunteered for Afghanistan duty even if he weren’t ordered to go.

Why would anyone want to look forward to Afghanistan? I ask.

“Because that’s my job,” he says. “If I go to Afghanistan, that means at least one American will be safe at home, sir.” Another soldier chimed in, “Better me than you, sir.” OK, if you say so.

But why care about me, I ask. You don’t know me, never met me before this particular day, I suggest.

One of the soldiers asks me, “Where are you from, sir?” I respond, “Washington D.C., the nation’s capital.” He then asks another soldier standing nearby, “Where are you from?” The soldier says Pennsylvania.

He asks another soldier for his home state; she answers Iowa.

He asks the same of another soldier; he says Virginia.

Then, the fresh-faced soldier probably no more than about 5-foot-5 in height and just turned 20, responds, “See, sir, we are all Americans.” His message: We, as soldiers, are here to serve the United States of America. That means the American people. To preserve and protect.

Listening to these U.S. soldiers evoke such unfettered enthusiasm was both informative and enlightening. I haven’t heard such love for fellow (U.S.) man — and woman — since the terrorist attacks on Sept 11, 2001, when, in its aftermath, much of the country bonded, whether through fear, or a sense of loss or just plain goodwill. Both strangers and friends alike partook.

But what about the ultimate sacrifice. Suppose you become a casualty of war.

“We know what can happen,” one young soldier explains.

You know the deal? I ask.

“We know the deal, sir,” another soldier says convincingly.

Are you sure? “Yes sir,” he says without equivocation.

Enough said.

Ten-hut!