'Good old boy' network still exists in state jobs

Originaly Published Herald-Sun
October 17, 2003
Section: Editorial
Edition: Final
Page: A12

As a budding black Ph.D. (poor, harassed and depressed), I pose a serious question. Is indentured servitude still in effect? I was prompted to research a bit of state personnel policy when I learned of an eye- opening report discussing a double standard within state government. At its epicenter were African-American men. What once was a "good old boy" network now has been upgraded to the 21st century.

Oddly, few knew of this report's existence. The project, commissioned by the governor and the director of the Office of State Personnel focused on three agencies where African-American men are most employed: the Department of Transportation, Health and Human Services and the Corrections Department. However, these practices, I venture to say, extend beyond these three agencies.

According to this report, African-American men are at greater risk of 1) inequitable pay for duty that goes "above and beyond;" 2) extreme disciplinary action, i.e. demotion, suspension and or termination in lieu of alternative means of resolution; 3) reviewer bias in performance evaluations.

These are only three of 14 major concerns regarding African-American men. What was most frightening was this: If African-American men are ambitious, supervisors will cut off opportunities and control access to information and resources.

So characteristics of being aggressive, assertive and ambitious are lauded in our white counterparts; whereas in contrast, those identical characteristics work against African-American males. Our view of aggressive may be perceived as threatening. To be assertive means uppity, i.e. insubordinate. Heavens forbid we become ambitious, for that is the double whammy; challenging and non-cooperative.

As time changes, so does terminology, but what remains constant is the chattel ideology. Until radically modified, the state will continue to be a "peculiar institution" empowering questionable managers as overseers. Our self-esteem is lashed by the whip of the disciplinary policy while our sprit has been numbed to the slammed doors of inaccessibility. Our final resting place: a systematic, possibly fraudulent dismissal, aka -- a lynching.

RUSSELL ROBINSON

Editor's note: The length rule for letters was waived.

The White WareWolf

What did it mean to leave NCSSM..

It has been two years now since I have left NCSSM and a part of me really feels as though it was like walking straight across 110^th street. I remember when I first started working there with bright eyes saying even the custodial staff there had degrees. My first true encounter with classisim/racisim came when I had an encounter with the then director of development, Rita Ware. For me it was eye opening because I was still fresh from NCCU, an historically black college/university and there was a certain degree haughtiness about me an my new MA. Coming to NCSSM I really considered myself equal to everyone there. In hindsight, it was far from the case. On the day it happened, we got a call from development to have a video tape ready for them for some sort of a presentation. The tone that we got from Rita – well I got from Rita was that she wanted the tape like yesterday. Obviously they were in a time sensitive vacuum. What I remember about her request was her poor and I mean poor way of asking for the video tape. It was so demeaning talking down to me. “I need this tape can you comply?!” I’m like who the #$%$ are you talking to? I’m not stupid and I know I can’t say that over the phone but damn if I was going to take it. So I began to write an email, my first of many flaming emails there and luckily my partner Robin Battle took the email and me to our boss Brenda Watson. She was like Russell, go take some time, walk around the block and think about it. Now I didn’t know at the time she was really helping me keep my job. Had that email gone out the way it was, misspellings and all, it would have been embarrassing. After I chilled, she told me that I needed to think about it a little bit longer – like two days. Luckily I was reading this book by Nathan Macall where he had a similar experience. I think my co-worker Anthony also kinda knew what was going on really told me that Rita Ware was really afraid of black folks. Well that was pretty obvious to me for the simple fact that having been a reformed prank phone caller, I knew one could be 10 feet tall over the phone. It was just too easy. So I strategized. Two days later I called to make an appointment to speak with Rita to get this off my chest. Every time I tried to call, she was either on the phone or didn’t have time to talk to me. Ok I thought to myself, she really is afraid. Brenda even confirmed that when she said after her meeting with her superior, saying if she’s bad enough to do the tough talk why can’t she stick around a simple conversation. So this hide and seek went on until I finally just said enough. I made a special trip to go see Rita and caught her sitting at her desk.

“Russell, I’m sorry I can’t talk right now.”

“Rita I only need five minutes, I know you’re busy.”

She started to get up from her desk to go to the door, where I happened to be standing.

“I really don’t have five minutes.”

Seizing the opportunity, I entered the door and closed it before she could get to it.

“That’s no problem, I only need three. When you called the other day, I detected there was a little anger in your voice and I wanted to know did I do something to upset you when you made your request.”

“Well, no we were just really under pressure. A tight deadline you know.”

It was weird because I could really see that she was a paranoid white woman. I only hoped she didn’t have a heart attack as she stuttering through her explanation.

“Really now.” I didn’t buy a bit of it but it was good to see her sweat. “That puts everything in a different light then. I was pretty confident that I had done nothing to receive the acrimonious tone wihich I obviously interpreted. Nevertheless, I’m sure everything went well with your presentation?”

Shocked, “Yes it did.”

“Great! These deadlines can really put you under a lot of pressure. I trust this will be the last time we have this conversation. Have a good day. Oh by the way, I got a minute to spare.”

It was a good idea I chilled and then moved otherwise—damn.

MY S&M Days

R. Robinson
Instructional Technologies

Never one to rain (drip drip drip) or reign (to govern) on anyone’s parade, I feel impassioned to make a statement on the tee shirts I’ve seen worn by members of the senior class. Taking the logo of a popular candy bar and modifying its name to celebrate a life changing milestone is a clever example of ingenuity. On the surface, it’s a nice laugh. However, the underlying pretence may allude to a façade that may mask a visage that grins and cries. Is the class 2 O-OOOO2 facing a world that is a plethora of nihilism and destruction? With the economy at a brand new low, the unemployment rate at a brand new high and the real world looking like a Tom Clancy novel or a Jerry Berkhimer movie, a logical answer would be a simple yes. Having said that, in today’s time, is mediocrity a celebratory cause? Our institution is analogous to the Olympic training camp in Colorado. Athletes are trained among the best to be the best. Enter the candy bar, Slackers. In the last leg of the race, a runner realizes he’s going to come in dead last at the Olympics. It dawns upon him, I gave up everything: 10 years of junk food, late parties, let alone a significant other to come in dead last. But I’m proud and pleased to come in dead last because I’m the Slackers poster child. Granted I’m the first to admit that life is too serious to be taken seriously; but at the same time as one laughs, one shouldn’t be the butt of the joke. Let us not forget the complete ad campaign for this tee shirt the class of 2002 is wearing: Not Going Anywhere for a While? Try a Slackers, whoops, I mean Snickers.

Experiences in Princeville

Herald-Sun -- November 11, 1999
Teens team up for Princeville
Students from the N.C. School of Science & Mathematics help towns'
residents still recovering from Hurricane Floyd
By DANIEL LISTWA
PRINCEVILLE -- A poster hanging inside Princeville's Town hall and
Community Center preaches, from beneath a layer of soot:
>    "All kids deserve and demand an escape from the daily pressures facing
> us in our society."
>    Maybe they do under normal circumstances.
>    But students from the N.C. School of Science and Mathematics on
> Wednesday were not demanding escape form anything.  Instead, 147 of the
> school's 550 juniors and seniors rode two hours by bus to help residents
> here and in neighboring Tarboro still recovering from Hurricane Floyd.
>   "[We want] the students to get a picture of the devastation Hurricane
> Floyd has caused in North Carolina," trip organizer Ginger Wilson said.
> "It was so light in Durham.  In eastern North Carolina, it has wrecked
> lives."
>   Wilson, the heard of the humanities department, and other Science and
> Math faculty planned the event after Floyd's floods canceled a junior
> class trip to Williamsburg, Va., in September.  Amid student requests to
> help flood victims, the faculty responded to a news program in which
> Princeville residents said people had forgotten about them.  At the
> school's request many students also donated their $30 Williamsburg trip
> fee to the towns.
>    "As future leaders, they need to understand that with privilege comes
> responsibility," Wilson said, "and that service to people less privileged
> than you is part of that responsibility."
>    Students, though, were glad to help the towns, which suffered 20-foot
> floodwaters when the Tar River swelled to 43 feet in September.
> Princeville alone lost all 33 of its business, three churches and the
> town's water and sewage-treatment plants.
>    "It costs money to do this,"  junior Brent Hill said.  "They don't
> always get the donations they need.  The $30 can go a long way."
>    But it was Hill and his schoolmates' community service that made a
> visible difference Wednesday.  Nearly 40 students cleaned the Town Hall
> while about 60 others organized a distribution center that will provide
> free clothes, food and toiletries for Princeville's 2,154 residents when
> they return from FEMA trailer parks.
>    At Town Hall, students wearing yellow rubber gloves and face masks
> removed warped documents, twisted metal furniture, and a waterlogged Ms.
> Pac Man machine, setting it all on the lawn in front of the building.
> Others gathered inside, collecting tiles and sewage-stained remains from
> the caved-in ceiling.
>   As a group stood discussing the physics involved in removing a heavy
> Coke machine, supervisors praised their hard work.
>    "It's a good humanitarian effort and a practical education," staff
> member Russell Robinson said. "You can't learn this from a text book.
> This is what you call 'discovery learning.' It's the true essence of a
> field trip."
>    Students said that just passing through Princeville, its now
> uninhabitable houses marked with red X's, was unforgettable.
>    "There was a house on top of a car," senior Kathy Benedict said of the
> ride into town.  "We were like 'Wow!'"
>    Senior Kristina Belcourt, 16, who visited St. Louis after the
> Mississippi River flooded the city in 1997, said the damage in Princeville
> looked far worse.
>    "I can't imagine renovating this place," she said. "It's crazy.
> Everything is destroyed."
>     But Princeville, the country's oldest black-founded town, has already
> hired an architect to restore its 115-year-old Town Hall, which housed the
> first black school in North Carolina.  The town will build a new Town Hall
> but retain the old one as a landmark.
>    At the makeshift distribution center - a do-it-yourself car wash
> destroyed by Floyd - students hauled boxes from the shade of its three
> bays into the sun before separating items into piles for men, women and
> children.
>    "So much has come in," said Science and Math's Wilson.  "Our kids have
> done a good job sorting through it."
>   She also said that the faculty is planning to do a follow-up activity
> for Princeville.
>   Science & Math students, who must complete 60 hours of community service
> to graduate, said volunteering, though disruptive to studies or
> extra-curricular activities, is still worth the effort.
>    "This will last a lot longer," said junior Marisa Biondi, 16, whose
> family received help when Hurricane Fran flooded its Wrightsville Beach
> apartment building.  "It took a week to clean up everything [after Fran].
> This is a good way to give back."
>    Town residents watching the students were thankful for their efforts.
>   "Me and my mom's stuff was ruined," Princeville municipal employee
> Curtis Lloyd, 40 said. "I'm glad people know the town and came to help
> clean it up."

The American Express Race Card

The son of Oden knows how to make me laugh--- those were the days...Let me say this for the record. The social limitations we place on race literally are just that, what we allow the limitations to be. Now that said-- I'm going back to my bread and butter-- the power dynamic that exists between the social constructions of the races (at least within an Americanized context). Too many theorists and social anthropologists have concluded that race is a social construct. Taking that a step further, we have to realize that within that system, there is a stigmatism that is placed on anything that does not conform to the "norm." In America, that norm is defined as the heterosexual, able bodied, WASP male. That same male sets the standard of living and in general what we consider normal which includes a subordinated status to women. The dichotomy that emerges from this gender and race performance is that it trickles down to the marginalized within America.
Localizing that-- specifically to us Black/African-American men. There is a power that one is able to take from demeaning another person-- a domination so to speak. Lets face the facts, we (brothers) try exceptionally hard to emulate what the ideal white man is supposed to be-- in fact in the hip-hop culture, I'd say we hyper-emulate it. First you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the respect. I think Adeola is accurate in her assessment of white men for the simple fact that they white male privilege that enables them to do anything within our Americanized culture. I mean let's look at OJ. OJ had money power and respect. In fact he had a white
wife-- which to many was nothing more than a trophy. Now let's fast forward ten years after the trial. Today, OJ couldn't an election to be a dog catcher. Why? People think he got away with a fast one, the ultimate fast
one-- a black man offing a white woman. See in the Americanized sense, OJ was given a temporary race card of whiteness. He did his absolute best to distance himself from any signs of his blackness. Now again as we know in this culture race runs hand in hand with class and one of the chief measures of class in this culture is education (post secondary and intuitiveness) and money. OJ was making a pretty good bank during and after his peak. Got him a white wife which was available to him (strictly his choice) because of accessibility and acceptance. Of course his white card was declined at the trial when the court showed him how black he really was. Looking at this Duke case-- these charged folks, they have access and true white privilege to escape the stigma being placed on them.
Lastly I will share what I know about white women-- nothing.. My experience with one white woman was my last experience with any white women. The girl was docile let alone flaky. (JR knows this episode very well). She was crazy and at the very most I was less than satisfied. What stands out in my mind the image I had of us blah blah blah. (you fill in the blah blah blahs) It was so unnatural and so artificial. Walking just in the street I felt this was just not cool, not because of who she was, but because of what it represented. To me it represented an oddity, and in the back of my mind, I really felt I had to look over my shoulder 24/7 for a bottle to hit me in the head. I just didn't need the aggravation and unequivocally this woman was not worth the risk. I will say in my marriage, I strongly consider it intra cultural in the sense that my wife has had more international experience (having lived overseas for a few years) and attended nothing but TWIs. As a professor at an HBCU- it's difficult for her to adapt to the CPT way of life. For me, a strong product of the HBCUs I grew up in the CPT life and that starts a thread of our adventures... But all in all-- white
folks are different-- expect it and accept

Objects of Lust and Desire

The objectification of the black woman in America as we all know started circa 16th century with the trans Atlantic slave trade. However, the clearest objectification that may easily forget is of course the episode of Sara Bhartman aka the Black Hottentots. This African woman upon her death was pretty much the victim of taxidermy. She was an exhibit of the 19th century worlds fair I believe for her large sexual genitals all for the lusty white men to see. Historically, there has been this fixation that African Americans have an uncontrollable sexual prowess and appetite and needless to say this runs both ways. White men wanted black women in a depersonalized manner strictly for sexual domination. This easily plays into the notions of what Cannall sites as Hegemonic masculinity where anything less than being White, Male and Heterosexual is deemed inferior and deviant. This leads to the notion that anything deviant must be controlled and if not controlled, eliminated. This could then explain why Black men during the days of American slavery were castrated en mass. We should also remember that the black man too was held in a lustful gaze by the white woman. This was more so a tactic of spite fu#$%ing. White women held the notion that if my husband can do this (creeping) then I can do the same but better. And surely they did. I mean it must have been hell to go to your wife’s birth and see a dark skinned child pop out of the womb. (Surprise Surprise!) But back to this issue of objectification, African Americans have frequently been the targets of objectification by the powers of white masculinity, and the larger structures of hegemony or cultural domination. It plays very well into the Black Sexual politics that Patricia Hill-Collins speaks of. Monkey see monkey do. It is a cycle that continues on and that is partially because of the Marxist component that envelopes everything, that being capitalism. If there is money to be made at exploitation then by all means lets start the presses. Now going back to this ideology of objectification and exploitation, lets remember that this cycle requires two to make it work. The exploiter and the exploited. Many times we wish to throw up the flag of oppression (namely white oppression) without examining our role within the larger structures. For example, this thread discussed the idea of the media making influences within behavior. Gerberner talked about that with his theory on cultivation, meaning if one has enough exposure to certain media elements then there would be some type of effect- the basic cause effect relationship with media as the variable. The problem with that though comes in from internalization, self actualization, and a host of other social economic factors which relate to where one is particularly in one’s hierarchy of needs? Does one look to television of for self definitions? Does one seek media messages for social instruction.? Does media facilitate a social construction of reality? I think in a Bizaro world it would without question. However, I think in our world the societal structures manifest out of basic need. For example, if I show you a Tylenol commercial when you have a tooth ache, you might go buy Tylenol as opposed Bayer. If you are hungry, and I show you a Big Mac, and you have a choice between the whopper and the big mac, chances are you will choose the big mac. So going back to this situation, looking exclusively at the societal presets, is the alleged victim of this crime is already in a state where she is in greater need of money and she has something can easily use for quick turn around, its no wonder then that she may have felt that stripping may have been the lesser of the evils to subsidize her education. The problem in this episode again comes back to the depersonalization, dehumanization and hegemonic masculinity allowed to run unchecked. Because of this, the alleged perpetrators were able to view this woman as a Stripper, commodity, a product. In their eyes, what they paid for, they didn’t get. So in turn, they lodged a complaint with the person whom the business transaction was initiated. She is not human to them for a variety of reasons. One she is a black woman. Again, through the definition of hegemonic masculinity, she is subordinated, inferior and displaying some degree of agency, therefore adjacent to deviant. She was supposed to strip, don’t say anything just strip. In their eyes again it was breech of contract for this object [stripper] animal [stripper] concubine [stripper] not to do what they said. The biggest issue on the plate for me is how many white student strippers there are in comparison. For some reason, I just don’t UNC, Duke, NC State, Meredith or Appalachian Students stripping to help pay for school. This is were T and I had the disagreement. He thinks they do. I personally think the UNC Systems needs to address the economic disparities between the schools HBCUs and TWIs to see the results. Could this be a pattern worthy of inquiry? I think so because the schools are very different. UNC has an endowment in the billions therefore allowing a higher number of scholarships and grants for their student population. Just looking at NCCU’s website today, they are asking students to pay a 300 dollar increase in tuition. The student demographic has changed to really to exclude those demographic changes. You can’t really have a child and go to school without a time job and the part time jobs are barely paying above the minimum wage. As an alum of NCCU I have to be critical in the sense that just as duke let the activity of the lacrosse players go unchecked, NCCU’s department of finical aid has gone unchecked, the development department has gone unchecked, the liaisons to the UNC system have gone unchecked. I venture to say that there are more cases like this that have gone one longer than anyone things—meaning students using the underground economy to subsidize their education.
Thank you for your indulgence.