Black Scholar Boyce Watkins Talks About The Effect of Lil Wayne

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

Brought to you by GreatBlackSpeakers.com, the #1 African American Speakers Bureau in America.

Those who know me also know that I love hip hop. Yes, there are some negative elements in hip hop, but many people forget that it's ultimately the corporate monster that makes it difficult for positive hip hop music to reach the light of day. I think that healthy debates on the nature of hip hop are relevant, and I am not referring to Oprah's town hall meeting on the topic last year, which really wasn't fair to the genre. I told her so in a CNN appearance with Roland Martin and Wendy Williams.

To join our Black Money advice list, please click here. My thoughts on the Lil Wayne and hip hop issue are below. I don't hate Lil Wayne, I actually feel sorry for him. He reminds me of Tupac, with the same energy, creativity, brilliance, productivity and incredibly self-destructive behavior that led to his legendary status. The difference, however, is that there was an element of social conscience Tupac could bring to his music that Lil Wayne does not. I am not interested in bashing the brother, but I must call it for what it is. Hip hop does not have to be an empty genre, with every song about sex in the club, smoking weed or blinging out of control. There's more to life than that. We should be teaching our kids to pursue "intellectual bling", so that we can search for true meaning in our lives and to be intelligent enough to stop being pimped. Hip hop can be (and has been) a part of that journey. Again, I love hip hop, and I even love Lil Wayne.....sometimes.

Respect peeps, see you next time.

Dr. Boyce Watkins
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Hip Hop Commercialized? Buffoonery or something more complicated?
By Dr. Boyce Watkins

I am not a huge fan of Lil Wayne. I don’t hate him, I just don’t love him. His music doesn’t make me move, but it doesn’t make me sick. The thing that challenges my ability to love Lil Wayne is the environment within which he is operating.

Lil Wayne can be considered, by some, to be a modern day minstrel show: gold chains, diamond grills, 10,000 tattoos on parts of his body that have no business being tattooed, you name it. He engages in the stereotypical rock’n roll/hip hop lifestyle: guns, drugs, alcohol and random women. I fear for Lil Wayne, because at this pace, he might be dead before he turns 35. Lil Wayne makes Tupac Shakur and Eazy E look like conservative school kids.

Lil Wayne impacts the world in which he lives, sells records by the boat load and impacts far more young men than he probably should. It’s not that he chooses to be a role model, he just is one. But when we see Lil Wayne and express justifiable disdain for his behavior and persona, there is certainly more to be said.

You see, Lil Wayne is a product. The corporate executives pulling the strings and making the decision to sign deals with Lil Wayne also see him as a product. A product has to sell to its target audience, or it will not reach the sole objective of any capitalist venture: to make a profit. Not just any profit, but the highest possible profit within legal constraints. The corporate model doesn’t care about the community; it doesn’t care about health, workers, the environment or anything else. Like the financial machine that led to the breakdown of our global economic system, cogs in the wheel that pursue any objective other than pure profit maximization are quickly punished and replaced.

The target audience of hip hop is not black teenagers in the hood…..they don’t have any money, relatively speaking. The target audience for hip hop consists of middle and upper class kids in the suburbs, and those on college campuses. Those are the kids who line up at the record store and cause server outages at I-tunes when new albums are released. That is who the executives are trying to impress, and that is who Lil Wayne must impress in order to get a record deal.

The problem with Lil Wayne is that the transfer of commodities taking place between the recording industry and white America is one that lies over the economic heads of many African Americans. It doesn’t mean that those in the hood play no role in public consumption, but we are certainly not the biggest players in this game. Like a big bridge in the sky, we don’t impact the transactions, but we closely observe them. We don’t always buy the albums, but we watch the videos, read the articles, and hear the news stories about whose album sold the most copies during its first week. Due to the fact that there is a lack of diversity of images of black men in media, we have children who see the image of Lil Wayne and transform him into an involuntary role model. White kids don’t have to use Lil Wayne as a role model, since they see 50 new white men on TV every single day. Black youth don’t see doctors, lawyers and professors on TV: they see criminals, thugs, athletes and entertainers.

Lil Wayne’s environmental impact on the black community is what we in economics would call “a negative externality”. The fact that he makes it cool to use drugs, carry guns and engage in anti-social behavior does, in my opinion, cause irreparable harm to the black community. The problem is that the black community has little leverage to control these externalities, since we are neither the dominant consumers of hip hop, the controllers of media or the owners of record labels. Like the bridge in the sky I mentioned above. The presence of networks like BET or magazines like Essence and Ebony is relatively minor when compared to the dominance of CNN, Universal Records or Time Magazine. It’s like bringing a knife to a fight between nuclear superpowers.

Those of us upset about negative images in hip hop can protest all night at the next Lil Wayne concert and perhaps even have an intervention with Wayne to get him to see the err of his ways. The problem with this logic is that even if Lil Wayne does change his behavior, there is a long list of starving kids in the projects that the record label executives can find to replace Lil Wayne after he has been dropped from the brand. Also, getting Lil Wayne to invoke a more positive image will not change the fact that the consumers and producers of his product (gangster rap) are more willing to purchase albums made by black men when they feel that the performer has indulged their need to enjoy a stereotypical "thug-nificent" fantasy. Wayne may have some degree of industry power, but it is not as much as we might think. The in-studio recording of Lil Wayne’s product is not what creates the magic. The magic of a product is created through the marketing, distribution, financing and purchase of that product. That is done by the labels, and none of the large label owners are African American.

So, does Lil Wayne represent a modern day minstrel show? My answer is yes. He and others like him are told to behave more “thug like” and in more ridiculous and extravagant ways in order to get the attention necessary to sell records. It is, unfortunately, not smart business for a rapper to brag about being intelligent. Also, it is a lack of diversity of black male images in media that give black youth few alternatives for self-perception that go beyond that of Lil Wayne, 50 Cent, Flavor Flav and Juan Williams (the Fox News analyst who, along with Jessie Lee Peterson, enjoys bashing the black community). If any of these men chose to be forthright, insightful and firm in their support of the African American community, they would be fired immediately. But when we protest and challenge the system that is negatively impacting our communities, my argument is that we should look past the puppets and deal with the puppet masters.

Some would argue that by attacking rappers for the negative impacts of their lyrics, we are simply killing the messengers and going after the weaker scapegoat. While I am not one to judge whether the messenger should be killed, I am also an advocate for finding a way to get to the root of the message. Someone is controlling the messages of hip hop, and it’s not that poor kid from the projects who finally made it big.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Finance Professor at Syracuse University and author of “What if George Bush were a Black Man?” He makes regular appearances in national media, including CNN, ESPN, BET and CBS. For more information, please visit BoyceWatkins.com

United States Presidents and The Truth About Their Health

By Glenda Westerfield, Esq.

I found the Newsweek article, “Picture of Health” (referenced below), extremely interesting, and I also have empathy. I have never done anything as important as lead a nation, but I do fully understand the concept of having to hide illness and trying to function in a professional setting while on heavy doses of narcotic that it was necessary to have just to be able to stand up. Been there, still doing that. I think the question is, when does it become ones moral obligation to step aside when too sick? I gave a majority of my cases to other attorneys back in March when I came to the realization that I could not in good conscience call myself an advocate if I was taking pills and getting shots just to be able to function at a pedestrian level each day....much less having to do my best at fighting for someone's life and liberty. I was late for court, losing what little hair I had, looked like a walking skeleton, and had judges pulling me to the side asking if there was a problem.

These Presidents made the choices to hide their illness "in the name of the country" but I believe, because once again, been there done that, that there is also selfishness involved. I hid my sickle cell until I could no longer because I wanted to finish college and law school (a dean once asked me why I kept coming back to school if I was ill...not knowing that my alternative was to lay down and die), and then again because I wanted to keep my shiny new law firm job, and I did not want anyone to doubt that I could do it.

Hell, I hid my illness during my grade school to high school years (many of my friends never knew until I was about grown, but now say that it answers a lot of strange things that they were wondering about me...kinda the "OHHHH, so that's what that was about, makes sense to me now") because I did not want others to think less of me, or ask questions.

I hid my degenerative disks in my back and taught my law classes seated or wearing house slippers to avoid my classes being cut back or taken from me. Some days I was in so much pain, I had to go in the bathroom, cry, compose myself, and come back out to teach.

Even now, I am hiding my cancer from my neighbors to avoid the stares, the "pity parties", the questions, and the barrages of bad potato salad, pies, etc. brought to the house like I am dead (my daughter slipped and told one neighbor who told everyone else, I no longer go outside unless I have to). In the beginning stages of my treatment, I hid my cancer from my kids to keep them from worrying, but also selfishly to shield myself from their worry about me.

Sometimes, like the past few days, I even avoid going to the doctor when I am ill because I get tired of being poked and prodded, but also because unfortunately, due to what I believe can only be racism. If a sickle patient needs meds, they are given a speech about narcotics addiction and not given refills on the scrip (which in turn leads to me having to call the doctor for each refill, which makes me look like a fiend begging for drugs). Whereas, since I have been a cancer patient, I can ask for those same exact drugs with no questions asked, no speeches about addiction or questions about if I really need the meds, and there are refills on the bottle. Both are horribly painful diseases, with some of the same symptoms (which is why I believe my cancer was not caught earlier...the docs all thought it was the sickle cell), yet the one that affects minorities only is the one with the drug addict stigma attached to it. To have an illness is tough by itself, but to admit to it is even harder...

Newsweek Article: Picture of Health

Some U.S. presidents have gone to great lengths to hide their physical and mental illnesses. Is that kind of deception necessary—or even possible today?

By Anne Underwood

Newsweek Web Exclusive

Updated: 2:05 PM ET May 24, 2008

Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, released 1,173 pages of personal medical records this week. Such candor in politicians is a recent development. Dr. Jerrold Post—director of the political psychology program at George Washington University and author of "Leaders and Their Followers in a Dangerous World" (Cornell University Press, 2004)—has studied the history of presidents and their health problems. He spoke with NEWSWEEK's Anne Underwood.

Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: John McCain has been candid about his health. Does that represent a break with the past?

Jerrold Post: There has been increasing pressure for candidates to reveal information that was once considered a personal matter. Today, you have to give up that privacy to run for the highest office.

But even in recent years, not all candidates have been that honest. I'm thinking of Sen. Paul Tsongas, who competed against Bill Clinton to be the Democratic nominee in 1992. That was a cover-up. He indicated that he had had non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He and his doctor attested that, because of his bone-marrow transplant, his prognosis was as good as anyone else's. But at the time the statement was made, he had already had a recurrence of the cancer that wasn't made public. That kind of information needs to be revealed.

The public is demanding more information today. But are people also more forgiving, now that better treatments exist?

Yes and no. Part of the distinction has to do with what kind of illness it is. Dwight D. Eisenhower had a heart attack in 1955, an abdominal operation in 1956 and a stroke in 1957. People were sympathetic after the heart attack, because it was clear that it was mild and he would survive it. But the stroke, which temporarily affected his speech, raised the specter of a president who was unable to communicate. People look to their leaders for wisdom, strength and clarity of speaking.

What about cancer?

In France, François Mitterrand was an interesting example. When Mitterrand came to office, he swore that his would be an open presidency. But on his first day in office in 1981, he called in the presidential physician, Dr. Claude Gubler, and told him that his prostate cancer had spread to his bones. Mitterrand solemnly declared, "We must reveal nothing. These are state secrets." He led for 14 years with the constant and painful companion of metastatic cancer. How could that not have affected his decision making?


What about depression? There used to be such a stigma attached.

Depression is interesting. In 1924, just after Calvin Coolidge's nomination to a second term, his favorite son, Calvin Jr., developed a blister after playing tennis on the White House grounds without socks. He developed septicemia and died three days later [at the age of 16]. This was before antibiotics. Coolidge was called a do-nothing president, but it was probably as a consequence of a severe grief reaction from which he never recovered. After that, he spent 11 hours a day sleeping. His work day shrank. He was irritable and disinterested in affairs of state.

Today much of the country seems to be on anti-depressants. Aren't we more tolerant now?

In 1972, George McGovern [the Democratic candidate] chose Sen. Thomas Eagleton as his running mate. But when it was revealed that Eagleton had had electroconvulsive therapy for depression years earlier, it created a huge uproar. There was such a fear of shock therapy and the possibility of a mentally ill president [if McGovern should die in office] that Eagleton had to step down. Interestingly, Eagleton returned to the Senate, where he had an excellent reputation. We can tolerate a history of depression in the Senate, but not in the highest office.

What are some of the more intriguing cases of presidents who have concealed information about their health?

Grover Cleveland [who served as president 1885-1889 and 1893-1897] was brushing his teeth one morning, when he noticed a lump in the roof of his mouth. He called in his dentist, who summoned a head-and-neck surgeon. The surgeon diagnosed the lump as a carcinoma of the roof of the mouth. Cleveland thought it would cause an economic crisis if the information was released that he had cancer, so during the night, he smuggled an anesthesiologist, nurses, his dentist and the head-and-neck surgeon onto the presidential yacht under the guise of a pleasure trip on the Hudson River. During the trip, they removed the roof of his mouth up to his left eye, and inserted a rubber prosthesis internally. People were suspicious, but it wasn't revealed until 15 years after his death what had happened.

In more recent years, after the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan, how cheered we all were when he waved from his window at George Washington University Hospital. But what people didn't know was that Reagan was only alert for one hour a day. The nightly news regularly showed clips of a vigorous Reagan in good spirits. But in fact, these moments were carefully chosen. When he went back to the White House—Bob Woodward conveyed this vividly in his book "Veil"—he showed only brief intervals of lucidity and vigor. This was only the beginning of the Reagan presidency, but according to Woodward, his aides were afraid it would end up as a crippled presidency, like Wilson's caretaker presidency.

You're referring to Woodrow Wilson after his stroke. In the fall of 1919, Wilson had a disabling stroke while he was on a train trip across the country to mobilize support for his cherished League of Nations. The public knew he was ill, but they didn't know how ill. Only Edith Wilson, chief of staff Joseph Tumulty and his personal physician, Cary Grayson, were allowed to see him. Issues were brought in, and decisions would come out. We talk today about the possibility of having the first woman president, but we effectively already had one in Edith Wilson. After her husband partially recovered, Mrs. Wilson said, "I don't know what you men make such a fuss about. I had no trouble running the country when Woody was ill."

I guess Franklin Roosevelt would be the most famous example of a president who concealed information about his health. His polio was well known—and it humanized this aristocratic man—but the press was respectful. There were only two or three pictures of him in a wheelchair. What wasn't so well known was how ill he was when he went to the Teheran summit with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin in 1943. He came back quite ill. The White House doctor, [Vice] Admiral Ross McIntire, directed cardiologist Howard Bruenn, a Navy [lieutenant] commander, to examine Roosevelt. Bruenn was alarmed at the gravity of Roosevelt's illness. He diagnosed congestive heart failure, hypertension, acute bronchitis and longstanding pulmonary disease. McIntire told Bruenn, you must not tell the president and his family the extent of his illness, and you certainly cannot tell the American public. He issued a reassuring communiqué to the effect that, for a man of his age, Roosevelt was in remarkably good health. But Franklin's son, James Roosevelt, later said he'd never been reconciled to the fact that his father's physicians allowed him to run for a fourth term. It was his death warrant. At the Yalta summit in 1945, Churchill's physician said that Roosevelt looked old and drawn and sat staring ahead with his mouth open. He intervened little in the discussion. He died shortly after the summit of a massive cerebral hemorrhage.

President Kennedy had Addison's disease. Yes, but it was only in Robert Dallek's 2003 biography of John Kennedy that we learned the extent of Kennedy's illnesses, which he concealed and which his family continued to conceal after he was assassinated—colitis, duodenal ulcers, osteoporosis and Addison's disease, which is a life-threatening insufficiency of the adrenal glands, requiring twice daily steroids. By 1950, he had constant back pain from vertebral collapse. From the mid-1950s, he was taking powerful narcotics like Demerol and methadone. He took barbiturates for sleep and tranquilizers for anxiety—as many as eight medications a day. There's some indication that he may have abused amphetamines. Before press conferences, he often required injections in the back to control his pain. Throughout his career, he concealed his illnesses.

If elected, John McCain would be 72 when sworn in. Is age an issue?

The first generalization is that one shouldn't generalize. There are some highly creative individuals who function well into their 90s. Konrad Adenauer [who served as German chancellor until the age of 87] was one. Having said that, the danger is that one may attempt to force a new situation into a template from the past and draw false parallels. With the passage of years, there can also be an increased sense of urgency that makes you want to accelerate the pace of change and fit a political timetable to your own. In China, the Cultural Revolution was related to Mao's realization that his time was short and his desire to fully consolidate the revolution before he died.

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Black Community Has Highest Incarceration Rate in World

by Demetrius Walker
DangerousNegro.com

I’ve never agreed with the American criminal justice system. Point blank, it is wrong and unfair on too many levels. Since a youngster in New York, I have observed how our current system has destroyed more lives than it has protected, reformed, and/or rehabilitated.

To be considered the land of the free, the United States certainly boasts a dynamic air of hypocrisy. We have the HIGHEST incarceration rate in the world. In fact, the International Herald Tribune (owned by the NY Times) recently reported that “The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners (READ HERE).”

Very few people seem to have a problem with this in middle America. More than likely because this alarming figure affects the Black community in widely disproportionate numbers. I would venture to say that most African Americans, myself included, can list someone within their immediate reach that is incarcerated. Yet ALL Americans turn a blind eye to the prison industrial complex that assists young brothers like myself in donning orange jumpsuits. In case you haven’t realized it, there is an entire system set up to fill and build prisons to the economic benefit of corporations and private ventures.

Black Coaches. Why Is There A Shortage in College Sports?

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..

The Government - Can We Trust Them To Protect Our Money

By Dr. Boyce Watkins
www.BoyceWatkins.com

Media reports show that many Americans are not quite sure of what to do with their money. Watching banks fail left and right, people are logically afraid of what might happen to their savings. This fear is justified, as we are seeing our accounts beaten and stomped by the global financial meltdown.

This grave concern is magnified by the fact that those we’ve trusted are the ones who’ve left us vulnerable. Our most cherished financial experts handled our retirement accounts like flashy vehicles on a Nascar speedway. Our elected officials allowed executives in the banking industry to run rampant like 3-year olds with dirty diapers. Then, when the crash came, a massive bailout package was created for those most responsible for the damage, while the rest of us were left holding the tax bill.

This begs the question: Why in the hell should we trust the government?

I recall that during the failure of Enron, one of the most respected companies in America at the time, the firm made several statements designed to create confidence in the company’s financial condition. Like captains of the Titanic, company leaders explained that there was nothing to worry about, even as they themselves were preparing their lifeboats. When the company failed, those who did not protect themselves reminded us of one grim and fundamental truth: when the “you know what” hits the fan, it’s every man for himself….and every woman too, in case you’re wondering.

In response to such sentiment, the American consumer has been working overtime to protect his/her resources: people have (against my advice) moved their money away from the frightening stock market, they are diversifying money into different banks, and some are taking their money out of banks altogether. All of these actions are occurring in spite of government calls for calm in a world on the verge of financial panic.

The honest to goodness truth is that I don’t blame Americans for being afraid. I don’t blame them for not trusting the government right now. Trust must be earned in any relationship, whether it is a tough marriage of the relationship between a government and its citizens. Our government must work to regain that trust through sound and efficient financial management. It will NOT regenerate the public trust through excessive spending on meaningless wars, selfish pork-filled bills being passed through Congress and budget deficits that strain the resources of Americans everywhere.

I can’t tell you if the government is lying to you, but I can tell you this: There was a time when government guarantees such as FDIC insurance were as pure as the driven snow. There was a time when the United States Federal Government had pockets and resources so deep that even God himself could be bailed out with our cash. The sad truth, however, is that no empire lasts forever, and there is destined to be a day in the future when we are no longer the unquestionable economic super power that we once were. A country that can’t even afford its social security obligations is hardly a nation that has risen beyond economic risk.

Another sad truth is that if the financial world really were coming to an end, the citizens would be the last to find out about any such crisis. We would, simultaneously, be the first ones asked to suffer the burden of irresponsible behavior by our leaders. If that doesn’t justify a bit of skepticism, I am not sure what does.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Finance Professor at Syracuse University. He does regular commentary in national media, including CNN, ESPN, CBS and BET. For more information, please visit www.BoyceWatkins.com.

USA Today: College Athletes Guided to "Beat the System"

Greetings.

As people of color, we should make ourselves aware of the continued exploitation of college athletes and their families, many of whom are African Americans. The article below is out of USA Today, which cites the clustering of majors and serious violations of academic integrity taking place for the sake of excessive commercialization in collegiate athletics. The money is serious - ad revenue for March Madness exceeds that for the Super Bowl and the World Series COMBINED. This is a major wealth extraction out of the Black community (since coaches earn millions while many star athletes have families in poverty), and athletes are not even getting the educations they are promised.

I am working intensely on this issue with Richard Southall at The College Sport Research Institute at The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (where I am a faculty affiliate). I would also like to invite all of you to join our Coalition for the Fair Treatment of Athletes, where our long-term goal is to a) establish a network of faculty across the nation who agree to mentor athletes toward true academic achievement and b) Work with a growing coalition of attorneys, journalists, parents, coaches and former athletes to convince Congress to review the non-profit, tax exempt status of the NCAA, as well as their anti-trust exemption, which appears to constitute a serious violation of labor rights for the families of college athletes. The article is below if you'd like to read it.


Sincerely,
Boyce Watkins

www.BoyceWatkins.com

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Athletes Guided to "Beat the System"

By Jill Lieber Steeg, Jodi Upton, Patrick Bohn and Steve Berkowitz, USA TODAY

Steven Cline left Kansas State University last spring with memories of two years as a starting defensive lineman for a major-college football team. He left with a diploma, credits toward a master's degree and a place on the 2007 Big 12 Conference all-academic team.


He also left with regrets about accomplishing all of this by majoring in social sciences — a program that drew 34% of the football team's juniors and seniors last season, compared with about 4% of all juniors and seniors at Kansas State. Cline says he found not-so-demanding courses that helped him have success in the classroom and on the field but did little for his dream of becoming a veterinarian.


"I realize I just wasted all my efforts in high school and college to get a social science degree," says Cline, who adds he did poorly in biology as a freshman, then chose what an athletics academic adviser told him would be an easier path.
His experience reflects how the NCAA's toughening of academic requirements for athletes has helped create an environment in which they are more likely to graduate than other students — but also more likely to be clustered in programs without the academic demands most students face.


Some athletes say they have pursued — or have been steered to — degree programs that helped keep them eligible for sports but didn't prepare them for post-sports careers.


"A major in eligibility, with a minor in beating the system," says C. Keith Harrison, an associate professor at the University of Central Florida, where he is associate director of the Institute of Diversity and Ethics in Sports.


A USA TODAY study of the majors of juniors and seniors in five prominent sports at 142 of the NCAA's top-level schools shows athletes at many institutions clustering in certain majors, in some cases at rates highly disproportionate to those of all students.


The study involved the fall 2007 student rolls and the 2007-08 rosters for Division I teams in five sports — football, men's basketball, women's basketball, baseball and softball.
All 120 schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) were included, as were 22 other Division I schools with standout men's or women's basketball teams. Nearly 9,300 athletes across 654 teams were covered by the study. Among the findings:


83% of the schools (118 of 142) had at least one team in which at least 25% of the juniors and seniors majored in the same thing. For example, seven of the 19 players on Stanford's baseball team majored in sociology.
34% of the teams (222 of 654) had at least one such cluster of student-athletes.

More than half of the clusters are what some analysts refer to as "extreme," in which at least 40% of athletes on a team are in the same major (125 of 235). All seven of the juniors and seniors on Texas-El Paso's men's basketball team majored in multidisciplinary studies, for example.
Education specialists say such clustering raises a range of potential problems, including academic fraud; certain majors and classes having dubious academic requirements; and coaches and athletics academic advisers inappropriately influencing students' decisions on majors and classes.
Clustering in relatively easy areas of study is one way athletes cope with the time demands they face from participating in sports, Cline and other athletes say. It also appears to be an unintended consequence of NCAA schools' decisions to make it easier for athletes to become eligible to play as freshmen but harder for them to remain eligible in later years.


"Clustering by itself is replicated in many parts of the university. It's not necessarily bad," NCAA President Myles Brand says.


"But when you have extreme clustering … you really do have to ask some hard questions: Is there an adviser who's pushing students into this? Are there some faculty members who are too friendly with student-athletes? I'm not saying that's the case. But I think you have to ask those questions."


Brand adds that it's up to each school to do so. "There are limits to what the national office can, and should, do," he says. "Anything to do with the academic programs really falls entirely within the purview of the individual institutions."


Questions about clustering get at the basic social contract of college sports.


Instead of being paid, scholarship athletes get a free education. And, according to University of Hartford President Walter Harrison, who chairs the NCAA Division I Committee on Academic Performance: "There are many values of a college education, but among them is majoring in something that will prepare you for a satisfying career."


Cline believes that now. He arrived at Kansas State from Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., in 2003 and intended to pursue a pre-veterinary program.


"The athletics academic advisers emphasized it was going to be really difficult," he says. "But I tried it anyway."


When the biology class went badly, he and his advisers discussed options, including retaking the class. Homesick and wanting to finish college as soon as possible, he says, he "dropped down" to social sciences, a program Kansas State's website says is one of four interdisciplinary majors in the College of Arts and Sciences that "provide options for those who have not chosen a specialized major."


"The athletics academic advisers said, 'This is what everybody is doing. It's the easiest major,' " recalls Cline, who emphasizes that ultimately he — not his advisers — chose his degree program.


Cline completed his degree in four academic years. Afterward, with one season of athletic eligibility left, he stayed at Kansas State and spent the 2007-08 school year in a master's program in college student personnel.


The program is designed to prepare candidates for work at college "student affairs agencies," according to the university's website. Cline says he didn't complete it and doesn't intend to "because it wasn't what I wanted to do."


He now is working in construction so he can save money and try to return to school as a pre-vet student.


"The whole time I was at Kansas State, I felt stuck — stuck in football, stuck in my major. … It was a stupid effort on my part. I wouldn't advise any other athlete to do that. I'd tell them to choose a career — a real career for their life after football and work toward it. Don't let anybody or anything take you off that path. Don't fool yourselves into thinking (you're) going to play (sports) professionally.


"Now I look back and say, 'Well, what did I really go to college for? Crap classes you won't use the rest of your life?' Social science is really nothing specific. … I was majoring in football."


Kansas State provost M. Duane Nellis says the university tries "to be supportive of athletes to be able to pursue what they dream to have as their degree path.


"We've had starting athletes in basketball who went on to … get into veterinary medicine. Any student can get out of sequence if they're in a prescribed curriculum … and if they get out of sequence, it leads them down a different path. They also have to realize, when they decide to pursue athletics, there are time commitments and parameters around that."


'A mixed message being sent'


Cline's situation provides a window on the day-to-day machinery of big-time college sports, which can be a physical and psychological grind on student-athletes.


Basketball games, and a few football games, are played on weeknights. Sometimes games are played close to exams. It's not unusual for baseball teams to play five days a week, with games in three different towns.


"There's a mixed message being sent out here" about the importance of academics in college sports, Georgia Tech men's basketball coach Paul Hewitt said in June before the Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics.


Several athletes echo Hewitt's sentiments.


Former Boise State safety Marty Tadman was among the 48% of the football team's juniors and seniors majoring in communication during the 2007-08 academic year. Boise State's communication program also drew 50% of the juniors and seniors on the men's basketball and women's basketball teams.


"You hear which majors, and which classes, are the easiest and you take them," Tadman says. "You're going to school so you can stay in sports. You're not going for a degree. … It's a joke."


Like other students, athletes are influenced by their peers. Former Southern California offensive lineman Drew Radovich majored in sociology, putting him among the 58% of the football team's juniors and seniors — and 19% of USC's — in that major. "If I went back and did it all over again, I wouldn't have picked" sociology, says Radovich, now with the Minnesota Vikings. "A lot of other offensive linemen were picking sociology, so I picked it."


Under NCAA rules, schools are required to make academic counseling and tutoring available to athletes.


These services can be provided and paid for by athletics departments, which have been making them — and the facilities in which they are based — increasingly elaborate in recent years.


And because of the NCAA's complex requirements, which often differ from those of a university or individual academic department, academic advisers are involved in many athletes' course selections.


'Perfect storm' for problems


With Division I athletes, that involvement usually stems from what's known as The 40-60-80 Rule, which took effect for athletes entering school after Aug. 1, 2003.


To stay eligible to play, athletes must complete 40% of their degree work by the end of their second year of enrollment, 60% by the end of their third year and 80% by the end of their fourth year. Under previous rules, those percentages were 25, 50 and 75.


The increased demands for progress toward a degree have been accompanied by reduced requirements for incoming athletes to be eligible to play as freshmen.


Until recently, incoming athletes had to have at least an 820 SAT score or 68 ACT sum score. Now, if they have a sufficient grade-point average in a set of core academic classes, they can be eligible as freshmen with any standardized score.


"It's a perfect storm formula" for pressure on advisers, says Gerald Gurney, senior associate athletics director for academics and student life at the University of Oklahoma. "A population of weaker students with higher (academic) demands," layered upon a national trend of academic departments raising requirements for entry into certain majors.


There also is a new NCAA rule that threatens penalties for teams with too many players who become academically ineligible or fail to graduate. Based on their annually published Academic Progress Rate (APR), teams can lose scholarships and eventually become ineligible for postseason play, either of which can embarrass a school and affect a team's ability to win.


Hewitt, the Georgia Tech men's basketball coach, bluntly articulated many coaches' view of the "unintended consequences" of the APR system at the Knight Commission meeting in June. He said then that when an NCAA official came to the Atlantic Coast Conference meetings four years ago to discuss the APR system, "almost every coach said: 'You understand what you're basically telling us. We're going to encourage our kids to take the easiest path to eligibility.'


"So if I'm at a Georgia Tech, I'm not going to tell a young man he can't major in engineering," Hewitt said. "But I certainly will counsel him before he takes that first class that … if you decide to go down this road and for some reason you find it harder than you expected and you decide to change your major, you're probably more than likely going to end up being ineligible" for sports.


At Georgia Tech last year, 63% of the juniors and seniors on the men's basketball team majored in management. So did 83% of those on the baseball team and 82% of those on the football team. A little more than 11% of all juniors and seniors at the school were in the major.


Isma'il Muhammad, a basketball player who earned a management degree from Georgia Tech in 2005, said he considered majoring in international affairs, but "it just didn't make sense. I would have had to stop playing basketball," which he has been doing professionally outside the USA since graduating.


Asked why management is so popular among athletes, he said, "They want to own their own business or have other big aspirations. Also, we're not crazy. … Was management easier than engineering? Of course, but Georgia Tech doesn't offer any easy classes or easy majors. It's not like I was a basketball player majoring in pottery."


Muhammad also says he has leads for post-basketball jobs. "Finding a job is not an issue even in this economy we have right now," he says. "A lot of people are affiliated with Tech and (are) fans of basketball and Coach Hewitt."


Bob Vomhof, a former Colorado State football player also still pursuing his sport in a lower level of the pro ranks, has similar confidence in his future prospects — but with a retrospective different from Muhammad's.


Vomhof graduated with a degree in liberal arts, a program that last year had 65% of the junior and senior football players and about 2% of all juniors and seniors at the school. As a junior he wanted to change his major to construction management, he says, but decided that with the time he had to spend on football he couldn't make the move.


Speaking from his hometown of Gillette, Wyo., after spending part of the past Arena Football League season on the San Jose SaberCats practice squad, he says of his outlook: "I think I'll be OK. No matter how bad the job market gets everywhere else, you can always get jobs up here."

The Worth of a Dysfunctional Family

By Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III

In today’s political lexicon the term family values has been hijacked by the Christian political right as a way to define an ambiguous set of moral beliefs and standards that they use to further a morally defenseless political agenda. In the early 1980’s individuals such as Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson through The Christian Coalition, began to target the Republican Party as the vehicle through which they could promote their conservative religious agenda and inject that religious agenda into mainstream American politics. They successfully combined their moral conservatism with political conservatism resulting in a politics that is neither morally nor ethically based.

The agenda of The Christian Coalition of America is to, “… offer people of faith the vehicle to be actively involved in shaping their government - from the County Courthouse to the halls of Congress… Today, Christians need to play an active role in government again like never before… we continuously work to identify, educate and mobilize Christians for effective political action” The late Rev. D. James Kennedy focused his attention on members of Congress and their staffers by founding the Center for Christian Statesmanship. This Center was a Capitol Hill outreach group that offered Bible studies to members of Congress and their staffers. Rev. Kennedy believed, “Our job is to reclaim America for Christ, whatever the cost... we are to exercise godly dominion and influence over our neighborhoods, our schools, our government, our literature and arts, our sports arenas, our entertainment media, our news media, our scientific endeavors -- in short, over every aspect and institution of human society.”

There are two problems with the injection of ideological Christianity into mainstream American politics. First, the “establishment” clause was written into the First Amendment of the Constitution to prevent the United States government from establishing an official religion for the country as had been done by the Church of England. The “free exercise” clause was written into the First Amendment to allow each American to practice religion as they see fit. It prohibits Congress from preferring one religion over another. What the late Rev. Kennedy worked to accomplish, the reclamation of America for Christ, actually violates what Thomas Jefferson called the separation of church and state. This time tested and accepted political and legal doctrine states that government and religious institutions are to be kept separate and independent of one another.

The second problem with the injection of ideological Christianity into mainstream American politics is the hypocrisy that is exhibited by many of its proponents. Too many of these “holier than thou” Christian conservatives just don’t practice what they preach. As the Republican Party has anointed itself as the party of ethics, morality, and family values, these so-called “family values” demonstrate a very dysfunctional family. Take for example the following:

• Ralph Reed, former head of The Christian Coalition has been implicated in the ongoing Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.
  Lest we forget the seventh Commandment, thou shalt not steal and the eighth commandment, thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor
  

  
  

• According to Florida authorities, state representative and Republican Bob Allen was arrested this past July outside the men's restroom at a Titusville park after offering to perform a sex act on a plainclothes police officer. According to the Orlando Sentinel, Allen sponsored the "Sexual Predator Elimination Act," legislation that toughened penalties for lewd or lascivious conduct and created a new provision that allows some sexual predators to receive life prison sentences for their offenses. Before his 2006 re-election, Allen had received a 92 percent rating from the Christian Coalition of Florida. Bob Allen is married.
  Lest we forget the seventh Commandment, thou shalt not commit adultery.
  

  
  

• Washington state lawmaker and Republican, Richard Curtis, resigned October 31, days after he was quoted in police reports as saying a man he had sex with after they met at an erotic video store was trying to blackmail him. Elected to the state House of Representatives in 2004, Curtis has voted against bills that would grant civil rights protections to gays and lesbians. Curtis like Allen is married.

  
  Lest we forget the seventh Commandment, thou shalt not commit adultery.

  
  

  
  

• Former Republican Congressman Mark Foley, once known as a crusader against child abuse and exploitation resigned from Congress on September 29, 2006 after allegations surfaced that he had sent suggestive emails and sexually explicit instant messages to teenaged boys who had formerly served and were at that time serving as Congressional pages.
  As this self-righteous crusader Foley should reflect upon John 8:7 “… He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone…”

  
  

• Republican Senator Larry Craig was arrested at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on suspicion of lewd conduct. Craig pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct. He voted to ban same-sex marriage, voted against adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes, and voted no on prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation.

  
  As Craig has relied on Idaho’s “value voters” for his support, he should reflect upon Luke 6:37 “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.

  
  

• We should never forget that Pat Robertson, host of The 700 Club and founder of the Christian Coalition of America, called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. According to the San Francisco Chronicle and other sources, President Bush told two high-ranking Palestinian officials that he had been told by God to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. What God calls for assassinations of world leaders and invasions of sovereign countries that are posing no threat you?
  Those self-righteous moralistic bible thumpers should remember the fifth Commandment, thou shalt not kill.

  
  

To the rest of the world America looks like a morally bankrupt country that will use any pretext and its military power to impose its will upon the unwilling. By allowing ideological Christianity to control American politics and policy, we have compromised the values, concepts, and traditions that formed the foundation of our democracy. Those family values are now the values of a dysfunctional family.

Dr. Wilmer Leon is the Producer/ Host of the nationally broadcast call-in talk radio program “On With Leon” on XM Satellite Radio Channel 169, regular guest on CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, Producer/Host of the television program “Inside The Issues With Wilmer Leon” 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. © 2007 InfoWave Commuications, LLC.

Tips For Consumer Confidence - Dr. Boyce Watkins

Dr. Boyce Watkins
www.Boycewatkins.com

If you wish to see a video explaining consumer confidence, which is one of the driving issues behind the recent moves in the stock market, please click here.

This has been an interesting week, with auto execs showing up on private jets to request a bailout from the government and the Dow moving to below 8,000 points for the first time in 5 years. I still hold to the fact that this is a great time to get into the stock market if one has never done so before, especially if you are under the age of 50. By the way - please visit our sponsor, GreatBlackSpeakers.com if you are interested in hiring a top notch African American speaker or seeking to become one.

Take care!
Boyce Watkins
http://www.blogger.com/www.boycewatkins.com
Click here to join our money advice list.

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If you listen carefully to the words of Treasury Secretary Henry “Hank” Paulson and Ben “Big Ben” Bernanke (chairman of the Federal Reserve) you might notice a trend in their language. The word “confidence” is used a lot when they speak. Many of their monetary proposals are not necessarily valuable for their financial power, but also for their psychological power.

Some of you may wonder what confidence has to do with anything. After all, if you’re broke, confidence doesn’t exactly put money in your pocket. If you’re 100 pounds overweight, confidence won’t help you win the Olympic 100 meter dash. When you are flying on a crashing plane, confidence doesn’t keep the plane from slamming into the ground. But confidence is important to an economy, and one of the most significant drivers of economic growth. In fact, over confidence has driven US economic growth for the past 10 years. Here are some reasons that confidence matters in the minds of Hank and Big Ben:

1) Confident consumers spend money

If you think you might lose your job next year, are you going to max out your credit cards? I certainly hope not. If you are worried about being able to make ends meet, are you going to buy that big screen TV? Not unless you want your wife to leave you. So, even if it doesn’t hold any truth, the mere forecast of a weak economy is enough to make many Americans hold off on consumer spending, one of the great driving forces of the American financial system.

2) Confident companies invest money and hire workers

Investments involve risk. Your hunch may work out, and it may not. If you don’t believe the economy is getting better, you are not going to consider taking that risk. No one plans to go to the beach if the weather man says that it’s going to rain. When economic rain is in the forecast, companies pull out their umbrellas and hold off on new projects. This reduces the number of jobs in the economy, because nearly every job created in America is the result of someone making an investment.

3) Confident Americans do not take their money out of banks

In case you didn’t know, your bank does not have your money. Your money is part of a large base of financial capital that is loaned out to individuals and consumers seeking to get a good return on their investment. So, without investing, your bank would have no interest in paying you any interest at all. So if, say, 30% of all customers of the same bank decide to get their money out at the same time, the bank would have serious financial problems. It is a lack of confidence that could cause customers to “run” on their bank and take out their money.

4) Confident investors keep their money in the stock market

The stock market is a place where fortunes are made and lost. Some part of that fortune is psychological, given that no asset can have a value which exceeds that which someone is willing to pay for it. When investors lose confidence, they take their money out of the stock market, and reductions in demand for stocks lead to massive paper losses in the market. Additionally, most Americans are “momentum traders”, meaning that when the market goes up, they tend to buy more, and when it goes down, they tend to sell. History shows that it is actually the opposite approach that tends to work best.

5) Confident banks make loans

Banks have to keep a certain portion of their funds on hand at all times to meet federal requirements. If they are fearful that their customers might come and demand their cash, they hold onto their capital to ensure that it is available. If they are afraid that their borrowing customers will not be able to repay loans due to a weak economy, they also hold back on issuing new loans. The truth is that when economic forecasts are grim, conservative bankers become even more fearful than the rest of us.

The bottom line of this article is that confidence matters. So, the next time you hear Ben Bernanke give a speech, you can be confident that he is going to use language that makes you feel more secure. Whether you choose to believe those words is up to you.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Finance Professor at Syracuse University. He does regular commentary in national media, including CNN, BET, ESPN and CBS. For more information, please visit http://www.blogger.com/www.boycewatkins.com. To join our money list, please click here.

Will Help For Kenya Come From Native Son Obama

Dr Boyce Watkins explains the meaning of consumer confidence

Dr. Boyce Wonders about Governments Trustworthiness

Black Money, Black Wealth: Investing During A Financial Crisis

What I Would Give Up for a Black President

by Dr. Boyce Watkins

Barack Obama’s voice booms high into the clouds as our nation’s president. But it is also a voice that is sometimes muted by policy, distorted by conflicting agendas and distracted by the complexities of the world in which we live. I find myself mildly disturbed by the excessive celebration within our community, as if winning this political popularity contest has somehow finally validated us as a people. It is scary when the measure of a Black person's success is captured by the degree of favor he has obtained with his historical oppressors. I will never believe that winning the White House is the greatest achievement in Black History, nor was it the greatest sacrifice. The greatest achievements were made by those who worked for us to be truly empowered and the sacrifice was made by those who died to clear President Obama’s path. Achieving prominence on the plantation is not nearly as meaningful as achieving independence.

Before we conclude that we live in a post-racial America, we must remember that many of the men and women who voted for Barack Obama would not be happy to see your Black sons dating their daughters. While we see that the White House has a Black face, we must remember that the majority of our nation’s most esteemed universities still only bring in Black people to dribble basketballs (if you went to college, count the number of Black Professors you had during your 4 years who were not in an African American studies Department). Most of the media outlets you watch on TV are controlled by people who are not Black, yet they consistently impact the self-perception of Black children by bombarding them with negative Black imagery (i.e. DL Hughley's new show on CNN). Most of our nation's wealth is controlled by the descendants of slave masters, with poverty being inherited by descendants of slaves. There is a lot of work to do, we can’t forget that.

So, while having a Black President is a wonderful thing, it’s not the most wonderful thing I can think of. I would GLADLY trade a Black President for any of the following:

Another Malcolm X – Malcolm is likely the most under-appreciated American in our nation’s history, since his legacy is not as amenable to the excessive commercialization and mainstream comfort of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King achieved political gains and Barack gave us the White House, both of which can be taken away in an instant. Malcolm gave us something far more permanent – our self-respect and desire for economic independence. Since America will never give Malcolm much respect, it is up to us to remember that he is every bit as significant as Barack Obama and Martin Luther King, Jr. We should all memorize Malcolm's birthday right now.

10 Black Warren Buffets – my good friend and wildly successful money manager, Bill Thomason, brought up an undeniable point: if we as African Americans do not get ourselves together financially, we will never have true power. America is a capitalist democracy, and we cannot forget that money makes this world go round. Rather than teaching our children to get jobs, we need to teach them how to CREATE jobs. Rather than trying to wiggle our way up the corporate ladder, we should be creating the buildings that the ladders lean against. Wealth is more powerful than racism any day of the week.

An era of enlightened and educated professional and college athletes – The Black male athlete possesses many keys to the economic and social liberation of Black America. Many HBCUs can’t pay the light bill, but Black Athletes earn at least $2 Billion dollars per year for universities that don’t hire Black coaches or Black Professors (March Madness, for which athletes are not paid, earns more ad revenue than the Super Bowl and the World Series COMBINED). The powers that be know the potential influence and reach of an educated and empowered Black athlete, which is why they work overtime to keep them uneducated: when many athletes come to college, coaches pick their classes for them and some can’t even read at graduation. They keep them focused on the bling so they will take their eyes off the prize. These young men are taught like sheep to embrace intellectual mediocrity so their handlers can earn fortunes at their expense. They are granted the greatest power in our society as long as they prove that they are unwilling to use it. If these men were to ever wake up and fight for something bigger than themselves (as Muhammad Ali and Jim Brown once did), it would be absolutely earth shattering.

A Quality Public Education System – Rather than declaring a War on Terror, we should declare War on inferior inner city education. Instead of bailing out the rich guys on Wall Street, we should be bailing out our children who are stuck in the preschool to prison pipeline. Hundreds of thousands of potential Barack Obamas are being tossed in an educational landfill every year, as Black boys are 5 times more likely to be placed in Special Education as White kids (I was one of those boys). This is a damn shame.

Complete Overhaul of the Prison System – If you ever want to see slavery in the 21st century, one only need look as far as our nation’s prisons. There is little effort to rehabilitate, and the impact on the physical health and socio-economic stability of the Black family has been devastating. President Obama and others should confront the prison industrial complex immediately and stop the human rights abuses taking place in our nation's prisons.

Now that people are saying that President Obama’s success implies that there is no more racism, our job becomes much more difficult. President Obama and others must be consistently asked to pull their weight so that we can get a return on our investment in the Presidential popularity contest. But while we expect President Obama to lead us, we must also remember that it is important to lead him as well. The fight is just beginning.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Finance Professor at Syracuse University and author of “What if George Bush were a Black Man?” For more information, please visit www.BoyceWatkins.com. To join the Dr. Boyce Money list, please click here.

Soulja Boy Made Boyce Watkins Boiling Mad

Syracuse Professor Statement on Barack Obama

I recall endorsing Barack Obama back when it was simply wishful thinking to hope for a Black President. During a CNN appearance over a year ago, I mentioned that his backing by Oprah Winfrey would change Obama from being “Hillary Clinton’s black baby brother” into a man who could run one of the most significant presidential campaigns in American history. This is one of the few times when I enjoy being able to say, “I told you so.”

President Obama is, quite simply, the Tiger Woods of American politics: another Black man of mixed heritage, who used the power of tremendous focus, creativity, intelligence and preparation to do the impossible. Like his counterpart Tiger Woods (who happens to be a Republican), Obama went into the domain of White males and dominated in ways that simply transcended his chosen field. Similar to the way that Tiger’s greatness attracted droves of fans that’d never cared much about golf, Obama brought in millions of voters who would never have cared much about a presidential election.

I am proud of Barack Obama for the way he ran his campaign. His choice of advisors and campaign strategy has changed the face of American politics for the next 100 years. He dismantled the “Death Star Clinton Regime” through the use of innovative, daring and powerful tactics, a sound choice of advisors and lots of good old fashioned intelligence.

I am proud of Barack Obama for liberating our minds. For the first time in quite a while, millions of Black boys had a chance to see an intelligent Black man consistently profiled in “mainstream” media. This man showed our kids that you can be a “balla” without dribbling a basketball and a major “playa” without being played. Greatness is not achieved with a football, a hand gun or a microphone; it is achieved with a textbook, a college diploma and a sound economic plan.
I was proud of Barack Obama long before he became our president. I don’t need validation from the rest of America to feel good about whom we are as a people. We were just as great, just as strong, and just as accomplished and just as meaningful on November 3 as we are right now. The presidential election is essentially a popularity contest which leads to uncomfortable tradeoffs and “deals with the devil” that reduce the glitter of addictive political gold. The respect I give Barack Obama for raising hundreds of millions of dollars to get access to the Whitehouse is matched by the respect I give Dr. Julianne Malveaux for raising tens of millions of dollars to educate young Black women at Bennett College. Being President of the United States is not what makes Barack Obama a great man: He is a great man because he is a great man.

I am proud of Barack Obama for marrying Michelle, who served as one of my primary reasons for trusting him. I have a hard time imagining a man who can sleep with Michelle Obama every night and not be influenced by her beautiful mind. Michelle Obama is not a “buppy” soccer mom, Stepford Wife, or wannabe Barbara Bush. Michelle is a super sharp and relentless “sister girl”, who demands the most of her African American husband. She makes the first family as beautiful as Barack Obama makes it strong.

I am proud of Barack Obama for his willingness to take his life and career into the lion’s den. He inherits a terrible economy, an unjust war, a sickening healthcare system and an educational system which cripples our children for life. Like the first Black football coaches in the NCAA, Obama has been granted the reigns of a team with a serious losing record. Furthermore, he must bend and twist to satisfy citizens of the same country that was naïve enough to consider mediocre characters like George Bush and Sarah Palin to possibly run our great nation. I sincerely wish Obama the best as he attacks these problems, and I hope that this brilliant Black man with the middle name “Hussein” can negotiate the balance between our quest for a better world and America’s consistent commitment to anti-intellectualism.

As proud as I am of President Obama, I am also proud of America for showing that it has the ability to choose the right person for the job, instead of the right WHITE person for the job. By choosing Obama, we have shown our capacity for fairness, and how much progress we’ve made to overcome some of our racial demons of the past. The easiest thing to do, however, is to think that having a Black president is going to change the lives of most Black people. The reality is that BLACK PEOPLE THEMSELVES is going to change the lives of Black people and if we do not embrace the power of financial independence and unity, we will simply remain perpetual socio-economic slaves in the domain of a new overseer. The same way America rolled back the political gains of the 1960s, the Washington-based rewards of the new millennium could be just as fleeting.

President Obama did his job, now it’s time for us to do ours. Good luck over the next 4 years.

Boyce Watkins on The Wendy Williams Experience

Dr Boyce Watkins
www.BoyceWatkins.com

I had a relatively awkward experience this weekend during a trip to New York. I was invited to appear with my friend Wendy Williams, host of The Wendy Williams Experience. You never know where the conversation is going when it comes to Wendy, so you have to be prepared for anything. She is, however, one of the most professional hosts I work with, and her 11 million listeners give her the right to call herself the Queen of Urban Radio. She asked me why I parted ways with my ex-fiance (an amazing woman for whom I have tremendous respect), the election of Barack Obama, my feud with the socio-political terrorist known as Bill O'Reilly, the financial crisis and everything else.

Most interesting was that she asked me about DL Hughley's new CNN show, which I've been quite vocal about lately. I don't hate DL, but I feel strongly that the nature and structure of his new CNN show are quite problematic. My disappointment with DL began 2 years ago during the Don Imus scandal, during which he agreed (on Jay Leno) that the educated women on the Rutgers University Basketball team really WERE a "pack of nappy headed hoes."

Sorry DL, but that's not cool.

What made the situation on Wendy's show funniest, however, was the fact that DL was scheduled to be the next guest on the show after me! Wendy joked, "Dr Boyce, we have to get you out of here because if DL sees you, he might want to punch you in the face." But apparently DL doesn't realize that I am actually the second cousin of Muhammad Ali! I was hoping we would not have to take it to the street!

I thought I would see DL in the lobby, but he was not there yet. It was probably best that way, since I stand by every word. Cooning is cooning, and we don't need an Obama presidency reduced to a minstrel show. I encourage DL to be more responsible.

Respect to everyone reading. If you wish to listen to the show, the link is above and also at my personal blog: www.drboycespeaks.blogspot.com. Also, thousands of you are choosing to "get your money in line for 2009" by joining the Dr. Boyce Finance group for money advice. Please feel free to share this with your friends.

Boyce
www.BoyceWatkins.com

Black Finance Professor Speaks Out "Against D.L. Hughley Breaks the News"

Dr. Boyce Watkins
www.BoyceWatkins.com
Hey peeps!
The response I received from you guys on the new CNN show, “DL Hughley Breaks the News” was overwhelming. Within 20 minutes of sending out the email statement, we had an entire inbox full of messages expressing extreme disappointment in CNN and this offensive new show. This helped me realize that we need to do something about it.
Our goal is to present an intelligent, dignified and firm response to CNN, letting them know that programming based on racial stereotypes is not acceptable. Political satire can be quite funny, but it must be intelligent, balanced and conscientious. This is not the brand of humor presented in “DL Hughley Breaks the News”, which went back to the same degrading media stereotypes and disturbing images that scholars and consumers have been upset about for decades. Senator Obama opened the door for us to see ourselves as educated, enlightened and empowered, so the last thing we need is to be readmitted to the asylum of pimps, thugs, criminals and buffoons.
A sample letter you can use to contact CNN is presented below. You can get the contact information at this link. You can also forward this link and email to anyone you believe to share your sentiments regarding how our community should respond to this painful and disappointing new show. If you wish to hear my personal comments on the topic, please click here.
Finally, don’t forget that we are going to “Get our paper straight in 2008”, so if you wish to join our group for Dr. Boyce Financial Advice, please click here.
The sample letter is below. You can get contact information for key decision-makers at CNN by clicking here. Remember: Change won’t start with Obama or McCain. Meaningful change is going to start with US.
To CNN and its key decision-makers,
As a member of the Your Black World coalition, I am writing to inform you that I found your recently released show, “DL Hughley Breaks the News” to be a tremendous disappointment. While I certainly respect CNN’s effort to develop itself as “The most trusted name in news”, I did not find the new DL Hughley show to be consistent with the degree of trust that CNN has worked to obtain with the American public.
The 2008 Presidential campaign represents an amazing landmark for change within our country by allowing an African American male to present himself to the world as a dignified and educated member of our society, an image which lies in stark contrast to media representations confining Black men to being criminals, rappers, athletes and entertainers. I found it disheartening that this progress was reversed by CNN’s decision to create a show which relied on the very same stereotypes to build a consistent stream of laughs at the expense of African Americans everywhere. The show was also degrading to those in the broader community who support the candidacy of Senator Barack Obama, and who wish to see our great country move past the deep and painful wounds created by our nation’s legacy of racial inequality.
We ask that you discontinue the show, “DL Hughley Breaks the News”, and consider a brand of political humor that is respectful to all ethnicities and shows greater appreciation for the tremendous gains made in the 2008 Presidential election. Perhaps then, CNN can regain its status as “The most trusted name in news”.
Sincerely,
The Your Black World Coalition

Black Money: Credit Reports 101"

By Dr. Boyce Watkins
http://www.drboycefinance.com/


Where do Credit Scores come from?

Unlike babies, credit scores do not come from a financial stork. There are 3 major credit bureaus in the United States: Experian, Trans Union and Equifax. Companies subscribe to their services to obtain information about you to decide if you are credit worthy or not. Under the old system, the credit scores ranged from 375 to 900. Under the new VantageScore system, they range from 501 to 990. The new system is more consistent among various credit bureaus, so you don’t end up with scores that go all over the place.

How can I get a copy of my report?

I personally go to a site called Myfico.com, where you can order reports from all 3 bureaus or just one. You can also go to freecreditreport.com (you know, the site with the really funny commercials). The law says that you are entitled to at least one free credit report every year. Also, if you are denied credit for any reason, you can write the bureaus, sending along a copy of the rejection letter, and request a copy of your credit report. If you choose to pay for your report, it will likely cost you about $8 dollars.


What factors go into calculating a credit score?

The factors that go into calculating a credit score are a little vague and it’s protected like the recipe for KFC chicken. While the formula is well-guarded, we do have some guidelines on what factors are theoretically used to determine whether or not someone should loan money to you.

The factors are broken into what they call “The Four C’s of Credit”: Character, collateral, capacity, capital and conditions.

Character is their way of trying to decide if you are a good person or not. I don’t agree with this, since having bad credit does not make you a bad person. It just makes you a person who does not have a good track record when it comes to borrowing money.

Capacity is represented mostly by your income level and how much money you’re expected to earn in the future.

Capital is noted by the amount of cash you have in reserves and other liquid assets at your disposal. If you have capital, that means you can withstand a short-term decline in income and still make payments.

Conditions are reflected by the environment in which you live. It might include the state of the economy, your line of work and other external factors that might impact your credit report. For example, during the liquidity crisis in America, conditions for lending are very, very bad.

Now you know where credit scores come from. You probably have more questions, since there is a lot of ground to cover. To get more information, please feel free to learn along with me and my students by visiting http://www.drboycefinance.com/.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Finance Professor at Syracuse University. He does regular commentary in national media, including CNN, ESPN, BET and CBS. For more information, please visit www.BoyceWatkins.com

Black Speaker Dr Boyce Watkins: Managing Your Credit

Black Speaker Boyce Watkins on CBS: Pay College Athletes

Black Wealth: Bill Collectors

Black Money advice: Bill Collect

One of the groups that was not bailed out during the recent financial crisis has been the American consumer. Congress took care of the firms on Wall Street, but they didn’t take care of the millions of Americans forced to confront the realities of bankruptcy, foreclosure and uncomfortable confrontations with menacing bill collectors. It appears, sadly, that every man and woman must find their own way through this financial tragedy.
Bill Collectors really want their money, like the rest of us. Some of them seem to feel that it’s O.K. to resort to flat out thuggish intimidation to get their money back. That might work on The Sopranos, but it shouldn't work in real life.
Part of the reason abusive bill collectors can have their way with the public is because many citizens do not know their rights. Bill collectors prey on the uninformed in a terrible way: They may threaten to have you arrested, harass your relatives, call all hours of the night, and engage in other types of atrocious behavior to get their money out of your hide.
One woman successfully sued a rogue bill collector after he called her repeatedly with threatening language. The woman, a senior citizen, was told by the man to "Stop with the sob stories and pay your god d*m bill!" This kind of behavior is not acceptable, and bill collector harassment doesn’t have to keep you up at night.
The Federal Trade Commission states that complaints against bill collectors are rising, reaching the highest level they've seen in the past 3 years. Most of the complaints focus on vulgar language, trying to collect more than the amount of the true debt, and extra fees, such as court costs.
You have rights that can protect you from bad and malicious bill collectors. You want to keep these in mind as you work yourself out of debt:
1) There is something called "The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act". If you are not familiar with this document, get familiar with it. You can read it by clicking here.
2) A bill collector cannot contact you at work if your employer does not approve of the contact. Let the bill collector know that this is the case and they must legally stop contacting you at your job.
3) Bill collectors cannot call you before 8 am or after 9 pm. The only exception is if you give them permission to do so.
4) A bill collector can only contact your friends and family if they are trying to find a way to get in touch with you. However, some of them may do this in order to harass or embarrass you. If that is the case, you may want to tell your friends to tell the bill collector, "She does not live here and I do not know how to get in touch with her. Please don't call here anymore." Then, get the bill collector's information from your friend and reach out to them when you can.
5) You can get bill collectors to stop contacting you altogether by sending them a letter telling them to stop. You still must pay the debt, but they won't be calling you during dinner.

6) The bill collector cannot curse at you or use foul language and they must tell the truth about how much you owe. They cannot threaten to sue unless they are serious about it, and they can't touch your 401k or IRA.
7) If the bill collectors call you, you can demand that they send you a written notice of the amount you owe and who you owe the money to. If you do not believe that the debt is yours, you can write a letter to them stating that this is not your debt. They must then send you proof that the debt is actually yours.
If you feel that a debt collector has violated any of these rules, you can contact the Federal Trade Commission at www.ftc.gov. Remember that you are not powerless in this situation.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Finance Professor at Syracuse University and author of Financial Lovemaking 101: Merging Asset with Your Partner in Ways that Feel Good. He does regular commentary in national media, including CNN, CBS, NBC and BET. For more information, please visit www.BoyceWatkins.com. This information does not constitute legal advice. For legal advice, please consult your attorney.

Black Men Exploited by the NCAA

Dr Boyce Watkins Speaks on OJ Simpson

by Dr. Boyce Watkins
www.BoyceWatkins.com

I sat in the airport early this morning, waiting for a flight to NYC. Besides a surprisingly fun trip away for the weekend, I also get a chance to appear on my favorite network, Al Jazeera International. This is no disrespect to CNN, but I have to be honest. Al Jazeera has a great global audience, and the news is actually intelligent. We Americans have become allergic to truly educational news, and have fallen in love with the worthless sound bite. On Al Jazeera they actually ENJOY hearing me as a scholar, and my being a Black Financial expert is not some kind of oxymoron. On CNN and Fox, on the other hand, you are as likely to see a Black Financial expert as you are to see Sarah Palin getting a PhD at an HBCU.

As I sat working on my laptop, I noticed that good ol OJ is back in the news. It appears that White America is going to get what it's been praying for since that fateful day in 1995: That "horrendous negro" is finally going to prison. I noticed the chuckles from the other people in the lounge as the verdict was announced. I listened to my cab driver tell me that "it's about damn time they got that guy."

I clearly remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when the first major OJ verdict was announced 13 years ago. I was walking across campus, and I ran into a buddy of mine, who happened to be a White male. He was FURIOUS, as were the rest of the students on my campus, The University of Kentucky. If you don't know much about The University of Kentucky, just picture a campus created and run by borderline Klansmen for over 100 years that is just now figuring out that Black students can do more than play basketball.

I remember the outrage being expressed that this "monster" had gotten away with "killing that lovely and beautiful woman." Give me a damn break. Here are my thoughts on OJ:

1) I've never liked OJ. I didn't like him before the first trial and I don't like him now. He has, throughout his career, shown very little respect for the Black community, and I found it disturbing that he and Rodney King became symbols for Black civil rights in the early 1990s.

2) OJ and his wife were, based on the evidence and for lack of a better word, "coke heads". Neither of them were the pure and perfect human-beings some of us believed them to be. Those people who think there is no chance that OJ killed his wife need to think twice about that conclusion.

3) I believe OJ knows what happened to his wife, but I don't think he killed them. If you stab someone, you're not just going to have microscopic blood samples on your shoes. You're going to have blood on your face, in your hair, up your nose, and all over the place. I don't think he did it, but I think he was right there when it happened. Whether he was complicit or framed, we will never know.

4) It is not out of the question that this was a drug kill. Again, when people are so deeply involved in drugs, you don't know what you're going to get. Washed up actors work as drug mules all the time, and I always wondered how a man receiving just a few thousand dollars here and there for endorsement deals and cameos could afford to maintain expensive homes and an expensive drug habit.

5) Mark Furman's perjury and the fact that the murder glove didn't fit show clearly that there was reasonable doubt. If you believe in the American justice system, you HAD to let OJ go. It's not about what you THINK happened, it's about what the evidence SHOWS BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT. The concept of reasonable doubt is fundamental to our justice system. Mark Furman alone created reasonable doubt that he and the LAPD could be trusted.

6) The lynch mob mentality shown by America after the OJ trial is nothing new. All throughout history, most Black men believed to have committed a crime were not given fair access to justice. If the alleged crime was atrocious enough, people would hunt him down in the middle of the night and kill him. The remnants of this mob mentality showed itself clearly during the mob mentality exhibited after the OJ trial.

7) If OJ had killed a Black woman, the trial would have not have been the global sensation it was. There is something that lies deep within the psyche of many Americans that becomes frightened and angry over the idea of a big, evil, dirty Black man killing a pure, sweet and innocent White woman. That's just a fact. But here's another fact: Black men are not evil and dirty, and not all White women are as pure as the driven snow. Neither OJ nor his wife were angelic in their behavior, and it appears that there is a reason they chose to be together in the first place.

At the end of the day, the punishment must fit the crime. OJ is not a man I respect. But there is a strong correlation between the treatment of OJ Simpson and other prominent Black male athletes: Jack Johnson, Muhammad Ali, Terrell Owens, Ron Artest, Barry Bonds and Michael Vick. The "Black Males are Monsters" mentality shows itself all over America, which is why the prisons are full of Black men, why Black boys are 5 times more likely to be placed in special education and why my university treats my Black Public Scholarship as if I am some kind of menace to society. It's all part of the same package, and nothing new in America.