Commentary

Commentary: Affirmative Action’s Death Knell Now Loud and Clear

Was the Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg — the man who could make history as the first prosecutor to indict a former president — an affirmative action recipient? Why would anyone ask that? But we know it’s the kind of slight all people of color face. After the incredulous ask, “What are you doing here?”

Published

3 years ago

April 3, 2023

Oakland Post

And now that he’s on the verge of history, the man who is the possible perp of the moment, one Donald Trump, can only denigrate Bragg in accepted racist code, calling him a “Soros-backed animal.

By Emil Guillermo

Was the Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg — the man who could make history as the first prosecutor to indict a former president — an affirmative action recipient?

Why would anyone ask that?

But we know it’s the kind of slight all people of color face. After the incredulous ask, “What are you doing here?”

Bragg grew up in Harlem on what is known as “Strivers’ Row,” where accomplished African Americans lived in good homes that matched their high status.

And yet, Bragg also knows what it’s like to be stopped by police just for being a person of color.

He also knows what it’s like to graduate from Harvard College and Harvard Law School.

And now that he’s on the verge of history, the man who is the possible perp of the moment, one Donald Trump, can only denigrate Bragg in accepted racist code, calling him a “Soros-backed animal.”

Trump’s reference to wealthy financier George Soros makes him anti-Semitic as well as anti-Black.

That’s how racist code has evolved.

And now Trump, by virtue of his Supreme Court appointments, is responsible for another evolution — the end of the ability to use “affirmative action” to flog an innocent person of color. That’s because in a few months, the high court is expected to end affirmative action at Harvard and essentially all institutions of higher education.

Since a SCOTUS review last October, there’s been little news as we all hope against hope that a tool for equity and equality isn’t negated by the conservative court.

The silence was broken this past week, when the New Yorker Magazine published excerpts from the trial that had been previously sealed.

The most damning thing revealed was a joke, an assessment of one male Filipino American Harvard applicant, written on official Harvard admissions stationery.

Jose is said to be the son of a farmworker killed by a tractor, who now supports his family of 14 while working as a cancer researcher AND playing football as a 132-pound defensive lineman (incredible considering his slight build). But he played at such a high level that not only was he named California Class AAA Player of the Year, he’s had an offer from the Rams of the NFL.

And let’s not give too much credence to the Nobel Prize he’s won.

“After all, they gave one to Martin Luther King, too,” the admission’s assessment reads. “No doubt just another example of giving preference to minorities.”

Far from an instant admit as a young man bound for greatness, Jose is dismissed as an Asian American likely to go pre-med and become a doctor. Ho-hum.

It’s funny in a gallows humor sort of way, and ready for use by either side of the affirmative action debate.

If you’re for it, it drips with the absurdity of the process.

If you’re against it, well, doesn’t this just ring with institutional racism?

But it’s a joke, essentially like an April Fools’ prank, written by an Asian American (Thomas Hibino) who at the time worked at the Department of Justice’s Office for Civil Rights. Hibino, now retired, wrote it in 2012 to jokingly goad his lunch buddy, William Fitzsimmons, the dean of Admissions at Harvard.

And it was so good even Fitzsimmons appears to have been fooled by it.

That’s not exactly a smoking gun to sink affirmative action. But it does reveal a chummy relationship between the regulator (Hibino) and the regulated (Harvard/Fitzsimmons).

And now it looks more like a decorative “final nail” in the Harvard Affirmative Action case —as if one needs any more nails than six conservative justices.

The unsealing of the trial materials is like a death knell that has broken the silence.

I was wondering about it as I finished up my theatrical projects in New York City this past weekend. In Ishmael Reed’s satire, “The Conductor,” one of the roles I played (besides a Brown Tucker Carlson-type) was Ed Blum, the man spearheading the anti-affirmative action group suing Harvard.

My Blum part is just an off-stage voiceover, but one person in the audience, who spoke to Ed Blum recently, asked me who the person was who did a perfect Ed Blum?

The person didn’t know it was me, a Filipino American Harvard graduate.

Which brings me to the other project, “Emil Amok: Lost NPR Host Found Under St. Marks,” where I tell stories of my Filipino American experience in the white mainstream of media and Harvard.

I invited several Harvard classmates from decades ago to attend my performances. Doctors, lawyers, an Academy Award nominee.

One of them told me he was ashamed about those days when we were brought together through Harvard’s admissions process.

“I just assumed you were like me,” said the white New Yorker, who was admitted to Harvard under the ‘legacy’ policy, which gives some preference to children of alumni.

Later, in an email he expressed this: “I shouldn’t have been so solipsistic and blithely assuming. I should have been more sensitive and curious. That aside, it was incredibly moving and meaningful to be let in now and to have a better sense of who you are.”

It only took 45 or so years for the real magic of affirmative action to happen.

And it did happen before SCOTUS is likely to kill it off.

###
NOTE: I will talk about this column and other matters on “Emil Amok’s Takeout,” my AAPI micro-talk show. Listen LIVE most days @ 2 p.m. PST. On Facebook; my YouTube channel; and Twitter. Catch the recordings on www.amok.com.

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Oakland Director Boots Dazzles Once Again in ‘I Love Boosters’

Riley’s creative output is influenced by progressive ideals. His work, which includes six albums, the 2018 film “Sorry to Bother You,” and the 2023 comedy series “I’m a Virgo,” always shows that the alienation working-class people feel is inevitable under capitalism, he recently told The Guardian.

Published

4 days ago

June 10, 2026

bpusa-syndication

Naomi Ackie, Taylour Paige, and Keke Palmer star in “I Love Boosters” playing now in theaters. Directed by Oakland resident Boots Riley. Image courtesy of Neon.

“I feel lonely,” Keke Palmer’s character Corvette says in the first few minutes “I Love Boosters,” the new comedy adventure film from Oakland-based director Boots Riley.

“I wish I could feel lonely,” Naomi Ackie’s character Sade responds. “Try having kids.”

“I Love Boosters” teems with kaleidoscopic colors, sharp playful social critique, otherworldly plot twists, and fast-paced action, but it’s grounded in its main characters’ simple and relatable motivations: They want to be less isolated, and more free to pursue their own creative endeavors.

They’d like to design clothes and run a fashion boutique, but, unfortunately, they’re mostly busy surviving. Corvette and Sade, along with Mariah, played by Taylour Page, hustle and scheme through their brilliant scrappy organized crime group, the Velvet Gang. The gang regularly boosts clothes in the Bay Area and sells them at discounted prices.

Riley portrays the gang in a positive light in “I Love Boosters,” echoing the sentiment and title of a song he recorded 20 years ago with his hip-hop band, The Coup, where he praises boosters for providing poor communities with nice clothes they can afford: like a Robin Hood of the ’hood. But while morally righteous, materially, the gang is troubled. Corvette is haunted by unpaid bills and fears getting kicked out of the building where she squats, a shuttered fast-food chicken joint.

One thing that separates Riley’s film from most others about criminal gangs is that the Velvet Gang’s members work for a living. Theirs isn’t a greedy fantasy of becoming filthy rich, or for one last hit: Boosting is a job that still doesn’t pay nearly enough.

Visually, the film is a mix of psychedelia, afro-surrealism, noir, and perhaps a comic book.

The villain, Christie Smith, played by Demi Moore, an evil genius billionaire and fashion designer who runs the expensive clothing company the gang boosts from. She repeatedly appears on the news to put a target on the Velvet Gang members’ backs. When the gang ends up connecting with those who Christie directly exploits –workers here in the Bay Area, but also those in sweatshops overseas– the fight against Christie can commence; and uncoincidentally, Corvette starts to feel less lonely.

I don’t want to say much about that fight, but it’s delightful. Sci-Fi elements (which appear connected to Marxist theory) enter into the narrative to tie what’s become a pretty scatterbrained story together. Grounded by Palmer’s acting, “I Love Boosters” is a total joy and a refreshing break from the typical narratives we see these days. It’s totally over-the-top, but it knows it is.

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Arts and Culture

COMMENTARY: Black Music is the Sound of Black Freedom: Let Us Reclaim Both This Juneteenth

Black Music Month started when Black Music Association members Ed Wright, Kenny Gamble and his wife, journalist and radio host Dyanna Williams were able to persuade President Jimmy Carter to establish the observation on June 7, 1979.

Published

5 days ago

June 9, 2026

Oakland Post

Robert Johnson (1911-1938) is thought of as the godfather of blues music, especially Delta blues. The 29 songs recorded by him during his short life have been of massive inspiration to guitarists and musicians over the last 80 years. Public domain photo.

By Wanda Ravernell

Black Music Month and Juneteenth are inextricably linked – Black music is the sound of our freedom.

From the plaintive moans of the enslaved Africans’ ‘sorrow songs,’ to the fields of Civil War battle where Black soldiers picked up abandoned bugles, to the upright piano played in juke joints on Saturday night and churches come Sunday morning, our ancestors’ innovation in the face of want, fear, degradation, and hopelessness has yielded genres of music imitated ’round the world.

In 2000, Congress made it official. In 2009, Pres. Barack Obama changed the name to African American Music Heritage Month and in 2023, Pres. Joe Biden changed it back to Black Music Month, two years after he declared Juneteenth a national holiday, the result of a movement led by Opal Lee.

Our ancestors battle for freedom over these last 400 years and the music that allowed them expression of their humanity deserved to be honored.

But we may be losing sight of the value of their sacrifices.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Faith That the Dark past Has Taught Us…’

Along with the long-known exploitation of Black musicians whose recordings were stolen by record companies, the commercialization of Juneteenth feels like another kind of theft.

I had never heard of Juneteenth until I moved to the Bay Area from my hometown of Philadelphia. I didn’t know it was one of many freedom festivals celebrated by descendants of enslaved people in the United States.

Emancipation Day was Jan. 1 in Pennsylvania, April 16 in Wash., D.C., May 20 in Florida, and Aug. 8 in Kentucky. But Juneteenth, June 19, has the most renown, known in Texas as the ‘colored peoples’ Fourth of July.’

It was marked by parades, beauty pageants, rodeos, backyard barbecues and church picnics.

Yes, church.

The formerly enslaved began the day praying in thanks for their freedom just as they had prayed for Jubilee – the day of freedom – when they had chains on their feet and hands. They ‘testified’ about their past suffering and how they had managed to overcome.

And they sang.

Although, we will not hold it this year, Omnira Institute’s Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance recalled this part of Juneteenth with prayers in the languages of the African captives. In the middle of the ceremony, a soloist would lead us in singing “Many Thousand Gone” while we took turns reciting portions of the Emancipation Proclamation, the news of freedom that took more than two years to reach Texas – two months after the Civil War ended.

“Many Thousand Gone” was famously recorded by Black luminary Paul Robeson in 1947:

“No more auction block for me,

No more, no more

No more auction black for me

Many thousand gone.”

Other verses refer to the ‘pint of salt’ and the ‘driver’s lash,’ the realities of enslavement that they had survived.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Hope That the Present has Brought Us’

All of the genres of African American music have at their root songs like that, the essence being, as Stevie Wonder, wrote, “the joy inside our pain.” So Black music is not just music. It is our story, our history, our very strength.

During the Civil Rights Movement, which peaked 100 years after slavery ended, the people testified that it was the freedom songs – based on spirituals – that gave them the heart to march, face attack dogs, fire hoses, beatings, and shootouts with vigilantes.

The music reminded them that power was in the people. That music, our music, can do so again. We don’t have to accept the commodification of the products of our culture.

The power of those songs is showing a resurgence across the South as we battle again for the right to self-determination through the ballot box.

Those songs are the voices of our ancestors, voices forged in their blood, their sweat, their tears, joy and, above all, faith. Those songs, those prayers live in our blood and our very breath.

This Juneteenth, let us reclaim those holy voices expressed in Black music for ourselves. It is our birthright. It can neither be bought nor sold. No more. Never again.

Wanda Ravernell is the executive director of Omnira Institute, sponsor for 18 years of the Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance and Oakland’s 11^th Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival, which will take place on Sept. 12.