Clemson University Probes Racist Party

Clemson University Probes Racist Party - AP

Students Apologize for Gang-Theme Party - AP

Black-face get ups are offensive - period. They are not questionable mimics of behavior, but rather a direct put down of another race. With this said, let us move on.

Gangsta' parties are not inherently racist. When I see White and Asian kids walking down the street with their waist bans around their thighs, sideways baseball caps and white tee shirts sized for a Detroit lineman, I shake my head, but not because they are racists. They simply look silly to me, the same as the Blacks they are copying. But people assimilate behaviors for a myriad of reasons, all valid and incomprehensible.

If Black people, or anyone else, assume personas that cause others to react, they should look in large part at their behavior, as the catalyst, rather than the responses of others. Dressing like a thug is designed to elicit fear. Blacks should not cry racism when that fear is converted to a more pleasant emotion in safe confines. This is normal. It is also not profiling to be more suspicious of people who dress like prison inmates in free society.

What is frustrating to advancement is for a group to carry a hypersensitivity about how they are viewed while sabotaging that view in the name of free expression. And when 'being dangerous' is the expression, a host of negative reactions are sure to follow.

James C. Collier

Update: As long as Black people immortalize men like Tupac, on sites like www.thuglifearmy.com, 'Bullets and Bubbly' parties should come as no surprise, or offense. When Blacks seed the world with such images of themselves, collegiate reactions 'pale' in comparison to the real damage inflicted.

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Long Beach Awaits Hate-Crime Verdict

Long Beach Awaits Hate-Crime Verdict - Washington Post

Nine Guilty In Halloween Attack - presstelegram.com

A simple, revealing exercise for anyone who wonders if these Black kids are being prosecuted unfairly is to switch the race of the participants. Consider the case where three Black women are set upon by a crowd of White kids, with the words and injuries they sustained.

How then would Blacks respond to the notion that their concern for the three now-Black women was due to some disproportioned sensitivity. They would show Whites the gruesome pictures of injuries from being kicked in the face, and then tell the good Reverend Wood that his collar is on backwards.

But it gets even simpler than this. The courageous witness may have seen more clothes than faces of the perpetrators, but those kids well know who did the damage that night - and they have chosen to maintain a 'code' of silence. So be the consequences.

I cannot say if protecting the ability to remain in Long Beach is worth jail time for these so-called 'good high school athletes'. Retribution for braking ranks is a real probability, given the intimidating attack on the witnesses' automobile. But if community leaders and the parents of these kids were serious about helping they would see the need to draw a line in the sand on this lawlessness.

We know this for sure. The crowd of kids acted in concert and with racial intent to create the violent engagement. The injuries were caused by kids from within the crowd. The kids present are remaining silent, thereby shielding a more detailed understanding of the attacks. Three women were nearly killed. Let the chips fall.

James C. Collier

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In or Out Of the Game? - Being a Black Man

In or Out Of the Game? - washingtonpost.com

A.J., the 'battle-scarred hustler' and career outlaw is Black, and this is the problem. He does not happen to be Black, but rather he is Black. He defines Blackness, or at least a significant visible part of it, in our eyes. As long as we see him this way, he and those in his footsteps will remain at the helm of perceptions that thwart, inside and out.

I submit, in contrast, that A.J. is not Black. He is a very lost man whose skin happens to tell us his ancestry began in West Africa. There is nothing about how Blacks have been treated, or mistreated, in the time since A.J. was born, to pick a relevant period, that places him in his current plight. Why should Blackness be burdened with his bad choices? He alone is responsible for his tragic circumstance. By his own words, he is beyond honest work.

Where we fail him and ourselves, in our search for solutions, is the point that we say he has no choice but to be a predator and a living stain on his environment. If he has no choice, then his most identifiable attribute, the color of his skin, becomes his excuse and society's guilt. It is only academic whether we believe his color instigates the behavior, or that reaction to his color precipitates his behavior. On the street, his color exist as nothing more than a warning beacon of the danger he represents to anyone who ventures near him.

In response, Blacks must explicitly disconnect what it means to be Black from the behaviors of the A.J.'s in our society. We must un-invite them from our lives and struggle, because they are poison. We must let them wither on the vine, or be prepared to die by their hand, with them. It saddens me to say these thoughts, because I was taught to look after my brother. But, when I hear the words of A.J. and see how little value Black men place on their lives, I must become proud to say that he is not my brother.

Alas I have a new brother, not defined by color, but who is anyone that wants a world where fear, violence, and hate have no sanctuary.

James C. Collier

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U.S. Education Officials Question Diversity Standard

U.S. Education Officials Question Diversity Standard - Washington Post

The American Bar Association and its heavy-handed approach to diversity in law school will only insure that we get fewer Black lawyers. If the ABA wants concrete progress in increasing diversity in law classrooms they can start by accepting that prospective Blacks shun law school for reasons exacerbated by affirmative action.

The dreadful bar passage rate for Blacks, half that of Whites, followed by diminished success in the profession, are what causes capable Blacks to shy from the opportunity cost and expense of gaining a law degree. The 'plus-factor' points awarded in the admissions process simply do not carry through to graduation, bar passage, and successful law practice.

So why do Blacks under perform their peers when it comes to grades, graduation, and the bar? The top tier law schools poach a significant number of candidates, who should objectively attend second tier schools. These poached students, taken from schools that best match their abilities, struggle to keep up. The shifting of students does not stop here. Each of five tiers of schools is raided from above and poaches below, with an effect of shifting a large portion of the students from their center-of-competence.

Blacks student face the unfair burden of keeping up with accelerated classes, with their average grades placing them in the 10th percentile as the result. Such performance is not a recipe for career success and attracting greater numbers. Bar passage is higly correlated to grades not tier of school. And this is why admission committees are having an increasingly difficult time filling the seats of law schools with Blacks. By the way, other professional schools, along with higher education in general, face the same challenge.

James C. Collier

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The Hard Core Of Cool - Part II

The Hard Core Of Cool - Washington Post

Throughout high school and college, Black girls were unimpressed by my academic exploits. It seemed impossible to look cool to them while carrying 20 pounds of books, notebooks, calculators, etc. My 'pimp-walk' was the result of weighty book bags rather than faux confidence.

In undergrad, the Black girls went for the Black scholarship athletes first, and the cool pretenders second. The only attention I received was scorn when I dared the company of a friendly White girl. Black girls may not have wanted me, but I was also admonished to stay away from White girls, less I gain the label of 'Tom'.

Let's be clear, White girls liked cool guys too, but some of them saw something in boys, of any color, who had their heads in the books. My value to Black girls changed when I was able to buy a nice car and clothes, with money I earned from a good academic-fueled summer job. But by this time I had also developed a suspicion of Black girls.

As I was determined, I married a Black women. We have a sixteen-year old daughter who I encourage to like boys for substantive reasons. But, the reality is that for the moment she, like her friends, likes athletes and cool-acting boys. I am consoled that she appears to be 'color'-blind. I can only hope that she awakens to what is real versus pretense, when it comes to male coolness. I also hope that with encouragement, she sets a high bar for herself and the men in her life. Her uncompromising standards are the best hope for positively motivating these young men to achieve something more than street 'cred'.

James C. Collier

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The Hard Core Of Cool - Being A Black Man

The Hard Core Of Cool - Washington Post

No one ever accused me of being cool. They might have said that I was wearing a cool jacket, or my hair - when I had hair - looked cool, but not me. I never tried to pretend to be cool; fearless was a much more functional choice. Boys, Black, Brown, or White could smell fear. Cool only caught the attention of the girls, while fear was an invitation to get your butt 'whupped'.

Back to cool. Black males may have the franchise on cool, but at what cost? Empty pockets, heads, and futures, too often. Everywhere I go I see dangerously cool-looking Black males. Often they are sporting the latest prison-inspired style, which ironically signals the direction many are heading, with a 10.4% incarceration rate for ages 25-29. Couple this with a 45% high school graduation rate, plus a penchant for violent criminal behavior, and the welfare line is as sure as a Lebron James slam-dunk.

So who's to blame? White people? Wrong. Black males? Bingo! Black females? YAHTZEE! Black females are the prized so they have the power. Females who mate with males sporting no future, only insure that they will rear the children of these boys/men alone, with all the problems. Unfortunately, Black women behave as if all they need is a man's sperm, any cool man, and this is all they get. Black women need to raise the bar on Black men.

If the boys-with-books turned men-with-jobs were the only ones getting attention from the ladies, we would have a different story. If Black women just said 'no' to thug-life subscribers, and yes to high grades, clean arrest records, and honest hard work, Black males would be competing in constructive ways. There would still be racism and disparity, but it would cease to be a growth industry.

James C. Collier

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