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Vol. 11 Issue 15…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…April 13, 2008
Intuit's Vibe
Up! Education
By Sylvia Chidi
Education is important
Right from when an infant
Education is not about college
It entails a wider range of knowledge
Supplying a market of
skills shortage
Education is great
It creates and decides upon ones fate
Never leave it too late
Education makes it a priority
To provide you with opportunities
So I say!
OK! Up! Education
Feed the Nations
Up! Education
Education is in abundance
A constituent of importance
As we humans advance
It offers us life's insurance
Education is the key
to set you free
From joblessness condemnation
Education is the key to flee
From endless financial frustration
Education provides you with ammunition
To tackle any country, state or nation
Education gives you immunization
Against surviving
global frustration
Education relieves you
From absurd ignorance
Education exempts you and me
From parental allowance
For most adults
It is usually a concerning disturbance
So I say!
OK! Up! Education
Feed the Nations
Up! Education
I take my time to stress once more
It is the path to successes door
Education is a treasure
One cannot significantly measure
By only your life's attended lectures
Education is power
Your immediate answer
To questions that remain unanswered
Education is for all
Embrace it or fall
Education provides options
And sets the motion
In life for you to function
So I say!
OK! Up! Education
Feed the Nations
Up! Education
Education is the name
of the game
DeKalb County Public Schools are
in recess for spring break. The Dark Knight-Batman/White Ninja/Zorro is
enjoying the hiatus. High school has been particularly challenging this year,
so he is not anxious to return to the grind of attending class and preparing
for the annual round of testing. When informed of the US Census Bureau report
on the average per pupil expenditure of $9,138 in 2006, the Dark
One/Ninja/Zorro exclaimed without prompting, "With that kind of mad cheddar
being spent, you'd think getting an education would be more fun. Not!"
Dr. Felton James Earls
"I am concerned about
crime, but my background is in public health. We look at kids growing up in
neighborhoods across a much wider range than just crime: drug use, school
performance, birth weights, asthma, sexual behavior."
Born in January 1942 in New
Orleans, Louisiana, Felton James Earl is the eldest of four children born to
Ethlyn and Felton Earls, II, a US Postal Service employee. In 1953, the Earls'
family moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where Earls graduated from Booker T.
Washington High School.
A 1963 Howard University graduate with a degree in chemistry, Earls also
received a medical degree from Howard University School of Medicine four years
later. Uninterested in caring for sick people, Earls pursued post-graduate
training in neurophysiology at the University of Wisconsin.
Anticipating a career as a
laboratory scientist, Earls spent long hours in isolation testing animal
behavior to various stimuli. In early April of 1968, Earls had an epiphany. He
recalls emerging from his laboratory on April 5, 1968, learning of Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr.'s death and deciding he could not spend his life in such
isolation; his laboratory had to be the community; he specifically decided to
work with children, since "they represent our best hope."
Earls left Wisconsin to train as a pediatrician at the New York Medical College
in Harlem. He studied adult psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital,
public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and child
psychiatry at the Hospital for Sick Children in London.
In 1974, Earls joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School. He became
Professor of Child Psychiatry and Director of the Division of Child Psychiatry
at Washington University in St. Louis in 1981, before returning to Harvard in
1989. Dr. Earls is a professor of social medicine at Harvard Medical School and
professor of Human Behavior and Development at the Harvard School of Public
Health.
Dr. Earls is on the Board of Directors of Physicians for Human Rights and is a
member of the Committee for Human Rights at the National Academy of Sciences.
He is a member Alpha Omega Alpha, the Institute of Medicine of the National
Academies of Science, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences. Dr. Earls is Director of the Harvard South Africa Fellowship Program,
which was established to address the needs of South Africans denied access to
advanced education by apartheid. In collaboration with his wife of more than
thirty years, neurophysiologist Mary Carlson, M.D., Dr. Earls is working on a
project to promote the well-being of children orphaned by AIDS in Tanzania.
Dr. Earls' most famous research work, the Project on Human Development in
Chicago Neighborhoods, debunked the "broken windows" theory of crime,
which has been used by police nationwide for more than two decades. According
to Dr. Earls and his colleagues, rather than broken windows, graffiti and
aggressive squeegee men, the most important influences on a neighborhood's
crime rate are concentrated poverty and neighbors' willingness to act, when
needed, for one another's benefit, and particularly for the benefit of one
another's children.
Dr. Earls' research project is funded in part by the National Institute of
Justice, which has spent more than $18 million on the study, and the MacArthur
Foundation, which has spent $23.6 million. Funding by other governmental
agencies, including the National Institute for Mental Health, has brought the
total cost of the project to more than $51 million. While Dr. Earls does not
specifically mention a role for genetics in public discussions of his research
work on the causes of crime and criminal behavior, his project has been cited
as part of the violence initiative and campaign against racist federal programs
conducted by Dr. Peter R. Breggin. (Sources: www.myhero.com,
http://crab.rutgers.edu/~goertzel/
and www.hsph.harvard.edu/faculty/felton-earls/)
UN CERD on US Racism
While Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the former pastor of Democratic Party presidential
hopeful Senator Barack Obama, came under a firestorm of media criticism for
excerpts from his sermons that denounced United States racism, scant media
attention has been given the Geneva, Switzerland-based United Nations Committee
on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) report that found the US has
failed to meet international standards on racial equality. Issued in March,
after consideration of US written and oral testimony before the 18-member
committee, the report cited stark racial disparities in US institutions,
including criminal justice, healthcare, housing and education.
This is not the first time that the US government has been criticized by CERD,
which is charged with monitoring international compliance with the 1969
Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, a global treaty that
has been ratified by the US. In March 2006, CERD criticized the US for
violating Native Americans' land rights. As a treaty signatory, the US is
obliged to end racist practices against minorities, including Native Americans,
Blacks and Latinos.
CERD's 13-page report called on the Bush administration to take effective steps
to end racist practices and comply with its treaty obligations. The committee
rejected the Bush administration's assertion that its treaty obligations do not
apply to laws or practices that are race-neutral on their face but
discriminatory in effect. To the contrary, the committee advised Bush administration
officials providing testimony that the treaty prohibits all forms of racial
discrimination, including practices and laws that may not be discriminatory in
purpose, but are discriminatory in effect.
In the area of criminal justice, the CERD report questioned the application of
the death penalty and the sentencing of minors to life without parole, which it
linked to racial disparities between blacks and whites. The UN panel rejected
the US' claim that more black children get life without parole because they
commit more crimes. The panel also voiced objection to the lack of judicial
review and indefinite detention of 'enemy combatants' at Guantanamo Bay prison.
The panel recommendations include the establishment of an independent human
rights body to help eliminate widespread racial disparities and training
programs for law enforcement officials, teachers and social workers to raise
awareness of US treaty obligations.
DeKalb Police Homicides Justified
In 2006, DeKalb County police
officers shot and killed 12 suspects. For more than a year, a special grand
jury has been secretly investigating those deaths and other use-of- force
incidences. At the end of March, the grand jury shared its findings with the
public. In all but one of the shooting deaths, police officers were justified,
according to the grand jury.
Of the 31 use-of-force cases and/or deaths examined, the grand jury found only
six unjustified. It recommended a criminal investigation in the case of one
DeKalb officer, who shot an unarmed fleeing suspect, Lorenzo Matthews. The
grand jury also recommended a criminal investigation of four officers from
other agencies that participated in a federal raid that ended in the death of
Youwus Vilpre in Lithonia.
In addition to the two
unjustified deaths, the grand jury raised the issues of possible thefts from
suspects and crime scene evidence tampering. DeKalb District Attorney Gwen
Keyes Fleming indicated her office will investigate the possible tampering of
crime scene evidence by the medical examiner's office, the theft of money by
the police crime scene unit, the DeKalb officer found unjustified in shooting
Matthews and two other DeKalb police officers the grand jury targeted for
possible prosecution in nonfatal use-of-force incidences. The U.S. attorney's
office will investigate the federal raid in which an unarmed Vilpre was killed.
The grand jury's exonerations
were greeted with denunciation by the families and friends of the victims. Most
expressed renewed grief at the loss of their loved ones and disbelief at the
grand jury findings. Few saw any justice in the DeKalb County grand jury
deliberations.
Disgruntled says: The Collegian, the
Georgia Perimeter College (GPS) newspaper, recently published an investigative
report entitled "Board of Regents Cover-Up? The headline news story
involved the retirement compensation of former GPC president Dr. Jacquelyn
Belcher. As reported by M. Hunter Whitten, The Collegian editor-in-chief, Dr.
Belcher's retirement pay exceeded the percentage specified by the University
System of Georgia's Board of Governors' guidelines. When the college newspaper
inquired about the discrepancy, the applicable sections of the policy manual,
which is posted online, were altered. This type of action in the face of honest
inquiry sends a bad message to young people, who are being trained to believe
they must follow the rules of the road to succeed in life. If those in
positions of authority can break and alter the rules whenever it serves their
interests, then young people are likely to assume there are no rules that must
be obeyed.
Disgruntled
feels: Justified! The US economy is in decline. Whether or not it is in
the throes of a recession based on the technical definition is up for academic
debate. However, there is no denying that a lot of people are feeling the pain
of unemployment, as well as higher prices for necessities, particularly food
and fuel. In addition to blaming the Bush administration, an increasing number
of people are willing to cite monetary policy under former Federal Reserve
chairman Alan Greenspan as responsible for the busted housing bubble and
current crisis in financial markets. The Wall Street Journal (04-08-08)
published a lengthy article on the former chairman in which Greenspan defended
his policies against critics that claim the combination of lax regulation and
easy money are responsible for the current economic crisis. After all,
Greenspan maintained interest rates at historically low levels for an extended
period, while encouraging homeowners to use their homes like ATMs, which
prevented a decline in consumer spending over a period in which real incomes
and employment were stagnant. While Greenspan is unwilling to accept any
responsibility, some of the criticism of Fed policy during his tenure is
justified.
Disgruntled
wants to know: Prior to his
election, the DeKalb County CEO was advised by some concerned citizens to
conduct an audit to determine where the county's tax dollars were being spent.
Rather than an audit, which may have led to less waste and abuse, thereby
saving tax dollars, the CEO-elect Vernon Jones proposed raising property taxes
to fund new projects, including his Greenspace Initiative. Basically, DeKalb
County continued business as usual. Finally, after nearly two terms in office,
the county has conducted an audit, and the findings are as some of us suspected
- abuse and waste are widespread. CEO Jones has indicated he takes full
responsibility. However, that is just empty hype types like Jones use because
it sounds appropriate for someone in a leadership position. Question is, what
will Jones do to make it right?
Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes & Telephone Calls
Email www.reuters.com
Jolie promotes education for Iraqi kids..Actress and human rights activist
Angelina Jolie has urged the international community to make educating Iraqi
children a greater priority. "The best way to heal children of conflict
from trauma is to have them focus on their future," Jolie told the Council
on Foreign Relations in New York. Jolie, who visited Iraq in August, and other
humanitarian workers discussed how to help displaced Iraqi children regain some
sense of normalcy and stability through education. The schooling of refugee
children is a frequent casualty of violence and political unrest, said Gene
Sperling, an economic adviser to former president Bill Clinton who co-chairs
the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict with Jolie. "Every child
has a right to education and conflict is not a reason to ignore that,"
Jolie said. The Hollywood actress has visited more than 20 humanitarian hot
spots, including Iraq and Sudan's Darfur region, since becoming a UN goodwill
ambassador in 2001.
Email www.msnbc.com
It has been 40 years since the
assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., but only now, with the
emergence of an African-American candidate with a real chance of winning the
presidency, has race finally pushed itself into the heart of America's civic
conversation. "In some ways we've never talked more about race in
America," Mark Whitaker, senior vice president of NBC News, said in a
commentary he wrote as part of the network's initiative with msnbc.com's Gut
Check America series examining race relations in the United States. And yet, he
lamented, "there has been virtually no debate in this campaign about how
to tackle the crisis of inner-city black men, millions of whom are locked in a
vicious cycle of criminality and incarceration."
Email www.acri.org/pr_060707.html...Affirmative action foes cite Obama, Clinton...Ward Connerly, an African American, the nation's most prominent opponent of affirmative action, contends that the success of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton shows that preferences are no longer necessary "to compensate for, quote, institutional racism and institutional sexism." Sixteen months after voters in Michigan voted to kill affirmative action in the public sphere, opponents of preferences based on race and gender are pushing five more states to ban the practice. Foes of affirmative action, which is meant to address current and historical inequities, delivered 128,744 signatures to Colorado authorities earlier this month. Similar organizations in Arizona, Missouri, Oklahoma and Nebraska are circulating petitions as civil rights groups and educators are mobilizing to defeat the measures. The initiatives are spearheaded by Ward Connerly, the nation's most prominent opponent of affirmative action, who said he has raised about $1.5 million for the campaigns. He sees the November ballot initiatives as the next step in his drive to end preferences in public education, hiring and contracting.