Oh really, ya think!?

From Yahoo! News:

The young teacher hung his head, avoiding eye contact. Yes, he had touched a fifth-grader's breast during recess. "I guess it was just lust of the flesh," he told his boss.

That got Gary C. Lindsey fired from his first teaching job in Oelwein, Iowa. But it didn't end his career. He taught for decades in Illinois and Iowa, fending off at least a half-dozen more abuse accusations.

When he finally surrendered his teaching license in 2004 — 40 years after that first little girl came forward — it wasn't a principal or a state agency that ended his career. It was one persistent victim and her parents.

Lindsey's case is just a small example of a widespread problem in American schools: sexual misconduct by the very teachers who are supposed to be nurturing the nation's children.

Students in America's schools are groped. They're raped. They're pursued, seduced and think they're in love.

An Associated Press investigation found more than 2,500 cases over five years in which educators were punished for actions from bizarre to sadistic.

There are 3 million public school teachers nationwide, most devoted to their work. Yet the number of abusive educators — nearly three for every school day — speaks to a much larger problem in a system that is stacked against victims.

Most of the abuse never gets reported. Those cases reported often end with no action. Cases investigated sometimes can't be proven, and many abusers have several victims.

And no one — not the schools, not the courts, not the state or federal governments — has found a surefire way to keep molesting teachers out of classrooms.

Those are the findings of an AP investigation in which reporters sought disciplinary records in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The result is an unprecedented national look at the scope of sex offenses by educators — the very definition of breach of trust.

The seven-month investigation found 2,570 educators whose teaching credentials were revoked, denied, surrendered or sanctioned from 2001 through 2005 following allegations of sexual misconduct.

Young people were the victims in at least 1,801 of the cases, and more than 80 percent of those were students. At least half the educators who were punished by their states also were convicted of crimes related to their misconduct.

The findings draw obvious comparisons to sex abuse scandals in other institutions, among them the Roman Catholic Church. A review by America's Catholic bishops found that about 4,400 of 110,000 priests were accused of molesting minors from 1950 through 2002.

Clergy abuse is part of the national consciousness after a string of highly publicized cases. But until now, there's been little sense of the extent of educator abuse.

Beyond the horror of individual crimes, the larger shame is that the institutions that govern education have only sporadically addressed a problem that's been apparent for years.

 Click here to read the rest of the article.

 

The following is an e-mail I just sent to Bill Cosby regarding his interview last evening on "Larry King Live."

Dear Dr. Cosby,

 

I am a huge fan of yours, as an entertainer, philanthropist, dedicated family man, and personal example what can be accomplished with hard work, sacrifice and a love of learning.  I have supported 100% your crusade over the past three years to encourage low-income blacks to stop being victims and to finally take responsibility for their own lives.  Most importantly, given the problems of family breakdown and fatherlessness in the black community, your message emphasizing parental responsibility rings truer now than ever before.

 

Having said that, I cannot begin to tell you how disappointed I was in your remarks about U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on “Larry King Live” last evening.  Although I did not see the broadcast (though I did watch your interview with Tim Russert on “Meet the Press” last weekend), a friend of mine told me about it.  After watching your MTP segment with Dr. Alvin Poussaint, I immediately rushed to the local bookstore and bought a copy of your new book.  After having read the LKL transcript of your comments about Justice Thomas, however, I have begun to regret the purchase.

 

Here is the transcript of your words that really disturbed me:

KING: Judge Clarence Thomas, the conservative black judge on the United States Supreme Court, Bill, says that he went conservative because he thinks that the black responsibility is to himself. He doesn't need any help. He doesn't want any help. He doesn't need that pick me up.

COSBY: And he doesn't want to help anybody.

KING: He doesn't need affirmative action.

COSBY: And he doesn't want to help anybody.

POUSSAINT: But he got affirmative action.

KING: He got affirmative action.

COSBY: Plenty of -- he got a whole lot of help and now he doesn't want to help anybody.

KING: Do you think he's hypocritical?

COSBY: He doesn't want to help anybody.

KING: I know it.

Do you think he's...

COSBY: He doesn't want to help anybody.

KING: All right.

But he says blacks don't need help, they can do it themselves.

And that's partially what you're saying, isn't it?

COSBY: Well, that's not -- yes, see partially is where you get into trouble if you're trying to put me in the room with Clarence Thomas, the brother lite.

(LAUGHTER)

At that point, my friend told me that he turned the program off, because he was so "turned off" by your comments.  I couldn't agree more.

In demeaning Justice Thomas, you were basically repeating the same ad hominem attacks that his critics have been throwing at him (without a shred of evidence to back them up) for years: That he benefitted from affirmative action and, once he got to the top, "he yanked the ladder up with him" to prevent other blacks from benefitting.   Nothing could be further from the truth.

Do you, Dr. Cosby, know anything - anything - about those whom Justice Thomas has helped over the years?  What makes you and Dr. Poussaint think that Clarence Thomas got into Holy Cross College and Yale Law School based on his skin color as opposed to on his own merit?  (Justice Thomas did graduate from Holy Cross with honors!)  Furthermore, if you were to read Justice Thomas's just-published memoir, My Grandfather’s Son, you would realize that (1) The affect that affirmative action had on his career prospects after Yale Law School was anything but "benificial," and (2) By insulting him, you, Dr. Cosby, are mimicking all the same old racist stereotypes (i.e. "black people can't compete unless they're give a 'leg up' based on their race").  These stereotypes are absolutely untrue, and the sooner we stop making such assumptions the better. 

In addition, if you were to read Justice Thomas's book (as I am currently and encourage you to do as well), you would discover another fact about this fine man that his critics have always gotten wrong.  While working at Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education and subsequently Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Justice Thomas did everything in his power to try and help blacks!  More specifically, he realized and tried to convince others that the big-government policies (e.g. affirmative action, welfare, school busing) that blacks were relying so much upon were actually doing considerably more harm than good.  Almost as soon as he spoke out, however, he was immediately accused of "blaming the victim" and attacked and shouted down as an "Uncle Tom," "sellout," etc.  Blacks had ingested too much of the liberal Kool-Aid fed to them by the Democratic Party, their operatives within the black civil rights establishment, along with the help of the mainstream media.  Justice Thomas was basically in a no-win situation, and he knew it.

By attacking Justice Thomas, you, Dr. Cosby, did basically the same thing that was done to you in the immediate aftermath of your speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education in Washington, DC three years ago.  It is particularly ironic given the fact that, given the problems plaguing low-income blacks and what must be done about them, you two basically see eye to eye.

For what it's worth, you have the right to disagree with Justice Thomas on the law, ideology, public policy or any other issue.  However, your dismissive and demeaning comments about a fine American were completely unwarranted.  In my humble opinion, you owe Justice Thomas an apology, and I do not plan on reading your book until you do so.

Respectfully,
Dutch Martin

I should have known it was bound to happen.  America’s favorite dad (and the celebrity that I most admire) Bill Cosby (Great new website, by the way!) has just published his tough-love message of personal, parental and communal responsibility to the black community in book form.  With co-author and long-time friend and collaborator Alvin Poussaint, MD, Mr. Cosby’s new book is entitled Come On People: On the Path from Victims to Victors. 

Here’s what one Amazon.com reviewer had to say about it:

As an author and an educational consultant teaching self control for almost 35 years, I have often thought: "Does anyone see what's happening to our culture? Have we all become numb to the violence and dysfunction that we see and hear about every day? Bill Cosby and Dr. Poussaint have come up with a book that is a phenomenon that will be around forever. It works on so many levels for all ages and calls for all of us to take personal responsibility. Their examples come from history, every day experiences, voices from people around the country and the combined expertise of the authors. This book is unlike any I have ever seen because it combines a balance of so many areas and weaves into a tapestry that shouts Come On People...., helping people help themselves to become victors instead of victims. After reading this book I've had sleepless nights not worrying about the culture, but for the first time, from the excitement and ecstasy of someone telling it like it is, challenging us, and helping us help ourselves. However the real challenge is up to each and every one of us to make a difference in ourselves and others. I know this book sounds too good to be true but it really is true. You can pick up this book at any point and have an "Ah ha" moment. I cannot thank Dr. Poussaint and Mr. Cosby for all they have done in waking all of us up to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow


Jon Oliver
Author
Lesson One: The ABCs of Life: The Skills We All Need but Were Never Taught

Everyone who reads my blog knows what a huge fan of Cosby’s I am.  Therefore, do not be surprised to know that as soon as I finished watching Cosby’s and Dr. Poussaint’s hour-long interview this morning with Tim Russert on NBC’s Meet the Press (click here to see it in its entirety), I rushed to my local Barnes and Noble and bought my copy faster than you could say “Pass the Jell-O pudding!”

Cosby and Poussaint have a message for all of us.  Read this new book and be empowered.

Hard to Know who the Really Winners are in the Steroid Era

Christine Brennan

USA Today, October 11, 2007

What we don't know, at least not as well, is how her victims feel. One of them, the second-place finisher in the 100 meters at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Greece's Ekaterini Thanou, received a ban for dodging drug testers at the 2004 Athens Games and faces a perjury trial in Greece next summer. Birds of a feather? Thanou certainly might be calling Jones for the name of a good lawyer, but I'm figuring she's not yet lining up with palms outstretched at the Olympic Medal Return Booth.

The bronze medalist, Jamaica's Tayna Lawrence, on the other hand, could very well be at work polishing her gold-medal acceptance speech.

This is the problem faced by the International Olympic Committee and the international track and field governing body when they turn back the clock to redistribute the wealth of a sport gone terribly bad. If we didn't know it before Jones appeared on the courthouse steps last Friday, we certainly know it now: a passed drug test does not a clean athlete make. How many dozens of drug tests did Jones slide through? She used to brazenly trumpet the number herself.

If a drug test can't always tell us what we need to know — Ben Johnson, the male Marion Jones, passed many himself before being caught at the 1988 Olympics — then how do we begin to know who is cheating and who is not?

The fact that it's hard to know who exactly should receive Jones' medals in this, The Steroid Era, makes it all the more logical for the IOC and international sports federations to simply vacate first place in cases such as Jones', just leaving it blank. If the offense occurs at the Olympics or soon after, absolutely reorder the medals. But if it's seven years later, as this one is, it becomes risky business trying to figure out who exactly was clean and who was not.

What's more, 50 years from now, it will create a far more revealing portrait of this time and place in sports for a child searching through the record book to see no name, with a notation as to why, rather than to view a list that makes it look as if this era's Olympics were just like any other's, when that is, of course, not the case.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Jones’ apology sounds like another false start

Jon Saraceno

USA Today, October 8, 2007

 

At first blush, Marion Jones seemed to utter, and blubber, all the right sentiments with her admission, whiplash-producing as it was for some naïve souls, that she is indeed an Olympic drug cheat who also lied to the government about using steroids.

She apologized to family, friends and nation, deploying hackneyed but highly emotive phrases like, "I betrayed your trust," and, "I have let my country down." The disgraced track and field diva spoke haltingly about the "pain and hurt" she caused, asked for forgiveness and then, just like that, was gone without answering questions, retired from the sport that, she said, "I deeply love."

Perhaps Jones, the once-charming and graceful athletic supernova, was auditioning for a new career: acting. If so, when the curtain of credibility is pulled back, I don't find much believability in her role of unwitting track and field marionette duped by rogue coaches and ex-lovers.

Then again, the poor woman — more on the poverty part — had little choice but to cast into the pool of public opinion in hopes of salvaging a shred of integrity and, perhaps, future income. After all, she is only 31, an unemployed athlete with a bleak economic situation, if you believe her.

In court documents, Jones claims to be all but financially busted. Makes you wonder what happened to all of those millions generated from Nike endorsements and other appearance fees. Where could it all disappear so fast … perhaps into an offshore account in the Caribbean? She is a citizen of the USA and Belize.

With her career and reputation in shambles, and cornered by the feds with nowhere to sprint but straight toward a plea agreement, Jones took her pathetic case Friday to a weary and, I hope, wary American public. She admitted guilt for making false statements to the government relating to using performance-stimulating drugs and for lying to federal agents regarding check fraud. A prison sentence of three to six months is likely to ensue.

But Jones also wants us to believe that she never knowingly used designer chemistry, that she was given a substance, "the clear," and told by her former coach, Trevor Graham, that it was flaxseed oil.

Does the fictional drama sound familiar?

In this instance, Jones wants an * beside her name. Poor thing, she had no idea.

Her story flunks the smell test. Again.

 

 Click here to read the rest of the article.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case of  Medellin v. Texas, 06-984.  This case will decide whether a illegal Mexican immigrant and convicted rapist/murder (pictured below) will have his imminent execution upheld (after spending 14 years on death row), or thrown out  and receive a new hearing.



Convicted rapist/murder and all-around scumbag Jose Ernesto "Joe" Medellin


Murder victim Jennifer Ertman.  She was only 14 years old when Medellin and his gang of thugs raped, sodomized and strangled her to death.



Murder victim Elizabeth Pena.  She was only 16 years old when Medellin and his gang of thugs raped, sodomized and strangled her to death.

Jose Ernesto Medellin was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1993 rape and murder of 14-year-old Jennifer Ertman and her 16-year-old classmate, Elizabeth Pena.  Medellin confessed to the killing, but the Bush Administration argues that his conviction was flawed because Houston police failed to tell him of his right to seek help from the Mexican consulate.  That right comes from the 1963 Vienna Convention, of which the United States is a signatory.  The International Court of Justice, in deciding a lawsuit brought by Mexico against the United States, found that the rights of Medellin, and 50 other Mexican-born U.S. inmates, were violated because they weren't informed of this right at the time their cases were being prosecuted.  In the Medellin case, President Bush supports the International Court's decision.

As reported by Foxnews.com, Medellin's crime is one of the most heinous ever committed in the state of Texas.

On a summer night in 1993, Jennifer Ertman and her friend Elizabeth Pena, both students at Houston's Waltrip High School, took a shortcut home through a park from another friend's house when they encountered Medellin and seven other members of the Black and Whites gang.

Raul Villareal, 17, was being initiated into the gang, which required him to fight other gang members for several minutes. Following the ritual, the teens sat in the park drinking beer.

Around 11:30 p.m., as Ertman and Pena passed the young men, Medellin grabbed Pena and dragged her down a hill.

According to court testimony, Ertman was able to run away but heard Pena's cries and returned to help. The other boys grabbed Ertman, and for the next hour proceeded to rape, sodomize and beat the girls before strangling them.

The final act of brutality came when the girl's bodies were stomped on to make sure they were dead, court testimony shows.

The boys' were so brazen about their actions that one of them, Derrick Sean O'Brien, even turned up smiling on videotape taken by local news crews reporting at the scene.

The girls' bodies, meanwhile, were found four days later in a nearby woods.

O'Brien, Medellin and the other gang members were arrested after police received a tip from a brother of one of the gang members.

O'Brien told police that he and the other gang members raped both of the girls, and that Medellin strangled Ertman with a red nylon belt that was pulled so tight around her throat it snapped in two.

O'Brien, who also was suspected in the murder of another Houston woman, was convicted in 1994 and, after exhausting all of his appeals, was executed last year.

Three of Medellin's fellow gang members also received the death penalty. Two others had their death sentences commuted to life in prison in 2005 when the Supreme Court barred executions for those who were age 17 at the time of their crimes. Another defendant does not have an execution date.

Needless to say, people in Texas, including Randy Ertman, Jennifer's father, are furious with President Bush. 

"Our daughters are just pawns in a game that we have no control over," Ertman told FOX News. "What can I say to the president of the United States or the Supreme Court that would make any difference?"

Ertman said he feels betrayed by Bush's decision. Ertman shook Bush's hand when he was running for president, asking him if he remembered the girls and if he would keep their killers on death row. Bush said he would keep them on death row, Ertman said.  "He shook my hand and lied," Ertman said.

If the High Court sides with the President, that will send a message the international courts will have the power to overrule the rulings of American state courts regarding prosecuting illegal alien criminals.  Who cares if the thugs in question (1) Came into our country ILLEGALLY, breaking our immigration laws, and (2) Committed horrific crimes against our citizens and rendering a lifetime of anguish to their victims and their families.  To say that this would set a horrible judicial precedent would be a gross understatement.

Let's hope that the High Court will do the right thing and uphold Medellin's execution.

Clarence Thomas: Part II

By Thomas Sowell

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

All that many people know about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas are the accusations against him by Anita Hill during his confirmation hearings in 1991.

However, such subsequent events as the "rape" accusations against Duke University students last year and, before that, a similar hoax in the Tawana Brawley case, have belatedly demonstrated how mindless it is to automatically accept accusations, as many in the media did with Anita Hill.

Now, with the recent publication of Justice Thomas' memoir, "My Grandfather's Son," Anita Hill has surfaced again in the media to repeat her accusations.

The time is long overdue to take a hard look at hard facts, so that we can put those accusations in the garbage can, where they belong.

The first of these hard facts is that, contrary to what has been repeated so often in the media, it was not just a question of what "he said" versus what "she said."

A whole phalanx of female witnesses who had worked with both Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill came out in support of him at his confirmation hearings.

One of those witnesses went out of her way to point out that the image that Anita Hill projected on television bore no resemblance to the behavior and attitudes of either Anita Hill or Clarence Thomas that she had seen with her own eyes.

On the other side, one witness backed up Anita Hill's story by saying that she had been told the same things by Anita Hill when they both lived in Washington.

But then the fact came out that this star witness had left Washington before Anita Hill went to work for Clarence Thomas, so there was no way that her corroboration could be true.

There were ways in which different versions of events by Hill and Thomas were quite capable of being checked -- but were not checked.

That failure to check the facts was very strange in a situation where so much depended on the credibility of the two people. Here are the two versions.

According to Clarence Thomas, he hired Anita Hill at the urging of a friend because an official of the law firm at which she worked had advised her to leave.

According to Ms. Hill -- both then and now -- she was not "asked to leave" the law firm but was "in good standing" at the time.

This too was not just a question of "he said" and "she said." An affidavit sworn by a former partner in that law firm supported Clarence Thomas' version. That was ignored by most of the media.

Since the Senate has the power of subpoena, it was suggested that they issue a subpoena to get the law firm's records, since that could provide a clue as to the credibility of the two people.

Senators opposed to the nomination of Judge Thomas voted down that request for the issuance of a subpoena.

After Anita Hill's accusations, a group of female members of Congress staged a melodramatic march up the Capitol steps, with the TV cameras rolling, demanding that the Senate "get to the bottom of this."

But "getting to the bottom of this" apparently did not include issuing a subpoena that could have shown conclusively who was truthful and who was not.

In another instance, there was already hard evidence but it too was ignored. Clarence Thomas said that Anita Hill had initiated a number of phone calls to him, over the years, after she had left the agency where they both worked. She said otherwise. But a phone log from the agency showed that he was right.

The really fatal fact about Anita Hill's accusations was that they were first made to the Senate Judiciary Committee in confidence, and she asked that her name not be mentioned when the accusations were presented to Judge Thomas by those trying to pressure him to withdraw his nomination to the Supreme Court.

Think about it: The accusations referred to things that were supposed to have happened when only two people were present.

If the accusations were true, Clarence Thomas would automatically know who originated them. Anita Hill's request for anonymity made sense only if the charges were false.

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy.

I posted this article some time ago.  However, I recently read it again, and given its poignancy and relevance today, I feel it necessary to run it again.

Why Fathers Leave

Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson

June 16, 2007

One in three American children live in fatherless homes. One out of three.

This is a national disaster. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Census Bureau: 63 percent of all youth suicides; 71 percent of pregnant teenagers; 85 percent of all youth in prisons; 90 percent of all homeless and runaway children; and 71 percent of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes.

Those sobering numbers represent the "what" of fatherless homes. Perhaps you have heard some of these numbers before. But what you haven't heard is the "why" of fatherless homes. There's a reason you haven't.

Why do fathers leave their children?

And why is society afraid to address the actual reason why men leave?

According to popular myth, men leave because they’re irresponsible and don’t care about their families. Yes, there’s a very small segment of the male population who are guilty of this, but for most American men this is not the case.

Most fathers don’t want to leave their children. They love their kids and want to be engaged in every aspect of their lives. Men hurt and feel pain when they cannot be with their kids. To suggest otherwise is not only insulting to men, it’s a bold-faced lie.

Society routinely degrades fathers. Men are typically depicted by Hollywood as inadequate and useless beings who are nothing more than comedic props.

According to a 1994 study of 500 women in Redbook Magazine, "only eleven percent of mothers value their husband’s input when it comes to handling problems with their children."

In my work as a minister and counselor over the past 17 years, I've talked with countless couples and have noticed that women are angry and men don’t know how to deal with this anger. Everyone can see that "mom" has issues; the father knows it; the kids know it too. The mistake they make is reacting to this anger with their own anger and fear. The resulting inner pain causes men to overreact, and literally shift into a "fight or flight" response.

To avoid the inner and outer conflict, a man will leave his wife (or girlfriend) and his children.

Many women I counsel with and have interviewed on my radio and TV shows are quick to point out everything their man is doing wrong, but it's rare to find one who will honestly admit that she’s screwed up the kids or that she’s driving her mate crazy.

It's time that we look at the role women play in driving men out of the home and separating them from their children. That’s not to say that men don't bear the brunt of the responsibility for their weakness. Men need to learn how to deal with women with strength and patience – this is love.

The role that women play in fathers leaving the home is never discussed on Oprah or written about in any notable publications. This is because women are viewed as innocent and harmless creatures. On the other hand, feminists have long perpetuated the myth that the straight, traditional American male is a Neanderthal.

Most women themselves don't understand why they provoke and agitate their spouse to lash out or run away. They don't understand the subtle control they have over weak men.

Men typically marry for love and to raise children. The mistake they make is that they're looking for love from the wrong source. Men shouldn't look for love from women. Rather they should find God's love and pass that love down to the wife and children.

There's an order to life: God in Christ, Christ in man, man over woman, and woman over children. When this order is broken or violated you have "hell" on earth.

In a relationship the man often has an unnatural need for his wife or girlfriend. He's addicted to her approval and to her sex. The woman senses this wrong need the man has and she begins to test him. Often times, men find themselves giving in more and more in order to a receive her favor. Sometimes the demands of the woman become unbearable to the point that the man may lash out – I'm not saying this is right, but this is the reality. There's been a deliberate plan to wipe out masculinity in society. When you wipe out the man you wipe out God, because the man represents God on earth. Then there’s no truth – no light – and no hope for the family.

God is the source of love – not the woman. When a man comes to understand this he develops the love and courage necessary to properly handle "the heat in the kitchen."

And women must be willing to admit their role in driving fathers out of homes. They must learn to love what is good in their man and to resist hating his weakness – only then will there be peace in our homes.

The Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson is founder and president of BOND, the Brotherhood Organization of A New Destiny, and author of "The Seven Guaranteed Steps To Spiritual, Family, and Financial Success" guide. He's also host of "The Jesse Lee Peterson Radio Show." For more information, visit www.bondinfo.org.

ABC News legal correspondent Jan Crawford Greenberg has penned a very good article on Justice Clarence Thomas, showing that, unlike how his critics have tried to portray him over the years, he is no "puppet" to Justice Antonin Scalia.

Here’s a quote:

Clarence Thomas is blunt when asked how he is “similar” to fellow conservative Antonin Scalia. “Oh no, no,” he says. “How I ‘followed’ Justice Scalia.”

It was the storyline when Thomas first joined the Court back in 1991. Critics and more than a few journalists immediately portrayed him as a “puppet” of brilliant white conservative Scalia. Thomas reflexively did “Scalia’s bidding,” they said, without a thought of his own. Scalia was the “mentor” who pulled the strings.

The storyline is false—and was from his very first week on the Court--but Thomas says that point should be “something that goes without saying.” The assumption he followed Scalia is bigoted, he said, and driven by racial stereotypes. “You know, the black guy is supposed to follow somebody white,” he says.

“There’s no need to tip-toe around that,” Thomas says. “The story line was, well, I couldn’t be doing this myself, he must be doing it for me because I’m black.”

“Again, I go back to my point. Who were the real bigots?” he asks. “It’s obvious.”

That exchange, during a recent interview in his chambers at the Court, triggered a wide-ranging discussion about Thomas’ views on the law, the justices he admires and why he insists that the Constitution must be interpreted as “colorblind.” He talked about why he believes a judge must always put aside his personal views—even when his heart says otherwise. He spoke at length about Justice Harlan’s dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson, the infamous case that upheld segregation, and how he sees that dissent as an inspiration—the very model of judging.

He has a lot to say, and I’m going to spend this week writing about it.

 Click here to read the rest.

Clarence Thomas

By Thomas Sowell

Monday, October 8, 2007

It would be hard to think of anyone whose portrayal in the media differs more radically from the reality than that of Justice Clarence Thomas. His recent appearances on "60 Minutes," the Rush Limbaugh program, and other media outlets provide the general public with their first in-depth look at the real Clarence Thomas.

These media appearances are part of the promotion of his riveting new memoir, titled "My Grandfather's Son." Otherwise, Justice Thomas would probably have continued to confine himself to doing his work at the Supreme Court, without worrying about what was being said about him in the media.

In an era when too many judges, including justices of the Supreme Court, seem to be playing to the media gallery -- if not writing opinions or leaking information with an eye toward favorable coverage in the press -- Justice Thomas' refusal to play that game tells us a lot about him.

His memoir tells us more. Born in material poverty beyond anything experienced even by people on welfare today, Clarence Thomas was raised with an abundance of discipline and character-building that would pay off in later life.

This was largely the work of his grandfather, who raised him, and whom he now calls "the greatest man I have ever known." But that was not his view at the time, when he was a child.

His grandfather, however, was not preoccupied -- like so many modern parents -- with how the children see things. He took his role as a parent to be to see things that children could not see, including challenges that they would encounter in later life.

The metamorphosis of Clarence Thomas went through many phases -- from altar boy to seminary student to a campus radical and racial militant, before eventually coming full circle back to the values his grandfather taught him and an understanding of the law and society that he acquired on his own.

One sign of where he was in his radical and militant phase was that, when someone gave him a book of mine to read, he threw it in the trash basket.

But, by the time I first met him, in 1978, he had already reached the same conclusions on his own that I had reached.

Those conclusions were probably more firmly grasped because they were his own, rather than something he read by somebody else.

Clarence Thomas' own experiences shocked him into a realization that "affirmative action" and other policies being pushed by civil rights organizations and by liberals generally were doing more harm than good, both to blacks and to American society.

In an era when so many people have neither the time nor the patience to examine arguments and evidence, critics have tried to dismiss Clarence Thomas as someone who "sold out" in order to advance himself.

In reality, he was in far worse financial condition than if he had taken the opposite positions on political issues.

As late as the time of his nomination to the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas' net worth -- everything he had accumulated over a lifetime -- was less than various civil rights "leaders" make in one year.

Nobody sells out to the lowest bidder.

The other great myth about Justice Thomas is that he is a lonely and embittered man, withdrawn from the world, as a result of the brutal confirmation hearings he went through back in 1991.

Clarence Thomas was never a social butterfly. You didn't see his name in the society pages or at media events, either before he got on the High Court or afterward.

In reality, Justice Thomas has been all over the place, giving talks, especially to young people, and inviting some of them to his offices at the Supreme Court.

Summers find him driving his own bus all around the country, mixing with people at truck stops, trailer parks and mall parking lots. The fact that he is not out grandstanding for the media does not mean that he is hunkering down in his cellar.

Clarence Thomas' sense of humor is terrific. Whenever I am on the phone with someone and laughing repeatedly, my wife usually asks me afterward, "Was that Clarence?" It usually is.

Now, thanks to his book, the public can get to know the man himself, rather than the cardboard image created by the media.

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy.

I received the following e-mail from a "representative" of Boyce Watkins:

Thanks for your words my friends, I work for Dr. Boyce.

 

Here is Dr. Watkins' article in response to Juan Williams [which I had already read].  Dr. B doesn't care about the white mainstream media, nor does he care about Fox News or Bill O'Reilly (note that O'Reilly and Williams won't confront Dr. Watkins directly, primarily because of the way he embarrassed Sean Hannity).  Instead, he published it with black publications.  He is a strong advocate for education and black empowerment, not sitting with enemies of black people such as Bill O'Reilly and validating his racism.

 

Good luck gentlemen, the article is below.

 

Mathew Couch

Rep. for Dr. Boyce Watkins

Here is my immediate response:

Mr. Couch,

 

I read Dr. Watkin's article responding to Juan Williams.  Click on this link and read my response to Dr. Watkins (if you haven't already).

 

The reason why O'Reilly and Williams won't "confront" Boyce Watkins "directly" is probably because Watkins would make sure that the conversation/debate would degenerate into a mudslinging shouting match.  Furthermore, in a serious debate on the issues, Bill O'Reilly and Juan Williams would be eat your "client" alive!

 

The fact remains that Watkins's smearing O'Reilly as a "racist" and Juan Williams as a "happy negro" was shameful - period.  The truth is that your "client" is nothing more than a far-left smear merchant who uses his academic credentials and "black authenticity" as a cover to attack who disagrees with him.  (Additional case in point: Watkins' pathetic wisecrack at the end of his article at U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence - and man would intellectually run circles around your "client.")

 

I thought Boyce Watkins is supposed to be a "scholar."  Scholars - at least in the truest sense of the word - don't resort to immature namecalling against those with whom they disagree.  When are you self-righteous "blacker-than-thou," race-baiting, black victimhood-pandering UNHAPPY NEGROES going to finally realize that people are no longer going to drink your Kool-Aid?  The more you attack and smear, the more you will NOT be taken seriously, and the more your own credibility is tarnished.

 

You say Dr. Watkins "is a strong advocate for education and black empowerment, not sitting with enemies of black people such as Bill O'Reilly..." If his "advocacy" entails continually preaching black victimhood, a lack of personal and communal responsibility, and always keeping "whitey" on the hook, then that, my friend, has already been tried - and it has failed miserably!

 

In my humble opinion, the real enemies of black people are people like your client, Boyce Watkins, who want to keep blacks racially paranoid and psychologically dependent, instead of admonishing and encouraging them (as Williams, O'Reilly and Bill Cosby have done) to stop playing the victim, stop blaming "whitey" for everything that ails them, and start getting their own house in order.  If Watkins really gave a damn about black people, then he, as Williams and company have, would be publicly speaking out of the horrible social epidemic of black fatherlessness and the broken families and scarred lives resulting therefrom.  If he really cared about black folks, then why have I never - ever! - heard him publish denounce the pervasive anti-intellectual black sub-culture, which equates hitting the books, speaking English correctly, and embracing education as "acting white"?

 

Truth is, Dr. Watkins' brand of "advocacy" and "black empowerment" has done more to harm black people than help them.  His broadsides against people like Bill O'Reilly and Juan Williams won't change that.  It takes bravery to speak honestly, candidly and openly to black people about the real source of their social and cultural malaise and what they themselves need to do about it.  It takes cowardice to call names.

 

Bill O'Reilly, Juan Williams, Bill Cosby, and Justice Clarence Thomas are brave men.  Dr. Boyce Watkins... not so much.

What Bill O’Reilly Really Told Me

Juan Williams

Friday, September 28, 2007

 

It started with Bill O'Reilly's grandmother. And it blew up into charges of O'Reilly being called a racist and me being attacked as a "Happy Negro" (read that as a lackey or Uncle Tom).

O'Reilly, controversial host of the top-rated TV cable talk show on Fox News Channel, interviewed me on his radio show about a woman-hating, N-word-spouting rapper being hired by McDonald's for a celebrity endorsement. O'Reilly has been on a crusade against big companies legitimizing a crass, hateful and pornographic popular culture by putting stars like Snoop Dogg, the pornographer/rapper, in their ads.

Sad to say, but a lot of today's rappers fit the bill.

They make their name by bragging about how many people they've killed, how many times they've been shot and how many "bitches" they've abused. And those rappers, along with no-talent black comedians who use the N-word and profanity constantly, are creating a very negative image of black people in music, in music videos and in the movies.

So, O'Reilly says to me that the reality to black life is very different from the lowlife behavior glorified by the rappers. He told me he was at a restaurant in Harlem recently and there was no one shouting profanity, no one threatening people. Then he mentioned going to an Anita Baker concert with an audience that was half black, and in sharp contrast to the corrosive images on TV, well dressed and well behaved.

I joked with O'Reilly that for him, a guy from Long Island, a visit to Harlem was like a "foreign trip." That's when he brought up his grandma. He said she was prejudiced against black people because she knew no flesh-and-blood black folks but only the one-dimensional TV coverage of black criminals shooting each other and the rappers and comedians glorifying "gangsta" life and thug cool. He criticized his grandmother as irrational for being afraid of people she really did not know.

I defended his grandma.

After watching all those racist, minstrel images of black people, I argued, she is right to buy into stereotypes of blacks as ignorant, oversexed and violent. And I said while I worried about his grandma having racist images justified in her mind I had bigger worries.

The most pernicious damage being done by the twisted presentation of black life in pop culture is the self-destructive message being beamed into young, vulnerable black brains. Young black people, searching for affirmation of their racial identity, are minute by minute being sold on the cheap idea that they are authentically black only if they imitate the violent, threatening attitude of the rappers and use the gutter language coming from the minstrels on TV.

The lesson from the rappers and comedians is that any young brother or sister who is proud to be black has to treat education with indifference, dismiss love and marriage as the business of white people and dress like the rappers who dress like prisoners — no comb in the jail so they wear doo-rags all day, and no belts so their pants hang down around their butts.

That was the heart and soul of the conversation between O'Reilly and me. The point of the whole exchange was to defeat corrupt, untrue and racist images of real black people.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

The following is an e-mail I sent this weekend to Dr. Boyce Watkins, a finance professor at Syracuse University, for his despicable “happy negro” cheap shot at journalist Juan Williams for defending Bill O’Reilly a couple of weeks ago.  (Read Williams’ response here.)  Why am I wasting time responding to a far left smear merchant draped in a cloak of “black authenticity”? you may ask.  Because people like Watkins need to be called on the carpet at every turn.

Professor Watkins,

 

As a proud conservative black man, I am writing you to express my disappointment and disdain by your recent comments toward Juan Williams.  I will also respond to your recent article defending your choice of words.  Your cheap shot comment at Mr. Williams, calling him a “happy negro” for defending Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly, was uncalled for and completely unprofessional.  You should be ashamed of yourself.

 

First of all, what Bill O’Reilly said at Sylvia’s was not racist at all – and you know it.  That fact that you and other self-righteous, “holier than thou” black folks automatically accused O’Reilly of making a “racist” comment just goes to show that blacks like you cannot stand it when white people state the obvious about certain pathological aspects of black American culture that are true. 

 

Unlike most White Americans, Bill O’Reilly is not afraid of being called a “racist” for choosing not to walk on egg shells when discussing the social problems plaguing large segments of the black community, the worst being the 70% illegitimacy rate and concomitant epidemic of fatherlessness.  O’Reilly gives it to his viewers straight, he sugarcoats nothing, and lets the folks form their own conclusions.  His commentary on the hurricane Katrina victims is a prime example.  His point was that the black residents of New Orleans’ Ninth Ward, instead of relying on the government of “save” them, should have taken it upon themselves to GET THEMSELVES OUT OF HARM’S WAY.  Furthermore, he was absolutely right in saying that by getting an education, getting and holding a job, and delaying childbirth until you have at least graduated from high school, are gainfully employed and married, New Orleans blacks would not have found themselves trapped in poverty and, thus, at the mercy of inept government officials (read: Nagin and Blanco) who ultimately failed them.

 

As with O’Reilly, Juan Williams is smart enough to know that many of the problems afflicting low-income blacks are NOT due to “racism,” but are in fact culturally self-inflicted.  This may be a hard pill of truth of people like you to swallow; yet as the old saying goes, “The truth hurts.”  Williams, inspired by Bill Cosby, had to guts to write about these things in his must-read book Enough, a book that every black people in American should read very carefully. 

 

Williams was also smart enough to know that O’Reilly’s comments at Sylvia’s were in no way, shape or form racist, and rightfully saw fit to defend him.  Hence, your “happy negro” cheapshot.  You claim to have “3 times more education” than Williams, but that doesn’t necessarily make you smarter than he is.  As far as I’m concerned, it just makes you the typical liberal academic who thinks he’s smarter than us “average Joe’s,” and who chooses to smear anyone who disagrees with him.

 

You say that you admonish blacks on the importance of getting an education, keeping their families together, etc.  Yet, until your recent “happy negro” broadside, I had never heard of you, sir. 

 

You claim that Juan Williams and black conservatives in general are being “used” by “racist” conservative whites.  Who’s to say that you are not being used by condescending white liberals who love to show their racial virtue (and paternalism) by pandering to black victimhood?  Such white paternalism is pervasive in colleges and universities across the country, as you well know (but are probably loathe to admit).

 

Your quote toward the end of your article is very telling: “Having a black face does not mean you care about the black race.  Clarence Thomas taught us that.”  Juan Williams, Bill Cosby, JUSTICE Clarence Thomas, myself, and other brave blacks have shown that we do indeed care about blacks by admonishing them to stop blaming “whitey” for everything that ails them and start taking responsibility for getting their own house in order!

 

You need to wake up and get a clue, sir. 

 

Respectfully,

Dutch Martin

http://dutchmeister.townhall.com

Columbia, Duke and the Media

By Thomas Sowell

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

On page 28 of last Sunday's New York Times, right opposite the page where the obituaries were, at the very bottom was a news item almost exactly the size of a 3-by-5 card.

It was a fraction of an Associated Press dispatch about Richard Brodhead, president of Duke University, apologizing for "not having better supported" the Duke lacrosse players last year when they were accused of rape.

When this story first broke last year, it was big news not only on the front page of the New York Times but on the editorial page as well.

The way things were discussed in both places, you could hardly help coming away with the conclusion that the students were guilty as sin. But now that the president of Duke University apologizes for the way he handled the case, that gets buried on page 28 at the bottom, opposite the obituaries.

There is no indication that the Times itself is going to apologize for joining the lynch mob in the Duke "rape" case -- as it did in the Tawana Brawley "rape" case before, and as it will probably do again if and when the same kind of issue arises again.

In the full Associated Press dispatch, including the part left out by the New York Times, Richard Brodhead said that he regretted the university's "failure to reach out" to the players under indictment, "causing the families to feel abandoned when they were most in need of support."

Brodhead got a standing ovation after this speech at the Duke law school but to call what he said "spin" would be much too charitable.

The issue was never his failure to "support" the students or their families. Universities are not equipped to determine guilt or innocence. That is why trials are held in courts instead of on campus.

It was none of the university's business to "support" either the students or those who were accusing the students.

What Brodhead did was join the campus lynch mob by firing the lacrosse coach, cancelling the rest of the team's season, and suspending the students.

Now, after reaching an out of court settlement with both the students and the fired lacrosse team coach, Brodhead gets a standing ovation at his own law school for an apology that sidestepped the real issue and might well have been part of the out of court settlement.

Brodhead is not the only university president who can walk through a sewer and come out smelling like a rose, at least to those in academia and the media.

At Columbia University, its president, Lee Boll