"You can't rehabilitate the hoodie"

Here comes Geraldo with another wince-inducing statement.

"The hoodie was as much responsible for Trayvon's death as Zimmerman," says Geraldo.

He warns parents of Black and Latino children not to let their kids go out wearing hoodies and other clothes that look "gangsta".

"You can't rehabilitate the hoodie. Stop wearing it," he says to the attendees of the hoodie march protests.

The other Fox News hosts nodded knowingly.

Here's another viewpoint. The hoodie doesn't need rehabilitating. Since white parents don't need to warn their kids not to wear a hoodie, apparently the garment alone isn't the problem.

Geraldo went on to discuss the visceral reaction he has when he sees someone with dark skin wearing a hoodie and how he connects it with surveillance video of crimes. The mental connection and reaction are all his own, and rather than owning them, he wants Black parents to do the changing.

I agree that you can't rehabilitate the hoodie. You shouldn't. The hoodie didn't shoot anyone. Stereotypical attitudes like Geraldo's killed Trayvon.

Black children should be just as safe in hoodies as white teens.

Rehabilitate the grownups who don't recognize that.

From Selma to Sarah: Why John Lewis is mad

Rep. John Lewis is mad. But then Rep. Lewis always seems to be mad.

No matter what the news of the day, Lewis seems to be mad about it and then uses his anger to remind us of his place in the civil rights era, which gives him license to be mad.

I was halfway through my reflexive eye rolling before realizing that this time Lewis was right. His anger was justified, and he expressed it in this statement:

As one who was a victim of violence and hate during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, I am deeply disturbed by the negative tone of the McCain-Palin campaign. What I am seeing reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history. Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse.

During another period, in the not too distant past, there was a governor of the state of Alabama named George Wallace who also became a presidential candidate. George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama.

As public figures with the power to influence and persuade, Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all. They are playing a very dangerous game that disregards the value of the political process and cheapens our entire democracy. We can do better. The American people deserve better.

Naturally McCain and his allies cried foul. McCain was no George Wallace. The statement was unfair. I have to agree. McCain is no George Wallace. But that's not what Lewis was saying. His statement was that McCain and Palen were similar in that they "created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans."

They were sowing the seeds of hatred and division.

That much should be evident as those seeds bore fruit this week. At a political rally, members of the audience not only screamed that Barack Obama was a terrorist but also that they should kill him. Kill him.

Just in case you missed the weight of that statement, let me repeat. Kill him.

That angry mob made a lot of people mad, not just Lewis. It scared some of us to see threats of human life treated so cavalierly. That anger could skew someone's judgment to the point that they would openly call for someone's life.

We are far removed from the hatred of Jim Crow days, but we should not lose sight of the lessons. That's the role Rep. Lewis still plays for us today. I share his anger. Maybe it's time to listen to him.

From Meredith to Obama: a 46 year journey

Friday night's presidential debate marked a fairly underreported milestone. On Oct. 1, 1962, James Meredith became the first Black student to enter the University of Mississippi, after a legal battle that escalated all the way to the Fifth Judicial Circuit Court.

The drama had just begun, however. Mississipi Gov. Ross Barnett opposed Meredith's admission with a violent standoff that erupted in riots and ended with two people dead. The federal government intervened when Attorney General Robert Kennedy dispatched marshalls to prevent Meredith from being lynched. Meredith stayed for two years under federal guard and eventually graduated in 1964.

A generation later another Black man entered the University of Mississippi under federal protection...this time as a presidential nominee. We can argue whether having that evolution take half a century is a good or bad thing, but it happened. The University of Mississippi and Gov. Haley Barbour opened their arms to welcome a Black man, not as a student but potentially as the next president of the United States.

On CBS' Face the Nation, Bob Schieffer remembered it in more personal terms. It's a milestone we should all pause to acknowledge.



Watch CBS Videos Online

STFU Award: Jesse Jackson

Just when we thought we had recovered from Jesse Jackson's tasteless and crass comment about Barack Obama, he raises his outrageous behavior to an even more unacceptable level.

Last week we learned that Jesse Jackson was picked up on an open mic on the Fox News set whispering to another guest. Jackson was complaining that Barack Obama was talking down to Black people and Jesse wanted to cut Barack's nuts off. Jesse incredibly thought the microphone was off when he made the comments, violating what must be the must widely known rule in TV -- always assume the mic is on.

Once Jesse got word that Fox had recorded his comment, he immediately came out with a pre-apology. Before the piece even aired, there was Jesse Jackson groveling for any camera that would record him. He still loved Obama. It was the microphone's fault. Children are starving in Africa. OJ was framed. Geronomo Pratt was shafted. Anything to keep the conversation from going deeper than his apology and delving into why he felt the need to make the comment.

Today, Fox News confirmed that in that gaffe, Jesse called Barack Obama THE N WORD (gasp)!

Yep, the good Reverend wants to cut that nigger Barack Obama's nuts off. Damn microphone.

Now this is beyond outrageous. This is the same Jesse Jackson who crusaded against use of the word. He railed against Michael Richards (appropriately) and threatened to boycott Jerry, Elaine and George's DVD set.

Jesse still hasn't explained why he made the first comment about castrating Barack and now he denigrates him further. At this point Jesse, we don't need an explanation. It's pretty obvious; it is part of your character.

You try to appear pious in public but call Jews a racial slur, father a child out of wedlock, and make crude references about the first Black nominee of any major party. What excuse could you possibly have for a pattern of such unexcusable behavior?

It's time for you to stop parading yourself around as some spokesperson for the Black community. We reject and denounce you. We can do better. We are doing better. With the same Brother you are hating on.

Jesse Jackson for being a classless, insincere, destructive force in the Black community, the People's Pundit bestows upon you the STFU award. SHUT THE FUCK UP!

So close but still so far to go?

I found this video buried at the bottom of an article that proclaims that 90 percent of whites were comfortable with a Black president.

With all our progress, there will always be those who still lag behind.

We, too, sing America

I love America, and I agree with Reverend Wright. Whether or not the main stream understands or realizes it, I don't think I am different from many African Americans.

In fact, I'd argue that many African Americans experience a different kind of patriotism than our white counterparts because our history and experiences are so vastly different. This is what many people who scratch their heads at Rev. Wright fail to understand.

Generally speaking, African Americans don't wear flags on our lapels or post bumper stickers on our cars to display our patriotism. In barber shops and basements, we often speak harshly of this country. But we pledge allegiance, pay taxes, vote reliably and serve in our military. And when we see injustice, we forcefully speak out against it.

Jeremiah Wright was not the first to damn American. In 1852, Frederick Douglass was asked to give a speech at an event commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence. At Rochester's Corinthian Hall, Douglass delivered a biting oratory, in which he told his audience:

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

This is the same Frederick Douglass who later wrote that "Truth is of no color. God is the father of us all, and we are all brethren." The same Douglass who conferred with presidents and became the first African American to be nominated as vice president.

Slavery and Jim Crow have long since been banished, but many of Douglass' sentiments remain with America's sons and daughters of color. The feelings often simmer beneath the surface. We know better than to voice them around the water cooler at work, but when we are among "family," we let our guard down and speak more honestly.

And when that frank talk bubbles up to the surface and out in the open, a confused majority wonders, "why?"

Our history and allegiances are complex. Shortly after Douglass' speech, African Americans in the 10th Cavalry of the U.S. Army earned the name Buffalo Soldiers, serving with distinction for a country that frequently treated them with indignity. In fact, there is no war in American history in which African Americans did not participate.

I think I am fairly safe in assuming that many of them often damned America in the same hearts that pumped the blood they willingly spilled for it. The two emotions can co-exist and have a long history of doing so in the black community.

But this is 2008. This is the America where black men could rise to lead institutions such as Beatrice Foods, American Express and Aetna. It is the America where Robert Johnson and Oprah Winfrey could lift themselves from poverty to billionaire status. It is the America where a second generation African immigrant could be a serious contender for president.

It is also the same America shamefully exposed during Hurricane Katrina.

So when Barack Obama said that he could no more distance himself from Rev. Wright than he could from the black community, we understood.

Can you rise to the level of presidential contender in the United States yet still feel at home in a community that would curse it?

Absolutely. Sometimes when a wound heals, a scar remains. Sometimes pain outlasts forgiveness. And sometimes, when we still see symptoms of the old sickness, we rise up with righteous indignation and curse the sinner as well as the sin. It doesn't mean we don't hope or that we don't love.

Patriotism is not the absence of criticism. The mouth that damns America can still speak for the heart that loves it. For Frederick Douglass, for Rev. Jeremiah Wright and for generations of African Americans in between, love is not blind. That's the complexity of African American patriotism.

I, Too, Sing America
by Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.