AIG’s Minority Racket

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

AIG ignited the national firestorm of rage with its shell out of $160 to $600 million in tainted bonuses to its tainted executives. But what has gotten almost no attention is a big reason that AIG had to stiff the government and everyone else. That’s the role that the company played in the subprime loan racket; a racket that hurt and still hurts tens of thousands of would be black and Latino homeowners.
The lender’s bait and switch tactics, the deliberately garbled contracts, deceptive and faulty lending, questionable accounting practices, and charged hidden fees, all with the connivance of sleepy-eyed see-no-evil oversight of federal regulators, are well known and documented. Their snake oil loan peddling wreaked havoc with thousands of mostly poor, strapped homeowners. A disproportionate number of them were Latinos and African-Americans.
Enter AIG. It saw a, treasure trove of fast buck riches in the subprime business. AIG dumped $33 billion into bonds and securities that were tied directly to subprime loans. This was nearly four times more than the next insurer, the German-based Allianz SE, had invested in the subprime loans. In fact, AIG was the only US based life insurer that had more than 3 percent of their general account assets in debts tied to subprime loans.
In early 2007 things started to unravel. AIG reported a first quarter loss of more than $2 billion in its subprime mortgage bonds. This set off the first warning bell that AIG could implode. Bond traders openly worried that AIG’s subprime securities losses could drag the market down. They had good reason to worry.
AIG is first and foremost an insurer. And in addition to its plunging bond and security holdings, the company also insured restructured subprime home bonds. The assumption by the subrprime bond holders was that the bonds would lose only a fraction of their value. But by then subprime defaults had piled up to a ten year high and the subprime lending market, that was all of it stocks, bonds and insurance, had badly frayed.


AIG’s stock had plunged 60 percent within the year. The top rating agencies, Moody's and Standard and Poor's, concerned over AIG’s continuing losses on subprime and other mortgage-backed securities, downgraded their credit rating. They demanded that company pay billions to creditors in order to bump back up their ratings. That was billions that AIG by then didn’t have.


AIG was clearly on a non stop down hill roller coaster ride, and many banks and lenders, were heading to perdition with them. AIG briefly flirted with the notion of filing for subprime mortgage lenders bankruptcy.
But there was a better deal to be had courtesy of a panicked then President Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. They shoved out tens of billions in cash in what turned out to be only the first installment of cash to save AIG’s hide.
We may never know the full extent of the financial damage that AIG caused in the subprime market. Nor how manyprospective minority homeowners suffered losses both financial and personal from the company’s greed. United for a Fair Economy, a public advocacy research group, in an in-depth study on sub prime lending estimates that the tab for minorities for the dubious blending practices runs to more than $200 billion in lost equity and income during the years AIG and the subprime bank lenders ran amok. The group called the home losses the most massive loss of wealth for African Americans in U.S. history.
The ultimate tragedy is that many blacks who were enticed by the lenders through their web of lies and deceit into taking the risky sub prime loans didn’t really need them. Data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act found that about 40 percent of the black subprime borrowers could have qualified for cheaper mainstream mortgages.
But that was the last thing that the subprime lenders, let alone AIG wanted. This would have taken a big bite out of their fantasy level profits. In the end those profits turned out to be a smoke and mirrors illusion just as the subprime illusion was.
AIG happily aided and abetted the banks and lenders in their decade long fast and loose play with the lending rules. Taxpayers are, of course, paying and paying dearly for AIG’s greed and malfeasance. But thousands of black and Latino hoped to be homeowners are also paying for that greed. AIG’s minority racket is yet another sorry chapter in the AIG saga.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).

Norris’s Nutty War on President Obama

Earl Ofari Hutchinson


Chuck Norris claims that thousands of right wing cell groups exist and will rebel against the U.S. government. It’s tempting to laugh away his vow to wage war against President Obama as either the crackpot ravings of a washed up Z grade martial arts actor. Or as a cheap promotional stunt to get his mug back in front of the cameras. Norris’s bellicose rants against Obama are nothing new and they have gotten wide play in a shrill horde of on line blogs and websites, including the popular right wing sounding board WorldNet Daily.com. Norris will culminate his holy war against Obama with a big recruiting pitch in a live telecast scheduled appropriately for Friday the 13th (March). He’ll call on thousands to “surround” Obama and the dark forces that seek to subvert God, country, and liberty.
Unfortunately, Norris will have plenty of recruits. Two weeks before he bellowed his anti-Obama tripe, the Southern Poverty Law Center once more sounded its own warning that hate groups are on the rise. There are now nearly a thousand of them, and they’re in just about every state. They aren't just the catalogue of usual suspects--- neo-Confederates, neo-Nazis, skinheads, Klansman, Aryan nation and Skinheads that exclusively roam around the Deep South. They’re all over. California leads the pack with nearly 100 identifiable groups. The Center fingered several dozen websites from the explicit Ihateobama.com site to groups with flag draped names like the sovereign citizen’s movement.
Then there’s the legion of sites that busily spewed anti-Obama venom before the election and haven’t missed a beat since.

AntiObama.net A Clockwork Obama AgainstObama.com AudacityOfHypocrisy.com BlockBarack.com ChicagoAgainstObama.com DiscoverObama.com DontVoteObama.net DrNObama.com ExposeObama.com InvestigateBarackObama.blogspot.com JewsAgainstObama.com JustSayNoDeal.com MeetBarackObama.com No-bama.blogspot.com NobamaNetwork.com NobamaZone.com NoExperienceNoChange.org NoQuarterUSA.net ObamaExposed.blogspot.com ObamaBlog08.com Obama-Wire.com Obamaism.Blogspot.com ObamaNation.com ObamaTruth.org ObamaWho.wordpress.com ObamaWTF.blogspot.com Obamology.blogspot.com SavagePolitics.com SlickBarry.com Stop-Obama.org TheRealBarackObama.wordpress.com TopShelf51.wordpress.com

The majority of the hate groups and the wacky anti-Obama websites are like Norris just hot air talk and delusional conspiracy stuff. They all hotly deny that they advocate violence. Yet, the number of hate crimes according to FBI statistics, and that’s real violent crimes, edged up to over 7000 in 2007. The number of these crimes has been fairly consistent since the FBI began compiling hate crime statistics more than a decade ago. They’re just the tip of the hate iceberg. Experts say the number of hate crimes could be ten times higher since most hate crimes go unreported.
But even that in itself might not be cause for alarm since most of the hate groups are well known, tracked, and when their members commit crimes are hit hard with federal prosecutions. It certainly would not be enough to give much credence to Norris’s crackpot call. That is if times were better. But when jobs and homes are lost, and there’s fear and uncertainty that things could get worse, the ruthless search for scapegoats—illegal immigrants, gays, Jews, blacks, and a history making president—are on with a vengeance. It takes little imagination to see that this could set off one emotionally unscrewed, gun culture obsessed looney. The murderous rampage by Alabama shooter Michael McLendon who was hell bent on wiping out a whole town was ample proof of that.
Norris, and the legion of other right side gassers and bloggers, mask their bigot tinged appeals to the mob with the usual wink and nod patriotic sounding code words, slogans, and phrases. In his WorldNetDaily columns, Norris tosses out gems such as the “second American revolution,” “new government,” the authority of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence,” “threat to religious freedom,” and “protect and save free enterprise” in his call for a citizen rising against President Obama.
The acidic dripping slogans just happen to be the same ones that stir the deep fury, hatred and resentment among a handful of the loose hinged malcontents and hate mongers. As has been amply documented, the thick list of fringe and hate groups as well as the hordes of unbalanced violence prone individuals running free in America can fill a telephone book. The long history of hate violence in America further is more than enough to raise the antenna on the danger of violence against prominent political figures.

Obama well knows the horrid violent history of America and the very real danger that violence poses to many Americans and especially a charismatic president who still energizes and excites millions and is determined to deliver on his promise of political change and implicitly racial change. The exact things that drives Norris nuts and many others that are nuts to cheer him.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).

The Limbaugh Strawman

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

First President Barack Obama stroked talk show kingpin Rush Limbaugh’s ego by proclaiming him the pied piper of the GOP. Next Republican National Chair Michael Steele showed some moxie and publicly told Limbaugh that he was the shot caller in the GOP. That didn’t last. In the next breath, he publicly pleaded for forgiveness from Limbaugh for his momentary pique. Then top Obama advisor Rahm Emanuel jumped in and lathered Limbaugh with praise and scorn as the boss of the GOP. Obama and Emanuel had an ulterior motive. They propped up Limbaugh as their straw man to tar the GOP as an antique, discredited, and obstructionist bunch of sore losers who will stop at nothing to derail Obama’s policies. Steele is just simply running scared of Limbaugh.
But in either case, they have done what Limbaugh couldn’t do for himself and that’s to wildly inflate his importance as the GOP kingmaker. Limbaugh got the kind of promotion that ad companies spend millions on for nothing. But it’s still nothing but hot air. Limbaugh hasn’t stopped one Obama staff or cabinet appointment, prevented one policy directive, executive order, or a single piece of legislation. That includes Limbaugh’s favorite target Obama’s economic stimulus bill. Heck, Limbaugh couldn’t even stop his arch nemesis, Al Franken, from bagging the Minnesota senate seat. Franken’s the guy who outrageously wolf ticketed Limbaugh as the big fat idiot, and then turned the wolfing into a best selling book.
Limbaugh’s rambling, long winded, rant at the Conservative Political Action Conference, complete with his confusion over what the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence say, was the topper. The crowd which was heavily white and male, lapped up every Limbaugh inanity. A stroll through the convention hall showed that the crowd’s Cloud Nine divorce from political reality was almost laughable. Every anti in America—taxes, gay rights, gun control, and government, as well as touting their darling Sarah Palin—was on display there. This does a lot to further seal the GOP’s lot as a party that is stepping fast toward becoming a self-marginalized, mean spirited, faded political entity.

This isn't the first time that the Obama team created and then punched away at a GOP strawman target. When Republican rival John McCain plopped Sarah Palin on his ticket, a top Team Obama member reflexively hammered Palin. Obama quickly realized that it was a colossal mistake. He did the smart thing and simply congratulated her on being picked as McCain's VP candidate and then went back to talking about the issues. He knew not to make her the issue. But the lesson hasn’t stuck in the case of Limbaugh.

By making Limbaugh bigger than life in American politics, it gives steam to his inflammatory campaign of rumors, half truths, distortions, and flat out lies about Obama, liberals, and now Steele. Limbaugh’s aim with Steele is to further cow the GOP into line; the line that forms behind him.


At the start of his tenure as RNC chair, Steele had the good sense to know that kowtowing to Limbaugh was a prescription for even bigger disaster for the GOP. He resuscitated the old Bush line circa 2000, and talked about making the GOP a party of big tent diversity. Then like Bush he promptly forgot it.

That’s exactly what Limbaugh with his conservative white man’s litmus test for the GOP wants. But that flies in the face of what Obama’s election triumph showed. That is that the country's fast changing ethnic vote demographics looks nothing like it did a decade ago. Black, Hispanic, Asian and Native American voters now make up nearly a quarter of the nation's electorate. College educated whites make up more than one-third of the vote. Limbaugh’s comfort zone voter demographic; white blue collar, heartland and deep South voters have shrunk to less than forty percent of the nation’s voters. Immigration, higher birth rates, and the youth trends will continue to swell the numbers of minority and youth voters. The white electorate overall will continue to decline.

It's not only the numbers that work against the GOP. It's also ideology. The Democrat's expanding core base of voters is more moderate, socially active, and pro government; the exact opposite of what Limbaugh rants for.
Obama, Emanuel, and Steele know this. The Democrats would not have won the White House and Steele would not have beat out a pack of mostly Limbaugh fawning contenders for the RNC top spot if that hadn’t been true.
Still, Limbaugh has one powerful tool to bully, badger and cajole the GOP and saber rattle Obama. That’s the airwaves. He’ll exploit it to the hilt. But that won’t make him the boss of the GOP let alone any real threat to Obama. It’ll just make him an inviting and convenient strawman.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).

The Murdoch Non-Apology

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

The day the New York Post sleazed its op-ed section with the vile, vicious, and veiled urge to violence cartoon against President Barack Obama this writer demanded that Post boss Rupert Murdoch issue this statement.
“The News Corporation pledges that the Post’s offensive cartoon will not be circulated, or reprinted, or syndicated. Further, we have zero tolerance toward racially insensitive and inflammatory cartoons or editorial depictions of African-Americans and other ethnic groups. Finally, we apologize for the Obama cartoon and pledge in the future that the Post and other Murdoch entities will hold to the highest standard of editorial sensitivity in our cartoons.”
Though it took a firestorm week of massive demonstrations, threats of a boycott, and an FCC license challenge (the Murdoch owned Fox Network), and a Mt. Everest sized stack of emails, letters, and faxes demanding the firing of Post management, Murdoch pretty much issued a statement that came close to what this writer demanded.
But that by no means closes the book on the sorry Post-Murdoch-Fox saga. It can, and probably will happen again. Start with Murdoch’s apology. There were three escape clauses buried in it. One is the self-serving, lame Post defense that the cartoon was just fun and games spoofery of Obama’s stimulus plan. The other is a rehash of the other Post editor’s fall back line that the cartoon was not meant to be racist. Murdoch’s final give the paper a pass defense was his declaration that the cartoon was “interpreted” as racist by “others.”
That’s not a whole heck of a lot better than the non-apology, apology Post editors issued a day after their public shellacking.


But even if Murdoch had made a sincere bare-the-chest heartfelt apology it wouldn’t amount to much. That’s the standard ploy that shock jocks, GOP big wigs, and assorted public personalities employ when they get caught with their racial pants down.
On a few occasions the offenders have been reprimanded, suspended, and even dumped. That won’t happen with the Post editors, or the offending cartoonist, and Murdoch gave absolutely no hint that anyone would be disciplined for the racial slander. There are two reasons why. They tell much about why the Post, Murdoch’s media empire, and shock jocks can get away with demeaning gays, blacks, Latinos Asians, Muslims, and women and skip away with a caressing hand slap.
One is that these guys ramp up ratings and that make media syndicates such as Fox and the Post’s cash registers jingle.


The other reason is that it’s virtually impossible to effectively muzzle cartoonists such as Sean Delonas and others that draw or talk race trash is the sphinx like silence of top politicians, broadcast industry leaders, and corporate sponsors.
Sharpton, Spike Lee, and a handful of local New York politicians led the charge against the Post, but that’s pretty much where it ended. The problem of the silence or perfunctory belated criticism by higher ups to racial taunts surfaced a few years ago following then Senate Majority leader designate Trent Lott’s veiled tout of segregation. It touched off a furor, and ultimately Lott stepped down from the post, but it took nearly a week for Bush to make a stumbling, and weak sounding disavowal of him. The silence from top politicians and industry leaders to public racism was even more deafening a few of years ago when former Reagan Secretary of Education William Bennett made his weird taunt that aborting black babies could reduce crime. Even as calls were made from the usual circles almost always blacks and liberal Democrats for an apology, or his firing from his syndicated national radio show, neither Bush or any other top GOP leader said a mumbling word about Bennett.

There’s another reason for their silence. The last two decades many Americans have become much too comfortable using code language to bash and denigrate blacks. In the 1970s, the vocabulary of covert racially loaded terms included terms such as "law and order," “crime in the streets," "permissive society," "welfare cheats," "subculture of violence," "subculture of poverty," "culturally deprived" and "lack of family values" seeped into the American lexicon about blacks. Some politicians seeking to exploit white racial fears routinely tossed about these terms.
In the 1980s new terms such as "crime prone," "war zone," "gang infested," "crack plagued," "drug turfs," "drug zombies," "violence scarred," "ghetto outcasts" and "ghetto poverty syndrome” were shoved into public discourse. These were covert racial code terms for blacks and they further reinforced the negative image of young black males as dope dealers, drive by shooters, and educational cripples. And the image of young black women as a dysfunctional collection of B’s and “hos,” welfare queens, and baby makers.
Obama is hardly exempt from this irresponsible race tinged character assault. The non-stop whisper and slander campaign against President Obama by packs of bloggers, talk jocks, and even a senator on the legitimacy of his US citizenship is a case in point.
The loud demands will continue that Murdoch back up his kind of sort of apology with real action. But he won’t. There’s simply too much money in racial trash talk (and cartooning), and too much silence from the higher ups that send a tacit signal condoning it. That silence is Murdoch’s ultimate trump card.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).

Mr. Murdoch Is Obama Really a Chimp?

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Mr. Rupert Murdoch it’s certainly no surprise to you that New York Post Editor-in-Chief Col Allan would hotly defend the racist Post cartoon comparing President Obama to a chimp. That’s what your shock and smut dealing Post is in the business of doing and it does it well. The idea of course is to get the tongues furiously wagging, get enraged emails, letters and phone calls pouring in, and then put forth the predictable defense calling this and other inflammatory cartoons a parody, a free speech right, and harmless spoofery. Allan didn’t stop there. He couldn’t resist the urge to take a swipe at Al Sharpton, branding him with the standard tag of race baiter and media hound for daring to call out the Post on the vile cartoon.

The furor might have drawn little more than a public yawn and shrug except for two two small points. One is the long, sordid and savage history of racist stereotyping of African-Americans. A few grotesque book titles from a century ago, such as The Negro a Beast, The Negro, a Menace to American Civilization, and the Clansman depicted blacks as apes, monkeys, bestial, and animal like. The image stuck in books, magazines, journals, and deeply colored the thinking of many Americans of that day.

Yes, Mr. Murdoch, it’s true that was a long time ago, and as Allan intimated in his lame defense of the Post cartoon, no sober person could seriously believe that anyone would liken the President or for that matter any black to a chimp. Unfortunately, a lot still do.

That’s the second small point about the Post cartoon. Post Cartoonist Sean Delonas could so casually and easily depict Obama as a monkey because that image didn’t die a century, half century, decade, or even a year ago. In fact, exactly a year ago, Penn State researchers conducted six separate studies and found that many Americans still link blacks with apes and monkeys. Many of them were young, and had absolutely no knowledge of the vicious stereotyping of blacks of years past. Their findings with the provocative title "Not Yet Human: Implicit Knowledge, Historical Dehumanization and Contemporary Consequences," in the February 2008 issue of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, was published by the American Psychological Association.

Please keep in mind Mr. Murdoch that the overwhelming majority of the participants in the studies bristled probably as undoubtedly you would at the faintest hint that they had any racial bias. But the animal savagery image and blacks was very much on their minds. The researchers found that participants, and that included even those with no stated prejudices or knowledge of the historical images, were quicker to associate blacks with apes than they were to associate whites with apes.

This was not simply a dry academic exercise. The animal association and blacks has had devastating real life consequences. In hundreds of news stories from 1979 to 1999 the Philadelphia Inquirer was much more likely to describe African Americans than Whites convicted of capital crimes with ape-relevant language, such as "barbaric," "beast," "brute," "savage" and "wild." And jurors in criminal cases were far more likely to judge blacks more harshly than whites, and regard them and their crimes as savage, bestial, and heinous, and slap them with tougher sentences than whites.

The Post cartoon, Mr. Murdoch, was the complete package. It depicted violence, death, brutality, incitement, and animal like imagery. The topper was the not so subtle inference that the target of the chimp depiction and more was an African-American male, namely President Obama.

In recent days, Mr Murcdoch you’ve dropped a hint or two that you want to put the word balance back into the vocabulary of those who run your media empire. You can start by issuing this statement.

“News Corporation pledges that the Post’s offensive cartoon will not be circulated, or reprinted, or syndicated. Further, we have zero tolerance toward racially insensitive and inflammatory cartoons or editorial depictions of African-Americans and other ethnic groups. Finally, we apologize for the Obama cartoon and pledge in the future that the Post and other Murdoch entities will hold to the highest standard of editorial sensitivity in our cartoons.”

You’ll issue that statement Mr. Murdoch if you are personally repelled by the comparison of President Obama to a chimp. That is so, right Mr. Murdoch?

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).

Obama The One Term President?

President Barack Obama had barely finished uttering the oath of office when the talk started that he would be a one term president. This political doomsday talk was chalked up to a few bored reporters looking for something contrarian to say about Obama, the deluded hopes of hard bitten, spoil sport conservatives for a failed Obama presidency, and a few naysayers among economists who repeatedly warned that economic collapse would do in a young, inexperienced president. The first two reasons to think Obama would get a quick boot can be easily shrugged off.

Tying Obama’s White House fate to public jitters over a hemorrhaging economy can’t be so easily brushed aside. Obama pretty much said as much in an interview on NBC’s Today Show two weeks after he was sworn in that if he didn’t deliver he’d be “a one term proposition.” This may not be a totally accurate prediction since in four years a foreign blow up, terrorist attack, cataclysmic natural disaster, a squabbling, headless, and discredited GOP and any of a number of other unforeseen things could make him shine. Any of them could just as easily be his ticket back to the White House. Still, the rise or fall of the economy is the only thing for now that anyone seems to think matters.

Obama has smartly hedged his bets on judging his presidency on the speed of an economic turnaround by repeatedly damping down expectations that economic recovery is just around the bend, and that he can wave a magic wand and make the economic pain instantly disappear. Obama’s pleadings, warnings, and cautionary notes are his back door admission that Americans want and demand that he do something, and do it now to reverse the economic slide, and that there’s little margin for error, and none for failure, if he doesn’t.

Recent presidential history amply shows that the public is brutally unforgiving when the man in the White House doesn’t immediately turn things around. In a look at how six of eight presidents fared since 1948 when the economy hit the skids or appeared to skid, the scorecard for presidents winning and losing because of economic woes is a draw. Three were beaten and three beat back their challengers. It came down to whether voters really perceived that their economic plight, or rather pain, would show no sign of a cure if they kept the incumbent in office. But even more important presidents had to do one crucial thing in the face of rising unemployment, recession, inflation, and public grumbles if they wanted to stay on the job. They had to assure a majority of voters that things would and could get better for the voters if they stayed in the White House and that any likely opponent couldn't do any better.

Presidents also had to have a lot of luck. W. Bush had that in 2004. He won reelection in part because memories were still fresh of the 9/11 terror attack. Bush adroitly played the terror card and convinced enough voters that he could beat back any new terrorist threat. But hard times, plant closures, farm foreclosures, and high unemployment even then had gripped big sections of the Midwest and as Democrats gleefully noted, growth was much slower during Bush’s first term than during Clinton's second term.

Yet Bush also won in big part because overall unemployment and economic growth had slightly improved in the run up to the 2004 election. Bush used this to spin the news, even bad economic news, into a gain. He solemnly pledged there would be more economic improvement for voters if he was reelected. That didn’t work for Republican rival John McCain in the make or break wind down months to the 2008 campaign. The financial plunge in September virtually sealed his loss.

Obama relentlessly painted a stark, grim and scary picture for workers and the middle class that the crash was Bush’s doing and by extension McCain’s doing. He masterfully sold the idea that things would only get worse if McCain was elected. He directly linked the perceived failure of Bush to right the nation’s economic ship to McCain. And that McCain’s policies would result in still bigger deficits, the prospect of even greater inflation and a more intense recession. Obama made voters believe that Republican economic policy would not promote recovery and economic security but increase economic pain for millions of wage earners; put bluntly economic collapse.

Obama has literally bet the bank that that the economic stimulus will turn the economic tide. Packs of Republicans and not a few economists warn that it won’t. A few such as Rush Limbaugh even hope that it won’t.
Economic failure alone may not spell a one term presidency for Obama. But economic success, even the perception of success, will help insure that Obama won’t be another Jimmy Carter.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).

Octuplet Mom Reinforced Single Mother Stigma

Earl Ofari Hutchinson


In her NBC interview Octuplet mom Nadya Suleman was irked at getting pounded for being a single mother with fourteen kids. Or in her words, "it's not as controversial because they're couples so its more acceptable." She had good reason to be irked, but she should be irked at herself too for doing much to reinforce that stigma. For the past half century single mothers have been ritually dumped on by everyone from liberal sociologists to Christian fundamentalists and even self-promoting gabber Ann Coulter. They are the fall women for every real and perceived malady in society; poverty, crime, drug use, personal profligacy, welfare dependency, bad acting, and even worse performing students, and of course, family breakdown.

As for Coulter, she got hammered for beating up on single mothers in her new book while letting the guys who shove the women into single motherhood skip away scot free. This was more a hit against Coulter than a real defense of single mothers. The perception is just too deeply ingrained that single mothers create babies and problems for a momentary attack on Coulter to change that perception.

Suleman is naive, in denial, or blind to the power of the negative single mom image to think that her pleading for the bashers to knock it off will fall on anything but the tinnest of tin ears. If anything, having eight babies, on top of six, and then hinting that her over the top baby making is a good thing without a prospective father sighting anywhere, fuels public wrath over the folly of babies and single mothers even more. But leaving aside questions of moral right, ethical propriety or even Suleman’s legal responsibility, all have been hotly debated, the truth is that single mothers do not cause a terrible society, but do fare terribly in society.
And there are a lot of single mothers. At last count nearly 40 percent of children are born out of marriage. In the majority of those cases the mothers will stay that way. The figures for lower income black and Hispanic women almost all Suleman’s age or a decade or even decades younger than her are far greater than for unmarried white mothers. The number of single mothers are inching up after a decade long drop from the mid 1990s to 2005.

The demographic of who gets pregnant and is single is predictable They’re young, have multiple births, are non college educated, or even high school educated, and invariably poor. In their, Child Wellbeing Study, Princeton University researchers tracked 5,000 single mothers in who are charitably called Fragile Families. The women gave birth between 1998 and 2000 and all claimed that they wanted to get married.

The wish didn’t get any further than a wish. In a follow-up survey, most did not get married and a fair share of them had more babies by multiple partners. They had done little to improve themselves educationally or boosted their income. The Princteon findings are not unique. This reinforces the belief that single mothers are inherently doomed to wallow in poverty and want, and that their children are doomed to be congenital gang bangers, drive by shooters, and drug peddlers and jail and early cemetery fodder.

Many single mothers swear as Suleman has that they will be good, devoted and loving mothers and that they will be able to foot the bill for their children’s care and upbringing. That’s not a small point in the furor over single mothers. The prospect that Suleman who’s not only a single mother but an unemployed single mother who filed workers compensation claims, bankruptcy, and had a mountain of debt, might put the state (taxpayers) in hock for the medical care and treatment of the octuplets drew loud howls of protest.

This is not a totally unfair concern. Kaiser Hospital shelled out a reported cool million for delivery, treatment, and care costs for the octuplets. Few single mothers, and that certainly includes Suleman, have a prayer of paying this cost out of pocket. Suleman gave no indication that she had a clue that someone else will have to pay the staggering cost of their ongoing care.

This is not to pass moral judgment on Suleman’s act, legions have already done plenty of that. Suleman may well prove her scoffers, bashers, and revilers all wrong. She may find a way to pay the freight for all 14 children, provide them with a warm, stable and loving home, and even stroll down the aisle with a mate. This would transform her from the poster single mom for irresponsible induced baby making to a true American motherhood success story. She would hardly be the first single mother to become a productive, paragon of achievement. Anything is posssible.
Whatever happens, Suleman was right that single mother’s do unfairly get beat up on for creating societal’s ills. Unfortunately Suleman insured that the beating will continue.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).

Why Many Think Obama has to be Better Because He’s Black

Earl Ofari Hutchinson



A recent CNN poll seems to confirm what a majority of African-Americans and a significant percent of whites seem to think or at least say. And that’s that President Obama will have to be better because he’s black. Translated this means that at Obama’s first real or perceived screw up there will be howls that that’s what you get when you plop a black into any position that requires a brain and skill. The undercurrent that courses through this warped race tinged view of why blacks are expected to fail is that they are plopped in an important spot because of affirmative action or unexpunged white guilt, and they’re grossly unqualified for it.

These screwy reasons ignore the savvy, ability to think, preparation, or education that get African-Americans top spots in corporations, universities, and politics. Obama certainly had the right stuff to bag the biggest political prize of all, the presidency. The great what if, though, is would former President W. Bush have bagged the grand prize if he had been black? The CNN poll doesn’t answer that but some have set a bar virtually nonexistent for a mediocre white politician ridiculously high for Obama.

Obama is well aware that the old racial double standard rule might apply to him too and that he will be under torrid public glare; more torrid that any presidential candidate in campaign history. And there will be packs of voters who hope, even pray that he flops. Race is the only reason many of them wish that. Surveys during the campaign found that even some of the most passionate Obama backers did racial gymnastics and separated their man from other blacks. They raved about his political genius, hailed him as the one to lead the country out of the Bush morass. Yet many still said that blacks were more crime prone and less industrious than whites. A month after Obama’s triumph not much had changed. A long term study of racial attitudes by the National Academy of Sciences found that a significant percent of Americans still saw color as the major factor in determining who committed crime and who was most likely to be poor.

Obama acknowledged the racial wariness of some near the beginning of the campaign when he said that there were some who would not vote for him because he’s African-American. He said the same thing again albeit more subtly in his triumphant speech on Election Night in Chicago’s Grant Park when he said that he wanted to reach out to those who did not vote for him(accept him).

During the campaign the political stars aligned for Obama as they did for no other Democratic presidential candidate in a decade and a half. There was massive public fatigue from Bush policies, rage at Republican corruption and ineptitude, an SNL laughingstock vice presidential candidate, and a catastrophic financial meltdown and crumbled economy. There was also Obama’s backward stretch to keep race out of the campaign. The only time he dealt with the issue was to damp down public unease over the inflammatory racial tirades of his former pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Despite all the towering political pluses he had, a majority of whites and that included a narrow percentage of young whites did not vote for him

But the presidential campaign is now a fast fading memory. The big concern for most Americans no matter whether they backed Obama or not is can his policies work? This doesn’t mean that racial stereotypes, open and closeted, have magically vanished. He’s in the bare embryonic stage of his presidency, and few are willing to say anything about his style or program that can be remotely seen as having a hidden racial animus. It’s simply politically incorrect and crass to hint or infer that Obama is not up to the weighty task of governance. Even GOP hard bitten conservative William Bennett publicly but lightly rapped talk show kingpin Rush Limbaugh on the knuckles for allegedly wishing that he wants Obama to fail.

The true test, though, will come when Obama makes a real or perceived foreign policy or domestic issue stumble or takes a stance on an issue that angers his opponents. Obama will be lambasted for that. All presidents are. Criticism is a part of the job; it comes with the political turf. Presidents know that, expect that, and should even welcome positive criticism. The difference is that America has never had a black president who has had to bear the brunt of criticism for missteps or policy blunders. Obama is the first. There are two kinds of criticism Obama will get. One is leveled based solely on whether his policies and decision making help or harm public interests. The other comes with a sneaky racial motive. Obama sadly will get both.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009). http://www.learnhowobamawon.blogspot.com

President Obama It’s now safe to talk about Civil Rights

Earl Ofari Hutchinson
See http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/civil_rights/

President Barack Obama lists “Civil Rights” as the first item under his “Agenda” on his White House website, whitehouse.gov. He pledges to end gender and race based pay disparities, push through the Fair Pay and Employment Non-Discrimination Acts, harshly penalize voter fraud, outlaw racial profiling by federal law enforcement agencies, provide financial incentives to local and state police to ban racial profiling, and to dump the race tinged drug sentencing disparities. Obama also promises to push through Congress the long stalled Matthew Shepard Act. This markedly expands hate crime prosecutions. None of these things are really new.
Obama pledged to take swift action on hate crimes, voting rights, employment discrimination, and the repressive drug laws on his campaign website. Yet they never got off the campaign website and were virtually non existent as campaign talking points.
Candidate Obama’s reluctance to talk much about his civil rights agenda on the campaign trail was a calculated political move. Talk of civil rights has been taboo in all recent America presidential races. It seeps into presidential debates only when a Democratic or Republican presidential contender or president snatches the issue to assure middle class voters that he will not tilt toward or pander to minorities or to race bait their opponents.
In a 1988 debate, Bush Sr. slammed Democratic contender Michael Dukakis as being soft on crime for allegedly letting black convict Willie Horton roam free to commit rape and murder. Bill Clinton used Jesse Jackson as a foil to assure middle class voters that he would fight just as hard as conservative Republicans to protect their interests. In one of their debates in 2000, Bush and Democratic rival Al Gore clashed over affirmative action. Both were intent to distance themselves from the issue.

Obama knew that talk of civil rights invariably translates out to talk of race. This was a minefield that could blow up at any time and the explosion could mortally wound his candidacy. The endless TV sound loop of his former pastor Jeremiah Wright’s inflammatory racial tirades in the midst of his fierce primary battle with Hillary Clinton sent momentary shell shocks through the campaign. It forced Obama to scramble fast and do damage control. The Wright flap guaranteed that race would not be even a vague utterance during the remainder of the campaign.


While presidential candidate Obama had to observe the rules of political expediency to win the White House, President Obama doesn’t. Obama’s political capital account is bulging. His public approval is sky high. And he has the bully pulpit of the White House. He can not only talk about civil rights issues with no risk of backlash but act on the agenda that he laid out on his campaign website and now highlights on his White House website.

The need for action is greater than ever. In its annual State of Black America reports the past decade, the National Urban League repeatedly warned that blacks are less likely to own their own homes, die earlier, are far more likely to be jailed disproportionately and receive longer sentences, receive less or poorer quality health care and earn far less than whites. They attend failing public schools, and are more likely the victims of racially motivated hate crimes than any other group.

The report also found rampant discrimination and gaping economic disparities between Latinos and whites. In the past decade, the income, and education performance gaps between blacks and Latinos and whites have only marginally closed, or actually widened. Discrimination remains the major cause of the disparities.

Shunting civil rights to the back burner of presidential campaigns almost always meant that once in office presidents shunt them to the backburner of their legislative agenda. Yet, presidents have not been able to tap dance around racial problems. Reagan's administration was embroiled in affirmative action battles. Bush Sr.'s administration was tormented by urban riots following the beating of black motorist Rodney King.
Clinton's administration was saddled with conflicts over affirmative action, police violence and racial profiling. W. Bush's administration was confronted by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, voting rights, reparations, and affirmative action battles, gang violence, and failing inner city public schools. By ignoring, or downplaying these issues until they burst into flashpoints of national debate and conflict, presidents have been ill prepared to craft meaningful legislation and programs to deal with them.
Obama is way ahead of the policy curve on this. He’s already spelled out what needs to be done on civil rights, but why it must be done. During the first 100 days, he will be watched more intently than any other president in recent history to see how effectively his administration deals with crisis problems from the Iraq War to the economy. The crisis problems of racial disparities and poverty, however, are no less compelling. President Obama it’s now safe to talk about civil rights.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).

White House Civil Rights Agenda
http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/civil_rights/

"The teenagers and college students who left their homes to march in the streets of Birmingham and Montgomery; the mothers who walked instead of taking the bus after a long day of doing somebody else's laundry and cleaning somebody else's kitchen -- they didn't brave fire hoses and Billy clubs so that their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren would still wonder at the beginning of the 21st century whether their vote would be counted; whether their civil rights would be protected by their government; whether justice would be equal and opportunity would be theirs.... We have more work to do."
-- Barack Obama, Speech at Howard University, September 28, 2007

President Barack Obama has spent much of his career fighting to strengthen civil rights as a civil rights attorney, community organizer, Illinois State Senator, U.S. Senator, and now as President. Whether promoting economic opportunity, working to improve our nation's education and health system, or protecting the right to vote, President Obama has been a powerful advocate for our civil rights.

Combat Employment Discrimination: President Obama and Vice President Biden will work to overturn the Supreme Court's recent ruling that curtails racial minorities' and women's ability to challenge pay discrimination. They will also pass the Fair Pay Act, to ensure that women receive equal pay for equal work, and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity or expression.
Expand Hate Crimes Statutes: President Obama and Vice President Biden will strengthen federal hate crimes legislation, expand hate crimes protection by passing the Matthew Shepard Act, and reinvigorate enforcement at the Department of Justice's Criminal Section.
End Deceptive Voting Practices: President Obama will sign into law his legislation that establishes harsh penalties for those who have engaged in voter fraud and provides voters who have been misinformed with accurate and full information so they can vote.
End Racial Profiling: President Obama and Vice President Biden will ban racial profiling by federal law enforcement agencies and provide federal incentives to state and local police departments to prohibit the practice.
Reduce Crime Recidivism by Providing Ex-Offender Support: President Obama and Vice President Biden will provide job training, substance abuse and mental health counseling to ex-offenders, so that they are successfully re-integrated into society. Obama and Biden will also create a prison-to-work incentive program to improve ex-offender employment and job retention rates.
Eliminate Sentencing Disparities: President Obama and Vice President Biden believe the disparity between sentencing crack and powder-based cocaine is wrong and should be completely eliminated.
Expand Use of Drug Courts: President Obama and Vice President Biden will give first-time, non-violent offenders a chance to serve their sentence, where appropriate, in the type of drug rehabilitation programs that have proven to work better than a prison term in changing bad behavior.

How Obama Won

Reviewed by David Hurley

As a student of Success University, I spent a lot of my time last year thinking about "the principles of success"... Meanwhile, one of the biggest "success stories" of our time was being played out... There is today no greater exemplar of "success mentality" than the man who is about to be inaugurated as America's first black president.

But how, exactly, did Obama do it?

Political analyst, Earl Ofari Hutchinson, has the answer in his new book, launched today, and appropriately titled, How Obama Won.

How Obama Won unravels the key issues, the big events, the process behind the politicing, the pressures and controversies that affected Obama's presidential campaign.

Hutchinson reveals how Barack Obama responded to the challenges he faced on his historic journey to the White House through the ups and downs of the 2008 presidential campaign.

Purchase a copy here, in e-book or print versions.

Here are some of the questions that How Obama Won addresses:

What impact did race and gender have on the campaign? What was the thinking behind the campaign strategy? Who were the key players behind the campaign? How have the Democratic and Republicans parties changed?

What impact did blacks, whites, Hispanics, women, young people, blue collar workers have on the result? What was the role of corporate and special interests in the election?

And, finally, what does the result mean to America and the world?

In How Obama Won Hutchinson explains that "race" was not such a key factor in Obama's victory and the war in Iraq and terrorism were not the most prominent concerns of the voters.

What struck me as clever about Obama's "Change is coming to America" message was that merely by winning the election Obama had indeed "changed America" - even if his policies do not actually bring fundamental change to American society... Now we know that a black candidate can become president; in that sense everything has changed (and nothing has changed).

Earl Ofari Hutchinson assesses whether Obama's honeymoon will be short lived or not.

The massive problems he faces with the recession, the financial crisis, conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan are compounded by the high hopes he has whipped up among the American public for "change"...

In How Obama Won Hutchinson explains what Obama needs to do in order to avoid massive disappointment.

David Hurley is an author, entrpreneur and publisher of numerous articles on internet marketing success strategies.

How Obama Won is available in both book and e-book form. Find out more, and listen to Nikki Leigh chat with Earl Ofari Hutchinson about the book here:
http://www.learnhowobamawon.blogspot.com

Obama Does and Doesn’t Fulfill King’s Dream

Earl Ofari Hutchinson


The unchallenged article of faith is that the election of President Barack Obama fulfills Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream that the content of character should trump skin color. King uttered the words in his March on Washington speech in 1963. We’ll hear that said time and again in the march up to the King national holiday January 19 and Obama’s inauguration the next day.
Obama’s election did show that millions of whites could strap racial blinders around their eyes and punch the ticket for an African-American for the world’s most powerful political post. King would almost certainly glow with approval at that. But there are a couple of troubling caveats that mar America’s great racial leap forward. Obama won in large part because he did what no other Democratic presidential candidate did, and that includes Bill Clinton. He turned his presidential campaign into a virtual holy crusade by African-Americans voters to get him in the White House. The staggering 96 percent of the black vote he got made the crucial difference in the key Democratic primaries and later in nailing down the victory over Republican rival John McCain in the must win states of Ohio and Pennsylvania.
At the same time, Obama’s allure to white college educated young, business and professionals was overstated. McCain got 53 percent of their vote. He trounced Obama among North and South rural, and blue collar whites. Obama won in only 44 counties in the Appalachian belt, a stretch of more than 400 counties from New York to Mississippi. Overall, he got less than a third of Southern white votes. The racial fault lines are still tightly drawn within a wide segment of the electorate.

A mid-September 2008 survey also found that a significant percentage of whites who said they’d vote for Obama also said that blacks were more crime prone and less industrious than whites. There were several ways to look at this seeming racial paradox. One is that these Obama backers were so fed up with Bush policies and a battered economy that Obama offered a change and a lifeline. Another was that he presented a race neutral soothing departure from the perceived race baiting antics of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. And yet another was that he simply was sufficiently racially ambiguous enough not to pose any real racial threat.
In other words, he was seen as a racial exception. That's the penchant for some whites to make artificial distinctions between supposedly good and bad blacks.
These explanations don’t point to a profound and benign sea change in racial attitudes let alone tell why negative racial notions could still be rife among many white Obama supporters. The reports that Obama has received more taunts and physical threats than any other president-elect is another troubling indication that an untold number of Americans still can’t stomach the thought of an African-American in the White House.

The hoisting of Obama to a rarified political or non racial pedestal is the exact opposite of what King had in mind. In that same March on Washington speech what’s forgotten or deliberately distorted is that King talked much about the legacy of segregation, bigotry and discrimination that trapped thousands of poor blacks and that offered no easy resolution. Nearly a half century after King’s I Have a Dream words the black poor are still just as tightly trapped in the grip of poverty and discrimination that King warned about.

On the eve of the King national holiday and Obama’s inauguration, the Boston based research and economic justice advocacy group, United for a Fair Economy, released its sixth annual King Day report. It found that the gaping disparities in income, wealth, employment, quality and availability of housing, decent schools, and health care between blacks, minorities and whites has grown even wider. Countless government reports and studies, and the National Urban League’s 2007 State of Black America report also found that discrimination and poverty are still major barriers for millions. And it’s not just the black poor that bear the brunt of discrimination. President Bush even wondered out loud recently why there were so few black reporters covering his press conferences.
Obama has publicly bristled at the notion that the civil rights movement is outdated, or worse that he somehow supplants the ongoing work of civil rights leaders. He has repeatedly praised past civil rights leaders for their heroic battle against racial injustice.
It was not simply showy campaign symbolism when Obama pegged his Democratic presidential nomination acceptance speech to the 45th anniversary of the March on Washington last August. This was a fitting tribute to the civil rights movement that challenged the nation to make King's dream of justice and equality a reality. Obama faced that challenge as a community organizer, civil rights attorney, during his stints in the Illinois legislature and in the Senate. He faces that same challenge in the White House. There’s still much to overcome.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).

Notorious: Was B.I.G really that influential to deserve a biopic?

Fanon Hutchinson

"The most important film of our time" goes the tagline for the new biopic "Notorious” which is the story of the life and death of slain rapper Notorious B.I.G. aka "Biggie Smalls." Really? This is a more important film than Malcolm X? And it’s more important than the films about Martin Luther King or films such as "Cry Freedom" or "The Great Debaters?" I don't even think it’s the most important Hip Hop movie. What about Krush Groove or Beat Street?

I’ve loved hip hop since I first heard "Rock Box" by Run-DMC in the early 80's. From the era of Run-DMC, Kurtis Blow, the Sugarhill Gang, the Whodini, Fat Boys, LL Cool J, the Beastie Boys in the mid-80's. In the late 1980s it was the EPMD, Boogie Down Productions, Eric B. & Rakim, Public Enemy, NWA, the Tribe Called Quest, De la Soul, Queen Latifah, Compton's Most Wanted, and Dr. Dre. They are the legitimate pioneers of rap and hip hop.
Now granted, I can't stomach much of what passes as Hip-Hop nowadays as it seems like it’s geared more towards a segment of the population that wear "skinny jeans" and Mohawk hair styles. In other words most of the stuff nowadays is more for little kids and adolescents.
This brings me back to “Notorious.” His entire career can be confined to two albums. TWO ALBUMS! The first album was "Ready to Die." This album is labeled as a classic but I would have to disagree. Can you really compare it to Public Enemy's "It takes A Nation of Millions." or to Ice Cube’s "Death Certificate" or a Tribe Called Quest’s "Low End Theory?"

These albums defined a generation and helped to revolutionize the way Hip-Hop was viewed. These albums made you think as well as made you move. While all three of these albums are as different as Obama is to Ronald Reagan they are lyrically and musically on point. "Ready to Die" is mostly filled with the usual tales of hustling, sex, standard rap braggadocio and party songs. It is no different than anything that has come before it. The only thing that set this album apart is the beats, which deviated from the mid 90's grimy east coast sound which permeates throughout the albums of such New York artists as Wu-Tang Clan, Black Moon, and Onyx. But this is more attributed to P Diddy and his Hitmen production team and not Biggie himself.

Biggie's first album did showcase a sort of hard-luck case who was able to pull himself up out of a bad situation and become a winner. This could have been inspirational to a lot of people but the whole rags to riches story was nothing new or innovative and neither was the whole "I had to sell drugs to feed my daughter" song and dance which was supposed to make his actions seem honorable without any remorse on his part. At least, when NWA or Ice T. told a tale of drug hustling there was some kind of repercussions within the song. On Biggie’s second album "Life after Death" the content remained the same as the first album except now the tone was less bleak now that he had made it. There were less hard luck songs and more "lets party, drink champagne, and bone random chicks" songs. He even had the good sense to include a how-to song on the rules of selling drugs (the Ten Crack Commandments. This is just what black youth need). However there are a few notable songs contained on "Life after Death" such as "Notorious Thugs" which pairs Biggie with the rapid fire delivery of Cleveland rap quartet Bone Thugs & Harmony and even showcases Biggie impressively going toe to toe with the nimble tongued Bone group.

I don't think that Biggie is without talent. On the contrary I think he is a very talented wordsmith. But to label him as "the greatest rapper of all-time" as a lot of people has done is a slap in the face to all the great emcees that came before and after him who have had more of an impact in the development and evolution of Hip-Hop. What about Krs-One, Big Daddy Kane, Ice Cube, or the man who I think should be in everybody's top-five, a person who revolutionized Hip-Hop music, and in my opinion truly took rap to a new level, that’s Rakim. When are their movies coming out about their lives? That’s not a notorious question.

Fanon Hutchinson is the editor and publisher of a Los Angeles based hip hop and sports blog http://bighutchbaby.blogspot.com

Towering Obstacles in Prosecuting the Oscar Grant Killing

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

There’s a good chance that former Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer Johannes Mehserle will be charged in the videotaped New Years day killing of Oscar Grant, a young African-American. But charging Mehserle with the fatal shooting of Grant and getting a conviction is a far different matter.
On the surface the case seems to be about as close to a slam dunk for a successful prosecution as any case involving apparent police misconduct could be. There are at least two compelling videos that appear to show an unarmed and handcuffed Grant face down on the BART platform. Grant does not appear to be resisting the officers. Witnesses testified that Grant posed no threat to the officers. BART officials have offered the weak explanation that Mehserle might have mistakenly thought that he was reaching for his taser gun. But expectations, witness testimony, videos, and an implausible explanation by BART for the deadly shooting may not be enough to nail Mehserle.
The first obstacle to convicting cops charged with deadly force is the use of videos. Defense attorneys who represent cops charged in questionable fatal shootings have honed the discrediting of videotaped evidence to a fine art. In a number of highly charged cases in cities across the country where the videos of police abuse have been widely televised to shocked millions, skilled defense attorneys have still won acquittals. They tell jurors that the videos are grainy and fuzzy, the sound and quality are poor, the tapes have missing pieces, and they omit events that show what provoked the officer to use force. They pound home that videos can be interpreted in many different ways.

Their spin to jurors is that videos give a distorted, clouded and therefore invalid picture of why an officer used deadly force. Defense attorneys don’t stop there. They also question the honesty, motives, and background of the videographers. In the Grant killing the two videos that were widely shown were shot by two young persons with cell phone cameras. One of whom refused to give his name.
The next obstacle is the investigation. Police officials and prosecutors move at a deliberate glacial pace in compiling evidence, witness testimony, and officer statements. The time delay works to the officer’s advantage. It insures that their version of why officers used force is in total sync with the version given by other officers present. Mehserle’s quick resignation after the Grant shooting further blurs things. He evaded an internal investigation and giving possible damning statements.
The rare times that a prosecutor brings charges against an officer for overuse of deadly force the defense attorney are top line and have had much experience defending police officers accused of misconduct. Police unions pay them and they spare no expense in their defense. The cops almost never serve any pre-trial jail time, and are promptly released on ridiculously low bail.
Then there’s the jury. Police defense attorneys seek to get as many middle-class whites on the panel as possible. The presumption is that they are much more likely to believe the testimony of police and prosecution witnesses than black or young witnesses, defendants, or even the victims. That’s no small point. In the great majority of deadly force killings the victims, as was Grant, are young African-Americans or Latinos. The witnesses generally are young or minority. That’s the case in the Grant killing.

Prosecutors have a daunting job trying to overcome pro-police attitudes and the negative racial stereotypes. Two Penn State University studies on racial perceptions and stereotypes, one in 2003 and a follow-up study in 2008, found that many whites are likely to associate pictures of blacks with violent crimes, and in some cases where crimes were not committed by blacks they misidentified the perpetrator as an African American. Defense attorneys always play hard on any prior misconduct, bad behavior, or any criminal conduct by the victim. The Grant case would likely be the same. Early press reports repeatedly talked about Grant’s alleged criminal record. This feeds into the stereotype of bad behaving blacks, and that the victim somehow is responsible for the officer using deadly force.
The biggest obstacle of all is the blurred standard of what is or isn't acceptable use of force. It often comes down to a judgment call by the officer. In the Rodney King beating case in 1992 and the Sean Bell killing in New York City in 2007 defense attorneys turned the tables and painted King as the aggressor and claimed that the level of force used against him was justified. In the Bell case, they claimed that Bell and his companions were trying to run them down and they feared for their lives.
Convicting the cop who killed Grant, or any cops who wantonly kill, is a colossal task for even the most diligent prosecutor. The Grant case will be no different.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).

Debunking the Myth that Latinos Elected Obama

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

The voluntary withdrawal by scandal plagued New Mexico governor Bill Richardson from the Commerce Secretary post drew instant and angry demands from some Latino leaders for Obama to pick another Latino to replace Richardson. In making the demand they fanned two myths. One is that Obama hasn’t appointed enough Latinos to his staff and cabinet posts. The other is that Latino votes are mainly why he bagged the White House. Obama transition officials quickly and correctly noted that Obama has appointed more Latinos to senior positions than Bush or Clinton. And that’s even before he’s taken office.
But it’s the myth that Latinos tipped the victory scale for him that’s even more self-serving. Latinos did vote in bigger numbers and in a higher percentage for Obama than Democratic presidential loser John Kerry in 2004. Their vote did help seal the win for Obama in Florida, New Mexico and Colorado. Bush won Colorado and Florida in 2000 and all three states in 2004. But the electoral math shows that even if Obama had lost both states he still would have beaten Republican rival John McCain.

Pennsylvania, Ohio, and arguably North Carolina were the must win states. Bush won two of the three states in 2000 and 2004 and cinched the White House. This time Obama won all three. If he had lost Pennsylvania and/or Ohio the outcome might have been far different. Blacks make up twenty to thirty percent of the vote in these three states. They gave Obama the crucial edge there. The more than 15 million black voters made up more than twenty percent of the overall Democratic vote in 2008. They gave Obama 96 percent of their vote. This was an all-time percentage high for a Democratic presidential candidate. If black voters had not turned the Democratic primaries into a virtual holy crusade for Obama and if Obama had not openly in the South Carolina primary and subtly in primaries thereafter stoked the black vote, he would have been just another failed Democratic also ran presidential candidate. The fight for the White House would have been between McCain and Hillary Clinton.
In the 2008 election Latino voters increased their vote total by a modest one percent from nine to ten million votes from 2004. Even then Latino leaders and voters were glacially slow to warm up to Obama. In the Democratic primaries they overwhelmingly backed Hillary Clinton. In the general election many Latino voters still expressed deep ambivalence and doubt about Obama. McCain got nearly one third of the Latino vote. This is pretty much what other GOP presidential candidates typically get from Latino voters. Bush’s top heavy Latino vote total in 2004 was a political aberration.

The Latino leaders that pump the myth that they elected Obama do it in part to leverage more numbers and influence in the Obama administration, and in part to puff up the notion that Latinos are now the major ethnic power broker in national politics. Latinos certainly deserve their fair share of Obama appointments and cabinet posts; they need a big voice in his administration on issues from health care to immigration to Latin American relations. But that’s far different than turning the quest for Obama appointments into a numbers game, a quota game. Then inferring that if Obama doesn’t play ball call him a disappointment or that he’s ignoring Latino interests. Obama must not listen to that talk. It does him, his administration and Latinos a disservice.

Latinos certainly are well on the path to becoming major players in national politics, but blacks have been major political players for many years. The black vote has been the Democrats trump card in every election for the past half century, win or lose. They gave Kerry 85 percent of their vote. Latinos by contrast gave Kerry only 53 percent of their vote. Black voters have been so reliable, maybe too reliable, that Democrats have been repeatedly rapped for plantationism; that is for taking the black vote for granted and offering little tangible benefits in return for their unyielding support. Obama didn’t change that. He said little during the campaign about failing public schools, the HIV/AIDS plague, criminal justice racial disparities, and the lack of minority business initiatives and funding
Black voters and elected officials, though, wisely did not demand that he say and do more about these issues as the price for their game changing vote turnout. The Congressional Black Caucus, local and state black Democrats, and civil rights organizations passionately backed Obama in the general election. They pulled out all stops to get out the vote. If any group deserved bragging rights for the Obama win they do. They would be right to demand even more staff and cabinet appointments from Obama. They haven’t demanded that. The Latino leaders that are sweating Obama to appoint more Latinos solely because they are Latinos should do the same.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).

Remembering the Other Eartha Kitt

Earl Ofari Hutchinson


The smile on Eartha Kitt’s face was unforgettable. It belied the pain, ridicule and turmoil that she had endured after she was unceremoniously shoved at or near the top of then President Lyndon Johnson’s enemies list. But that seemed to be the furthest thing from her mind that late spring afternoon in 1978 when she greeted me at the old Aquarius Theater in Hollywood. Kitt was in Los Angeles starring in her tour production of the musical Timbuktu. I was assigned to do a brief interview and a review of the production.

Kitt’s smile and infectious energy melted the awe and nervousness that I felt at being up close too and actually talking with an entertainment legend. Then there was the “incident.” That was the furor that Kitt ignited when she denounced the Vietnam War and poverty to Johnson at that White House luncheon in January, 1968. A decade later the controversy still got the tongues wagging.

Her performance in Los Angeles was in part Kitt’s American scene entertainment rehabilitation after being virtually banned in the U.S. after her Johnson White House outburst. Her performance was also in part a brash effort to reclaim the luster that had made her virtually a household name and an icon in the entertainment world in the 1950s and early 1960s. By then Kitt had firmly established her legacy as an award winning internationally acclaimed singer, dancer, film, stage and TV actress. Kitt was tagged as sultry, sensual, and sexual alluring. But that was the surface stuff. Kitt’s brash, sassy, and high energy style and persona sent the clear message that she was her own woman. She refused to be relegated to the stereotypical stage and film roles, and turned her sensuality into a badge of fierce independence and pride, the trademark of defiance. Kitt’s pioneer independence and sense of self influenced the coming generation of young female entertainers and personalities from Oprah to Beyonce to Madonna. They owe her a debt of gratitude.

But even that side of Kitt obscured the Kitt who was passionately devoted to and supported peace and civil rights causes. The clash with Johnson, really the Johnson’s, Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson, at the celebrity women’s luncheon in January 1968 gave the first public hint of that.

Lady Bird Johnson had invited Kitt to the luncheon and in an innocent moment asked Kitt what she thought about the problems of inner city youth. Kitt didn’t mince words and lambasted the Johnson administration for not doing more about poverty, joblessness, and drugs in black communities. Kitt didn’t stop there, she tied her outburst directly into an attack on the Vietnam War, a war she said was without reason or explanation. Kitt’s verbal assault on the war and racial problems made headline news. A badly shaken first lady and an enraged LBJ denounced her. The next few years she was hounded and harassed by the FBI, the IRS and Secret Service agents. The CIA even compiled a gossipy, intrusive dossier on her that attempted to paint her as a sex starved malcontent. The public storm and the negative press proved too much.

Kitt’s career was effectively dead in the United States. But she stuck by her guns and did not apologize, retract or soften her criticism of Johnson’s war and racial policies. Kitt in fact hadn’t said anything at that luncheon that thousands of others hadn’t said about Johnson’s hopelessly failed, flawed and losing war and racial problems. The difference was who said it; namely a celebrated star, and where it was said at the White House. Kitt took the heat and paid the price for giving an honest opinion and her deep felt belief about the cause of peace and social justice. She was branded as a racial agitator.

Missed in the overreaching hysteria and the vindictive bashing was that underneath the glitter and carefully crafted sexpot image, Kitt had given time and money to the NAACP and other civil rights organizations. She supported and participated in the March on Washington. During her wilderness years when she was forced to work outside the U.S. she took heat for performing before all white audiences in South Africa. But like so much about Kitt that went unnoticed, she broke barriers by insisting that her cast was integrated. She also quietly raised money for black schools in the country.

During our brief talk before her stage performance in Los Angeles, Kitt spent as much time talking about her devotion to the civil rights movement and the injustice of apartheid in South Africa, than about the production she was in. She did not mince words when I gingerly asked her about the “incident.” She laughed but did not express any regret about what she said and did that day at the White House. She expressed no bitterness about the years of media and public ostracism.

This is the Eartha Kitt, the impassioned contributor to peace and civil rights, that I knew, remember, and pay homage to.

C'est si bon"

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).

The What is Obama Debate Again

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Here’s the what is President-elect Barack Obama, black, bi-racial or multi-racial quiz. If he did not have one of the world’s most recognizable names and faces he would fume at being subjected to poor (or no) service in restaurants, bypassed by taxis, racial-profiled by police on street corner stops, landlords who refuse to show him an apartment, followed in stores by security guards, denied a loan for his business or home purchase due to redlining, find himself living in a resegregated neighborhood, or routinely passed over for a corporate management position.
He would not be subjected to any of these routine petty harassments and annoyances, the subtle and at time outright forms of discrimination because he checked the bi-racial designation on his census form. That’s a meaningless, feel good, paper designation that has no validity in the hard world of American race politics.
The deepest part of America's racial fault has always been and still remains the black and white divide. This has spawned legions of vile but durable racial stereotypes, fears, and antagonisms. Black males have been the special target of the negative typecasting. They've routinely been depicted as crime prone, derelict, sexual menaces, and chronic underachievers. University researchers recently found that Obama’s win didn’t appreciably change these stereotypes.

The roughly six million or 2 percent of Americans who checked the bi-racial census box may take comfort in trying to be racially precise, but most also tell of their own bitter experience in feeling the sting of racial bigotry in the streets and workplace. Obama can too and he has related his racial awakening in his best selling bare the soul autobiograhy Dreams from My Father.

Despite his occasional references to his white mother and grandmother, Obama has never seen himself as anything other than African-American. That worked for and against him during the campaign. In coutless polls and surveys, the overwhelming majority of whites said that they would vote for an African-American for president, and that compentence and qualification, not color was the only thing that mattered. Many meant it and showed it by enthusiatically cheering him on. More than a few didn’t. Despite the real and feigned color blindness, nearly sixty percent of whites still did not vote for Obama. Most based their opposition to him on Republican political loyalties, ties, regional and personal preferences. But a significant minority of white voters did not for him because he's black, and they did not hide their feelings to interviewers about that and in exit polls in the Democratic primaries and the general election. Tagging him as multi-racial or bi-racial did not soften their color resistance to him, let alone change their perception that he was black.

Yet, the sideshow debate still rages over whether Obama is the black president or the bi-racial president. The debate is even more nonsensical since science has long since debunked the notion of a pure racial type. In America, race has never been a scientific or genealogical designation, but a political and social designation. Anyone with the faintest trace of African ancestry was and still is considered black and treated accordingly.
Blacks were ecstatic over Obama's candidacy and his presidential win. They were unabashed in saying that they backed him with passion and fervor because he is black. Many would not have cheered him with the same passion if he touted himself as a mixed race candidate. The thrill and pride for them was that a black man could beat the racial odds and climb to the political top; substituting bi-racial for black would not have had the same meaning or significance to blacks. The talk about Obama being anything other than black infuriates many blacks. Their anger is legitimate. If Obama doesn’t run from his black identity then the bi-racial card appears as a naked effort to snatch Obama’s history making victory from them. It’s also an implicit denial that an African-American can have the right stuff, that is the smarts, talent and ability to excel in any arena.
The second that Obama announced that he would run for president in February 2007, much of the press and the public fixated on one question, "Is America ready for a black president?" The question was never, "Is America ready for a mixed-race president?" The answer was that Obama if elected would be America's first black president. It was almost never that he would be America’s first mixed-race president.
That didn’t change on Election Night. Obama’s victory was still hailed as a giant step forward for black and white relations in America, not mixed race relations. That may or may not be the case. The nagging racial sleights and indignities that many African-Americans suffer are tormenting reminders that race still does matter, and matter a lot to many Americans.
Calling Obama the first black president is the accurate, and honest, way to fix his place in American political history. It’s one that he wouldn’t or really can’t dispute.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).

Jesse Jackson Jr. Should Bow Out for Obama’s Seat

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Illinois Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. should bow out of contention for Obama’s Senate seat. True there is yet no evidence that he offered to grease Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s palm in return for the seat. But there’s a continuing probe into whether a Jackson family member or associates acted as Jackson’s paymasters to Blagojevich. The probe, the suspicions, and the time he has spent in his defense have hopelessly tainted him as a credible candidate for the seat. He should also withdraw because Blagojevich’s alleged funny money dealings has tossed too ugly a glare on Chicago’s wheel and deal, borderline legal racketeering politics. The whispers and rumors about Jackson Jr. will swirl no matter what the FBI and the U.S. attorney ultimately decide about the extent of his involvement in the scandal.
But this is really less important than the accusation against him. In politics, especially Chicago politics, protests of innocence to wrongdoing are not the same as innocence. Jackson Jr. is not just a Chicago politician. He’s an African-American politician who carries his famed father’s namesake. The elder Jackson who was also mentioned in the allegation of seat tampering is no stranger to controversy. That’s enough to further stir suspicions. It’s still race, however, that makes Jackson Jr.’s innocence or not most problematic. When black elected officials are accused of wrongdoing, the presumption of guilt hangs heavily in the air. That’s in part because the recent corruption scandals that have snared former Louisiana Democrat William Jefferson and Birmingham mayor Larry Langford have been plastered over the news. The cloud of suspicion is there in part too because in a few celebrated cases when they're indicted, jailed, accused of financial improprieties or ethics violations (as in the case of Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, who initially screamed race when she took a swing at a Capitol Police officer) the fingered officials have made race the centerpiece of their defense. During the 1990s, former Illinois Congressman Mel Reynolds screamed racism when he was indicted, tried and convicted of sexual assault charges. Washington D.C. Mayor Marion Barry screamed racism when he was indicted, tried and convicted on a drug charge. California Congressman Walter Tucker, convicted of bribery charges, loudly shouted racism.

When they're popped, they wail that they should not be held to a higher standard of accountability than white officials who get caught with their hand in the corruption cookie jar. When white politicians are jailed and pay hefty fines for violating campaign finance and ethics laws, nobody says that they have to be a cross between Mother Teresa and St. Paul.
However, even if Jackson is a victim of a slightly kooky governor as he and others claim, that still doesn’t absolve him of holding to a standard that leaves not the slightest doubt that he is above reproach. He represents the majority black Second Congressional District. His constituents view him not as other politicians, but as a leader and advocate. They look to him to represent their interests and to confront institutional power. Any legal smear on him, no matter how questionable that soils his name makes it much harder for blacks to retain confidence in them. This diminishes their political power and influence, creating distrust and dissension among black voters.
Jackson publicly pleaded to get his good name back. He knows full well that a taint, any taint, can hamper his ability to do his job. He has an even bigger burden than other black politicians who carry the same cross. His father insured that. The long and storied years of civil rights crusading by Jackson Sr. markedly increased expectations that his son would not be solely a legislative fighter but also a champion for the rights of the underdog, who in this case, happen to be many of his constituents.
Jackson to his credit did not reflexively try to deflect, dodge, and muddy the charges and accusations against him by screaming "racism." He wisely went in the opposite direction and singled out prosecutors for being honest and open and giving him a clean bill—for now.
Yet, Jackson, other black officials, and indeed all public officials will be keenly watched by state and federal prosecutors for any hint of impropriety. If they engage in any forbidden activities with money, they will swiftly be called on the legal carpet. The burden of proof, then, is on them to prove that they can and will do any and everything to avoid even the slightest smudge of scandal.
In Jackson Jr.’s case, a lot of damage has already been done. There are loud calls for him to withdraw his name from consideration for the Senate seat. Jackson hasn’t yet shown any willingness to do that. Unfortunately, the mud tossed on him will not wash off. It hasn’t on other black elected officials who’ve been rudely plopped on the scandal hot seat. Jackson should withdraw his name and do it now.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009). http://www.learnhowobamawon.blogspot.com

Obama’s Win Didn’t End Racial Stereotyping

Earl Ofari Hutchinson


There is still much talk about how Barack Obama’s White House win demolished negative stereotypes about blacks. That’s wishful thinking. A new study by a team of researchers from several top universities shows that stereotypes about poverty and crime remain just as frozen in time. The study found that much of the public still perceives that those most likely to commit crimes are poor, jobless, and black. The surprise was that the negative racial stereotypes also applied to anyone, no matter their color, who was poor and jobless. If for instance a white commits a crime the odds are that the respondents will reclassify that person as black.
The jumbled mental contortions that many go through to dub a white person black solely on the basis of their income and whether they have been jailed didn’t end there. If a person who was perceived as white was jailed that person was still perceived to be black even after their release. The study did more than affirm that race and poverty and crime are firmly rammed together in the public mind. It also showed that once the stereotype is planted it’s virtually impossible to root out. That’s hardly new either.
In 2003 Penn State University researchers conducted a landmark study on the tie between crime and public perceptions of who is most likely to commit crime. The study found that many whites are likely to associate pictures of blacks with violent crime. This was no surprise given the relentless media depictions of young blacks as dysfunctional, dope peddling, gang bangers and drive by shooters. The bulging numbers of blacks in America’s jails and prisons seem to reinforce the perception that crime and violence in America invariably comes with a young black male face. And it doesn’t much matter how prominent, wealthy, or celebrated a black is. The overkill frenzy feeding on the criminal hijinks of New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress, O.J. Simpson, and the legions of black NFL, NBA stars, Hollywood peronalities, and entertainers who run afoul of the law or are bad behaving further reinforce the negative image of blacks.
There was, however, a mild surprise in the Penn State study. It found that even when blacks didn’t commit a specific crime whites still misidentified the perpetrator as an African-American. University researchers were plainly fascinated by this result. Five years later they wanted to see if that stereotype still held sway. By then Obama’s political ascent was in full trajectory upward. Polls showed that a crushing majority of whites not only said that they would vote for an African-American for president, but that color was not a consideration in how they viewed and voted for a candidate. This appeared to signal a benign sea change in public attitudes on race.
It didn’t. Researchers found that public attitudes on crime and race were unchanged. The majority of whites still overwhelmingly fingered blacks as the most likely to commit crimes, even when they didn’t commit them.
There are two troubling implications in these studies. One is that Obama’s victory was more a personal triumph for him. It did not radically remap racial perceptions, let alone an end to racial stereotyping. A significant percent of whites voted for him and were passionate about him because they were fed up with Bush’s policies, and believed that he would reverse those policies. The vote for him was race neutral. His victory was a tribute to his personal political organization and savvy as well as public fear and frustration about Bush. The second implication is even more troubling. If much of the public still view crime and poverty through narrow racial lens then that will continue to stir public clamor for lawmakers, police and prosecutors to clean the streets of violent criminals, who are almost always seen as African-Americans. This could mean even more gang sweeps, court injunctions, stiff adult prison terms, three strikes laws, and incarceration for teens, the holding of accused teens indefinitely in juvenile jail detention.
Ironically, Obama inadvertently fed the negative perceptions of blacks. In several much publicized talks on the black family, he blasted black men for being missing in action from the home and shirking their family responsibility. It was a well-meaning effort to call attention to the chronic problems of black males and families, but it also gave the impression that black males are dysfunctional. It was a short step from that to conclude that these same men are more likely to be involved in crime than whites.
Obama’s win was a two edged sword. It was as billed a profound historic win, but it also fanned the illusion that racial stereotypes are dead. Now we know better.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).

Jefferson Defeat Not About Race

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

The much deserved defeat of scandal plagued Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson by Vietnamese-American immigration attorney Anh “Joseph” Cao was not about race. Whites did flock to the polls in bigger numbers than usual and the black voter turnout was much less than in the primary. But despite the ramp up in white votes, blacks still make up the majority of voters in Jefferson’s district. While many blacks voted for him out of old loyalty, a significant number didn’t. The lower voter black turnout in essence was a vote against him.
His defeat then was about ethics, interest and just plain common sense. Jefferson was not just an embarrassment. He was hopelessly damaged political goods and by plopping him back into office for a tenth term his black constituents would have been the losers.
If ever there was a case that screamed for scrubbing race from politics it was the Jefferson case. He has been on the legal hot seat for many months. He was indicted, and faces trial on bribery and corruption charges. He was stripped of his seniority on a key House committee. He left a bitter taste in the mouths of many New Orleans residents during the Katrina debacle, when he allegedly commandeered a National Guard truck to check on his personal property and save personal belongings at the same moment nearby residents needed rescue from possible drowning.
Jefferson mercifully has not screamed race at any point during his legal ordeal, and other than pro forma references to Obama on his campaign website, he did not seek and likely would not have gotten Obama’s direct help in the campaign anyway. Jefferson, however, did subtly play the race card by hinting that he was a political victim. It was a pitch for voter sympathy and of course, voter support. It also implied that he and indeed other African-American politicians should not be held to the same standard of accountability as white officials who get caught with their hand in the till. When they are jailed and pay hefty fines for violating campaign finance and ethics laws, they argue, nobody says that they have to be a cross between Mother Teresa and Saint Paul.
But Jefferson and other black elected officials should be held to a higher standard. Their mostly black constituents view them not as politicians, but as leaders and advocates. They look to them to represent their interests and to confront institutional power. Any legal smear on them makes it much harder for blacks to retain confidence in them. This diminishes their political power and influence, creating distrust and dissension among black voters. This makes it that much more difficult for blacks to generate any enthusiasm to get out to vote, or get involved in community improvement actions. That was clearly the case in Jefferson’s defeat.
It's not just scandal that hurts black officials -- the race card hurts them too. In far too many cases blacks accused of wrongdoing instinctually deflect, dodge, and muddy the charges and accusations against them by claiming racial persecution. They promptly wrap themselves in the martyr's cloak of persecuted civil rights fighters.
This is not a small point. In the past when black politicians have been accused and tried on corruption charges, they have used the race card to deflect attention from their crimes.
During the 1990s, former Illinois Congressman Mel Reynolds screamed racism when he was indicted, tried and convicted of sexual assault charges. Washington D.C. Mayor Marion Barry screamed racism when he was indicted, tried and convicted on a drug charge. California Congressman Walter Tucker, convicted of bribery charges, loudly shouted racism. In a statement black Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford issued after his recent arrest on federal corruption charges, he strongly implied that he was a victim of political persecution
Langford and the others play the odds and remind blacks that President Reagan's Justice Department initiated dozens of corruption probes against black elected officials during the 1980s. Given the Reagan administration's perceived indifference to civil rights and social programs, it was easy for many blacks to believe that some of these cases crossed the thin line between legitimate concern with bagging lawbreakers and racially-motivated political harassment of black leadership.
Black officials, such as Jefferson, will continue to be keenly watched by state and federal prosecutors for any hint of impropriety. If they engage in any forbidden activities with money, they will swiftly be called on the legal carpet. The burden of proof, then, is on them to prove that they can and will do any and everything to avoid even the slightest taint of scandal. That may be unfair, but that's the price that they must pay to be regarded as credible and honorable black leaders and advocates.
When the charges against him were first made public, a defiant Jefferson vowed that he would never resign from his seat. He banked that black voters would do what they did for nine previous terms; and that’s ignore the tarnish on his star and reelect him. Thankfully, he was wrong.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press January 2009)