Mitch’s Blog

I visited a blog earlier this evening called Stereohyped that had a cartoon posted, which I’m going to post at the end of this topic. It seems there were a bunch of cartoons that were basically banned because of the perception that they were racist, based on stereotypes, from the 30’s through the 50’s. Many of them were Warner Brothers cartoons, but they don’t hold the monopoly on these types of cartoons.

The writer of the blog questioned whether these were really racist cartoons, and whether or not they should be banned. His point is that from a historical perspective they should be out there for the world to see, even though people at Warner Brothers are clamoring for them to be removed from YouTube and the NAACP has come out against them.

I’m of two minds. Part of me hates that these cartoons were made, but the other part of me absolutely agrees with the writer of Stereohyped in saying that this is history and therefore they should be judged for what they were. I’d actually seen a lot of these cartoons before, and I remember reading where the cartoonists for Warner Brothers had no bad intentions when they made some of them, saying that they actually had black actors in the cartoons and used a lot of black music, more in tribute sometimes than with any malice. Indeed, the cartoon called Coal Black And De Sebben Dwarves was a musical classic, if fraught with so many bad stereotypes that I’m surprised picketing ever stopped.

Still, one has to have these cartoons to open up a dialogue of what was and, hopefully, what is today. To be fair, the cartoonists picked on everyone, especially the Nazis and Japanese during the war, and to be even more fair, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam and others have to be stereotypes of someone.

So, why am I going to show this one particular cartoon here? Two reasons really. One, because it gives an example of the type of cartoon people are up in arms against, and it does highlight some pretty bad stereotypes here and there. But two, because it also copies a lot of things that I saw in a couple other Bugs Bunny cartoons with Elmer Fudd, and if you’re a serious purveyor of Warner Brothers cartoons (that seems like an oxymoron, doesn’t it?), you’ll recognize many of the gags.

Without further ado, watch, then comment on, All This And Rabbit Stew, for as long as the cartoons stay on YouTube.

Man, I’m starting to feel so old. I was reading this blog called Stereohyped, where the reader was commenting on a story that came out this week stating that the percentage of black baseball players is tied for its all time low. He asked in his post who cares. I was going to respond on his blog, but decided I could probably do it better justice here.

Every time I read things like this, it makes me wonder just what’s happened to the perspective and honor that those who came before us deserve. This year notwithstanding, the percentages of black people who have participated in the voting process had been dwindling dramatically, as more and more black people felt their vote doesn’t count. To me, this does little justice to the memory of those people who gave their lives to gain the right to vote. Does the principle of civil rights mean nothing to today’s generation?

So let’s talk baseball for a quick minute. I love baseball; it was my first sport as a child, not counting bowling (my dad worked in a bowling alley). As I got older, I learned more about the history of baseball, especially the history of the Negro Leagues and Jackie Robinson’s entry into baseball. When Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, he didn’t do it only for baseball; he did it for all sports.

Going further, baseball used to be the game that brought gangs of children together. It didn’t take much except a ball and a bat. If one didn’t have a ball and a bat, one could always find a way to make a ball and find a stick of some kind to use as a bat. Baseball was a game where you could bring together upwards of 18 kids or so at a time to play, and all you needed was a big, open field. I never even saw a basketball until I was 11 years old; how odd a concept that must sound like to today’s kids. But baseball,… now there was a game that everyone could get behind.

There was no trash talk except the chatter of “hey batter batter” or “he can’t throw strikes”, or the many derivations of it all. Baseball was a game of strategy and positioning, not a game where one person established their personal dominance over someone else. Baseball was, and is, the ultimate team game.

That it seems not to matter to younger black people anymore is quite depressing to me. So go the memories of all that others did so that everyone could have a chance to even play sports like basketball or football, or any other integrated sport in America. I guess, in the long run, none of it will ever matter again; and that’s too bad.

Last week I wrote about the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. King. I just came upon this story concerning my favorite baseball player in history, Roberto Clemente, and his relationship with Dr. King, as well as his taking a major stance after his assassination that, unfortunately, not a single American born ballplayer took until he suggested it.

The link to the story is with the title of the story, that being Common Bond For Uncommon Men. Please read it if you can.

First, the previous two newsletters for your perusal are thus:

The most recent newsletter I just sent out about five minutes ago, and it touches upon the topic of this post in more of a diagnostic breakdown of his final speech. This post isn’t that, though; it’s more of what it felt like at the time.

Most people will say that an 8 year old child has no real comprehension of what’s going on around them. I don’t believe that kind of thing, especially as we start hearing about more and more children perpetrating some of the worst crimes you can think of. Still, it is possible that, at 8 years old, we don’t really fully understand societal issues all that much, even if they’re thrust in our face at the time.

Well, I can safely say that, living on a military base, I didn’t have to deal with many of the injustices that others did during those times. But it didn’t mean that my parents didn’t every once in awhile alert me to something they felt was important. I was only 3 years old when Dr. King gave his ‘I Have A Dream’ speech in 1963, and I’m not even sure if I was in the country at the time, since we moved to Tokyo, Japan for 3 years around then. I was back in the states, though, for his final speech. And I don’t remember why I was home, but I remember my parents having me watch the speech as it was broadcast live, and in retrospect that was more interesting that one might think.

After all, it wasn’t a major occasion like it had been with his ‘63 speech, where somewhere between 250,000 and 500,000 people crowded themselves near the Washington Monument. And there were only 3 real channels at the time; PBS was so new that we didn’t even have an antenna to get those channels. Yet, I saw the speech, and though I didn’t understand most of it, I heard this great man speak live for the first and last time on that day.

Because the next day, 40 years ago today, he was assassinated, and I remember dealing with that in my own way also. I didn’t cry, but I was confused. They sent us home from school early; the base was on full alert. Police were everywhere, surrounding schools, watching federal and state buildings, worried about signs of violence that did come in many cities across the country; I don’t remember if it happened near where I was.

It’s somewhat odd to realize that I’m alive when someone I actually heard and saw while alive, even if it was only that one time, now has a national holiday named after him. And it couldn’t have been for a better man.

The February issue of Black Enterprise magazine had an interesting report on black board members of major corporations. I have to admit that I’ve never thought about how many black people might be on major corporate boards before, only looking at the sparsity of black CEOs, or minority CEOs for that matter, in the Fortune 500. There are some impressive names there, I have to say.

What really drew me in, though, was a topic of conversation that came up at a seminar that all these board members had been invited to. The question was whether these board members should be using their roles to help promote more diversity within the companies whose boards they sit on, or whether that was beyond their purview. There was no general consensus one way or another, which I’ll admit doesn’t really surprise me any. What did surprise me was Vernon Jordan, long known as a major supporter of equality and diversity from his history as a politician and activist, was one of those who said he didn’t believe it was the role of board members to try to encourage such things for those companies whose boards minorities may sit on.

It’s a very interesting question on many fronts. If it’s not a board members responsibility, then whose responsibility is it? If the responsibility belongs to the CEO, well, who hires the CEO for major corporations? The board! If it’s not the CEO, then who is it that reports to him at some point, and, well, isn’t the role of the CEO to come up with the vision that the entire company is supposed to follow, or at least attempt to put into practice?

It’s made me think of what my role has been, both as an employee, and as a person who’s been on a couple of boards, though much less endowed with cash than these big corporations. As a director, I was always talking to HR about the need to recruit more minority candidates for many reasons, one being that, in New York at least, each hospital is supposed to have immediately available to them someone who can speak the language of any patient who shows up, and often there wasn’t a single person at the facility who could speak another language. That’s not good at all. That, plus a general representation of the local population, which is fair, but in my mind didn’t mean the same when every minority hired worked in the cafeteria or housekeeping.

As for the boards I’m on, two of them don’t count because they’re not company boards, but organizational boards. One can’t quite justify saying we need more minorities in the organization when the first goal is to get more members into the organization in the first place. The other board, though, is an interesting one. I’m one of two minorities of color who sits on the board. I have to say it that way because for this particular organization, the bylaws say that 51% of the board has to be made up of people with disabilities, who, in essence qualify as minorities in this country. In the organization itself, the one director who was a minority of color has just left, but it’s covered in every other way by people with handicaps that there’s really no room or cause for me to say much.

Or is there; talk about a tough one. Still, I’m not scared to address the hard questions within myself or organizations I deal with. Others,… well, to each their own.

I thought about staying away from this one, but I just couldn’t. Good ol’ Pat Buchanan, who my dad used to enjoy hating on Crossfire so many years ago, decided he had to take his shot and weigh in on this controversy surrounding both Barack Obama’s speech and some of the bad things that Rev. Wright has been taken to task for lately.

So Mr. Buchanan, on his blog (I didn’t even know he had a blog; isn’t he close to 100 by now?) wrote a piece that he titled “PJB: A Brief for Whitey”. In it, he basically says that black people should be glad that they were slaves because of the way we’re thriving in America. His actual quote was this:

“First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.”

As if that wasn’t bad enough, he followed it up with this:

“Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.”

Wow, all that for black people? Thanks! I’m not going to do it, but a big part of me wants to bring out my inner sarcastic caveman rant and thank Pat for some things, such as the basic destruction of the African continent (which actually had a thriving and more technologically advanced society before Europeans destroyed it) and the reality that when two black people marry, they’re never really sure if they’re marrying someone within their family line, since family members were displaced during slavery.

Also, let’s talk about the stereotypes that a friend of mine say are media driven, and in this case she’s absolutely correct. Who are the greatest purveyors of welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid and Earned Income Tax Credits in this country? It’s not black people, nor any other minority, that’s for sure.

These are the hidden thoughts that Obama is going to be fighting against if he wins the presidency. Most people won’t come out and say it to his face, but that doesn’t change anyone’s beliefs. And this time, there can’t be any calls to fire Buchanan for his words; is this guy even working anymore? Maybe it’s his last gasp to stay in the public eye; I’m not sure about that either.

I am sure about this one thing, though. Things like this will never help bridge the gap between the races. Someone needs to be opening the conversation, not shutting it down. Buchanan and his ilk are too far gone; maybe it will be the up and coming generation that will ultimately save the day.

The playing field really isn’t equal when it comes to employment and finance. Minorities still make around 70% of whites in America, and it gets worse for females. Minorities are under represented drastically in industry across the country in positions of leadership; look at housekeeping and taxis, though, and you’ll know where most minorities are.

This, to me, means that affirmative action is still needed in America. I’m not about to go into what affirmative action really is supposed to be, but if you need a refresher you can check it out by going here. All anyone really wants in America is a fair chance.

That’s why Ward Connerly and his group, oddly enough called the American Civil Rights Coalition, doesn’t get it. They’ve already gotten California, Michigan and Washington to vote against affirmative action, and this coming election there are five more states on the docket, Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma.

Connerly’s message is really simple. He says people who get benefits from affirmative action assistance are looked down upon by everyone else, and that’s not fair. He also says it takes things away from one group to help another group, and that’s not fair.

To me, it’s all about how you look at fair. On an ESPN special last month, there was a discussion of why there are so few black coaches in college football when most of the players are black, and it was stated that people tend to hire who they’re familiar and most comfortable with, and thus that means if those in charge of hiring aren’t minority, unless coerced, they’re less liable to interview, let alone hire, a minority for those positions. Connerly’s position seems to believe that the playing field is equal and everyone actually has a fair chance at every single job they wish to apply for; that’s a pipe dream,… it’s not reality.

Of course one of his big supporters happens to be a particular Supreme Court justice who actually ended up in college, then law school, because of affirmative action polities, and believes those policies have ended up hurting him because people always wonder if he’s qualified to do the job he’s been hired to do. I keep thinking people wonder if he’s qualified because he doesn’t ever ask any questions, and rarely writes his own briefs after most of the cases (yeah, I know, he’s written some; seems they all fit into one book).

Ward Connerly doesn’t get it, and if the rest of America doesn’t wake up, we will all know, come November, who else is getting it come 2009.

Yes, you read that headline correctly. In a MSNBC news story yesterday titled “Black Pups Face Doggie Discrimination”, statistics seem to indicate that it’s hard to move black dogs out of shelters, no matter the age. One worker was quoted as saying “They’re the hardest to adopt out, they’re in the shelters the longest and therefore, they’re most likely to be euthanized if nothing happens.”

I don’t have a dog now, but when I was a kid we had a dog, a Springer Spaniel, who was mainly black with a white belly and white feet, and I just loved that dog. I’ve never thought of people turning away from animals because of their color; I could always understand choice of breed because there are some types of dogs I don’t like myself. Still, as much as this story seems kind of shocking, I don’t know why I’m not more surprised to read it than I am. It’s possible that cynicism has kicked in, but I hope not.

Of course I’m not the only one talking about it, as Stereohyped proves. I think this story is going to get a lot more press before it’s finally retired.

Sometimes my wife’s cousin comes up with some of the best stuff. I think this is a great thing to close this year’s Black History Month out with, especially with the extra day. The site is called Martin Luther King Soundboard and it’s basically access to sound clips and speeches of Dr. King’s throughout his life. It’s not overly fancy, and there’s actually access to clips and such of other people off this same site, but it’s still worth checking out.

On the next to the last day of Black History Month for this year, there’s an email going around that I’ve received in previous years entitled “Life Without Black People”. Basically, it’s a “what-if” black people had never been in America and what would have been lost because of their contributions in making this country what it is now; the good stuff.

Whereas it was a relatively nice representation, unfortunately, it’s not quite true. The names are correct, but the extent of some of the contributions listed, or at least some of the premises that are put forth, aren’t quite accurate. I could take time to post the original and then post what’s right or wrong, but luckily I don’t have to do that because Snopes did it for me.

Of course, the list misses a whole bunch of names, but that’s okay. We’re at a point where black history is supposed to be more about the celebration for a month, but the celebration of Americans throughout the year, because the impacts that some, well known or not, have made to this country. Supposed to, that is. Let’s see what kind of positive history today’s contributors make; more excitement to come.