Success is A Habit

If you're paying attention to the news, all you’ll hear is that we are in a recession. Commentators are shouting that it’s time to start clipping coupons, stop going on vacations and start bypassing Starbucks. This week NYT columist David Brooks discussed how the recession was contributing to downward mobility in his Op-Ed, The Formerly Middle Class.

How then do we explain the folks who are still doing well financially? They’re buying new homes, still eating in nice restaurants and living their best lives in the midst of this latest financial shake-up. Most of these financial successes aren’t millionaires or trust fund babies. During the boom years, when the rest of us were carelessly spending, they were probably doing the unglamorous stuff like paying off their credit cards and saving money for a "rainy day" .

If you are in debt, jobless or are fearful about your future job security, it’s easy to buy into the collective fear. The fist truth is you have the power to improve your finances as well as the rest of your life. The secon truth is that you will feel some pain.

People often think that there’s some mystic reason why some people are successful and others are not. The real answer is quite simple: Successful people form the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do. When it comes to being a success—talent and skill are less important than the willingness of a person to commit to doing the things that they dislike.

How many time did you say that you wanted to lose weight, but wouldn’t get up early to the gym? How many of you have said that you want a better relationship but were unwilling to let go of someone who has proven time and again to be toxic? How many people say that they want a better paying job, but are unwilling to spend the time and money on the training, certification or degree that would advance their careers? In my own life, I have lost weight, improved my relationships and earned more money when I got off the dime and made new choices about my life—and stuck to them.

Year after the year, people keep living financially and emotionally impoverished lives because they are unwilling to form new habits that would allow them to live happier and more abundant lives.

We all know that successful athletes train hard for several hours a day and follow specialized diets to prepare their minds and bodies to win competitions. The same goes for successful salespeople. They sell large volumes of their services or products by having a definite prospecting program, having a sales script and by organizing their time and efforts toward reaching new and existing customers.

Don’t be mistaken. Most successful people are not thrilled about doing the things that the rest of don’t like such as getting up early, facing rejection or dealing with challenging situations.

Successful people however are focused on achieving the results that they desire. Failures on the other hand usually concentrate on doing just enough to get by. Consequently failures learn to be satisfied with the results that they get from going the easy route. Money alone is not enough to motivate anyone toward greatness—it’s much easier to learn to live poor than do the things that it takes to live large. Unfortunately most people would rather do without than do things that they don’t want to do.

Making the decision to become successful comes with a caveat: Any resolution or decision you make to yourself is worthless unless you have formed the habit to support it. And you won’t form the habit unless from the start you link it with a definite purpose that can be accomplished by maintaining it.

Successful people are able to do things that they don’t like because they have a purpose strong enough to keep them going. Failures usually have no purpose beyond getting a paycheck. If you want to be successful you have to have a purpose that moves you to get up everyday and do the difficult things. Your purpose, while practical has got to resonate with you on a spiritual or emotional level. Your basic need for food and shelter will only push you to do so much—your purpose, in terms of your wants and desires, however will spur you to reach far loftier goals.

Everyone needs to look at their life and determine your own purpose. One woman’s purpose maybe getting a better paying job so that she and her children can escape an abusive husband. One man’s purpose may be to make enough money to buy a house for his family in a safer neighborhood. Another woman’s purpose may be to see that her daughter gets through college without have to work her way through as she did.

Each person has a Divine purpose for his or her life----it’s to live up to his or her unique and immense potential. Some of us choose to step into our greatness and improve not only our own lives but also our families and our communities. But, too many of us shy away from the idea of doing better or having more, afraid that we are not worthy or capable of living a better life. Financial success, just like good health and loving, supportive relationships is nothing more than a manifestation of the universal abundance that is our birthright--- a person simply has to decide to step forward and claim it.

Marianne Williamson said, "...You are a child of God. You’re playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you...As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Here are three questions to think about:
1) What is the thing that you REALLY dislike doing that if you did it on a daily basis would improve your health, finances or relationships?
2) What 1 or 2 steps could you begin to do daily to support this life change?
3) Are you cheating yourself out of your best life by doing only the easy things—the stuff that you like?

Are You A Buy Stock or A Sell Stock?

If you were a company, which example would you most represent your current status:

A) Your services/products are becoming obsolete because you are failing to recognize new trends and changes in consumer habits. Consequently your sales are shrinking and your stock prices are lower. In short, you are a company in decline, whose stock should be sold.


B) You see investment in Research and development as key to your company's continued vitability. By keeping abreast of changes in the marketplace and with consumer tastes your company consistently creates products/services that appeal to your target audience. Consequently your business is growing and the value of your stock continues to rise.

Unfortunately, too many of our businesses would look like A. In too many instances people are not regularly re-evaluating their skills, education or mind set to see whether what they possess is appropriate for their current life or career circumstances. The result is that we are not positioning ourselves to take advantage of opportunities that maybe presented to us, nor are we shoring up our resources to deal with the financial turbulance that occur with job loss, divorce, or a major illness major.

Bishop T.D. Jakes in his book,Reposition Yourself: Live Your Life Without Limit helps readers to readjust their thinking to deal with the many changes that life presents. Bishop Jakes discusses how many people are held back because they are attached to old behaviors or beliefs that don't serve their current needs or circumstances.

In order to "reposition yourself" you need to be honest about where you want to go and where you are falling short in attaining that goal. Some of the key areas for examination are:

1) Your Health-Want do you need to do to improve it according to your doctor?

2) Your skills/education-If you were fired tomorrow, do You have the necessary skills, education and professional network to get a new and better job in today's marketplace?

3) Your Finances: Do you have enough money and insurance to withstand a major financial blow such as losing your job or becoming disabled (even temporarily)?

4) Your Relationships: What do you need to do to deepen and strengthen your relationship with family and friends?


Whether or not you become a compnay in decline or one on the rise is largely based on regularly upgrading yourself. It's not about change for change sake. It's about improve yourself so that you can live happily and abundantly in a rapidly changing world.

5 Lessons Hip Hop Can Teach You In These Hectic Times

People are scared. Across the country folks are losing their homes—and even if you can keep your house it’s worth much less than it was several years ago. Jobs with liveable wages and benefits are rapidly disappearing. With the crashing and burning happening on Wall Street the value of many people’s retirement accounts has plummeted. Last, but certainly not least, affordable health insurance evades more and more Americans. It’s easy to be sucked into the collective fear that is spreading around the country. In Chinese the symbol for crisis is the same as opportunity. It’s therefore not surprising that even in the middle of this financial chaos there are people still making money and living large—and that’s been the case throughout history.

Recently I was listening to T.I.’s single “On Top Of the World,” featuring Ludacris and I started thinking about how successful people are different from the ones caught up in collective fear. Over the years rap artists have advocated boot-strap economics—a self reliance that emerged in the aftermath of being abandoned and ignored by the system. People hustle when they are hungry and they become complacent when they have extra money in their pockets. We all tend to forget that the economy, like life, is about cycles. If there is a boom period, there’s got to be a corresponding bust. While no man (or woman) is an island, it’s almost certain that the more that you farm out your financial decisions to other people, the more likely you’ll remain broke and fearful. I have put together 5 important lessons that Hip Hop has taught me about financially successful people:

1. They have a prosperity mind-set: Successful people refuse to focus on their fears. They are really determined that they are going to get theirs—no matter what. This means that they don’t spend a lot of time thinking that they can’t make it because they’re Black, Latino, female, uneducated/unqualified, too old, too fat, don’t live in NY or LA or too unattractive. There’s a big difference between saying that you want to be wealthy and actually believing that you can be. The success stories are made of up people who truly believed that they deserved the best that life had to offer. These folks also got off their rears and took concrete steps toward their goals. Successful person may play hard, but they also work VERY hard. These people are constantly in meetings, discussing deals and investigating new opportunities. Successful people also surround themselves with knowledgeable advisers who can help them to improve their game and fulfil their vision.. The folks with longevity such as Russell Simmons, Sean “P-Diddy” Combs, Sean “Jay-Z” Carter, LL Cool L and Queen Latifah know that they are exactly where they are supposed to be—it’s not a fluke or an accident.

Action Step: List you top 5 reasons why you can’t get ahead. Read your list and determine why each one is a really just an excuse. For instance, if you say that don’t have enough education; you can go back to school, even if its only one class at a time.

2. They Take On New Challenges: Successful people believe in themselves and as a result they take career risks that allow them to learn and grow. Rap artist, Will Smith (DJ Jazzy J and Fresh Prince) agreed to star in the television show, “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air,” and then he made his film debuted in Six Degrees of Separation, playing a gay man. Will Smith went on to star in films such as Independence Day, Men in Black and Enemy of the State and is now a top Hollywood money-maker. Queen Latifah, who co-founded Flavor Unit Entertainment, which managed groups such as Outkast and Naughty by Nature also starred in the television show “Living Single.” She won acclaim for her acting in films such as Living Out Loud and Set It Off and was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in the film “Chicago." Queen Latifah moved from rapping to singing on The Dana Owens Album (2004) and Trav’lin Light (2007). As a fashion designer, Sean Combs has not only racked up millions in sales, but in 2004 he beat out veteran designers Ralph Lauren and Michael Kors to win CFDA Menswear Designer of the Year award for his sophisticated Sean John clothing line. We also can’t forget his addictive MTV reality shows, “Making the Band,” and “Who Wants to Be Diddy’s Assistant? The folks who keep stepping, even in tough economic times keep challenging themselves to reach larger and loftier goals.

Action Step: Think about 1 or 2 things that you’ve been scared to do and commit to doing it—put a date on its completion. It may be performing at the local open mic, applying for a higher position at your job or pitching your business to clients outside your community.

3. They own their own businesses: The reality is that if you work for someone else, you are always financially vulnerable. The company, not you decides how much money you can make, how quickly you can advance and whether you’ll even have a job next week. When the company decides to eliminate your job it’s irrelevant to them that you’ve got rent to pay, a car note that’s due or kids to feed. Although owning a business can be financially risky, it’s the only way that you can directly control how much cash flows into your wallet. Whether it’s rap music entrepreneurs or traditional business people, the wealthiest ones are those who own their own businesses: Jay-Z (co-founder. Roc-A-Fella Records); 50 Cent (G-Unit, an umbrella for several businesses); Sean Combs (Bad Boy Worldwide Entertainment Group); Warren Buffet (Bershire Hathaway); Bill Gates (Microsoft); Jeff Bezos (founder, Amazon.com). Even for people who don’t want to be full-time entrepreneurs they need to have a second hustle that can tide them over if their main gig disappears.

Action Step: Make a List of 10 different low-cost businesses that you could start TODAY with the skills that you’ve already got. Research start-up costs, marketing/promotion expenses and what it would take to turn a profit.

4. They Watch Their Money: Despite all of the Cristal sipping and bottles of Patron that are consumed every weekend, the truly wealthy usually let someone else pick up the tab. It’s the wannabees who are going broke trying to impress the next man (or woman). Ironically the more that people make, the less that they tend to spend. Not only are the wealthy usually inundated with “comps” (Complimentary or FREE gifts/perks), they expect NOT to pay for their drinks or to get into a club. In comparison too many average joes simply spend more than they earn. While the rich buy appreciable items, such as recession-proof real estate in high-end communities, art work, or invest in their companies, the average janes buy/lease luxury cars and McMansions that they couldn’t afford. These average joes usually have closets full of designer clothes and accessories but not a dime in emergency savings. They are literally one pay check away from welfare. Getting on track financially means cutting back on all non-essential spending and putting some money in the bank.

Action Step: Determine what in your life are “needs” versus “wants.” If you don’t have at least three months of salary in the bank for an emergency---immediately dead the “wants” and bank the money. Think about selling your non-essentials clothes/gadgets on Ebay.

5. They Have a Life Plan: Most successful people have a good idea about what they want to accomplish in a given time period—whether that’s five years, one year or a month. They don’t wake up every morning and just wing it. This doesn’t mean that every move is written in stone—but they’ve got an outline. Sometime your desires, your circumstances or your industry change and you’ve got to embark on another course. As veteran music industry exec, Kevin Liles said in his book Make it Happen, “There’s a big difference between building an overall vision about what you want to achieve in a lifetime, and tying yourself down to one path.” The key point is not to live solely in the future. Do your best with the project or job that’s in front of you, but keep in mind how it fits into where you want to be tomorrow. An important part of having a viable life plan is being prepared—are you positioning yourself for new opportunities? Whether you want to own a record company, buy a house, become a rap artist, open a charter school or become an NBA player, you need to find out what takes in terms of education/credentials, money, time and connections. Granted, there’s no law saying that you’ve got to do it like everyone else. For instance, 19 year old Brandon Jennings is the first U.S. basketball player to play professionally in Europe straight out of high school. In the 1990s the Wu-Tang Clan changed the music industry by having a recording contract with Loud/RCA that still allowed members to record solo projects with other labels. However, you’ve got to be knowledgeable of the system before you can successfully buck it.

Action Step: Write down what you would like to achieve in the next 6 months or year. Figure out the major steps you’d need to take to achieve your goals.

There’s more to life than the paper chase, but don’t discount the importance of money. It may not buy happiness, but it can buy you a nice home in a safe neighborhood, a reliable car, health insurance, stellar attorneys, vacations, college tuition for your children and the ability to help your parents financially as they enter their golden years. It’s in these times that we’ve got to realize the regardless of whose in the White House, we need develop a “do it your damn self” mind set that will help us to adapt to a changing world. In this latest financial crisis the government ran to bail out Wall Street while people on Main Street are still suffering. The rich and powerful instinctively look out for their own interests. They’re no different from any other clique or crew. Lil’ Kim summed up how the system works on The Lox’s single, “Money, Power and Respect,” “First you get the money, then you get the power, after you get the f–in’ power, motherf—ers will respect you." The take-away is to begin to rely more on yourself and rely less on other folks to make sure that you and yours eat.

I told Ya So!- Michelle Obama's Now the Target

I know that I've been quiet, but I feel compelled to say I told ya so. It was clear to me in March that Michelle Obama would be a major target.

So far she's been called Barack's "Baby's Mama," accused of using the term "whitey," and as predicted being a Black separatist, based on her Princeton senior thesis.

To paraphrase the the old limbo question...."how low can Barack Obama's opponent's go?"

On March 13, 2008, I wrote the following opinion piece that was published on www.NewsOne.com [BTW: There was a problem with their site, otherwise I would have simply linked it.]
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Is the Country Ready For First Lady Michelle Obama?
By: Yvonne Bynoe


It was in the wind last April when New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd criticized Michelle Obama for teasing her husband in public and acknowledging that he was a mere mortal. According to Dowd, Many people I talked to afterward found Michelle wondrous. But others worried that her chiding was emasculating, casting her husband -- under fire for lacking experience -- as an undisciplined child. Dowd put herself in the weird position of being the understanding White woman defending Sen. Barack Obama against his mean old Black wife. Most recently Michelle’s comment that she was “now proud to be an American” stirred up accusations that she’s a loose cannon.

The familiar smell in the air is the stereotype of the “Strong Black Woman.” While Barack has been portrayed in the media as the cool, charismatic post-race spouse, Michelle has been painted as a sistah with a chip on her shoulder. Since Barack appears untouchable, don’t be surprised if Michelle becomes the target of a smear campaign. There’s now talk that her senior thesis is racially divisive. Who would object to such a strategy? It would simply go down as another crazy Black bitch who dragged down a successful Black man.

Everyone is asking whether the country is ready for a Black President, but perhaps we should be asking if the United States is ready for First Lady Michelle Obama? Frankly most Americans have no context in which to place Michelle----a whip-smart graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School from the working class South Side of Chicago. She is not shaking her ass in rap music videos nor is she caring for little White children (or their parents). She is also not a baby’s mama or some wannabe model/fashion designer/singer who latched on to a wealthy Black man.

Michelle is comfortable in her own skin and wants people to get to know the real her not a plastic consultant-generated version. In our society we have such low expectations for Black women that even our denigration is effortlessly justified. So people actually believe that Black women like Michelle who have brains, beauty, hefty salaries and loving husbands are anomalies. To embrace Michelle would mean acknowledging a radically different Black female persona—that of a thinking, loving, independent yet supportive woman. However in this election it’s more probable that Barack’s opponents will go old school by trying to paint Michelle as a Sapphire--- twisting her confidence into arrogance and her honesty into bluntness.

The Amos N’Andy character “Sapphire” has come to represent the curt-tongued, ball-busting, emasculating Black woman. On the 1970s television program Sanford and Son she was personified by “Aunt Esther”--- Fred’s combative, Bible-thumping sister-in-law. Aunt Esther was often accompanied by her henpecked husband Woodrow. Woodrow was usually tipsy suggesting that it was the only way that he could deal with his overbearing wife.

The modern Sapphire is the Strong Black Woman. She is angry, aggressive, defensive, and controlling. The SBW may have an impressive resume, but she can’t keep a man. The caveat is that if the SBW has a man, he’s got to be weak—like Woodrow. Barack’s opponents have continually questioned his toughness and even called his foreign policy proposals naive. It’s apparent that if Michelle can be portrayed as a stereotypical domineering Black woman, it’s easier to insinuate that Barack’s got to be soft to be with her. Unfortunately, some voters may fall for it believing that a man can’t control the country if he can’t control his wife’s mouth.

What Michelle’s detractors fail to understand is that many American women see it as strength, not weakness that Barack would marry an intelligent “keep it real” woman rather than a vacant Stepford wife. In an April 2007 Chicago Tribune article Barack said of Michelle, “There’s something about her that projects such honesty and strength. It’s what makes her such an unbelievable professional, and partner, and mother, and wife.” In this era where fake is the new real, Michelle Obama is a welcome breath of fresh air.

Reflecting On Mother's Day

I know that I have been AWOL. Life sometimes gets in the way...this includes my husband, my son and my work. It's all good though. Taking time out to decide who are are and where you want to be is always a good thing. Moreover I am blessed that I have the time and resources to take periodic mental health days. A few weeks ago I went to a wonderful conference and realized that it was time to change direction in my work---I need to make it more current for where I NOW am in my life. Central to that identity is fact that I am a working mother. I'll announce those changes more in the coming weeks as they solidify.

For now, it's important that I reflect on my mother and my grandmothers. It is their love, strength and courage that stand as the foundation of my life. These women in all of their imperfection were my models about how to navigate the world as a Black woman. In some instances their lives were the inspiration for me to move far beyond the limitations that were placed on them because of their race and gender. The difference of decades, expectations and realities makes relationships among women tricky. I think however that we all did the best that we could to stay connected--- given who we were when those gaps appeared.

Overall it is the lessons that they taught me about self-respect, perseverence,intelligence...and yes, financial indepedence that have supported me during challenging times. Sometimes I was hard-headed, but now as a mother with aspirations (and fears) for my own beaming son, I better recognize the values that these phemomenal women were trying to instill in me....the hurts that they were trying to protect me from and the wonderful experiences that they were trying to prepare me to enjoy.

I hope that from their perches in Heaven that they are proud of my efforts to be present in my own life, to love husband, son and friends in a way that honors my truth, helps me to heal my own imperfections and supports their individual growth and evolution.

In their honor, Maya Angelou's poem, "Phenomenal Woman."

Kicking It Old School With My Son

When I was young, Sunday mornings meant that my father normally cooked breakfast. Daddy made the same meal--- pancakes, bacon and sausage, which was accompanied by orange juice, hot tea and the New York Daily News, Sunday edition. As my sister and I got older, we advanced our reading beyond the comics, but what remained consistent for years was the Sunday morning soundtrack. More often than not we ate breakfast and afterward read the newspaper listening to Hal Jackson's Sunday Classics on WBLS-FM. It was on this program that I developed an appreciation for musical artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Nat King Cole, Aretha Franklin, Johnny Mathis and John Coltrane. My father, a jazz enthusiast, never gave speeches about the superiority of this music over the R&B and rap that I loudly listened to during the week. Instead he let the music speak for itself. In turn I soaked up the richness of music and considered it, not just my parents music, but also my own. One of the best memories I have is when I took my father to see Nina Simone perform in NYC.

When my father died two years ago among the keepsakes that I wanted were his CDs. It was amazing to see that there were so many "doubles"---CDs that he had that I already owned. I also surprised to find a Tupac CD (albeit bootleg) as well as one or two rap CDs. It would have never dawned on me that he would have bothered to explore Tupac or Dr. Dre. In my youth although he tolerated rap being played in the house, he drew the line at it being played on his car stereo. It would be easy to flatter myself that my father bought these CDs to understand more about my interest and work with rap music and Hip Hop. In truth, I think that my father was interested in discovering music that were masterfully created and that had some cultural or social relevance. I suppose that once he got older he was willing to explore the possibility that rap could meet his standards.

This past Sunday I suppose that I was continuing my family's Sunday morning tradition. I was literally digging in the crates and came across some old tapes---among the treasures was one of a live party that was held at Tavern on the Green hosted by Hot 97 in the mid 1990s; another was a DJ Kool promo tape, containing the his song, "Let Me Clear My Throat" and I even dusted off RuPaul. It was wonderful to watch my three year old dance and sing songs that I had myself enjoyed. There was nothing too risque, the word nigger wasn't flying around----it was just fun music with crazy beats.

My son has plenty of children CDs, including jazz and classical music that I have carefully picked out. Additionally we supplement those CDs with easy listening adult music such as Jon Secada, Christopher Cross, Lionel Richie or Corrine Rae Bailey. Generally my husband and I have found music for kids to be too sacchriny (if that's a word). As a result we don't play children's music in our cars--since we live in the burbs we spend a fair amount of time driving. My husband is very into 1970s soul and funk (what I call family reunion music). When my son rides with him he's likely to hear a heavy dose of Stevie Wonder, The Gap Band, The Bar-Kays along with a smattering of rap. After riding with my husband our son started requesting Third Base's "Pop Goes the Weasel." Right now in heavy rotation in my car is Alexander O'Neal (which my son really likes); D-Influence and Kem. In the past I've played Alicia Keys, John Legend, Bob Marley, Gentleman and Jeff Majors to death. I like Common's Be, but was uncomfortable playing it with my son in the car because of its liberal use of the word nigger.

I am not suggesting that Alicia Keys is on par with Nancy Wilson. All that I know is that music was a place where my father and I connected. His musical tastes helped me to learn a bit more about who he was as a person---including the cultural influences that most resonated with him. I look forward to dancing with my son on more Sundays. He will probably mock me, as I mocked my father and mother's dance moves---but it will all be in fun. When they jumped up to dance to a fondly remember song, my sister and I also jumped up and joined them. I still smile at those silly moments that we shared as a family. I hope that music helps my husband and I provide our son with similar experiences. I hope that one day he will look back and remember his family with love.

Hooking Up: Is it Really Freedom for Women?

Is “hooking up” a sign of female empowerment or just another way for men to get sex on the cheap?

Like the old, one-night stand, “hooking up” doesn’t require any planning; much, if any, cash; and no commitment. Casual sex is nothing new, but better birth control and changing social mores have allowed some women to become players—--just like men. Surprisingly some people think that hooking up may be the new way to enter relationships rather than duck having one.

Right now there are at least two researched books on the market discussing hooking up: UnHooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both by Washington Post reporter, Laura Sessions Strepps and Hooking Up: Sex, Relationships and Dating on Campus by La Salle University Assistant Professor Kathleen A. Bogles. UnHooked concludes that a regular diet of casual sex impedes young people’s ability to form long-term relationships while Hooking Up asserts that while some activity is alarming, overall debauchery isn’t rampant on college campuses. The two book however do agree that unlike men, women who hook-up too often or are too freaky when they do hook-up get bad reputations. Moreover, while some high-achieving college women don’t want to devote the time necessary to date and cultivate full scale relationships, most women are disappointed when the hook-up doesn’t lead to something more. The subjects of both books are almost exclusively White, college-educated heterosexuals, so it’s unclear whether these findings are useful to the general public. Moreover, as far as I know there have been no longitudinal studies done about hooking up so these conclusions seem speculative at best.

Historically, women’s sexuality has been controlled through social institutions that sanctioned its expression only through heterosexual marriage. Therefore gender equality requires that women be able to self-direct their sexuality—it is central to their ability to exercise ownership of their bodies and to define their humanity. However in communities where far too many women are competing for a scarce number of viable partners (employed,straight men), it’s unclear whether a woman hooking up is exercising sexual agency or is merely paying the fee that she perceives is required to enter the relationship marketplace. If women are so down with hooking up, why then do so many of them become angry when the man stops calling, enters into a committed relationship with someone else or is not interested in parenting a child that resulted from their encounter? If the chief purpose of hooking up is to have no-strings sex, then it seems illogical for a woman to assume that there’s any more between her and the man than that evening’s booty call. In my mind a sexual free agent handles her business and then bids the man adieu, forever or until the next text—she’s not organizing her thoughts around the prospect of emotional intimacy.

Whether or not hooking up is liberating for a woman depends on whether or not she is being honest about what she wants from the man. If a woman is hooking up only to get some hot sex--—then more power to her. But if she’s hooking up, hoping that the sex will lead to a committed relationship, she’s probably playing herself. Sure it could happen, but she shouldn’t count on it. A good, platonic male friend used to say that men and women should have sex on the first date so that they’d know whether or not they were compatible enough to explore a relationship. According to him, there is no value in a woman waiting to have sex because if that’s all that a man wants he will bounce after getting it on the first night or the forty-first night.

He makes some good points, but years later I am still skeptical. I still don’t think that most men are that liberal minded. While I know few men who would pass up sex on the first night, I also know most of them would place the woman in the booty call category, instead of the relationship file. These men would always wonder about how many other men the woman had also done on the first night. It’s not fair, but it’s how it is. Personally I don’t believe in timetables for having sex, but I also have never mistaken a body shaking orgasm for love. Before I got married, at various points I wanted more than fun and excitement-—I wanted someone who knew and cared about me. When I was considering relationship candidates sexual attraction was important, but for me it was more critical that I learn what the particular man was about and figure out what besides his dazzling smile or laid-back cool did I like---that always took more than one night.

Condi on Race In America

Okay... I admit it, I am a Condi Rice fan. She's razor smart, unflappable and stylish. I wish she was not repping for Bush and Cheney, but it is what it is. She's gotta take her lumps along with them regarding her record and policy initiatives (or lack thereof). I treat Condi (or the concept of her) like a relative whom I disagree with...I still respect her and have her back although we don't see to eye. Mind you, I don't have a problem with her being a Republican, just with her propping up those guys.

One area where I think Rice has been woefully misunderstood has been on race. As a daughter of the South, Birmingham to be exact, she had a sense of the danger and brutality of racial discrimination. I heard that she had been friendly with one of the four young Black girls who were killed in the 1963 church bombing. Consequently her parents left the South and continued to instill in her the idea that she could surmount any obstacle, racial or otherwise through excellence. The path of her parents as well as their social circle in effect was foundation for her political beliefs.

People want Condi to march in the street and wave placards as if there is only one right way to speak out against injustice. Condi believes that Black folks have the mettle to do want they need to do to succeed without depending on the government. Given her own life experiences Condi knew (as Hurricane Katrina attested) that had she and her family waited on the government to intervene and directly improve their circumstances, her life would have turned out VERY differently...and probably not for the better.


In a March 27, 2008 interview with the editorial board of the Washington Times, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, was quoted as saying:
"Black Americans loved and had faith in this country even when this country didn't love and have faith in them, and that's our legacy."--

The nation's most prominent Black Republican, acknowledged that she had listened to Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama's speech on race relations in America. Moreover, she said that it was important that he gave it. Condi Compliments Obama on Race Speech

In commenting on the fact that Blacks didn't come to this country voluntarily, she gave the following take on the position of Blacks in American society: "We may call ourselves African Americans, but we're not immigrants. We don't mimic the immigrant story. Where this conversation has got to go is that Black Americans and White Americans founded this country together and I think we've always wanted the same thing. And it's been now a very hard and long struggle to begin to get to the place that we can all pursue the same thing."

Carrie Bradshaw Meets the Housewives of NYC

Although I am not a fan of many reality shows, I like Bravo's "The Housewives of New York." Many blog posters have asked about Bethanny, the healthy food chef---basically why is she on the show since she is neither married nor has children. Perhaps she is a segue between the carefree, sexy single life promoted in Sex and the City and more staid domestic drama of husbands, kids and second homes in the Hamptons depicted on Housewives.

Anyway, last night Bethanny broke-up with her boyfriend Jason. Jason is divorced with three kids. Bethanny is in her late thirties, has never been married and wants at least one child....soon. A few weeks ago Jason would not discuss their moving in together. It seems that Bethanny point blanked asked him whether he would be ready to have a child with her soon, he said that he wasn't sure if he'd be ready in a year or two year...he didn't want to be put on a clock. Like any New York woman, she heard his response, panicked and decamped to a penthouse suite in South Beach to think and chill.

Jason is not wrong if he does not know if he want to have more children or to get married again. Bethanny is not wrong to want to settle down and start a family. Bethany's predicament raises the questions as to whether a woman should wait until she's 35 to decide to have kids. Moreover, if she does, is a divorced guy with three kids a great candidate. The cruel fact is that unlike men, women have a finite time to procreate. As Bethany's friend in SOBE told her,your eggs are getting staler each day.


In 1960, 70 percent of American 25-year-old women were married with children; in 2000only 25 percent of them were. In 1970, just 7.4 percent of all American 30- to 34-year-olds were unmarried; today, the number is 22 percent. It would be crazy to suggest that we go back to the old days where the chief priority for women was finding a husband and birthing some babies. However just as woman plan our careers to accomodate career and social objectives, perhaps there needs to be more awareness about planning to have children. The alternative is to be nearing 40 and frantically hoping that you can program the men that you meet to be in tune with your narrowing fertility window.

I was lucky, I had given myself until age 40 to have a child, the prerequisite being that I had met someone whom I loved who could also be a suitable father. I remember telling my then boyfriend (now my husband) that given my age that I may not be able to have children and would he be cool with adoption. I was in good health, but who knows--for some women their fertility is already over by age 35. He answered that he would love any child that we had together...that was enough for me. However the relationship hit some snags, there was a break-up and then a few months later we mutually agreed to reunite...we then married. Without a whole lot of hoopla, thought or planning, I got pregnant.

It worked out well for. I beat my deadline and I am happy, but if I had it all to do again, I would have gotten serious earlier about doing the personal work required to be in a committed relationship and to be a parent. Don't get me wrong, I had fun being single and I have some good memories, but once the excitement was over, I should have got my marbles and got. I believe that the situation won't come until you are ready to receive it....that meant changing my mindset and my hang-outs. In short, it's doubtful that you are going to meet a family-oriented man in the club. Anyway, I like having options and since love can't be rushed or guaranteed, time is also a big necessity.

LeBron James, Vogue and Who Cares?

I bought the April issue of Vogue magazine that had LeBron and Giselle on the cover. I wasn't thrilled with the cover...LeBron looked brutish to me but I surmised that he was okay with the cover. It's not that I am ignoring the similarities between King Kong and Fay Wray pictures, it's just that given all the other things going on I can't get that excited.

Hattie McDaniels when criticized for playing ditzy servants in films she frequently said, "I'd rather play a maid than be one." Historically there have been an array of Black folks ready to act ignorant in front of the camera...including some modern-day rap artists and athletes. When these people are given an opportunity to make money or to gain exposure that will lead to money for them, they are not considering the implications of their actions on the masses of Black folks---they couldn't care less. In a country where "free speech" is used to condone ever manner of foolishness, there is no way of stopping Black folks from doing their minstrel posturing.

Maybe rather than looking to the White folks who run mainstream media outlets to become more racially sensitive, Black folks should concentrate on more vocally supporting the actors, athletes, activists, and other public figures whom they deem to be better representatives. Case in point, recently XXL magazine interviewed rap artist DMX and asked him about the presidential election. It was clear by his addled response that he didn't know what was going on---even who Barack Obama's was. Why in the world was the magazine even discussing politics with someone who had shown no prior interest or knowledge in the subject? Like the White folks who waste our time with incessant reports about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, Black folks spend way too much time promoting the most uncouth and unconscious folks available...then we get mad when they act out.

Most of us are no more ready to openly denounce LeBron James, than we are rap artist Ma Remy who was recently convicted of intentional assault in relation to a 2007 shooting or rap artist T.I who plead guilty to illegal weapons charges or Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick who has been indicted on perjury and other charges stemming from a cover-up of an affair with his former chief of staff. Remember, in the aftermath of Lil Kim's 2005 conviction for perjury and conspiracy in association with a shooting outside a NYC radio station, B.E.T created a reality program for her that became a top-rated show.


Check out Harry Allen's interesting article: Monkey See, Monkey Doo-Doo:How VOGUE “Honoured” LeBron James by Smearing Black People with White Supremacy & Gorilla Feces

A Campaign to Discuss Relationships, Family and Parenting

It's Sunday....I've already talked to two friends in relation to a summer rental in Sag Harbor for our first family vacation. (To date hubby and I have vacationed alone--- junior stayed with his grandmother). I started tonight's dinner and marinated some chicken in homemade jerk sauce for tomorrow. Now I am reading the New York Times. My husband and 3 year old son are in the playroom where they have begun the process of cutting out kites that will later be painted and maybe flown. The two of them earnestly working together on these kites makes me smile...I feel happy and content. The scenes that I have outlined aren't sexy, but they exude love and commitment and they represent the contours of our family. Now don't get it twisted other Sundays (or other days of the week) have produced less idyllic pictures. We do our share of bickering and finger pointing. However overall, my husband and I have developed a rhythm that allows us to be lovers, friends, parents, and distinct individuals. It ain't easy, but the rewards are worth the effort.

I am not being smug and self-satisfied about my marriage or my family. I freely acknowledge that it took me years to get here and that this is the present---people and circumstances do change, sometimes not for the better. Moreover, my Sunday portrait has nothing to do with our marriage license. Our family is built on the vision that my husband and I regularly work on to re-define and manifest---this includes each of us working on our personal shit that gets in the way. I always said that I would prefer to have a great relationship than simply be married. Other women (and men) I think feel the same way, but they seem to willing to settle for mediocre or downright bad relationships exacerbating the problem by having children.

According to statistics Black women are the least likely group to marry. Morever, Black couples are more likely than others to divorce. However this information is only important as the starting place for a dialogue about creating more empowering family relationships. It doesn't hurt right that Sen. Barack, his wife Michelle Obama and their daughters represent a new portrayal of the "Black" family. Even NYS Governor David Paterson's admission that he and his wife both cheated on each other is refreshing insofar that they sought counseling to deal with the root cause of their actions. Most psychologists will tell you that cheating is usually the result of a personal or relationship problem, but is not the problem itself.

Many people debate whether or not marriage is an anchronism, but maybe if we look at the wider canvass the institution of marriage itself is not that important. Perhaps rather than worrying about improving marriage rates, Black Americans should focus on gaining the necessary tools to sustain healthy, committed relationships, particularly when children are involved. "Committed" in my opinion has less to do with sexual monogamy than it does with being accountable for the obligations and agreements that you voluntarily enter into.

"Family" stands as the foundation for people's understanding of society--it helps to shape our values, belief and priorities. In seems rational to assume that for the masses of Black folks to advance, we need to take concrete steps to strengthen our commitment to respectful and healthy relationships and to conscious parenting. Our families have to be the spaces that nourish us and our children so that we can achieve our personal and societal goals.

In popular culture there have been few examples of a Black woman and a Black man working together to raise their children: Good Times, The Jeffersons, The Cosby Show. One could easily argue that the constantly unemployed father "James" from Good Times was a poor role model, promoting the idea that Black men were incapable of taking care of their families. By the time we get to The Jeffersons, George Jefferson's son Lionel is in college. Consequently the audience doesn't gain much insight about how the family dynamic---as well as George's ambition impacted Lionel and his life choices. The Huxtable family is the only one that on a weekly basis showed a Black couple dealing with the ups and downs of a traditional marriage as well as with the joys and trials of parenting.

It is silly and judgemental to make a blanket judgment that a particular type of family structure is best. However I think that it is reasonable to assume that the best situations are those where the adults have carefully thought about forming a family and voluntarily entered into the arrangement after agreeing (or continually working to reconcile disagreements) about the emotional, time, and financial commitments that are expected---especially as they pertain to their children. While almost anything can work, it sounds like a disaster from the get-go to have children with: 1) someone you don't know well; 2) someone who is not adequately taking care of the children that they already have; 3) someone in order to hold onto a failing relationship; 4) someone already married 5)someone who is perpetually unemployed;
6)someone who is a proven liar and cheat and 7) someone who does not want children

Many of us are immersed in converations about public policy and what Clinton or Obama will do to improve the lives millions of Black Americans who are poor, undereducated and unemployed. I however suggest that in our communities we begin to have some candid conversations about relationships,families and parenting. Not moralizing or trite rhetoric but hardcore conversations about our desires for love, family and children; our current expectations in those areas and the personal baggage that we carry that is getting in way. Right now community centers, churches, mosques, or even people's homes can become venues to discuss and exchange ideas. Moreover these places could become venues to faciliate needed changes. We need year long programs dedicated to this subject.

My husband's aunt and uncle celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary last year. All of their children are successful and seemingly happy. Maybe even more earth-shattering they couple is still very much in love. We need to hear from people like them about how to create love relationships and families that function for the decades and that produce high-achieving children and grandchildren.


Although public policy can make creating a family, parenting children or fostering a love relationship more challenging, we have successfully done it in every era, under every political party. We have to come to the real conclusion that it our responsibility---not Clinton, Obama, McCain or Jesse Ventura (who may be entering the presidential race) whether our children are academically prepared to compete in a 21st century economy, where college is a minium requirement, or understand that they should only become parents after they are financially and emotionally ready to do so or that nothing is free---that includes sex when it is being used to manipulate, control, or to fill an emotional void.


Here's my hope---A year long Campaign to Discuss Relationships, Family and Parenting!

Finally A Real Speech About Race in the U.S.

Barack Obama in a bold move decided to confront critics of his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. While denouncing Wright's inflammatory comments, Obama did not do the expedient thing and denounce Wright. Instead he took the opportunity to have a candid discussion about the frustrations that fuel the racial divide--and inspire comments like Wright's. Obama's words will not be any balm to the folks who are dead set on believing that all Whites are evil racists and that all Blacks are lazy, criminals. However for the vast majority of us in the middle, it was a direct challenge to understand the past as a means toward crafting a more just future. Moreover, it also raises the bar in this election for all candidates to deal with the issues that affect all Americans (healthcare, employment insecurity, crumpling public school, Iraq and the war on terrorism) rather than polling folks to death in order to slice and dicing voting patterns.


Read David Corn's articlePolitics Unusual: Obama Abandons Blame Game in Sophisticated Discussion of Race which appeared on MotherJones.com





The Full Text of Obama's March 18, 2008 Speech on Race in Philadelphia
"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign - to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough." We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters....And in that single note - hope! - I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories - of survival, and freedom, and hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about...memories that all people might study and cherish - and with which we could start to rebuild."

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments - meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances - for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American - and yes, conservative - notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen - is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today - a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."

"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

Clinton: A Day Late and A Dollar Short

News of Geraldine Ferraro's racially charged comment about Barack Obama came out on Wednesday. Although Hillary Clinton "regretted" the remarks, she did not immediately boot Ferraro from her Finance Committee. Ferraro (no doubt at the urging on the Clinton camp) stepped down. The press received and published her defiant resignation letter which has her essentially defending her assertion that Barack is where is his because he's a Black man. Hillary used an old political tactic. Rather than directly fire Ferraro and perhaps appear to be giving ground to Obama, Ferraro "resigned", supposedly taking her baggage with her.

Unfortunately for Clinton she did not forsee the media maelstrom that Ferraro's idiotic comments ignited. Yesterday, Clinton apologized to Black folks who may have been offended by Ferraro's comments. She also needed to apologize to the other folks who voted for Obama--Ferraro basically called them dupes. For many, Black and White her apology is too little, too late. Ferraro's comments coupled with Bill Clinton's husband's marginalization of Rev. Jesse Jackson's candidacy is about enough as some Black folks can stand. Trotting out Black women such as campaign manager Maggie Williams or long-time civil rights activist Mary Frances Berry to defend Ferraro did not AT ALL help matters.

Increasingly people are coming to believe that the Clintons are willing to do anything to win this election. If they are not inserting race into the dialogue, they are trying to change the rules so that Michigan and Florida delegates can be seated. People who are coming to this conclusion feel like they've already been through this scenario with George Bush. Seeing how his presidency has turned out they would rather not risk a repeat of that disaster by supporting Clinton. This growing sentiment is not good news for the Clintons or for the Democratic Party. Harvard professor Lawrence Bobb sums of these feelings in his article, Fairy Tale to Ferraro: Why I'm Not Voting for Clinton

If Clinton wins the nomination some folks may choose not to vote in the general election--- a small number of Democratics may even go for John McCain. On other hand, if Obama gets the nod, after such a divisive contest can folks like Ferraro and Clinton's other supporters swallow the loss and work to "unite the party?"

The Democrats machine better figure out a way to reign in the Clintons or be ready to sit on the sidelines for at least another four years under a President John McCain.

Is the Country Read for First Lady Michelle Obama?

It was in the wind last April when New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd criticized Michelle Obama for teasing her husband in public and acknowledging that he was a mere mortal. According to Dowd, "Many people I talked to afterward found Michelle wondrous. But others worried that her chiding was emasculating, casting her husband -- under fire for lacking experience -- as an undisciplined child." Dowd put herself in the weird position of being the understanding White woman defending Sen. Barack Obama against his mean old Black wife.

Most recently, Michelle’s comment that she was "now proud to be an American" stirred up accusations that she’s a loose cannon. The familiar smell in the air is the stereotype of the "Strong Black Woman." While Barack has been portrayed in the media as the cool, charismatic post-race spouse, Michelle is increasingly depicted as the sistah with a chip on her shoulder.

Since Barack appears untouchable, don’t be surprised if Michelle becomes the target of a smear campaign. There’s now talk that her college thesis is racially divisive. Who would object to such a strategy? It would simply go down as another crazy Black bitch dragging down a successful Black man.

Everyone is asking whether the country is ready for a Black President, but perhaps we should be asking if the United States is ready for First Lady Michelle Obama? Frankly most Americans have no context in which to place Michelle----a whip-smart graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School from the working class South Side of Chicago. She is not shaking her ass in rap music videos nor is she caring for little White children (or their parents). She is also not a baby’s mama or some wannabe model/fashion designer/singer who latched on to a wealthy Black man.

Michelle is comfortable in her own skin and wants people to get to know the real her and not a plastic consultant-generated version. In our society we have such low expectations for Black women that even our denigration is effortlessly justified. So people actually believe that Black women like Michelle who have brains, beauty, hefty salaries and loving husbands are anomalies. Embracing Michelle would mean acknowledging a radically different Black female persona—that of a thinking, loving, independent yet supportive Black woman. However in this election it’s more probable that Barack’s opponents will go old school by trying to paint Michelle as a Sapphire--- twisting her confidence into arrogance and her honesty into bluntness.

The Amos N’ Andy character "Sapphire" has come to represent the curt-tongued, ball-busting, emasculating Black woman. On the 1970s television program Sanford and Son she was personified by "Aunt Esther"---Fred’s combative, Bible-thumping sister-in-law.

Aunt Esther was often accompanied by her henpecked husband Woodrow. Woodrow was usually tipsy suggesting that it was the only way that he could deal with his overbearing wife. The modern Sapphire is the Strong Black Woman. She is angry, aggressive, defensive, and controlling. The SBW may have an impressive resume, but she can’t keep a man. The caveat is that if the SBW has a man, he’s got to be weak—like Woodrow.

Barack’s opponents have continually questioned his toughness and even called his foreign policy proposals naïve. It’s apparent that if Michelle can be portrayed as a stereotypical domineering Black woman, it’s easier to insinuate that Barack’s got to be soft to be with her. Unfortunately, some voters may fall for it and believe that a man can’t control the country if he can’t even control his wife’s mouth.

What Michelle’s detractors fail to understand is that many American women see it as a strength, not weakness, that Barack would marry an intelligent "keep it real" woman rather than a Stepford wife. In an April 2007 Chicago Tribune article Barack said of Michelle, "There’s something about her that projects such honesty and strength. It’s what makes her such an unbelievable professional, and partner, and mother, and wife." In this era where fake is the new real, Michelle Obama is a welcome breath of fresh air.

Originally printed on News One @ Giantmag.com

The Vanilla Ice of the Literary World

A few weeks ago I read a book review in the NYT Times of Margaret Jones' book, Love and Consequences. The book was about a half-Native American, half-White girl gang member in South Central Los Angeles. The girl ends up in foster care and is raised by a Black American family. Frankly, my first impression was that the White part of the girl's race probably helped her to get the book deal. In my mind I felt that the editor would have been less receptive had the author been a young Black woman. I then stopped and thought that my thinking may have been whack---was I being a reverse racist? Shouldn't her story be judged on its merits??

Well, it turned out that the book was indeed a fraud. Last week it was discovered that “Margaret B. Jones is a pseudonym for Margaret Seltzer, a full fledged White girl who grew up in the affluent Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles. Moreover she lives with her biological family, has never lived with a foster family, or hustled drugs for any street gang. Margaret Seltzer, like rap artist Vanilla Ice is simply another example of White folks pimping the 'hood to make a buck.

There has been a long history of White Americans adopting ethnic identities, particularly that of Native Americans and Black Americans and deeming themselves competent to speak for these "others." In their twisted rationale these Vanilla Ices often believe that they are helping these noble, but simple people whom they impersonate by using their White savvy to get their stories out to the public. Why not then write fiction or assist these disenfranchised folks to tell their own stories? Unfortunately these impostor memoirs typically cater to preconceived notions about Native Americans and the experiences of urban Blacks, since the authors frequently have no first-hand knowledge to draw from in creating their fictional persona and narratives.

One would think that editors would have learned something after the outting of James Frey's memoir "A Million Little Pieces" as a fake and the J.T, LeRoy debacle. Laura Albert, a Brooklyn woman claimed to be J.T. LeRoy, a Southern, transgendered (biological male) former street kid/hustler. Why haven't editors begun to require authors to provide some shred of evidence to back-up their "autobiographies"? In that case of Margaret Seltzer, a few calls to law enforcement or California social services agencies probably would have exposed this lie in the manuscript stage.

In a press release, JLove Calderon, an activist and author speaks out saying,
“We must respond to the daily injustices perpetuated on people with low income and people of color and we must do so with integrity and partnership. It is not in anyone’s best interest to speak for them, attempting to be someone’s “savior.” We must be focused on supporting people standing up and telling their own story; their own truth.”

Calderon’s novel That White Girl, inspired by her own life, is a coming of age hip-hop oriented story that explores a young woman’s struggles and triumphs as a middle class Irish Catholic white girl navigating her way through her new family - the Crips, a notorious street gang. Although the book has been well received it has not been a national sensation because according to Calderon, "The country is not as ready to deal honestly with some of the deeper, more uncomfortable issues of race, class, and privilege. My life, on the other hand, is dedicated to truth, love, and freedom. I spend all my waking hours working with my fellow activists to dismantle unfair and oppressive systems and institutions which are the root causes of issues such as gang violence, the prison industrial complex, and poverty.”

The fact that so many media outlets including the NYT praised Love and Consequences and ignored White Girlmakes one simply say what the @#$%!

Rebecca Walker on Feminist In-Fighting

I know that many Black women have no love for feminism. In many circles, feminism is little more than White woman trying to gain the power that White men have---there is little discussion about empowering women of color. As White women demand entree corporate offices and high level political offices, many old school feminists are mute about the legion of brown woman who hold down these "power" women's homes---caring for their kids and or cleaning her house. Less not even talk about the intersection between racism and sexism---for this crowd it doesn't exist.

bell hooks talked about feminism as a means to achieving equality for everyone. Alice Walker used to term womanism to explore the realities of Black women seeking freedom. So, maybe as a concept feminism, if it facilitates equality and freedom of choice is a good thing---but in order for it to speak to a wider audience it has to put some meaningful action behind updated, more inclusive rhetoric. Within the ranks of feminism it's time for some new thinking and probably some new public leadership. Be clear, it's not about age---some of the younger White feminists seem to parrot the old guard.

See what Alice Walker's daughter, Rebecca, an activist and accomplished author has weighs in feminist-infighting in the Huffington Post


There is a lot of discussion about "feminist in-fighting" of late, spurred by
the election. Jessica Valenti of Feministing.com is doing a piece on the
subject for The Nation. Here is my response to her query:

1. The fact is there have always been many "feminisms," but one dominant,
more visible Feminism, which is essentially comprised of the needs, views, and
philosophies of straight white women with a certain degree of privilege. Now we can add "and of a certain age" to that list. Women of different backgrounds
have been speaking to this issue of exclusivity for decades, and their critiques
have been voluminous. The lack of resolution of these critiques is currently
manifesting in an exacerbated form, and labeled "infighting." There are no new issues on the table. For example, my mother, Alice Walker, did not create the
term "womanist" in the late '70s because she was feeling creative. I did not
offer the concept of Third Wave in the '90s because I wanted to inject a
catchy phrase into the Feminist discourse. And, many "mainstream" women did not
reject the Feminist label in the '60s to present because they don't know what
Feminism really is.

The complaints brought against Feminism include racism, classism, ageism, out of touchism, and a certain tendency toward First World arrogance. There has
been an enduring wariness in communities of color specifically, about
Feminism's mantra of independence rather than interdependence with male family members and the world at large. This would include Feminism's ambivalence about
motherhood, marriage, and domestic life in general. This would include Feminism's divisive and ultimately unhelpful commentary that women need men like fish need
bicycles (women need their grandfathers, fathers, sons, brothers, etc. for a host of reasons too lengthy and obvious to list here). This would include
Feminism's dismissal of religion itself based on its patriarchal leadership. This
would include Feminism's characterization of young women who don't fall in line with the Feminist status quo as naive and ungrateful. This would include Feminism's short-sidedness that will ultimately undo the work of their anointed protegees.

Simply put, if Feminism was Wal-Mart, and had as many decades-old unresolved
grievances against it, it would have long ago been bankrupt.

Read the rest of Rebecca Walker's article Feminist Infighting
at Feminist Infighting

Why 'A Raisin in the Sun' is Still Relevant

Sean " P-Diddy" Combs is no Sidney Poitier. Nevertheless in 2004 his casting was central to the success of the revival of "A Raisin in the Sun," Lorraine Hansberry’s award winning play about a struggling Black family.

Poitier made the character Walter Lee famous in the original 1959 Broadway production and Combs’ rap credentials gave the role a sense of modernity. Walter Lee, like the protagonists of many rap songs, irrationally believes that his worth as a man is measured in dollars and consequentially he makes a decision that is both selfish and foolish. As Walter Lee learns that "money don’t make the man," the audience sees how poverty can crush the human spirit. Last Monday ABC broadcast the film adaptation of "A Raisin in the Sun," starring Combs, Phylicia Rashad and Audra McDonald.

"A Raisin in the Sun" takes its title from the Langston Hughes' poem, "A Dream Deferred," which describes how unfulfilled hopes wither and die. The play tells the story of the Youngers, Mama, her children Beneatha and Walter Lee and his wife and their son. The working class family is living in a cramp apartment on Chicago’s South side in 1950s. When Mama gets a $10,000 check from her husband's life insurance, she decides to move the family to a house in a White suburb. Through its characters, Beneatha an aspiring doctor and Walter Lee a frustrated chauffeur, the play foreshadows the social and political changes that the civil rights movement would usher in. "A Raisin in the Sun," is a quintessential America story—the principled underdogs prevail over the bad guys. Unfortunately, in real life it takes more than self-respect to get out of the ghetto.

Many young Black people in poor communities around the country simply don’t live long enough to fulfill their dreams. In 2007 between September and July, 34 public school children in Chicago had been killed. Among the slain was a girl killed on the playground, a student shot on a city bus and another teenager shot walking home from the library. Nationally homicides are the leading killer of young Black men between the ages of 14 and 34. In Washington, DC, although Black men make up only 25 percent of the population they represent 80 percent of the homicide victims in 2007. The young people lucky enough to survive their violent neighborhoods however are frequently unprepared to get more than a dead-end a job.

Poor children often enter kindergarten academically behind and the public schools that they attend are often ill equipped to help them to catch up. After years of frustration many poor teenagers simply drop out of school. Although a college degree is now the minimum requirement for sustainable employment, nationally almost 50 percent of Black students are dropping out of high school. According to the Children’s Defense Fund report, Cradle to Prison Pipeline, when teenagers drop out of school, they are more likely to be poor, probably for the rest of their lives and to end up incarcerated. Without early intervention, the drop-outs’ children will continue the cycle of poverty and low-academic achievement.

The unemployment rate is generally higher for Blacks than for other groups. Some Blacks cannot get jobs because they have been in jail. Others lack the requisite skills or education, while some willing workers literally can’t get to where the jobs are located. There are very few jobs in poor communities--- even fast food restaurants are reducing their staffs through automation. Nationally job creation is occurring most rapidly in the suburbs, not the cities. Beyond getting a job, low income workers have to find ways to get to work, particularly in areas where public transportation is scarce or non-existent. To stay employed these workers have to stretch their meager wages beyond food and rent to include car payments, car insurance and gasoline. Something so mundane as getting to work is a nearly impossible feat for a worker earning the minimum wage of $5.85 per hour.

"A Raisin in the Sun" still matters because despite the success of Black Americans such as Oprah Winfrey, Sen. Barack Obama and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice in 2008 ghettos still exist in the United States. For ghettos to become obsolete, our elected officials have to again focus on urban policy. In the aftermath of the 1960s riots, the Kerner Commission in 1968 suggested ways to eliminate ghettos which included job creation, new housing construction and the end of de facto segregation. In the last 40 years there have been a variety of piecemeal efforts to improve low-income communities, but few attempts at the federal or state levels to implement comprehensive long-term strategies. Real urban policy would require both a great deal of money as well as committment. Regretably the public seems more willing to warehouse people in prisons than invest in better schools, employment training centers and supporting community-based businesses. Local businesses would not only employee people, and bring in needed services, they would also help to revitalize ailing low-income neighborhoods.

Individuals must be held accountable for the consequences of their choices. Society should not coddle criminals or people who repeatedly exercise poor judgment. But the ability to choose may be illusory for young people who are trapped in dangerous neighborhoods, attending subpar public schools and are unable to find work. We will know that ghettos have been eliminated when it seems absurd that the Youngers would have to move to a White suburb to have a better life.