Activism

COMMENTARY: Tell the Supreme Court: We Still Need Affirmative Action

Nationally, there’s a big gap between the percentage of white and Black students who earn a bachelor’s degree. And that perpetuates all kinds of harm and inequities in income, health, family wealth, and more. We still have a long way to go in building a fair society in which all our children can thrive.

Published

2 weeks ago

November 15, 2022

Oakland Post

Black voters have the power to decide the election in Georgia, which will probably decide the future of our country in some ways we can predict and others we can’t. This is especially true for Black men, who still don’t vote in the high percentages Black women do. Black men in Georgia have to come out to the polls this year.

Ben Jealous serves as president of People For the American Way and Professor of the Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. Photo courtesy of the author.

By Ben Jealous

One of the great joys of my life is teaching.

I’m fortunate to teach classes on social justice at the University of Pennsylvania, one of the most respected schools in the country. Penn has a longstanding commitment to affirmative action, and I have seen first-hand how diversity in the classroom benefits all my students.

There’s just no question that diversity is a core piece of a vibrant academic community and a critical part of the learning experience – for all of us. Bringing together students with different lived experiences forces students to think critically about their assumptions, which is an essential goal of a university education.

That’s why I, like so many of us, am deeply concerned about two affirmative action cases argued at the Supreme Court just a few days ago. Opponents of affirmative action have been trying to destroy it for years. And now it looks like they just might get their chance.

Two universities, Harvard and the University of North Carolina (UNC), are defending their admissions programs against opponents who want them declared unconstitutional. (The university where I teach, Penn, and the organization I lead, People for the American Way, have both joined briefs supporting the universities’ positions.) Considering race as one of many factors in admissions has been upheld by the Supreme Court for decades. The Court has said repeatedly that diversity in higher education is a “compelling interest.”

But today’s Supreme Court is different. It’s dominated by far-right justices who have made it clear they don’t share this view. Chief Justice John Roberts’s famous quote, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” sums it up: conservatives believe affirmative action is at best unnecessary and at worst just another type of discrimination. Some conservatives would like to retire affirmative action because they claim it’s accomplished everything it set out to do. But it hasn’t. Not even close.

In Texas and Michigan, applications and enrollments of Black and Latino students plunged after state politicians banned the consideration of race in admission to their public universities.

That’s a huge red flag.

And here’s an important point that often gets lost. All students—no matter their race or color or creed—benefit from affirmative action.

Having diverse classmates promotes a stimulating exchange of ideas and viewpoints. It prepares all students for living and working in our increasingly diverse society. The Supreme Court as a whole used to understand that. Today, I worry that only a minority of the justices do.

One of those justices is Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman on the Court and a person of profound insight and wisdom. Her questions in oral arguments got to the heart of the matter. Imagine two qualified students applying to UNC, Justice Jackson suggested: a white North Carolinian student whose family members had attended the school for generations, and a Black North Carolinian whose family had historically been shut out.

The white applicant might make the case that attending UNC is deeply meaningful to her because it is a family tradition. The Black applicant might make the case that it is deeply meaningful because her family was so long denied.

Jackson’s question made it clear what would happen if the Court adopts the Far Right’s position: the white student’s appeal to family history would be allowed to help their chance of acceptance, while the Black student’s would not. It would further institutionalize discrimination and the harm it has caused generations of Black Americans.

I am so grateful for Justice Jackson’s voice on the Court. I also know that the six right-wing justices expressed skepticism of affirmative action at oral arguments.

Many reporters are already writing its obituary.

I hope for the sake of our education system and our next generation, that they will be wrong. The “compelling interest” that led the Court to uphold affirmative action in the past still exists – in fact, it may be stronger than ever.

Ben Jealous serves as president of People For the American Way and Professor of the Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. A New York Times best-selling author, his next book “Never Forget Our People Were Always Free” will be published by Harper Collins in January 2023.

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Activism

Tiny Homes Offer Hope for Holidays and Beyond

We are accepting applications for volunteers and accepting donations that we can use to build Tiny Homes. You might have things in your house or garage you haven’t used or extra construction tools, a bag of stud nails, used doors, windows, roofing materials, lumber, metal, hardwood flooring, sheetrock tape, paints, and anything that we can recycle to build and add to our Tiny Homes.

Published

4 days ago

November 27, 2022

Oakland Post

As chief operations officer for The Tiny Homes Project, I join Lackey in expressing gratitude for the support that the Oakland Post, as our media partner, has helped us with in gathering community and faith-based leaders to help solve our increasing homeless problem in the Bay Area. We can no longer ignore homelessness in Oakland, which has now reached a humanitarian crisis.

By Dr. Maritony A. Yamot and Rev. Ken Lackey

The holidays are the season when we stop and begin to think, “How can I give back this year and what are some different ways to help out?”

Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to help out during the holidays that don’t cost a thing. The Tiny Homes Project — with Rev. Ken Lackey of the Center for the Perfect Marriage Church at 6101 International Blvd. — needs to increase its capacity and we wanted to remind our community that everybody matters to God.

We want to launch an intensive month-long generosity campaign to help the increasing homeless issues in our neighborhoods by adding to the number of tiny homes that we have already built at various private locations in Oakland.

We invite you to join us as we partner with some of Oakland’s fabulous nonprofit organizations to meet critical needs in our communities.

Whether through donation or action, there are plenty of opportunities to give.

We are also looking for vehicle donations of trailers or any truck for hauling material and picking up volunteers and homeless people that are helping to build Tiny Homes. We build our homes with primarily donated and surplus materials, allowing us to cut costs and provide a pleasant home for under $40,000.

Each and every person who wants to help out and eradicate the homeless problem in the City of Oakland can donate funds for us to build a Tiny Home. If donors want to give money to the ministry, we will build a tiny home and name it after them. Know that your donations will be able to take a whole family off the street during this cold season.

In addition, we are open to getting a sponsor or sponsors for an entire Tiny Homes Community Park and we have a separate location that will be designated for homeless veterans, the elderly, single mothers or single fathers, and any individual or family who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence, such as those living in emergency shelters, transitional housing, places not meant for habitation, or sleeping on our streets.

Please spread the word and contact us about any way you can help our Tiny Homes Community Project with Rev. Ken Lackey.

There are three ways to contact us

By Phone/toll-free number: 1-833-233-8900 ext. 1
By Email: TinyHomesC@gmail.com
By Appointment/Donation Drop off location at the All About Grits Restaurant at 6101 International Blvd., Oakland, CA

Or you can attend our next two major events:

Tiny Homes Fundraising Event on Saturday, Dec. 10, 2022. Place to be announced.
Tiny Homes Community Building Workshop with the help of our community and local partners in the Bay Area. Date and place to be announced.

Activism

Faith Baptist Church Becomes Oakland’s First Official Resiliency Hub

Faith Baptist Church was the recipient of the U.S. Green Building Council’s Green Legacy Award. Faith was chosen out of a pool of dozens of applicants for the award. The key differentiator was the Solar Battery Storage project. With that, Faith Baptist has the ability to totally exit the PG&E grid and generate 100% energy from its solar panels. That makes Faith Baptist a potential energy distributor.

Published

4 days ago

November 27, 2022

Oakland Post

As members of the community that comprise Faith Baptist Church look on, California Interfaith Power and Light Executive Director Susan Stephenson, left (in white jacket), hands scissors to the eldest member of Faith Baptist for the ribbon cutting on Nov. 14 while Pastor Curtis Robinson stands just behind him. Also pictured are District 1 Councilmember Dan Kalb (white hair, white shirt) and to his right (multi-colored top) is Shayna Hirschfield-Gold, Oakland’s Climate Program manager. Photo courtesy of Faith Baptist Church and California Interfaith Power and Light.

By Curtis O. Robinson, Sr., M.A., Harvard University fellow, ’19, Senior Pastor, Faith Baptist Church

So, when I say that Faith Baptist is Oakland’s first Resiliency Hub, the first question that many people ask is, “what is a resiliency hub?”

In an article from the Christian Science Monitor entitled “Resilience hubs: A new approach to crisis response,” the author writes, “Things that shock a community have to do with climate, but more urgently they have to do with systemic inequities.”

He was referring to police shootings, civic unrest, the growth of homeless encampments and more. The resiliency hub approach to these inequities uses a respected local organization, such as a church or community center, and bolsters it to help neighborhoods prepare for crises — hurricanes, heat waves, pandemics or unrest — and to respond and recover from them.

When Faith was approached with the idea of solar panels for its rooftop as a source of heat, the decision was relatively a no-brainer.

As a House of Worship, there is a collective emphasis on the workings of God in the universe. The first job that God gave humanity was to tend the Garden. When it comes to environmental justice, our goal then is to take care of this place called planet Earth.

The world is now in an environmental tailspin. However, with technology that teaches us how to create sustainable outcomes, sprinkled with common sense, we can achieve an environmental balance that can create safe spaces environmentally for our children and for our future.

With that, Faith Baptist has the ability to totally exit the PG&E grid and generate 100% energy from its solar panels. That makes Faith Baptist a potential energy distributor.

With the help of California Interfaith Power and Light and energy experts from the U.S. Green Building Council, we held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Nov. 14.

Joining us, among others, were Susan Stephenson, executive director of California Interfaith Power and Light, Oakland City Councilman Dan Kalb of District 1, Shayna Hirschfield- Gold, Oakland’s Climate Program manager and members of Faith Baptist and the Pentecostal community that shares our space and Green Building volunteers.

We bask in the glory of energy independence, because we now tap into clean energy from above and not dirty energy from below.

Publisher’s note: Rev Curtis Robinson also is a columnist for the God on Wall Street column for the Post News Group.

Activism

March Against Fear: When ‘Black Power’ Became Mainstream

What began as a solitary peaceful protest for voter registration became one of the South’s most important demonstrations of the civil rights movement. Leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Carmichael formed unlikely alliances that resulted in the Black Power movement. This ushered in a new era in the fight for equality.

Published

4 days ago

November 27, 2022

Oakland Post

James Meredith walking on the campus of the University of Mississippi, accompanied by U.S. marshals. (Photo: Marion S. Trikosko, the United States Library of Congress.)

By Tamara Shiloh

It was June 5, 1966.

James Howard Meredith (born 1933), on a mission to encourage Black voter registration and defy entrenched racism in the South, set out on a solitary walk from Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi.

On the second day of his journey, Aubrey Norvell, a white gunman, waited on a roadside a few miles south of Hernando, Mississippi. He ambushed Meredith, shooting him in the neck, head, and back.

Within 24 hours, the nation’s three principal civil rights organizations vowed to continue the march: the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Congress of Racial Equality, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

Success of the event could not be predicted. Leaders were aware that last-minute planning of a march could be dangerous, and the route chosen was not without uncertainty. The three-week march led to death threats, arrests, and the use of tear gas. Internal tensions surrounding leadership swelled and use of the slogan “Black Power” became a revolutionary phrase urging self-determination and Black pride.

The Deacons for Defense and Justice, a group of Black veterans from World War II who believed in armed self-defense, provided protection for participants. Founded in Jonesboro, La., in 1964, The Deacons for Defense had already protected civil rights activists from the Ku Klux Klan. About 20 chapters were created throughout Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.

The march ended on June 22, 1966. Meredith, sufficiently recovered, had been able to rejoin the event. Participants supporting Meredith along the way joined in, making the total number of marchers arriving in Jackson about 15,000. The March Against Fear was one of the largest marches in history for that geographical area. It was during the post-march rally that Stokely Carmichael first used the phrase “we want Black Power” during a public speech.

Carmichael sought to define the quest for Black Power in constructive terms, explaining to supporters in Detroit that “Black votes created Black Power…That doesn’t mean that we are anti-white. We are just developing Black pride.”

Meredith had become well known when he successfully challenged the Kennedy administration to protect his civil rights. His application for admission to the University of Mississippi, dubbed Ole Miss, had been twice denied. With backing from the NAACP, he filed suit for racial discrimination.

After heavy negotiations with U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy, Meredith was permitted to enroll at Ole Miss but only under escort of federal troops. He graduated in 1963 with a bachelor’s degree in political science.

Understand the complex issues of fear, injustice, and the challenges of change in Anne Bausum’s “The March Against Fear: The Last Great Walk of the Civil Rights Movement and the Emergence of Black Power.”