inkbluesky

jessica biel as pop art

Portraits of the Presidents figurines of each president up to Nixon with some historical information with each.

Lyndon B. Johnson : I don’t believe I’ll ever get credit for anything I do in foreign affairs, no matter how successful it is, because I didn’t go to Harvard. and, The presidency has made every man who occupied it, no matter how small, bigger than he was; and no matter how big, not big enough for its demands.

This site caught me by surprise, I didn’t think I’d like it yet seeing each little prez with some historical data, it was really interesting. I can’t explain why the figurines add such a great element to the presentation they just do.

Juan Williams is frequently, though definitely not always a disappointment when it comes to representing the progressive side as a commentator at Fox. Maybe he’s just not a TV person and finds it difficult to make arguments in a forum that exemplifies the sound bite mentality of our times. Even in this write up for WaPo he’s only manages to get it about 80% right, Banish The Bling, Culture of Failure Taints Black America

Have we taken our eyes off the prize? The civil rights movement continues, but the struggle today is not so much in the streets as in the home — and with our children. If systemic racism remains a reality, there is also a far more sinister obstacle facing African American young people today: a culture steeped in bitterness and nihilism, a culture that is a virtual blueprint for failure.

The emphasis on young people in today’s civil rights struggle is rooted in demographics. America’s black, Hispanic and immigrant population is far younger than its white population. Those young people of color live in the big cities and rely on big-city public schools.

With 50 percent of Hispanic children and nearly 70 percent of black children born to single women today these young people too often come from fractured families where there is little time for parenting. Their search for identity and a sense of direction is undermined by a twisted popular culture that focuses on the “bling-bling” of fast money associated with famous basketball players, rap artists, drug dealers and the idea that women are at their best when flaunting their sexuality and having babies.

In Washington, where a crime wave is tied to these troubled young souls, the city reacts with a curfew. It is a band-aid. The real question is how one does battle with the culture of failure that is poisoning young people — and do so without incurring the wrath of critics who say we are closing our eyes to existing racial injustice and are “blaming the victim.”

Recently Bill Cosby has once again run up against these critics. In 2004, on the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, Cosby took on that culture of failure in a speech that was a true successor to W.E.B. DuBois’s 1903 declaration that breaking the color line of segregation would be the main historical challenge for 20th-century America. In a nation where it is getting tougher and tougher to afford a house, health insurance and a college education — in other words, to attain solid middle-class status — Cosby decried the excuses for opting out of the competition altogether.

Cosby said that the quarter of black Americans still living in poverty are failing to hold up their end of a deal with history when they don’t take advantage of the opportunities created by the Supreme Court’s Brown decision and the sacrifices of civil rights leaders from Martin Luther King Jr. to Thurgood Marshall and Malcolm X. Those leaders in the 1950s and ’60s opened doors by winning passage of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and fair housing laws. Their triumphs led to the nationwide rise in black political power on school boards and in city halls and Congress.

Like I said he gets it mostly right, but does leave out that what seems like small things like smaller student loans and fewer education grants have also had an impact. I’m a proponent of pulling oneself up by the the boot straps, but some people don’t have the where-for-all to do that. That is where the school of give these folks a hand comes in. You give them a hand so that down the road they become productive tax payers so they in turn can give others hand, a real life play it forward. Juan is right when he suggests that hoping that you’ll make it as a music artist or professional athlete is a pipe dream for the vast majority. And as Frederick Douglas said we have to find a way to lift work up, to appreciate the sweat and effort of striving for its own sake. Of course that would involve instilling hope in many people that feel that society has abandoned them and people with flags yelling from roof tops in New Orleans didn’t do much to make the poor and the poor working class feel  anyone really cares what happens to them one way or the other. What Juan doesn’t mention is that most the problems that he and Cosby mention are solvable, but it takes money and a long range plan and until we stop letting certain people spend 3 billion dollars a month on a war based on a pack of lies instead of improving those intercity schools he talks about its just more good intentioned whining from a guy on TV.

08-22-06 updated for some grammar errors. Sorry about those.