AFAM Newsbits December 2003

THE HENRY THOMAS LINE DANCE?

With his recent demand for rent from the Mason Square Library, Henry Thomas, normally an expert at walking the line, may have stepped over the line by reminding his detractors why they did not want the Urban League to buy the library building in the first place.

RACISM CAN MAKE YOU STUPID?!

A Dartmouth College study of some of its White students' responses to Black people showed that the more biased the White student, the lower the student performed on cognitive tests. Using brain-imaging technology and written tests, researchers were able to show that, when a biased White person converses with a Black person for only five minutes, it exhausts the part of the White person's brain in charge of "executive control," leaving it temporarily unable to perform as well on other tasks.

WHERE IS THE BLACK VOTE?

If you want to analyze a group's voting pattern, you must first, at least, know the group's location. Though the media authoritatively reports on the low Black voter turnout in Ward 4, their analyses have missed the simple fact that the majority of Black voters do not live in Ward 4. (They've also not reported the fact that 43% of Ward 4 residents are not Black at all.) In fact, of the 30,000 Black people who live in Springfield, only about 10,000 live in Ward 4. Furthermore, 2000 census data shows that Ward 4 households contain a higher number of children and are among the poorest, least educated and, therefore, least likely to contain voters. As has been the case with the Irish in Ward 2, Black people have moved out of Ward 4 as their lot in life has improved and can be located in significant pockets throughout the city. The candidate who identifies and nurtures these pockets will get the most from the Black vote.

HATE ME BUT DON’T CHEAT ME

It seems to never end. A professor at Vanderbilt University studied more than 1.5 million General Motors Acceptance Corporation loans made between 1999 and April 2003 and found that Black borrowers were consistently charged higher interest rates on car loans than White borrowers even when controlling for such factors as amount financed, term of the loan and, most importantly, credit worthiness.

DO WE CALL IT GORILLA INSENSITIVITY?

A gorilla named Joe escaped from the Boston zoo and was spotted standing at a bus stop in a predominantly Black neighborhood. John Dennis, a White Boston talk show host, told his radio audience that the gorilla was “probably a METCO gorilla waiting for a bus to take him to Lexington.” METCO is the suburban school-busing program that buses Black students from Boston to surrounding suburban communities. His punishment was two weeks suspension.

CALL IT RACE MANAGEMENT!

The White husband of a pregnant patient at Abington Memorial Hospital in Philadelphia instructed the White hospital management not to allow Black people to attend to his wife, and the management complied. They kept the Black staff members, including doctors and nurses, out of the wife’s room. They explained their behavior by saying they were trying to avoid a confrontation with the White husband.

DWB (DRIVING WHILE BLACK) IS NOT KOSHER IN WORCESTER

Did you hear about the Worcester Superior Court Judge who threw out the case against a Latino man after he found that the state police troopers who arrested him had routinely searched more cars driven by minority motorists than Whites?

2003 MCAS SCORES DON’T DISCRIMINATE

As it turns out the racial achievement gap on the 2003 MCAS test did not narrow as has been publicized. What actually happened is that nearly 11,000 grade 10 students and about 27,000 students in other grades tested simply didn’t mark their race on the test. After officials matched the student scores with their correct racial background, the result was just the opposite. Black students, in fact, dipped from a 52% to 47% passage rate and Hispanics slipped to 42% from 44%. It would be unfair not to mention that Asian students fell from 80% to 77% and White students slipped from 84% to 82%.

PLAIN OLD STEALING

Have you ever heard the term “market timing”? Well, the crooks on Wall Street have. Market timing refers to the period after the market closes when certain professional investors have been given an opportunity to make decisions on whether or not to purchase certain stock. In the hood we call it stealing. Wouldn’t it be nice if the general public were allowed to decide whether or not to purchase stock after the market closed? We would all get rich quick. But then, of course, the privileged fat cats on Wall Street would not be able to continue cheating the average investor. As you might have guessed, the Attorneys General in New York and Boston are taking a close look at the matter and at least one broker has already been arrested.

BLACK/WHITE GRADUATION GAP NARROWS

The good news is that the gap between White and Black graduation rates in Massachusetts is one of the smallest in the nation. Seventy-eight percent of White students graduate in Massachusetts and 65 percent of Black students do. Only five other states have a smaller gap.

IT’S CALLED BAD PLANNING

Did you read about the woman who died in an auto accident that she staged with the driver of the car that she hit in order to cheat the insurance company?

PLAIN OLD DISCRIMINATION

When questioned about his all-White staff, Boston city councilor at large, Stephen Murphy, explained by saying, “I’ve always hired friends and political allies, and I make no apologies for that.” And you wonder why affirmative action is necessary? They used to say the same thing about the fire and police departments until court-ordered desegregation resulted in mandatory affirmative action plans.

THE ROMNEY DANCE STEP

How did you like Governor Romney’s fancy back step on affirmative action? After sacking the system that had been effective since Gov. Dukakis first arrived in office, without consulting anybody other than his close personal staff, the Mormon Republican governor from Utah decided to reinstate the program after he came under fierce attack from almost every Black leader in Boston. Sensitivity does not come easily.

MAYBE A MORE RIGOROUS TEACHER TEST?

How do you tell a METCO student from a non-METCO student? Apparently it’s not easy for some. A White teacher put a Black kindergartner, who lives in the predominantly White town of Wellesley, on a METCO bus at the end of his after-school program and he was dropped off in Boston’s Black Dorchester neighborhood. A parent of another METCO student saw him get off the bus in Boston and called his family. I’d like to hear what the parents said to the principal.

CALL IT GOING OUT IN STYLE

Hooray for Mike Albano! He is waging a mighty battle for those who need some relief from the high price of prescription drugs: the elderly, the poor, and those who just don’t like being ripped off by powerful drug companies that seem to have such a control over most of our elected officials. Many people don’t realize that Mike has become a national hero with a national following and may emerge from this battle with a national office, elected or appointed. He certainly deserves to leave the mayor’s office and go on to better things.n