Anderson@Large

Race Still Matters

I am a doer or in the jargon of programmers, a problem-solver.

So it is an honor to be named one of the “Top Ten Race & Civil Liberties Bloggers on Twitter.” After all, in the age of Obama, race still matters.

DePaul law professor Terry Smith, the author of the forthcoming “Barack Obama, Post-Racialism and the New Politics of Triangulation,” writes:

Among other race-baiting, presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has referred to the nation’s first African American president as a “food stamp president,” and someone who engages in “Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior,” a coarse reference to President Obama's African father and a nod to “birtherism.”

Not content merely to demean the president, Gingrich has said that poor black children lack role models and a work ethic - a broadside against millions of black, working-poor parents who each day serve as shepherds for their children and instill in them work and other ethics.

Yet the only person who has responded more passively to the former speaker’s racialism than his Republican rivals has been President Obama himself. The irony of having a black man in the White House is that he is disarmed from responding to white opponents who flirt with a revivification of the Republican Party’s Southern strategy. Indeed, Obama has been disarmed, or has unilaterally disarmed himself, from sustained engagement with questions of race during his first term.

The concern on Obama’s part appears to be that middle-of-the-road white voters will not tolerate a black politician focusing on race, even if his purpose is to upbraid someone like Gingrich for making racially inflammatory comments. This concern is not unfounded, yet in succumbing to political reality, Obama has simply reinforced a different iteration of white racial intolerance.

Read more: Abetting inequality in post-racial U.S.

Everything Must Change

Seven years ago, I launched my blog. Today, marks a new beginning as I focus on the development of the Cost of Freedom App, a location-based web app that will provide voters with concise information on how to apply for a voter ID.

Marketing guru Seth Goldin recently observed that if you don't adapt to the post-industrial economy, “never mind the race to the top, you'll be racing to the bottom.” Goldin added:

Instead of waiting around for someone to tell you that you matter, take your career into your own hands. In other words, don't wait for someone else to pick you and pick yourself! If you have a book, you don't need a publisher to approve you, you can publish it yourself. It's no longer about waiting for some big corporation to choose you. We've arrived at an age where you choose yourself.

Sadly, today also marks the death of the “Matriarch of the Blues,” Etta James, whose truth-telling helped me get through many nights.

I will miss Ms. Etta's motherly advice. May she, at last, rest in peace.

Have You Voted Yet?

I have been nominated for the Women’s Media Center’s 2011 Social Media Award. WMC reports the votes “are rolling in.”

Please cast your vote and help determine the winner. If you have already voted, please share the link with your friends and ask them to vote for me. The poll closes TODAY at 5 p.m.

Thanks for your support! I also want to thank you letting me be myself (again).

Vote for Me

All souls to the poll. Voting is open for the 2011 Women’s Media Center Social Media Award.

As a founding member of the Election Protection Coalition, I would warn voters to “be careful how they vote” because stuff happens. For this election, you have the right to stuff the ballot box because I’m “built out of stuff like that.”

So please vote for me. And then tell your friends to tell their friends to “do it, do it.”

It’s My Birthday

Yes, it’s my special day. Fortunately it only happens every five to 10 years ;-).

It’s also the day before voting begins for the 2011 Women’s Media Center Social Media Award. I’m one of the nominees.

As a voting rights advocate, I LOL that I’m the first one listed. Studies show that ballot order matters.

So I thank you in advance for your vote. Check back tomorrow for the link to the site.

Now back to my irregularly scheduled program.

Where the Jobs Aren’t

In his weekly address, President Obama called on Congress “to get its act together” and pass the American Jobs Act:

It’s been almost three weeks since I sent the American Jobs Act to Congress – three weeks since I sent them a bill that would put people back to work and put money in people’s pockets. And now I want it back. It is time for Congress to get its act together and pass this jobs bill so I can sign it into law.

A study by the Transportation Equity Network suggests that getting “construction workers back to work rebuilding our roads and bridges” will not help African Americans.

The report, “The Road to Good Jobs: Making Training Work,” will not be released until Tuesday, but the media advisory says all you need to know:

Most states are failing to boost job access to those hit hardest by the recession—minorities and women—in the multi-billion-dollar federal highway construction field.

The Road to Good Jobs: Making Training Work presents the first-ever compilation of data from all 50 states on their use of on-the-job-training and apprenticeship programs to boost job access for minorities and women in the federal highway construction field from 2008-10.

The study finds that most states are doing a poor job of using proven training programs to boost highway construction job access for minorities and women, though unemployment rates for minorities are nearly double those of whites, and female unemployment is ticking up while male unemployment is dropping.

For more info, contact Stephen Boykewich.

UPDATE: TEN has released the report, “The Road to Good Jobs: Making Training Work.”

New York State of Mind

I am headed to the Investigative Reporters and Editors’ ethnic media watchdog workshop at the New York Times.

I grew up in Brooklyn, moved away, moved back. and nearly two years ago, moved away again. I have an on and off relationship with the City.

Right now, I heart New York.

UPDATE: Even the birds do it in New York City. A shot of a Casio TRYX billboard in Times Square.