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When Statistics Speak: Reality checks from the black folks we talk about but rarely to

Diary of a (sorta) sanitation worker.

New York Times Magazine: After pimping, drug dealing and doing time, Ken Thigpen has settled into a life of keeping out of trouble, staying with Jewell Reed and being there for their son. But in a neighborhood where fathers are scarce and low-wage-earning men are often scorned, being a family man can get very lonely. (Note: I'll be on a Panel discussing the book this is based on September 22, 2004 at the Brookings Institution. Check my schedule for more info.)

BET NEWS SERIES "LOCKED UP, LOCKED OUT" LOOKS AT PAROLEES AND STRUGGLES AROUND VOTING IN 2004

New York, NY - They may well be the most forgotten block of voters in the electorate for the 2004 Presidential Election - prison parolees, individuals who have paid their debts to society for crimes of the past. Like so many, all they want to do is become contributing members in their local communities and exercise their constitutional rights. Some will finally have that chance in November, while others remain locked out by the political system.

Beginning Monday, August 23 at 11 p.m. ET/PT, BET NIGHTLY NEWS begins a five-part investigative series entitled "Locked Up, Locked Out," which looks into the lives of five successful African Americans who have struggled as parolees to regain a place among the voting populous in this pivotal political year. Award-winning CBS News journalist Randall Pinkston lends his talents as the narrator voice for the series. Among those subjects who can't escape the shackles of past transgressions is renowned actor, producer and director Charles "Roc" Dutton, who some 30 years following his parole for a manslaughter conviction still is not allowed to vote in his home state of Maryland.

"This series is a sobering and inspirational look at what some African Americans are facing as our nation prepares for the Presidential Elections this fall," said Heather Vincent Holley, Executive Producer for BET NIGHTLY NEWS. "Each featured individual in the series has rebounded from their crime conviction to become success stories as artists, business owners, writers and community activists. Yet the very system to which they pay taxes as citizens has either limited or outright denied a basic right of a democracy - voting."

The following is a schedule and synopsis of featured subjects for the BET NIGHTLY NEWS investigative series "Locked Up, Locked Out" beginning Monday, August 23 on BET (home towns in parenthesis):

Monday, August 23: Elaine Bartlett (Harlem, New York) - Bartlett served 16 years of a 20-years-to-life sentence on a first-time drug offense before being granted clemency by New York Governor George Pataki. Befriended by Village Voice reporter Jennifer Gonnerman, Bartlett has allowed her life story to become the subject of a new book "Life on the Outside" written by Gonnerman. The book chronicles the struggles that ex-convicts often face upon release back into society. In 2004, Bartlett will vote for the first time ever.

Tuesday, August 24: Jonathon Romain (Chicago, Illinois) - At age 24 and just two weeks following his college graduation, Romain was on the receiving end of a 15-year sentence for selling cocaine. Romain served seven years and was paroled in 2000. Having sharpened his art skills while in prison, Romain has now opened his fifth art gallery and counts actress Angela Bassett and local Chicago politicians among his clientele. Some of his works have sold for as much as $20,000. With terms of his parole now behind him, Romain will rejoin the voting ranks in November.

Wednesday, August 25: Shakoor Watson (Bedford-Stuyvesant, New York) - While serving eight years of a 12-year sentence for assault, Watson began cooking and baking in the prison kitchen. The skills he acquired led him to launch Shakoor's Sweet Tooth, which now exports his sweets and baked goods all over the country. Shakoor has also begun speaking at local high schools, prisons and after-school programs about his life experiences. Now age 45, Watson is eligible to vote this year for the first time since his parole 10 years ago.

Thursday, August 26: Jeff Henderson (Watts, California) - Drug charges landed Watts in prison for 10 years where he learned cooking skills. Since his release five years ago, Watts has lived in Las Vegas blossomed into one of the nation's top chefs and caterers. In 2001, Watts was named Chef of the Year by the American Food and Wine Tasting Federation. His dishes are well-renown in the entertainment world and in high demand among celebrities. Having fulfilled the terms of his parole, Watts is now a registered voter once again.

Friday, August 27: Charles "Roc" Dutton (Baltimore, Maryland) - He is one of Hollywood's most talented actors, producers and directors with more than 50 films and a successful television series to his credit. Yet in spite of his success and immersion back into society, Dutton remains outside America's political process. Convicted of manslaughter at age 17, Dutton still can't vote in his home state of Maryland some 30 years after his parole.

Check out the LA Times amazing series on day to day life in sub Saharan Africa.

Fraud's Fallout: What became of the workers of WorldCom?"

The Price of Parsimony, By ADRIAN NICOLE LeBLANC. "My anxiety about spending money reared up one day when I was walking down the aisles of a C-Town in the Bronx. I was a few years into the fieldwork for a book I was writing on inner-city poverty, living on less than a quarter of the salary I'd earned at my last proper job. That afternoon, I was trailing my book's main subject, Lolli, as she bought the month's groceries. She was a teenager, pregnant, homeless and already the mother of two children. Her young family subsisted on food stamps and vouchers from the federal subsidy program, WIC. The shield of my judgment rose when she passed right by the C-Town weekly discount flier and made her way down the dirty aisles with her shopping cart. She just grabbed things -- packs of chicken legs and pork chops, bags of sugar and rice, bottles of vegetable oil; in went cans of beans and tins of Spam. I stood, stunned, as she reached for the individual-portion cartons of juice -- with their brightly colored miniature straws -- ignoring the larger, economy-size bottles. No calculation of unit price, no can'ts or shoulds or ought-not-to's, no keen eye to the comparative ounce. By the time her stuffed cart reached the checkout line, my unease was turning into anger. Didn't she know she was poor?"

Cosby: Bourgeois Elitist or Teller of Hard Truths?

Anybody ever read the poetry of Gwendolyn Brooks? This one always stayed with me:

What Dr. Cosby is talking about is a disease that has reached epidemic proportions in the Black community. It's called anti-intellectualism.

Cosby isn't the first to go off on the Culture of Stupidity. So has Spike Lee and Chris Rock and Oprah Winfrey and Colin Powell and Magic Johnson and Charles Barkley and The Boondocks.

It's already hard enough to raise a chid positively in a world filled with so many negative stimuli. It's even harder when forces conspire to keep that child stupid.

Violent, misgyonist rap keeps black folks stupid. Celebration of pimp, thug, and being a sociopath culture keeps black folks stupid. Drugs, alcohol and too much greasy, starchy foods keeps black folks stupid. A steady diet of trash TV, no books, no computers, and no library cards keeps black folks stupid. Too much emphasis on immediate gratification, easy credit, and lack of fiscal discipline keeps black folks stupid. Too much emphasis on gold-capped teeth, $200 sneakers, tricked-out rides with the biggest rims, cell phones pressed to the ear, pit bull on a leash and pants hanging off the butt keep black folks stupid. Too much priority on being cool, getting paid and hustling instead of being smart keeps black folks stupid.

Dr. Cosby knows that as tough as the job market is in this global economy for White people it's ten times harder for Black people. Especially Black people who have a great color cell phone but no job to go to and put all their assets on their...posteriors...and have SUV's that cost more than the house they're parked in front of.

What "lower economic people" should take from Cosby's speech is that you can't get a job looking like you just walked off the set of a 50 Cent rap video. Not in 99 percent of workplaces in America. You can "keep it real" or you can break out that suit in the back of the closet you keep for funerals and weddings and get a job. That's what Cosby is talking about. As my father told me, "The world doesn't need as many strong backs and weak minds as it used to."

Society certainly has a role to play in the elimination of social inequality and lack of opportunity. But if a black kid has skills with a microphone in one hand and a basketball in the other are greater than his math, English and social skills he's probably going to emptying the wastebaskets of the Bill Gates of the world instead of becoming the next one. We live in a world where the biggest barrier to a black person's success is an inability to recognize the barrier is no longer there.

Was Cosby too harsh? Yes he was if the truth is harsh. If the truth is most of us aren't going to win American Idol, play point guard for the Lakers or become a mogul and Broadway star like P.Diddy. Most of us are going to have to get up, clean up and go get a crappy job doing something we hate for people we don't like. That is, if we haven't prepared ourselves for something else besides thinking about rings, material things and bling-bling.

Malcolm X said tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today. I doubt he meant slinging enough rocks to buy the new Air Jordans at Foot Locker.

The Reluctant Activist: One mother's unlikely education in New York's Rockefeller drug laws

More on Cosbygate here, here, and here.

Black America's Favorite Dad Gets Dumped

I thought that I'd offer another view on the Bill Cosby speech. I saw this the first time on The View. I tried to find the complete speech on the net but couldn't. I like to know what I am talking about before I open my mouth. When I saw it on your site, I felt the need to address it.

At first, I couldn't figure out why his comments rubbed me the wrong way. They are, to some degree, true. The problem here is motivation. Why did he make those comments? He is an extremely intelligent man and had to realize that his comments would be somewhat offensive to the "lower class". He could not have believed that some of "these people" would suddenly hear his comments and think "He talkin' 'bout me and my chiren. I'm gonna go get me some edjamacation, right now". He was speaking from a place of disgust. Whether or not it was justifyed is immaterial. It is not productive. So I ask again, what was his motivation?

You see, I could care less about what white people think of us. I do, however, care about solutions. I see kids everyday that are "knuckleheads" and sometimes I do think, "That's a shame". The difference is that I would never belittle them to their face because then I would never have a chance to be a positive influence in their lives. My credibility would be shot. Any successful person knows that you cannot build a bridge to someone by firing missles. Point being, his comments demonstrate a lack of concern. Millions of ears will now disregard everything he says because of a few thoughtless comments. There is a way to say everything. The way he chose is what my grandma would call "from his high horse". He said these things in a room full of "high polootin' folk". To get laughs? To share their mutual irritation with the poor? To further the stigma that already separates the black haves and black have-nots? Only he knows.

Let us assume for a moment that everything he said was correct (which I don't believe that it is), now what? It doesn't change anything. You and I both know that uplifting (for lack of a better word) black people is an in-house job. In order reach people, help them change, you must first attempt to show respect and thats whether or not they deserve it. Otherwise, you just flapping your gums. It is a fact of life, as anyone with a job, a professor, or a child knows. You said that the truth came out [Annotations May 21, 2004] and maybe it did. More importantly, so did unconcern, dismissal, arrogance, and disrespect to a whole class of people. We "lower class" may not "be all educated and stuff" but we know when someone is making fun of us. And we all might not be able to articulate it perfectly, but we know a judgemental bastard when we see one.

Mia W., is raising 4 children and working on an engineering degree in Virginia.

For more on Cosbygate: DeWayne Wickham of USA Today, Jabari Asim and Colbert King of The Washington Post, Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald, Bo Emerson of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and The New York Times. Best of all, here's the readers' comment page from the EURweb.