Where Are All The Black Coaches Gone?

Dr. Boyce Watkins
http://www.boycewatkins.com/

I am sending out this article because the NCAA should be held accountable for the fact that African Americans are giving their lives and bodies on the field, but not given opportunities to be involved on the sidelines and in the administrative offices. The article below highlights this issue, as Miami's Randy Shannon is now one of only 3 African American coaches remaining in D-1 men's college football (the lowest total since 1993). Excuse my french, but this is a damn shame. With all our community gives on the field (the NCAA earns at least $1B per year from uncompensated African American labor), there should be opportunities off the field as well.

The NCAA has much work to do when it comes to fairness and equity. Please join our fight.

To join our Money advice list, please click here.

Boyce
http://www.boycewatkins.com/

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Miami's Shannon will be only black BCS coach, says things haven't changed

ESPN.com news services

Of the 65 coaches leading programs affiliated with the Bowl Championship Series, Miami's Randy Shannon is about to stand alone.

A week from now, he'll be the only black man in the group.

Miami coach Randy Shannon says mandating a graduate assistant job for minorities would help provide a more diverse base.

After Sylvester Croom resigned Saturday from Mississippi State, along with the recent firings of Kansas State's Ron Prince and Washington's Tyrone Willingham -- who'll coach his final game with the Huskies on Saturday -- Shannon is one of three black coaches left in major college football, and the only one at a BCS school.

The last time there were only three black coaches at the Division I-A level was 1993, and Shannon, who waited many years before getting his first legitimate chance at becoming a head coach, simply can't understand the lack of progress in bridging the sideline race gap.

"It's sad that we keep talking about the same things," Shannon told The Associated Press on Sunday. "Maybe Sylvester was tired. I know a year or two ago he had surgery on his hip or back. But after a while, you say to yourself, how much longer can we keep going just talking about this? We can't keep talking about the same issues every year."

And yet, at this time every year, the issue keeps coming back.

Bowl season hasn't even started, but already, some marquee jobs have come open -- and, in some cases, apparently been filled.

Tennessee will name Lane Kiffin as Phillip Fulmer's replacement on Monday, and ESPN.com's Ivan Maisel is reporting that sources say Clemson will promote interim coach Dabo Sweeney as soon as contract details are worked out.

One of the few black candidates believed to have legitimate interest from a BCS school that's changing coaches is Illinois offensive coordinator Mike Locksley, who has been mentioned as a replacement for Greg Robinson at Syracuse. Buffalo's Turner Gill -- who, along with Shannon and Houston's Kevin Sumlin, is one of the three black coaches who have jobs for '09 -- is also thought to be a Syracuse candidate.

The only other prominent black assistant to be mentioned so far is Notre Dame offensive coordinator Michael Haywood, who reportedly was interviewed by Washington to replace Willingham.

Floyd Keith, executive director of the Black Coaches and Administrators, has said many times he'd like to see the number of black college football coaches get to at least 10 -- but now the total is headed the other way, even though nearly half of the players at the level formerly known as Division I-A are black.

Shannon, though, knows there's no easy solution. But he likes one idea.

"If they want to give minority coaches more of a chance, they should let there be three graduate assistants and one of them has to be a minority," Shannon said. "At least then, you'd be giving a minority coach a chance to develop. If you want to address the issue, allow a third spot to be a minority position and if you can't fill it, then you can't fill it. But give them a chance."

Gill told The Buffalo News for a story published Sunday that he always heard the same thing when he interviewed for various jobs before moving to western New York.

"Not the right fit," Gill told the newspaper. "The words 'not the right fit' can be looked at in several ways. Not to say that you weren't qualified but maybe they want a guy who's going to be there for four [or] five years or has a different offensive or defensive philosophy. There's so many different dynamics to the word 'fit."

In South Florida, diversity seems to fit.

Not only does Miami have a black football coach, it has a woman -- Donna Shalala, who served as secretary of health and human services under President Bill Clinton -- as university president. And, a black men's basketball coach in Frank Haith.

A few miles away at Florida International, Cuban-Americans serve as university president (Mitch Maidique), athletic director (Pete Garcia) and football coach (Mario Cristobal).
"It's a diverse community," Shannon said. "You can see every ethnic group in Miami. Coach Cristobal, he does a good job, and white, black, Hispanic, we've been this way for years in Miami.

It's a melting pot more than anything."

It's hardly that way everywhere. According to a recent BCA hiring report card, only 12 of 199 vacancies between 1996 and 2006 went to blacks.

But the need to label -- and track the number of -- minority coaches is still puzzling to Shannon.

"I think we all should be treated as coaches equally," Shannon said. "But it's just how society is. The minority deal is always going to be there."

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report..

Your Black World: VIGALANTEE: Hunting for Souls

VIGALANTEE: Hunting for Souls
By: Tolu Olorunda
Staff Writer - YourBlackWorld.com

Vigalantee (born Roger Suggs) is no stranger to the underground Hip-Hop scene. Born in Chicago, Vigalantee has always been a fan of Hip-Hop – though a critic, when necessary. In addition to his musical career, Vigalantee is also an arduous community-organizer and activist, whose youth program is touching many young lives across the city of Kansas. As the name suggests, Vigalantee is hunting for more than nice beats or dope rhymes. As a young man, trapped in between the perils of inter-racial animosity and intra-racial hostility, Vigalantee knows how critical it is for young Black kids to find worthy role-models in the communities that shape their destinies.

Vigalantee grew up in Chicago, and experienced, firsthand, the much-referenced tales of gang warfare. Concerned with the emotional toll this reality wreaks on a child, his mother sent him to a relative’s home in Georgia. Vigalantee describes this as the unraveling of another “extreme” living condition. In Georgia, unlike Chicago, it was a more state-sanctioned assault on the integrity of Black people. Vigalantee remembers being smothered in the blood-dripping trenches of racism and segregation in the Peach State.

Watching his “granddaddy walking like a sharecropper,” and living on the fringes of poverty, “influenced” Vigalantee to become the activist he is today. It made him aware of the horrific second-class citizenship-status of Black people in the South, and informed him of how essential a concrete “agenda” for the uplifment of Blacks was.

Vigalantee draws a parallel between his experience in Georgia, and the decision to start up a record label – making music independently. Having witnessed Black men unable to drink from the well of prosperity in Georgia, Vigalantee felt this revelation was a prophetic calling to live a life of dignity and elegance. His choice to “go independent” would also turn out to be financially conducive, as independent artists usually exercise more dominance over their projects, and earn more, per album sold, than their mainstream counterparts. Being independent makes Vigalantee empowered to speak on his agenda, without “censoring” his “stuff for any corporations.” It grants him the “freedom to express myself to the fullest extent.” Vigalantee claims to have been inspired by the entrepreneurship of Master P, Tech 9ne, and Mc Hammer. Though when lyricism comes into play, he has often found solace in the gifts of mainstream acts such as, LL Cool J, Common, Chuck D, Poor Righteous Teachers (PRT), and Canibus.

Vigalantee’s admiration of Public Enemy and PRT has helped a great deal in emulating their ability to entertain, while simultaneously educating listeners. He credits the aforementioned for being able to “bridge the gap” between Art and Activism. The leadership of Public Enemy and PRT enabled Vigalantee in using his music to inspire, as well as motivate the Black Community into action.

Earlier this year, Vigalantee released a single, titled “Emmett Till.” Vigalantee had read the story of Emmett Till, whilst a student in High School. He describes feeling an emotional connection between himself and young Emmett Till who traveled similar paths from Chicago to the Deep South. Vigalantee notes that, while popular artists like Bob Dylan, Kanye West, and David Banner have all name-dropped Emmett Till in their songs, “nobody really told the true story of Emmett Till,” – hence, “young people don’t know nothing about Emmett Till.”

There is a “lack of strong progressive voices in Hip-Hop,” Vigalantee says. He also feels that Hip-Hop has become so “elite and arrogant.” Vigalantee remembers the controversy surrounding LL Cool J’s 1989 “Walking with a Panther” album, and the outrage from the, now-defunct, progressive Hip-Hop community. Although he credits the corporate Executives of big-money record labels for drowning “us [progressive Hip-Hop artists] out, so we can’t be heard,” Vigalantee believes the buck starts with those socially-conscious voices who have “dumbed-down” their music for a mess of pottage.

Vigalantee is, hopeful, however, that his music can fill in the missing blanks at this critical period in Hip-Hop’s history. He has been able to “carve out a niche” for himself, and promote music that “feels right.” His newest album (out December 9^th), titled M.I.R.A.C.L.E (“Music Inspiring Real Accomplishment Creating Love Everlasting”) promises to provide spiritual and moral inspiration to those battling with despair at this most emotionally-fragile moment. With a composition of freestyles, poems and ‘regular tracks,’ Vigalantee expects it to be “a hit.”

Beyond his musical career, however, Vigalantee sees the “education of our youth” as top priority.

Vigalantee’s new album will be available at Kansas City Kansas Community College Bookstore, Nebraska Furniture Mart(Village West, Ks), Keepin' It Real Records KCK. For more, pls. visit: http://vigalantee.web.officelive.com/default.htm

Is Obama The End Of Black Politics? Definitely Not!

Is Obama the End of Black Politics? What a Ridiculous Question

By: Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III, Ph.D.

On August 10, 2008 The New York Times published an article by Matt Bai entitled Is Obama the End of Black Politics? The premise of the article is that in 2008, 60 years after Strom Thurmond left the Democratic Party over the issue of integrating the armed forces and 45 years after Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream Speech” the Democratic party is poised to deliver its nomination for the nation’s highest office to an African-American, and this some how signals the end of Black politics.

To equate Senator Obama’s historic campaign for the highest office in the land and presumed nomination by the Democratic Party with the end of Black politics demonstrates that the author does not understand either issue. The fact that The New York Times would publish such rubbish begs the same questions that were recently asked about The New Yorker magazine, “…are these editors serious….are they paying any attention to what they are publishing?”

All too often writers, journalists, reporters, and analysts, demonstrate their ignorance of African American people and the African American experience by trying to assign simplistic answers to very complex problems, events, and circumstances. This usually results in African Americans and their politics being viewed as devoid of substance, myopic, shallow, and emotional; when in fact, Black politics is policy focused and born out of a people’s historical experience. It’s based upon slavery, oppression, exploitation and the life-long quest for human and civil rights. To think that a major political party nomination or the election of an African American as president can bring an end to Black politics as opposed to being part of its continuum is utterly ridiculous.

Bai writes, “…however, a lot of the old activists stood in the path of an African-American’s advancement rather than blazing it…While Democratic black voters embraced Obama by ratios of 8 or 9 to 1 in a lot of districts, the 42 House members in the Congressional Black Caucus, for a time, split more or less down the middle between Obama and Clinton…” In these perilous times, American’s, particularly African American’s can ill afford to engage in sentimental politics, there’s too much at stake.

“Old activists” have not stood in Senator Obama’s path; they’ve questioned his politics, his position on critical issues and his viability as a candidate. That’s what an intelligent and engaged electorate does. Contrary to Mr. Bai’s data, African American voters did not initially embrace Obama by the margins he referenced. Many African American voters did not know who he was and had no idea of where he stood on their issues. They were not just going to emotionally “vote for the Black guy”. Only over time and by developing a sense of viability did more of the African American community embrace his candidacy. Again, that’s practical politics.

Bai continued, “It is hard for any outsider to fully understand the thinking that led many older black leaders to spurn the candidacy of a man who is now routinely pictured with ‘60s-era revolutionaries like Angela Davis and Malcom-X, on T-shirts sold at the street-corner kiosks of black America.” It’s only hard to understand if one confuses marketing with politics and change with revolution. Just because vendors put Obama’s image on T-shirts does not mean that “old black leaders” or African American voters are confusing Obama’s de-racialized campaign with the true revolutionary politics of Angela Davis and Malcolm-X. Senator Obama has called for change not revolution. He is working within the established structure, not working to overthrow it. African American’s clearly understand the pit-falls of allowing main steam media to select its leaders.

He continues, “On a surface level, those who backed Clinton did so largely out of a combination of familiarity and fatalism.” Again, this is equating Black politics as myopic and emotional and that is incorrect. Some backed Clinton because they respected her politics. Other’s backed her out of loyalty and their long standing relationships with the Clinton’s and the positions that many of them were able to acquire or retain during the Clinton administration. That’s not “familiarity” that’s realpolitik. In these difficult times winning, not sentiment is key. Early in this process Senator Obama was battling the history of racism in America (and still is) and the media created perception that Senator Clinton’s lead was insurmountable. Early in this process practical politics said vote for Clinton.

Bai talks about a “generational transition that is reordering black politics” and how members of the civil rights generation are failing to “embrace the idea that black politics might now be disappearing into American politics in the same way that the Irish and Italian machines long ago joined the political mainstream.” There’s no failure to embrace anything. It is true that some African American politicians from multi-cultural districts have to change or de-racialize their politics in order to appeal to a broader cross- section of the political spectrum. That’s a political reality for African American politicians in a country that is still blinded by color. Obama can not appear to be “too Black” for fear of alienating European American voters who will be threatened by a candidate that champions “Black issues.” Just as the Democratic Party decided in the 90’s that it could no longer be identified with the “historical or traditional issues of the party”(code language for Black issues) and moved its politics to the right for fear of alienating White voters. The fact that Iowa will vote for an African American shows us how far America has come. The fact that Obama has to deracialize his politics in order to stand any chance of being elected shows us how far America has to go.

Don’t get confused. The Irish and Italian machines of long ago were able to integrate into the “political mainstream” for one reason and one reason only, they are White! Race, (even though it’s an artificial construct) was never their problem, labor was. As new immigrants in America who were willing to work for lower wages in order to acquire a piece of the American dream they threatened the labor pool and dominant wage structure.

The main barrier for African Americans politically and otherwise has always been and continues to be race and the manner in which race is used to define and diffuse issues. Yes, class is a factor as well but race is still the dominant variable in the equation.

Historically, issues not individuals or personalities have been the driving force behind Black politics and this will continue in the future. During the 1930s and 1940s a majority of African Americans registered Republican but were beginning to vote Democratic (Roosevelt Republicans) not out of love or loyalty to Roosevelt but due to his New Deal policies. In fact, during his first two terms, Roosevelt did very little if anything for the African American community. The shift from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party was based on a conscious evaluation of policy benefits and gains.

What brought African Americans into the Democratic Party and has kept them there to this day was the enactment of civil rights legislation during the Kennedy-Johnson administrations. According to Katherine Tate in From Protest to Politics, in the summer of 1963 Kennedy announced on national television that he would introduce sweeping civil rights legislation to Congress. During the Johnson administrations the 1964 and 1968 Civil rights Acts were passed and1965 voting rights bill. “He would also initiate the War on Poverty, a set of federal programs aimed at creating new social service structures that would greatly benefit poor Blacks.” It was substantive legislation that brought Blacks into the Democratic Party not empty promises, rhetoric, and symbolism.

During different times in history the focus has shifted. Charles V. Hamilton discusses the shift from the “politics of rights” to the “politics of resources” that has occurred over the past few decades. As the economic and social conditions for African Americans have worsened, the political agenda has had to shift in order to address the immediate reality. This is a natural part of the social and political landscape not race based or personality driven politics.

As long as African American men are incarcerated at a rate of more than six times the rate of White men and the incarceration of Black women continues to grow at record numbers Black politics will be alive and well. As long as unemployment among African American’s is more than twice the rate of White Americans and as long as studies show that a Black family’s income is a little more than half that of a similar White family’s income, Black politics will be alive and well. As long as African Americans continue to deal with Driving While Black, excessive high school dropout rates, and imbalances in health care, Black politics will be alive and well. The election of Senator Obama can’t change that.

Dr. Wilmer Leon is the Producer/ Host of the nationally broadcast call-in talk radio program “On With Leon,” a regular guest on CNN’s Lou Dobb’s Tonight, and a Teaching Associate in the Department of Political Science at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Go to www.wilmerleon.com or email: wjl3us@yahoo.com.

© 2008 InfoWave Communications, LLC.

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