Obama Might Need to Show ID in More Places than East Harlem

Earl Ofari Hutchinson


The only thing wrong with New York Congressman Charles Rangel’s quip that President Obama had better bring his ID to East Harlem is that he limited it to East Harlem. A President Obama in his trademark baseball cap, sometimes hip clothes, and sneakers, sans White House entourage and limo, strolling or driving down a dimly lit night time street in any number of poor black neighborhoods could easily be stopped. He wouldn’t have to fit the near textbook profile of a poor, young, black male. He could just as easily be rich, older, a businessman, a professional, star athlete, college professor, or as in the horrific case of NYPD officer Omar Edwards, the police officer gunned down by a white cop.

There have been countless cases where prominent black men have been stopped, frisked, shaken down, and humiliated by police officers, trailed by store clerks, and fumed in anger as taxicabs whizzed by them on busy urban streets. Edwards is hardly the first black cop to be victimized by fellow officers. In recent years, there have been more than a few cases where white cops stopped, harassed, attempted to arrest, even arrested, and shot off duty black cops.
The wishful thought was that Obama’s election buried once and for all negative racial typecasting and the perennial threat it posed to the safety and well-being of black males. It did no such thing. Immediately after Obama’s election and months before Edwards was shot dead, teams of researchers from several major universities found that many of the old stereotypes about poverty and crime and blacks remain just as frozen in time. The study found that much of the public still perceives those most likely to commit crimes are poor, jobless and black. 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 the black is. The overkill frenzy feeding on the criminal hijinks of former New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress, O.J. Simpson, and the legions of black NFL, NBA stars, Hollywood personalities, and entertainers who run afoul of the law or are poorly behaved, and of course, everyone’s favorite stomping boy, the rappers and hip hop artists, further implants the negative image of black males. None of them are hardly poor, downtrodden, ghetto dwelling young black males.
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, even as Obama’s political star rose, and legions of whites said that they liked him, and would vote for him, and meant it. Researchers still found public attitudes on crime and race unchanged. The majority of whites still overwhelmingly fingered blacks as the most likely to commit crimes, even when they didn’t commit them. That’s especially important to say, since the fall back line on racial stereotypes is that to link race and crime is not to stereotype since blacks commit the majority of street crimes.

One implication for this is that Obama’s victory was more a personal triumph for him. It did not radically remap racial perceptions, let alone put an end to racial stereotyping. Another is that much of the public still sees crime and poverty through narrow racial lens.
An early newspaper account of the Edward’s shooting minced no words. It said that Edwards was mistaken for a thug. The brazen inference was that Edward’s clean cut look, police badge, and that he was doing his duty in giving chase to a criminal suspect didn’t exempt him from the young black male equals thug standard typecast. Edwards paid the price for that casting. And all Charlie Rangel was trying to say is that the casting could fit any young black who happens to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time, even if he’s a president.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His weekly radio show, “The Hutchinson Report” can be heard on weekly in Los Angeles at 9:30 AM Fridays on KTYM Radio 1460 AM and live streamed nationally on ktym.com

Forget Apologizing to Obama Jackson Should Apologize to Blacks for His N Word Hypocrisy
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

On November 26, 2006 at a press conference in Los Angeles guess who said this: "We will challenge and urge all artists and comics to stop using this (n) word. What other group is subjected to such a degrading terminology?"
And then guess who called for this action: We will go after TV networks, film companies and comedians and demand that they stop using the word. We will boycott sales of the DVDs of Seinfeld’s seventh season TV show. The speaker of course was Jesse Jackson. The offender who dared utter the dreaded N word was comedian Michael Richards.
Now we hear that Jesse did a Richards like imitation with the N word in his infamous unguarded open mic dig at Obama on Fox.
Jackson’s pound of Richards and saber rattle of the entertainment business was strong stuff. In fact it was vintage Jackson; a denunciation of the N word, railing against the entertainment industry and entertainers for their racial insensitivity, and, of course, a threatened boycott. Jesse was riding tall on his moral and racial high horse at the time and had thousands revved up to go after Richards and anyone else who used the N word.
The problem is that the “anyone else” Jackson had in mind was not simply, a white bit part comedian, and some off color comics and filmmakers, but any and every black that used the word. Jesse would settle for nothing less than a total ban by blacks on the N word.

Jackson’s press conference tirade against the N word was hardly the first time he had hit the warpath against the word. He had spent years lecturing, hectoring, and admonishing blacks to dump the word from their vocabulary.
So that makes his N word slur even more unpardonable than if it come from a rapper or comic. They’re trying to make a buck off of using the word as cutesy shock value so at least there’s logic, commercial and twisted, but logic nonetheless to their spew of it. In Jackson’s case that doesn’t apply.
He committed two serious offenses in casually and recklessly using the word. Though he didn’t call Obama the word, by knocking him (“cut off his n…ts”) and tossing in the word to describe blacks who Obama allegedly offended, Obama by inference became an N… too. Jackson’s bigger offense was his tar of blacks with the word. If a white celebrity, personality or politician slandered and disrespected blacks with the word, guess who would be the first person to charge the barricades demanding their head and then that they banned in Boston for perpetuity. The chances are pretty good that Jackson would have gotten their head and the ban. But in this case, the famed personality that offended with the word is not a white notable but Jackson.
So what should we do about him? He’s already apologized to Obama, and since Obama wasn’t the target of Jackson’s loose lip slur, Jackson should immediately apologize to blacks for not only trashing them, but also apologize for his hypocrisy. That’s not all. Since Jackson called for a boycott of the DVD’s of the Seinfeld show for Richards N word offense, then turn about is fair play. In this case, listeners to Jackson’s national radio show should consider a brief tune out of the show to show that the N word no matter whether it drips from the lips of a tired white comedian, gangster rapper, blue room black comedian, radio shock jock, or a one time civil rights icon, is just as offensive.
Jesse has taken a much deserved hit for his intemperate personal rap of Obama. Now he should take an even bigger hit for his far worse racial rap of blacks and in the process himself.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).