MichaelFauntroy.com

Michael Eric Dyson: Welcome to the Club!

I spent a lot of time during 2008 holding up a yield sign to those African Americans who wanted to anoint Barack Obama as the answer to all of our prayers. While I understand racial politics as well as almost anyone, I was concerned about his steadfast unwillingness to speak directly to Black issues during the campaign, other than the "fathers should step up" refrain that, while true, sheds no new light on the subject. I understood the game he was playing and why it was necessary (the country hasn't come as far as some would suggest and he couldn't be overly identifiably Black and win the presidency). I got crushed in some quarters for having the temerity to write that Obama might be accepting Black votes while leaving Black issues by the side of the road.

While my politics and those of the President are similar (I am probably to his left ideologically), I was not willing to just drink the Kool-Aid because his skin-color is also similar. I think all elected officials at all levels should be pushed into dealing with sticky issues and that voters should not go soft because they like the candidate. You don’t get anything in politics just by voting for someone. You get something by demanding action and making it clear to the winner that his or her continued employment will require action on a range of issues. That can't happen if you're taken by the siren song of someone's voice or enraptured by one's smile, as so many African Americans have been.

As an African American scholar of political science and public policy, I was shocked at the lack of critical analysis that was offered by some other Black professors and activists during the campaign and since the Inauguration. Georgetown professor Michael Eric Dyson was among President Obama’s earliest Black supporters among prominent Blacks. He campaigned for Obama (and despite living in D.C. hasn't yet been invited to the Big House) and shouted down people like me who wanted specifics. Dyson, while certainly still a supporter, appears to be opening his eyes on Obama. Check out this video

President Obama is a 180 degree improvement over his predecessor, the corrupt George W. Bush (who should be in jail right now!). I want him to be a paragon of political progressiveness. But he's not perfect and I’m not surprised as Dyson appears to be. President’s govern as they campaigned barring some unforeseen crisis. We got little during the campaign. We’ll get little during his presidency unless there is some kind of crisis (Katrina, riots, etc.).

Anyway, MED – welcome to the club.  What should we do to make sure we aren't left holding the bag in the end?

FNC: Fox News Channel or Faux News Crybabies?

Daily Kos TV has put together a very interesting comparison video in the wake of Fox News Channel's complaining about an ABC News special with President Barack Obama.  It's almost as if the folks at FNC think video doesn't exist of them bragging about their "unprecedented" access to the Bush administration.

New Audio: Michael Fauntroy and William Julius Wilson Discuss Racism

I just had the honor of participating in a 30-minute discussion on race and its impact on the Black community with Harvard Sociology Professor William Julius Wilson on Minnesota Public Radio's Midmorning with Kerri Miller. Wilson's book, More Than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City, was the basis of the discussion.  We talked about the importance of acknowledging and challenging prevailing structural impediments to Black achievement.  Wilson's book is great and clearly makes that argument that those who believe Black dysfunction is about individual behavior are wrong and need to look beyond race to understand what is going on the the Black community. The book also urges the Black Left to acknowledge and deal with some of the cultural factors that get in the way of Black progress.

I hope you'll check it out when you can (and pass it along to anyone you think will be interested in it).  I come in about about 9 minutes into the discussion.

There is one point that I didn't get to make. Government unemployment statistics are a farce. My understanding of official data leads me to conclude that things are far worse in Black communities than the government statistics suggests. Every president since John F. Kennedy has played games with the way the statistics are presented and the result is that they don't fully capture what's really going on. For example, official unemployment statistics don't include people who are working part time because they can't find full-time work. They also don't include people who have given up trying to find a job. In an increasingly difficult economic environment, these groups are getting larger, not smaller, yet are not reported. Kevin Phillips has written persuasively on this.

Hey Conservatives: Now Do You Believe Homeland Security?

James Dobson, Joe Scarborough, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and virtually all of Fox News, and most the conservative activists of various stripes lost their minds when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a report calling attention to their belief that there is a rise in right-wing extremism in the United States.  They demanded and, unfortunately, received an apology from Secretary Janet Napolitano on this.  Then there was the killing of a doctor in Kansas by a conservative activist.  And, yesterday, was the shooting at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. launched by a long-standing right-wing, racist, anti-semite.  Add to these events the Sarah Palin rallies during the presidential campaign which served as a magnet to those who prefer hate to love, and it seems to me that those who screamed about the DHS report have some explaining to do.  Or, at least, pull their heads out of the sand and open their eyes to what is going on in this country.  The continued economic crisis and its growing unemployment may make this a long, hot summer for right-wing extremism in America.

Check out this video.

Corrupt Banks Preyed on Poor Communities

The New York Times published a story that lays out how a bank -- in this case, Wells Fargo -- preyed on poor communities -- in this case, African Americans in Baltimore -- for greedy, disgusting reasons.  Please read this article.

Here's a snippet--

As she describes it, Beth Jacobson and her fellow loan officers at Wells Fargo Bank “rode the stagecoach from hell” for a decade, systematically singling out blacks in Baltimore and suburban Maryland for high-interest subprime mortgages.

These loans, Baltimore officials have claimed in a federal lawsuit against Wells Fargo, tipped hundreds of homeowners into foreclosure and cost the city tens of millions of dollars in taxes and city services. 

Wells Fargo, Ms. Jacobson said in an interview, saw the black community as fertile ground for subprime mortgages, as working-class blacks were hungry to be a part of the nation’s home-owning mania. Loan officers, she said, pushed customers who could have qualified for prime loans into subprime mortgages. Another loan officer stated in an affidavit filed last week that employees had referred to blacks as “mud people” and to subprime lending as “ghetto loans.”

This is one of a number of examples of the kind of corruption that is killing our economy.  Let's hope these banks and, more specifically, the people who authorized this loan strategy, get what's coming to them.

New Video: Fauntroy Comments on Obama Egypt Speech

Here is video from my Thursday, June 4, 2009 appearance on Fox 5 Morning News in Washington, D.C. where I discussed President Barack Obama's speech at the University of Cairo with Gurvir Dhindsa.

Obama's Muslim Engagement

President Barack Obama's restrained part-olive branch, part-truth telling 55-minute speech at Cairo University was an outstanding first step in attempting to bridge the gulf that exists between the U.S. and Muslim's around the world. While it will take years, if not decades, to create a more peaceful, loving, and just relationship, it is clear that President Obama understands that part of the world in a way that far exceeds those of past presidents. His willingness to speak uncomfortable truths to Muslims and Americans reveals a kind of engagement with the Muslim world that will likely benefit us all.

Obama's goal was to start the process of rebuilding U.S.-Muslim relations. This is a tall task, given the multi-decade, tension-filled relationship. Too often, U.S. administrations - without regard to political party or ideology - have supported undemocratic, authoritarian, misogynistic regimes in exchange for continued access to Middle Eastern oil. Rank-and-file people throughout the Middle East understand this reality, which helps to create the anti-Americanism that is all too prevalent in that part of the world. Moreover, U.S. support for Israel, which many Muslims see as coming at the expense of Palestinians, also complicates matters.

Obama's speech deftly walked the line between condescension, on the one hand, and blame-gaming on the other. Obama's lineage, no doubt helps. Leading with a personal narrative that he said has given him a view of Islam on "three continents," Obama spoke eloquently of Islam's contributions to the world and that the first country to recognize the newly created United States was a Muslim one - Morocco. To be the first African American President with a heritage that includes Islam gives him more legitimacy than any other president to make this speech.

Regarding Israel, he noted that it was baseless, ignorant, and hateful to deny the Holocaust. But he also stated that Israel must recognize the Palestinian's right to exist. He urged Muslims not to fall prey to "crude stereotypes" of America. He also conceded that Iran should have the right to pursue peaceful nuclear power, so long as it is within the bounds of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Perhaps likely to get lost in the comments about Iran, Israel, and Palestine were his remarks on democracy. His thoughts on this topic came late in the speech, but should not be overlooked. The status quo leaders in the Middle East have largely resisted the urge to become more open and democratic. The President's thoughts could potentially embolden people on the ground throughout the Middle East to push for more democracy. That could represent more of a challenge to the oil- and religious-based leadership status quo than anything the U.S. government could do.

There were no harsh words, no sense of belligerency, just a case made for a new relationship. Let's hope this is the start of a serious and sustained effort to undo the stereotypes on both sides of the issue.

Michael K. Fauntroy is an assistant professor of public policy at George Mason University.

Another Reason for Moderates to Leave the GOP

I've written often in this space that the fundamental problem with the Grand Old Party is that it is too ideologically rigid and too willing to destroy those who are in line most, but not all, of the time.  The plight of moderate Republicans is currently the source of a lot of attention. U.S. News and World Report has published a story that should concern those in the party that understand the importance of ideological diversity.

The GOP is a Mess

The Grand Old Party is in bad shape.  From humiliating defeats in the last two national elections and its recent outburst of internecine warfare, to a new party chairman who has gotten off to a rocky (to be charitable) start to the sexist, to its racist response to President Barack Obama’s selection of Federal Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor to succeed David Souter on the Supreme Court, and beyond, the “Party of Lincoln” is consistently showing that it is flying in the face of the future of America.  The consistent, and accurate, Republican narrative is that the party is too conservative and too homogenous to be attractive to the next generation or so of American voters.  While party leaders keep trying to convince us that America is a conservative country, Republican candidates are getting their brains beat out at ballot boxes all over the country.  Recent evidence shows that the GOP is simply out of touch with the rest of the country and, barring Democratic overreach, has a very long way to go to regain relevance in American politics because it’s lost college graduates and minorities.

The first piece of evidence can be found in the November 2008 presidential election results.  According an analysis from National Journal and the Cook Political Report, the Republicans hold on highly-educated voters has disappeared.  The Republicans’ rocket ship ride to political dominance occurred when it was able to meld its traditional base of the upwardly mobile economic and social supporters with religious and social conservatives.  The first part of that marriage could be seen in the how Republicans performed in America’s 100 most-educated counties (those with the highest percentage of over-25 adults with college degrees).  In 1984, Reagan carried 82 of today’s 100 most educated counties.  George H. W. Bush carried 64 of those counties four years later.  The Republican shared of these counties has been in decline in each presidential election ever since. John McCain, the 2008 GOP standard-bearer, won just 22 of these counties.  In a political whiplash-inducing shift, college educated voters, once the lynchpin of the GOP, are leaving the party in droves.

The second piece of evidence is perhaps more devastating to the GOP.  According to the Census Bureau, the United States will be a “majority-minority” country by 2042.  One would think, given this reality, that the GOP would redouble its minority outreach efforts in an effort to have access to the votes of the future majority of the country.  Quite to the contrary, the GOP appears to be pushing minorities out of the Party.  And a recently released Gallup Poll confirms the suspicion that the Party is getting whiter while the Democrats, Independents, and the rest of the country are not.  According to the poll, 89 percent of Republican voters are white, and that 63% of White Republicans identify as conservatives.  Meanwhile, 64 percent of Democrats are White, about half of whom describe themselves as moderate or liberal.  Given Census Bureau projections, this may be all you need to know about where the GOP is heading if it doesn’t get its act together.

This evidence reveals structural problems for the GOP, not the liberal media spin they have been offering since the last election.  How will the party be able to raise money as before without its college educated base?  Indeed, to the extent that the media play a role, it’s in giving attention to people like Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh, who are only making things worse.

Michael K. Fauntroy is an assistant professor of public policy at George Mason University and author of Republicans and the Black Vote.

Gallup Poll: GOP is Very White and Very Conservative

The Grand Old Party is a mess.  Everyone can see it.  From humiliating defeats in the last two national elections to the recent outburst of internecine warfare, from a new party chairman who has gotten off to a rocky (to be charitable) start to the sexist, racist response to President Barack Obama's selection of Federal Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor to succeed David Souter on the Supreme Court, the "Party of Lincoln" is consistently showing it's disconnect from the country's future.  The consistent narrative, one to which I agree, is that the party is too conservative and too homogenous to be seen as a credible alternative to the Democrats in this increasingly diversified and politically moderate nation.  While party leaders keep trying to convince us that America is a conservative country, Republican candidates are getting their brains beat out at ballot boxes all over the country.  The party is simply out of step with the rest of the country.

Now comes this Gallup poll which puts the Republican quandary in starker context.  According to Gallup, "more than 6 in 10 Republicans today are white conservatives, while most of the rest are whites with other ideological leanings; only 11% of Republicans are Hispanics, or are blacks or members of other races. By contrast, only 12% of Democrats are white conservatives, while about half are white moderates or liberals and a third are nonwhite.

Good luck Michael Steele.  Until you and your colleagues realize that American wants a significantly more diversified and less conservative Republican Party, prepare for continued electoral defeats.

Scalia and Alito Also Believe Courts Make Policy

Critics of recent U.S. Supreme Court-designee Sonia Sotomayor are apoplectic about video of comments she made regarding the law-making role of the Federal Court of Appeals.  She's right, of course, that courts at all levels make policy.

As I teach my students, the constitution is an organic document that changes with the times (hence, the various amendments). The notion that judges shouldn't make policy (or law) is laughable. They are in place to judge the legitimacy of a given policy. That, by extension, is policymaking (to end, or continue, the policy in question). The bottom line for me is the double-standard that some seem to have on this issue: If the judge rules in a way that runs counter to my philosophy, then he or she is an activist. If they rule in line with my beliefs, then he or she is "restrained" in their decision making.

Here is a piece that exposes this double-standard.