Eviction as a rite of passage for poor black women

The photo is heartbreaking.

An evicted mother single mother standing on a snow-covered sidewalk in front of a refrigerator, microwave, mattress, chairs and boxes. With her life stacked out on the street, Shantana Smith of Milwaukee stood with her hand covering her mouth after she was put out of her home.

Such a scene of poor, black mothers being evicted is a familiar one, according to a recent New York Times story. In Milwaukee black women are 14 percent of the Midwestern city's population and 40 percent of those evicted there, according to the NYT story.

"Just as incarceration has become typical in the lives of poor black men, eviction has become typical in the lives of poor black women," sociologist and researcher Matthew Desmond told the NYT.

Wow.

Eviction as a rite of passage for poor black women is a cycle I'm not ready for us to accept.

But it looks like the trend is well underway and rough economic factors may cause things to become worse.

With black women having a more than 13 percent unemployment rate, higher than the national average of almost 10 percent, and unemployment checks set to stop for many this week, more evictions of poor black women will be no surprise.

Low-income jobs and lack of responsibility were a couple of reasons the NYT story cited for the high eviction rate among black women.

While I believe poor decisions may have led some black mothers into homelessness, poor polices and urban planning play a role too and have caused families to suffer.

A displaced family is a disconnected family.

No one knows that better than New Orleans native Triege Kerry Cotton. She was forced to leave her home five years ago when Hurricane Katrina battered the Gulf Coast.

Cotton finally moved back into her New Orleans home earlier this month at the Harmony Oaks development.

Cotton grew up on the same space when it was called the C.J. Peete Public Housing Complex. Developers are working to make it a different place. A new school is part of the development. The new development also aims to attract middle-income residents to the homes.

"I am thrilled to be home again," said Triege Kerry Cotton. "But it's not just about moving back, it's about moving up."

A sound urban plan can help other poor women of all ethnic groups move up too and not continue a cycle of moving out into homelessness and hopelessness.

A safe place to live and a good school are among the basics any mother wants for her children. A solid job will help with that too.

Congress is working on a jobs bill.

When they get that accomplished perhaps federal lawmakers can revisit the urban agenda and strategies that will stabilize neighborhoods.

Suffering in silence: Black women, suicide and depression

Jacqueline Scott seemed to have every reason to live. She was beautiful, brilliant, young and among the brightest graduate students at Ohio State University. She taught an undergraduate class. One of her students said she "was definitely a happy lady."

But something was wrong.

Scott, 24, went to a shooting range and shot herself in the chest last month after learning how to use a handgun at a shooting range in suburban Columbus, Ohio.

One of her colleagues in graduate school said she was "despondent" in the days before her suicide and seemed to be disinterested in her graduate studies classes. Only Scott knows what troubled her and led her to take her own life.

But Scott's death cleary underscores the need for more awareness and discussion of depression and mental health issues among black women and less shame and silence.

Suicide is a top leading cause of death for young black women age 14 to 19 and among the Top 10 causes of death for black women ages 20 to 24 and also for the 25 to 34 age group, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The stereotype of the strong, dependable, do-it-all-alone, hold-the-family-together, nerves-of-steel black woman needs to disappear.

It is time for black women to shed the Superwoman facade, cape, tights and the "S" on their chests and ask for help and receive it.

But that is hard because black women occupy so many roles in their personal and professional lives. The burden of carrying so many responsibilities and people can cause a woman's back to crack. The stress of working jobs they desperately need where their humanity is assaulted by people who devalue and disrespect them slowly erodes their confidence.

Terrie Williams, a veteran celebrity public relations specialist, said it best in the title of her book about her own battle with depression, Black Pain: It Just Looks Like We're Not Hurting.

Taking the time to address mental health and troublesome feelings is critical, especially now as we strive to survive the economic crisis.
We lose too much when we don't. There is the lost time, opportunities and relationships. And the illnesses that escalate and create even more problems.
Most importantly, we lose phenomenal and talented women like Scott and my musical and artistic idol singer and actress Phyllis Hyman who killed herself in 1995.

Talking to friends, family, clergy and counselors is a must to battle the blues and the fallout that comes with it.
Therapy is not a "white folks thing" and asking for help isn't a sign of weakness.
Just as black women visit doctors for physical health there is no shame in seeing specialists to attend to mental health.

It's time for suffering in silence to end. Destigmatizing mental health and creating a culture of support is needed to save lives.
We can't afford to have black women to continue to bury their feelings or have more families bury the troubled and beloved women in their lives.

If you need to talk to someone about your feelings call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK.

Still marching for our own, even on King Day

Many of our images of Martin Luther King Jr. are those of him walking, arms locked with others in solidarity, toward equality with hundreds of people behind him.
Such a scene was repeated again today as the nation celebrated the holiday honoring King. Supporters of historically black colleges marched in the streets of Jackson, Miss. hoping to take steps to stop Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour's plan to consolidate state-supported black colleges and university, as reported by the Jackson Free Press.
Barbour's plan to consolidate the state's historically black colleges including Jackson State, Alcorn State and Mississippi Valley State universities is
among many measures to trim the state's budget by $411 million.
But many fear that merging the schools will erase the history and identity of institutions founded to educate emancipated slaves and their descendants.

The consolidation of Mississippi's black colleges and universities is a ove that some fear could usher in the extinction of those institutions.
African-Americans have already seen the strong tradition of black boarding schools, which were feeder schools to black colleges, fade away.
The preservation of each and every black college is critical to both the intellectual survival of black people and the nation.
Black colleges and universities have given many of us a chance at higher education when others would barely glance at our college applications.
Average students are given a chance to experience college and thrive at black schools.
At black colleges ordinary students may enter but extraordinary people graduate from those schools.
But don't get me wrong.
Historically black colleges are not breeding grounds for underachievers.
The academic intensity is as strong as any other school.
I know. I've attended both a historically black university and a mainstream one.
The standards at black universities are high because the faculty and staff there know that the stakes are high for black students.
Being black and undereducated today is not a choice.
Instructors at historically black colleges push students to succeed in a way that is profound.
Whether it is the distinguished professors with doctorate degrees who challenge black students in the classroom or the custodians and kitchen staff who nourish and encourage students outside the class, the black college campus is a special place where students bloom.

It is fitting that supporters of historically black colleges took to the streets on the King holiday.
King himself was a product of a historically black institution, Morehouse College in Atlanta.
Sadly, this is a fight that isn't new and neither are marches to save them.
As a student organizer at Jackson State University in 1994 I worked with others to organize a massive rally to protest the consolidation of historically black schools. The Ayers desegregation case ignited the fire in us to move to the streets. Then- NAACP head Benjamin Chavis marched with us and current NAACP President Benjamin Jealous was among the student organizers.
At a recent alumni meeting in Columbus, Ohio my classmate and friend Alesha Russey and I looked back on those days with pride.
We thought our fight to preserve our schools was over until Haley Barbour revived it.
But the battle to preserve Mississippi's historically black colleges and universities is ongoing.
King advocated for equality in all areas in American life including education.
Unfortunately, more than 40 years after his death we are still marching to maintain the institutions that have educated when no one else would.
But this is a fight that we shall also overcome some day.

Black singles: Make love, not war

So it has come around again.
The recycled story about professional black women being disproportionately unmarried and terminally single.
During the holidays Nightline aired a story about successful black women who seemed to be perfect in every way, except for not having a man.
I missed the story during my holiday travels but heard a lot about it.
I got a few text messages about it and received several emails about the story.
There was a lot of buzz about it on the National Association of Black Journalists list serve.
I finally caught the segment on YouTube.
Sigh...
Deep breath.
Exhale slowly.
Very, long, sigh...

The story is another one that framed professional black women as the loneliest women on earth who cannot find anyone to love them.
I hate to criticize another reporter's work. I know the hard work that goes into producing these pieces. And I know how hard it is to get stories about people of color some ink and air time in mainstream media.
It isn't that I don't think this is a worthy story.
As an unmarried black woman who is friends with scores of other single black women, I know this is a newsworthy story.
I live it.
But this story seemed to be incomplete.
The voice of single black men was absent.
Brothers were reduced to a collection of somber statistics and each one was like a punch to my gut.
Black men are undereducated, unemployed and disproportionately imprisoned, the reporter said.
Those statistics are true. But lining them up against successful black women with no black man to speak on the issue painted all black men as shiftless and unworthy of professional black women's attention.
The good brothers who are single and available were invisible.
There were no examples of professional black women who eventually got married, no input on how they achieved healthy relationships. And single black women framed as the modern-day poster girls for today's spinsters didn't sit well with me either.
However, there was input from instant relationships expert Steve Harvey, author of Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man.
He suggested that professional black women should consider dating older men. That's not a bad idea.

What I don't like about this recurring story most is the analysis and blame that comes afterward.
In neighborhoods, kitchens, barber shops and beauty salons the attacks on professional black women soon come.
There are claims that educated black women are single because we are siditty, picky and even too uppity for black men.
And accomplished sisters need to get off their high horse, lower their standards and be submissive.
Then women talk about their individual negative relationships with black men and assign all of those bad characteristics to all black men.
Each side hurls generalizations and stereotypes at one another like live grenades.
Then the war of words begins.
But the conversation about single professional black women seems to always blame the ladies and cast black women as undesirable and unlovable.
That hurts.
Because black women are holding families and communities close to their hearts and showering them with the same love black women wish they had when they are alone at night.

Having real and honest conversations about values, partnerships and compromising is what black singles need.
The blame game is a distraction and only deepens the disconnection between black women and men.
We need to be making memories, making love, making babies and making families.
We don't need to make enemies of one another.
If we continue to do so black women and men will continue to be unhappy and alone.

Hate for Haiti during tragedy

The earthquake in Haiti is heartbreaking.
It is painful to see the tear-stained and dusty faces of survivors working to pull wounded and bloody injured relatives and neighbors from the rubble.
The thousands of deaths caused by this natural disaster are devastating Haiti. The country's already fragile infrastructure has collapsed.
These are sad sights that weigh on my heart the same way scenes from Hurricane Katrina and the Asian tsunami did.
As communication is established more distressing news from the Caribbean island will come through our television and computer screens.
But some of the earliest awful stories about the Haitian earthquake haven't come from the island.
They've come from this country in the form of repugnant charity fraud schemes and nasty comments from right-winged commentators Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh.

Robertson, a Christian commentator of The 700 Club television show on the Christian Broadcasting Network, suggested that Haitians made a deal with the devil to gain independence from the French in the 1800s. Evidence of that deal, Robertson said, is clear because Haiti has suffered a string of tragedies while the neighboring Dominican Republic is prosperous. In the same breath Robertson pleads for his viewers to help Haitians during the earthquake while blasting the nine million residents there.
Limbaugh also jumped into the fray saying President Obama's prompt response to the Haitian earthquake was a political move the White House will use to "burnish their, shall we say, 'credibility' with the black community -- in the both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country. It's made-to-order for them. That's why he couldn't wait to get out there, could not wait to get out there."

Their comments are among the saddest news I have heard associated with the earthquake. Such rhetoric is unthinkable at a time when the poorest country is the Western hemisphere is experiencing the worst natural disaster in its history.
But sadly such comments during a tragedy aren't new.
During Hurricane Katrina stories circulated about New Orleans' losses being the city's punishment for being a place where some residents practice voodoo and tourists indulge themselves.
Then there were the comments that the crime-ridden, mostly black city wasn't worth rebuilding.
The conservative commentators' comments have the same ugly tone.
Haitians beat Napoleon Bonaparte's army in 1804 and gained independence from France making it the world's oldest black independent nation.
Robertson's fable is out of line.
Limbaugh's suggestion that President Obama's rush to help Haiti is repulsive. Connecting aid to this devastated country to racial politics is beyond inappropriate.
Haiti needs the world's help not crackpot comments that defy history and decency.

Sadly, some relief intended to reach the country may not get there. Charity fraud scams are also surfacing less than two days after the earthquake.
The FBI released a warning to Americans looking to contribute cash to Haiti to aid the nation. Just like during Hurricane Katrina, opportunists will no doubt emerge and swipe dollars meant for Haiti's survivors.
It is disappointing that while some experience historic loss others use tragedy to gain.
Reputable charities such as CARE, the American Red Cross and Yele Haiti are using the efficiency of technology including text messaging to quickly accept donations. Haitian-born Wyclef Jean jumped to help his homeland and is back in the country with his Yele Haiti foundation to provide relief the same way he did in 2008 during the flood.
The FBI is warning people to be wise about their donations and check out charities before contributing.
Too bad Robertson and Limbaugh didn't take more time to wisely choose their words before speaking about Haiti's earthquake.

I am a light-skinned African-American and I use Negro dialect

I am a light-skinned African-American and I use "Negro dialect."
So what does that mean?
What does this say about me?
At least one of those things is a liability, according to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Reid is facing criticism for calling President Barack Obama a talented candidate who was a light-skinned African-American "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one" during the 2008 election as reported in the new book Game Change.
Are Reid's words shocking?
Of course not.
As many times as I have been told that I am articulate by white people who seemed to be both impressed and disappointed to hear me speak as well as if not better than them, Reid's words are no bombshell.
They are just another indication that America still needs to confront race in a real way and reconsider how we use language to evaluate people.

All of us alter our language to fit our atmosphere. When I'm around high school classmates I slip back into 1980s slang. With colleagues I use professional jargon that others wouldn't understand. I speak a little Spanish and often find myself saying "dios mio" when I gasp at something surprising or outrageous.
Some relatives laugh at me because "yall" and "maine" are still a part of my vocabulary after living in Mississippi for 10 years.
I love black people and I don't apologize for it.
Communicating with other black people I know well in a familiar and comfortable way using relaxed language is like talking to family.
Does that mean I am ignorant and unintelligent?
No.
I am an accomplished public speaker who has spoken before large crowds since I was 15 years old.

The use of "Negro dialect" has its place in the lexicon of language and American culture. The use of such language in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God or J. California Cooper's books Family and In Search of Satisfaction illuminated the black experience in an authentic way that only the language of the people could.
Is it always appropriate to use "Negro dialect?"
Probably not.
But if people choose to communicate with others in a way that is comfortable for them that is their choice.
There may also be consequences. We use language as a barometer to determine competency and worthiness. Sometimes we are right to do that.
However, we can also sometimes make mistakes using language to establish intelligence.
Many of us have come across people who speak eloquently but their words were empty because they couldn't back up what they said.
As a reporter I have come across many immigrants who spoke broken English.
Does their inability to use the English language in a way that others may deem inappropriate make them stupid?
No.
Some of those new Americans were multilingual and spoke several languages but English just happened to be the language in which they had the least proficiency.

As the country becomes more brown and black we need to re-evaluate what it means to speak "Negro dialect," Spanglish and other variations of the English language within communities.
We can use this moment as a way to start talking about race and the issues around it in a meaningful way.
Why do fair-skinned African-Americans (and all Americans of a lighter hue) still have an advantage in this country and seem less threatening than darker brothers and sisters?
Why is the language people of color use still judged so much?
Why are old white men still calling black folks Negroes?
Why did Bill Clinton think it was OK to privately say to Ted Kennedy that Obama "would have been getting us coffee" a few years ago?
And why does Clinton's comment from the book receive less analysis than Reid's?
Addressing these questions are essential because some other notable politician or public figure is going to say something similar sometime soon.
This country needs more than a beer summit to patch up this latest racial gaffe.
We need a real conversation about race and we need to have it soon.

All hair is good hair but please don't touch mine

Can I touch your hair?

It's a question I've been asked often as people looked in amazement at the puffy, black cloud of kinky curls that sit on top of my head.

The question, and the look of awe that came with it, always surprised me.
I wondered why people were so fascinated by my nappiness.
Then the request to touch my hair started to become annoying.

Questions from both black and white people asking "How do you get it like that?" and "Where do you go to get it to look that way?" started to get on my nerves.
My hair grows out of my head this way. There is no miracle ritual I go through to get it to look like this.

But I realized people were just curious and wanted to know how I achieved this look. Some of them may have never seen a black woman with her hair in its natural state untouched by chemicals and not hiding under a wig or a weave.

But when my hair long, straightened by chemicals and rested on my shoulders the questions were different: "Where is your family from?" or "Are you from the islands?" inferences that the texture of my hair must indicate a multicultural background and not an African-American one.

Comedian Chris Rock explores the complex world of black women's hair and the political and personal decisions that go into how we wear our hair in the new film Good Hair.

Rock devoted months to examining the world of weaves, wigs, perms, braids, afros, twists and locks in the film because his young daughter asked him why she doesn't have "good hair."

That's a painful start to a film about a painful and personal relationship black women have with their hair.
Every woman wants to be beautiful.
But America's standard for beautiful hair (long, straight and blond) drastically conflicts with the hair most black women are born with: black, short and curly.

Understanding this dilemma among black women, it’s no wonder the black hair care business is multi-billion dollar industry.
Some black women pay the equivalent of a house note to obtain this nation's standard of good hair.

The industry doesn't get much of my money though. I stopped putting chemicals in my hair 11 years ago.
For me wearing my hair natural is not so much a strong political statement.
It's more of a personal declaration that I am OK as I am, without being drastically altered by chemicals or stereotypes or someone else’s standard of beauty.

And I also know that black women who chose to wear weaves, wigs and perms or no hair at all are expressing styles that reflect who they are as individuals.
Sometimes a hairstyle is a fashion statement and not a political one.

The range of styles black women we wear makes us unique.
Whether it's bone straight, store-bought, curly or kinky - all hair is good hair.
I hope other little black girls like Chris Rock's daughter learn that lesson early on in life.