Michael Jackson broke down racial barriers
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Debra Alban
CNN
Michael Jackson was an international superstar, and many in the black community herald him for breaking down racial barriers in the music industry.
"Michael Jackson made culture accept a person of color way before Tiger Woods, way before Oprah Winfrey, way before Barack Obama," said the Rev. Al Sharpton. "Michael did with music what they later did in sports and in politics and in television. And no controversy will erase the historic impact."
As the Jackson 5, Michael Jackson and his brothers "became a cutting-edge example of black crossover artists," said Mark Anthony Neal, a professor of black popular culture at Duke University's Department of African and African American Studies.
"You basically had five working-class black boys with Afros and bell bottoms, and they really didn't have to trade any of that stuff in order to become mainstream stars," Neal said.
Young Michael Jackson was the first black "bubblegum teen star" in the vein of Monkees singer Davy Jones, Neal said.
Jackson continued as a pioneer in the black culture when he broke barriers by appearing on MTV, and by breaking sales records with the 1982 album, "Thriller."
"At the time that he releases 'Thriller,' I always argue that MTV was arguably the best example of cultural apartheid in the United States," Neal said.
What do you expect of black students?
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CNN
Back in 1972, on an episode of "All in the Family," Gloria posed the following riddle to Archie and Meathead.
Father and son go driving. There's an accident. The father is killed instantly, the son is rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery. The surgeon walks in, takes one look at the patient and says, "I can't operate on this boy. He's my son."
The answer to the apparent paradox eluded Archie, Meathead and the guys down at Kelsey's bar for the balance of the half hour. They floated theories involving stepfathers, sons-in-law, priests, adoptions and returns from the dead. All of which Archie apparently found more believable than the true answer which was, of course, that the surgeon was the boy's mother. "If that's the answer," he spouted, "that's the dumbest riddle I ever hoid!"
Thirty-seven years later it is, perhaps, difficult to appreciate why this riddle ever was a riddle, how so apparent an answer could have stymied Archie, Meathead and, I would wager, the vast majority of the viewing audience.
The riddle speaks volumes not just about how the world has changed in four decades, but also about how unconscious expectations can blind us to the obvious. In 1972, one expected a man when one heard the word "surgeon."
Much as, in 2009, one expects a white kid when one hears the word "scholar."
People will deny this, will say all the right and politic things. But the disclaimers will be as thin and transparent as Saran Wrap. Black, white and otherwise, we are all socialized by the same forces and all carry, by and large, the same unconscious assumptions. One of which is that a certain level of achievement is black and another is white.
This is what you are hearing when a black kid speaks standard English and another black kid chides him for "talking white." This is what George W. Bush was alluding to when he decried "the soft bigotry of low expectations." And this is what we need to address forthrightly if we ever hope to close the so-called achievement gap that looms between black kids and white ones.
Obama is nudging views on race, a survey finds
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Program Note: Tune in to CNN’s full coverage of President Obama’s first 100 days with the best political team on television Wednesday at 7 p.m. ET.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Marjorie Connelly
The New York Times
Barack Obama’s presidency seems to be altering the public perception of race relations in the United States. Two-thirds of Americans now say race relations are generally good, and the percentage of blacks who say so has doubled since last July, according to the latest New York Times/ CBS News poll.
Despite that, half of blacks still say whites have a better chance of getting ahead in American society, the poll found. Black Americans remain among the president’s staunchest supporters; 70 percent of black respondents now say the country is headed in the right direction, compared with 34 percent of whites.
The poll found broad support for Mr. Obama’s approach on a variety of issues, including one of the most contentious: whether Congress should investigate the harsh interrogation tactics authorized by George W. Bush. Sixty-two percent of Americans share Mr. Obama’s view that hearings are unnecessary.
Can Black men survive falling U.S. economy?
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Charlene Muhammad
New America Media
A recent study indicates that of the major ethnic groups impacted by unemployment during the current U.S. recession, Black men have experienced the greatest job losses since the crisis officially began in November 2007.
“What's missing from national media coverage of this recession is plainly a great deal of dishonesty about who's losing their jobs. This is overwhelmingly a blue collar, retail sales, low level recession,” said Andrew Sum, professor of economics and director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston, Mass., which published the study.
“The Impacts of the 2007-2009 National Recession on Male Employment in the U.S. through January 2009; The Massive Concentration of Job Losses Among Males Especially Black Men and Blue Collar Workers” tracked employment losses in the recession across gender groups of workers overall, and in the four major ethnicities—Asian, Black, Hispanic and White.
Eyewitness to Murder: The fatal moment of the King Assassination
Program Note: In CNN's Black in America series, Soledad O'Brien examines the successes, struggles and complex issues faced by black men, women and families, 40 years after the death of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Watch Eyewitness to Murder: The King Assassination this Saturday & Sunday, 8 p.m. ET
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Through first-hand witnesses and original documents from that time, special correspondent Soledad O'Brien reconstructs the evidence and the story of the death of Martin Luther King Junior. Her CNN Presents documentary, "Eyewitness to Murder: the King Assassination," airs this Saturday and Sunday at 8 pm, ET.
Among those contributing to this special program are former ambassador Andrew Young, Congressman John Lewis, various policemen and firemen, the medical examiner, and the brother of accused killer James Earl Ray. We look at the man on the balcony who joined the CIA, the military intelligence agents on a nearby firehouse roof, the FBI officials who tried to drive King to suicide, but in the end, find no hard evidence pointing to any one other than Ray.
Editor's Note: In ‘Black in America 2,’ Soledad O'Brien investigates the innovative and unexpected ways people are confronting the most difficult issues facing their community in "Black in America 2." Watch this July on CNN.
Eyewitness to Murder – The King Assassination
Program Note: In CNN's Black in America series, Soledad O'Brien examines the successes, struggles and complex issues faced by black men, women and families, 40 years after the death of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Watch Eyewitness to Murder: The King Assassination this Saturday & Sunday, 8 p.m. ET
__________________________________________________________________________
Through first-hand witnesses and original documents from that time, special correspondent Soledad O'Brien reconstructs the evidence and the story of the death of Martin Luther King Junior. Her CNN Presents documentary, "Eyewitness to Murder: the King Assassination," airs this Saturday and Sunday at 8 pm, ET.
Among those contributing to this special program are former ambassador Andrew Young, Congressman John Lewis, various policemen and firemen, the medical examiner, and the brother of accused killer James Earl Ray. We look at the man on the balcony who joined the CIA, the military intelligence agents on a nearby firehouse roof, the FBI officials who tried to drive King to suicide, but in the end, find no hard evidence pointing to any one other than Ray.
Editor's Note: In ‘Black in America 2,’ Soledad O'Brien investigates the innovative and unexpected ways people are confronting the most difficult issues facing their community in "Black in America 2." Watch this July on CNN.
How green was my surname; via Ireland, a chapter in the story of Black America
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S. Lee Jamison
The New York Times
Happy St. Patrick's Day, Shaquille O'Neal!
So many African-Americans have Irish-sounding last names - Eddie Murphy, Isaac Hayes, Mariah Carey, Dizzy Gillespie, Toni Morrison, H. Carl McCall - that you would think that the long story of blacks and Irish coming together would be well documented. You would be wrong.
Randall Kennedy, a professor at Harvard Law School and the author of "Interracial Intimacies; Sex, Marriage, Identity and Adoption," said that when it comes to written historical exploration of black-Irish sexual encounters, "there are little mentions, but not much."
And most African-Americans do not know a lot about their family names.
"Quite frankly, I always thought my name was Scotch, not Irish." said Mr. McCall, the former New York State comptroller.
But the Irish names almost certainly do not come from Southern slaveholders with names like Scarlett O'Hara. Most Irish were too poor to own land. And some blacks, even before the Civil War, were not slaves.
Job losses hit black men hardest
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Patrik Jonsson and Yvonne Zipp
The Christian Science Monitor
At a time when America has elected its first black president, more African-American men are losing jobs than at any time since World War II.
No group has been hit harder by the downturn. Employment among black men has fallen 7.8 percent since November of 2007, according to a report by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.
The trend is intimately tied to education, the report’s authors say. Black women – who are twice as likely as black men to go to college – have faced no net job losses. By contrast, black men are disproportionately employed in those blue-collar jobs that have been most highly affected – think third shifts at rural manufacturing plants.
It threatens to add to the difficulties of vulnerable families in a community already beset by high incarceration rates and low graduation numbers.
Moreover, it puts renewed focus on the cultural and economic stereotypes of black women and men – mythologies and realities about the black family that remain challenging for the country, and Washington, to address.
Tale of two brothers
Program Note: Watch CNN’s Black in America as Soledad O’Brien examines the successes, struggles and complex issues faced by black men, women and families. Tonight at 8 p.m. ET.
CNN's Soledad O'Brien meets two brothers with two divergent paths - one a professor, the other a prisoner.
Eric Holder, please – less talk, more action
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Melissa Harris-Lacewell
Special to CNN
On Wednesday, Attorney General Eric Holder marked Black History Month with an address at the Department of Justice. Holder clearly and courageously acknowledged the history of American racism.
He forthrightly argued that, "to get to the heart of this country, one must examine its racial soul." Because public officials so rarely discuss race, Holder's was an unusually bold statement.
But ultimately, Eric Holder's discussion of race in America was a failure. It failed because Holder spoke more like a grade school principal than like the attorney general of the United States. He framed our nation's continuing racial work as a struggle to feel comfortable, be tolerant, and have "frank conversations about racial matters."
