Renters vs. Speculators

This article on CNN.com made me think about the nuances of the mortgage crisis a little harder.

I agree that people who bought houses as speculators should not be helped out of those bad investments by the government. Any investment involves risk, and buying a home as a purely money-making investment with a mortgage structured to guarantee that you'll never actually pay it off should count as one of those risks.

When someone buys a home to live in however, it's more than just an investment. The purpose of buying the home isn't merely to use it as an opportunity to increase capital; it's fulfilling one of the basic human needs: shelter. Many people who bought homes to live in via a poorly structured loan would never have been able to qualify for a loan otherwise. They were the vicitims of predatory lending practices, but before that they were the victims of an economy that places home ownership out of people's grasp.

There's another option for people who can't qualify to buy their own home: rent one! And here's where it gets sticky. What happens when an unscrupulous speculator buys a home as an investment, but then rents it out to someone who is not a speculator, but merely someone renting to fulfill the basic human need of shelter for themselves and their family? When the owner is foreclosed upon because they gave up on paying off the mortgage for a home they don't even live in, what options do the renters have, and what rights should they have?

The renters could buy the home from the bank, but many people rent precisely because they don't have the credit history or income necessary to qualify for a loan from the bank to buy a home.

Here's what I propose:
1st step - The bank must allow the renters to remain in the home after foreclosure for the duration of their lease or 6 months, whichever is greater, while paying the rent specified in their lease directly to the bank, as long as the amount of the rent is greater than or equal to the amount the erstwhile owner was supposed to pay the bank as specified in the original mortgage agreement. There is an understanding that after this time period is over, the lease will not be renewed.
2nd step - If the rent specified in the lease is less than the mortgage payment required of the owner, the bank extends the option to the renters to remain in the home for the duration of their lease or 6 months, whichever is higher, but they must pay to the bank the amount that the owner was supposed to have paid as per their mortgage agreement (non-retroactive: just keep up, they don't have to catch up!). There is an understanding that after this time period is over, the lease will not be renewed.
3rd step - If the renters have lived in the house for at least 1 year and have a perfect history of paying their rent, then once the lease (or 6 months) is up, the bank offers the renters the first chance at buying the property. The sale amount is not to exceed the balance of the mortgage, and the regular credit-score/income requirements should be waived. If the equity already in the house is equal to 15% of the current value of the house, no down payment is required. If not, a down-payment which will bring the equity up to 15% of the current value of the house may be required by the bank at the bank's discretion.
4th step - If the renters have lived in the house for less than 1 year and/or have a less than perfect history of rental payments on the house, then they will also have the first chance at buying the property with a loan structured as above, but the bank may apply the regular credit-score/income requirements to the renters.
5th step - If the renters are unwilling or unable to purchase the house under the above structure, the bank is free to offer the house for sale as it would any other foreclosed property.

Throughout this whole process, the speculative/deadbeat owner is cut out: They have been foreclosed upon and have no further connection to the property. Any investment they made in the property is lost, and their credit history reflects their poor investment choices.

So, what do you think? Is this fair? Is it reasonable for the government to require lending institutions to extend these options to renters?

- "None at all."

Options for Florida and Michigan (updated 5/21)

Option 1: Don't seat any delegates. In that case, the total number of delegates needed to win is 2,025. There are currently 86 delegates that will be determined by votes in the remaining states (and Puerto Rico), and 212 superdelegates who have not publicly pledged their vote to either candidate. Obama needs 62 (21%) of these remaining delegates to win the nomination, Clinton needs 247 (83%). (The two percentages don't add up to 100%, because of the 9 delegates awarded to John Edwards before he dropped out of the race).

Option 2: Seat delegates proportional to votes cast and reinstate superdelegates. In that case, the total number of delegates needed to win is 2,208, and the number of unpledged superdelegates goes up to 267. This would give Clinton half of the available pledged delegates from Florida where she received 50% of the popular vote (93 delegates), and Obama 33% of the available pledged delegates from Florida where he received 33% of the popular vote (61 delegates). Clinton would also receive 55% of the available pledged delegates from Michigan (70 delegates), while Obama would receive none, since he received no votes because his name was not on the ballot. Obama would need 185 (52%) of the remaining delegates to win the nomination, Clinton would need 268 (76%). (The two percentages don't add up to 100%, because of the 9 delegates awarded to John Edwards before he dropped out of the race, and because of the Florida and Michigan delegates that represent votes for candidates other than Clinton or Obama).

Option 3: Seat delegates proportional to votes cast, award all "unpledged" votes in Michigan to Obama (who did not appear on the ballot, though Clinton did) and reinstate superdelegates. In that case, the total number of delegates needed to win is 2,208, and the number of unpledged superdelegates goes up to 267. This would give Clinton half of the available pledged delegates from Florida where she received 50% of the popular vote (93 delegates), and Obama 33% of the available pledged delegates from Florida where he received 33% of the popular vote (61 delegates). Clinton would also receive 55% of the available pledged delegates from Michigan (70 delegates), while Obama would receive 40%, representing the 40% of Michigan voters who voted for "unpledged"delegates on a ballot that had Clinton's name but not Obama's (51 delegates). Obama would need 134 (38%) of the remaining delegates to win the nomination, Clinton would need 268 (76%). (The two percentages don't add up to 100%, because of the 9 delegates awarded to John Edwards before he dropped out of the race, and because of the Florida and Michigan delegates that represent votes for candidates other than Clinton or Obama). John Edwards name did not appear on the Michigan ballot either, however, making it problematic to award all of these delegates to Obama, which leads us to the next two options...

Option 4: Seat delegates proportional to votes cast, award half of "unpledged" votes in Michigan to Obama (who did not appear on the ballot, though Clinton did) and reinstate superdelegates. In that case, the total number of delegates needed to win is 2,208, and the number of unpledged superdelegates goes up to 267.This would give Clinton half of the available pledged delegates from Florida where she received 50% of the popular vote (93 delegates), and Obama 33% of the available pledged delegates from Florida where he received 33% of the popular vote (61 delegates). Clinton would also receive 55% of the available pledged delegates from Michigan (70 delegates), while Obama would receive 20%, representing half the 40% of Michigan voters who voted for "unpledged"delegates on a ballot that had Clinton's name but not Obama's or Edwards' (26 delegates). Obama would need 159 (45%) of the remaining delegates to win the nomination, Clinton would need 243 (69%). (The two percentages don't add up to 100%, because of the 9 delegates awarded to John Edwards before he dropped out of the race, and because of the Florida and Michigan delegates that represent votes for candidates other than Clinton or Obama).

Option 5: Seat delegates proportional to votes cast, split the "unpledged" votes in Michigan evenly between the two delegates and reinstate superdelegates. In that case, the total number of delegates needed to win is 2,208, and the number of unpledged superdelegates goes up to 267. This would give Clinton half of the available pledged delegates from Florida where she received 50% of the popular vote (93 delegates), and Obama 33% of the available pledged delegates from Florida where he received 33% of the popular vote (61 delegates). Clinton would also receive 75% of the available pledged delegates from Michigan (70 delegates) representing the 55% of Michigan voters who voted for her, as well as half of the voters who voted for "unpledged" delegates (even though her name was on the ballot! A generous option for Hillary!), while Obama would receive 20%, representing half the 40% of Michigan voters who voted for "unpledged"delegates on a ballot that had Clinton's name but not Obama's or Edwards' (26 delegates). Obama would need 159 (45%) of the remaining delegates to win the nomination, Clinton would need 243(69%). (The two percentages don't add up to 100%, because of the 9 delegates awarded to John Edwards before he dropped out of the race, and because of the Florida and Michigan delegates that represent votes for candidates other than Clinton or Obama).

There's one more option that would definitely be the least fair to Senator Obama, especially since his name didn't even appear on the Michigan ballot...

Option 6: Treat both states as "winner take all" and award all available pledged delegates to Clinton and reinstate superdelegates. In that case, the total number of delegates needed to win is 2,208, and the number of unpledged superdelegates goes up to 267. This would give Clinton all of the available pledged delegates from Florida where she received 50% of the popular vote (185 delegates), and all of the available pledged delegates from Michigan (128 delegates) where she received 55% of the popular vote. Obama would need 246(70%) of the remaining delegates to win the nomination, Clinton would need 118 (33%). (The two percentages don't add up to 100%, because of the 9 delegates awarded to John Edwards before he dropped out of the race).

Notice that currently, Clinton needs over 80% of the remaining delegates to gain the nomination, while Obama only needs 21%. Almost any option that involves apportioning Florida and Michigan delegates in some sort of fair way reduces Clinton's needed delegates to 69% or 76%... not a huge change. The only way that she gains an advantage is if she gets ALL of the delegates from Florida and Michigan, which seems unfair since Obama received a third of the votes in Florida, and 40% of the voters in Michigan turned out and voted for "unpledged," which HAS to be interpreted as a vote that would have been cast for Obama or Edwards if they had been on the ballot. It's not too much of a stretch, either, to imagine that some of those who voted for Hillary might have voted for Edwards or Obama if they had been on the ballot.

I say award delegates proportional to the votes they received (option 2). That's not the fairest option (I think that option 4 would be closer to the real numbers), but it should take away any whining ammunition that Hillary might take into the convention if Obama gets to 2,025 delegates but not 2,208.

What do you think?

- "There's no crying in baseball!"

The voice behind the mouth

Hello, loyal readers,

I recorded another short "Perspective" for our local NPR station (KQED) and it will air Wednesday, May 7th. It's another installment in my ongoing, multi-part, multi-media rant on standardized testing. I think it airs at 7:37 am and again at 8:37 am... but I'm not sure. If you aren't able to tune in, you can listen to their archive of past Perspectives here, as well as my two previous contributions to the program here and here.

-"I'll make you famous."

I love you, Jonathan Kozol!

I've started to read Jonathan Kozol's latest: Shame of the Nation. I love it. Basically, Kozol is tracing the backward slide of American public education into segregation and inequity to a degree we haven't seen since the 1950's. Poor kids (especially black and latino kids) are being sequestered educationally and denied access to facilities, teachers, opportunities and especially money. Sounds like the good old days, doesn't it? I love the way he cuts through the political double-talk that we hear so often that claims that "throwing money at the problem" won't work for the education of poor, urban, minority students. If the rich really believe that, muses Kozol, how do they justify the insane amounts of money they gladly fork over for their own kids education? Their behavior certainly does seem to suggest that at some level they believe that a better education costs more money... or they're big suckers, easily parted from the money, an option which the fact of their wealth would seem to invalidate.

Anyway, reading this book is great... but there's a problem. So far it's just making me angry and frustrated, and I think that's valid. It should. But what good does that do anyone? Complaining loudly about how messed up things are has become something of a national pastime in post-modernist America, and being outraged at injustice has become an acceptable substitute for actually working for justice.

Not to say that it's our responsibility to fix the problems of the world, but here's a little game I like to play in my own mind: I call it "what if everyone made the same choices as I do?" I know that my owning a hybrid rather than a Hummer will not by itself save the world from global warming, or that whether I throw my soda can in the garbage or the recycling will determine whether or not my descendants will have to live in caves underground. But it is helpful to assume that on each issue, the world is full of two kinds of people: those who are making the problem worse and those who are making it better. At that point, I have to decide which group I want to belong to.

Making these choices more about the identity I want to reinforce for myself and the kind of person I want to continue becoming rather than about changing the world is very freeing. It's not my responsibility to change the world, but I can choose to be a part of the group that takes individual responsibility to the whole seriously.

So, back to the issue at hand: how should I respond to Kozol's damning indictment of American education? Here's some ideas I've been thinking of... please reply with more if you come up with any... and let me know how you're doing on following through!

• Vote for political candidates that favor more equity in public education (well, assuming the choice is given, check!)
• Write op-ed pieces, letters to the editor, my elected representatives at local, state, and national levels, and express my disappointment with the injustice going on and my hopes for their moral integrity as one of their constituents (check!)
• Try to let everyone I know in on what's "really" going on with public education, and deciphering the statistics and political jargon for what it really is: a concerted effort to make sure that any available resources are shifted toward those who already have more than they need at the expesne of those who really need it (If you're reading this... check!)

Now, the really tricky ones... the ones that trip up those avowed liberals in Hollywood or the left-wing politicians who talk the talk but send their own kids to the same elite schools as the rest of the rich people:

• Resist the pressure of society to seek out places to live with "good-schools" and assuming that my responsibility to my own children mandates sheltering them from "those people" and making sure that none of the "problems" of growing up as an urban minority have anything to do with me or my family.
• Work in an inner-city, minority school and teach those kids with everything I've got.
• Send my own kid to a public, urban school with a diverse population instead of the elitist schools that my race and socio-economic status hold out to me, and then invest heavily in that school community as a parent volunteer and advocate .

So that's the kind of response I want to have to a book like this. Please keep me accountable when you see my making choices that betray my convictions.

- "Have you met them? The poor?"

Sorry, Florida and Michigan... kind of...

Apparently, the voters of Michigan and Florida are being "disenfranchised" by the way the DNC policies have erased their delegates. People are understandably upset about that. But who should they be upset at?

State party officials were apparently well aware that they were breaking the national party rules when they scheduled their primaries so early. As far as I know, there has been no dispute on this point.

It also seems that the fact that their delegates would not be seated at the convention was also not suddenly sprung on them in the last month or so.

So, the state party officials who made this decision with full knowledge that they were violating a rule that they had agreed upon ought to be held responsible. What's funny is that these are the guys who are loudly blaming Howard Dean and Barack Obama (and others) for unjustly disenfranchising Florida and Michigan voters.

Florida and Michigan voters should be mad, but not at Dean, and not at Obama. They should be mad at their state party officials who agreed to something and then decided not to go along with it in order to increase the strength of their voice (or so they thought) in choosing the Democratic nominee.

What's ironic is that the decision was made to put them at the head of the pack, theoretically to have a more decisive voice in the nomination. With the 2 front-runners neck-and-neck, however, it now seems that the last states to vote will hold more power.

So now they are demanding to be given the last voice, too! It's just politics as usual, but it's still frustrating to hear the voices that caused all the problem loudly proclaiming everyone else to be at fault, and themselves to be the biggest victims.

The funniest thing is how both Clinton and Obama seem to have randomly fallen ideologically aligned with the position which (coincidentally) supports their own nomination. What are the chances? I love hearing them talk as if they're advocating for the poor disenfranchised voters, or for the other state parties who followed the rules and will be less likely to if poor precedent is set... when of course they're advocating for themselves!

Although I guess that same remarkable coincidence is at work in this very post, as I (an Obama supporter) advocate a stance that seems to work in Obama's favor.

That's politics for you.

- "And your gonna become voters! And your gonna vote like your friends do!"

Barack for President

Below is the text from one of the best political speeches I've ever read. Given by Barack Obama in Philadelphia today. (It's pretty long, so don't start if you don't have more than a minute or two free!)

"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."
Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution -- a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part -- through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk -- to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.
This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign -- to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together -- unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction -- towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.
This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.
I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners -- an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts -- that out of many, we are truly one.
Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.
This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough." We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.
And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.
On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely -- just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country -- a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems -- two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.
But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth -- by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:
"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters.And in that single note -- hope! -- I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories -- of survival, and freedom, and hope -- became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about memories that all people might study and cherish -- and with which we could start to rebuild."
That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety -- the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions -- the good and the bad -- of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother -- a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America -- to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through -- a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.
Legalized discrimination -- where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments -- meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities.
A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families -- a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods -- parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement -- all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.
This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it --those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations -- those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience -- as far as they’re concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze -- a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns -- this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.
This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naive as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy -- particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
But I have asserted a firm conviction -- a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people -- that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances -- for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs -- to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives -- by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.
Ironically, this quintessentially American -- and yes, conservative -- notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.
The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country -- a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen -- is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope -- the audacity to hope -- for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination -- and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past -- are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds -- by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand -- that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle -- as we did in the OJ trial -- or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina -- or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation -- the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.
There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today -- a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.
There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.
And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.
Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.
Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."
"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

- "They call me MR. TIBBS!"

Why John McCain is good for America (even though I probably won't vote for him)

The thing about McCain that I love is how virulently the "conservative" wing of the Republican party hates him.

The extreme right has held too much sway over the GOP for too long, just as the extreme left has had too much influence over Democratic policy. The extreme polarization has given us elections where we have to choose between extremes, with nobody representing the moderate, centrist values held by a majority of Americans.

John McCain might lose the votes of the extreme conservatives, but he also has a chance of pulling a lot of independents and even moderate Democrats (like me), who may feel uncomfortable with some of the far left leanings of the eventual nominee (if it's Obama, forget about it... I'm voting for Obama!).

This puts pressure on the Democrats to compete for those votes by fielding less polarizing, less far-left leaning candidates and positions. Heck, they might even be able to snag some moderate Republican votes that aren't satisfied with the radical-right-wing candidates that have been fielded.

McCain is good for the country because it's pressure away from the extremes and back toward the center for both parties. I don't know if I'd vote for Hillary over McCain if she's the nominee. That's something for the rest of my party to think about next time around, because I know I'm not alone.

- "'Well, I didn't vote for you.' 'You don't vote for kings!'"

"They broke the law. They're criminals."

An interesting comment that comes up often when debating the issues surrounding undocumented aliens (or "illegal immigrants," if you prefer) is something to the effect of "they broke the law" or "these criminals." A lot of the time it's used in defense of plans that require them to "wait in line" for citizenship or legal residency behind their countrymen (or women) who "played by the rules" or "did it the right way."

I'm disappointed that this comment is usually left unchallenged. Here's what I would say if that came up in a debate I was having:

"Interesting that you seem to put so much weight on them having broken the law. Let me ask you: have you ever driven faster than the posted speed limit? Have you ever crossed the street in the middle of the block or against the red? Have you ever failed to come to a complete stop at a stop sign? You broke the law. You are a criminal. Do I have the right to demand that you be deported from this country? If you get caught, sure, there needs to be a penalty, but a penalty that is proportional to the damage or danger your behavior posed to the public. The mere fact that a law was broken is not sufficient reason to defend deportation.

"That's all assuming that the law is just. I don't think it is. In the 1850's, it was illegal for a slave to cross the "border" between a slave state and a free state without permission. That slave couldn't claim to be free just because they'd made it to a place where slavery was illegal. The fugitive slave law said that that person would be returned to a state of slavery if they were caught pursuing a better life north of the border. Anyone who helped them escape knowingly was also considered a criminal, even though slavery was illegal in their state.

"Does this law sound familiar? We're trying to pass those laws now! Would you label a fugitive slave a "criminal" and do everything in your power to return them to slavery? Would you insist that they "wait in line" behind the other slaves who were "doing it the right way" and "following the rules" by pursuing the option that some masters held out to their slaves of allowing them to "buy" their own freedom by taking on extra work over the course of decades... only to leave their families and children behind because they were still property? Would you lambast those citizens of the free states who hired former slaves and provided housing for them as "part of the problem"? I hope that in this day and age, the answer to these rhetorical questions is obvious.

"Do you understand that the desperation that drives people to leave behind family and community and risk their lives to travel hundreds and thousands of miles and be treated like a fugitive is the same kind of desperation that drove slaves to flee to the freedom of the north? Do you understand that it is not the lowlife criminals of these poverty-stricken nations that try to make it to the USA, but the most motivated, disciplined, hard-working and inspired citizens?"

I doubt I'd actually be able to make that argument without being shouted down, but it's what I'd want to say. If a law is immoral, then persons of conscience have a moral obligation to fight against it and defy it. The laws that try to drive hard-working immigrants from our nation by treating them worse than we treat our pets and livestock are immoral, and I applaud those immigrants who put their lives on the line and endure the brand of "criminal" to work for a better life for their family. We need more citizens with this relentless drive to wrest a living from their own sweat, blood and tears.

- "A lousy hundred bucks? Is that all my blood and sweat is worth?"

George Bush hates poor people like I hate leprechauns.

Remember when Kanye made that statement at an awards show about our President not liking black people? I have a different theory: George Bush doesn't believe in poor people. Whenever he gets a question at a press conference about the flailing economy, he responds by claiming that the economy is actually doing well and growing and how great things actually are.

At first, I thought he was just stupid. Now, I think he's just insulated. He doesn't know any poor (or even middle class) people. Their very existence is kind of theoretical to him, and his self-imposed isolation from all forms of media cuts him off from the stories and opinions of anyone he doesn't actually encounter in his day-to-day activities.

So when he makes these sweeping tax cuts that bankrupt programs intended to help the poor and instead puts the money in his rich friends pockets, of course everyone he thinks is worth paying attention to is telling him that the tax cuts are a roaring success. From their perspective, the economy is doing great! Then these writers-of-fiction called journalists come at him with a different story: people are hurting, getting laid off, losing their homes... who's he going to believe? The rather self-satisfied air with which he touts his avoidance of newspapers and television media (with the possible exception of Fox news, one assumes) is all the answer we need.

It's not surprising, then, that he's able to dismiss the plight of the poor so easily: they're not real! He would have the same reaction to someone complaining that cell phones mess up the TV reception in the aliens space-station on the moon.

To be fair, I think that Bush is suffering an extreme form of a condition that's pandemic to the halls of political power. Politics is isolating, and the ability to remember what's real and what's important is gradually diminished and replaced by what's politically expedient and achievable. "Seasoned" politicians are in constant danger of believing that political victories that mostly re-label things and create photo-ops are actually changing the quality of people's lives. Give me a candidate that's long on idealism and short on pragmatism. I'd rather support someone in a losing fight for a real solution than a winning fight for nicer deck chairs on the Titanic.

- "Heh heh heh. Ooh, yeah, right, Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal."

The Four Loves (not about standardized tests, Carla!)

Apparently, my 1,200 word, alphabetical breakdown of my take on political issues wasn't "touchy-feely" enough, even though it was a departure from my extended, multi-part, standardized testing rant. So, here's some thoughts about love for your New Year's reading (Very little of this is my original thought, it's a synthesis of really wise stuff I've heard or read (especially The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis) that makes sense to me based on my life experience).

In Greek there are four words for love: storge, philia, eros, and agape. It's interesting to look at the four of them and see how they help us understand what love is all about by seeing the ways that they are different.. but the same, somehow.

Storge could perhaps be translated as "affection." It's a love that is based largely on familiarity: a good example would be the love that young children have for their parents. You may have known a family where you cringe at every poor parenting decision the parents make, yet their kids still smile when they see them and run to them. They still cry for their mother when they need to be comforted, even if their mother isn't particularly comforting. A small child may recoil in fear from the friendliest stranger yet reach up to be held by the grumpy uncle that they see all the time. Think of a dog that is neglected and ill treated by its owner yet still runs to the door with tail wagging when they hear the key turning in the door. This is affection: it's not earned by being particularly loving or lovely, it's earned by merely being familiar.

The second greek word for love is philia. We're used to hearing it translated as "brotherly love" (like in Philadelphia), but love between brothers is probably more like storge. A better translation might be "friendship." It's a love that's built on common interests and common passions: you find someone else who knows all the words to Les Miserables and sings it in the car, you discover that your classmate spends his nights playing the same internet game as you, you catch someone reading your favorite book that nobody else seems to have even heard of. Philia finds people side-by-side in common pursuits rather than face-to-face. Those experiencing philia are not so much interested in each other primarily; it's that they're both interested in the same thing, and this binds them together.

The third is eros, the root word of "erotic," and this is the love that our culture seems to think is the only one that really counts. Eros has sometimes been defined as "lust" but "romantic love" is a better definition. Lust doesn't really want the other person; it wants a physical experience for which the other person is a necessary component. Eros really does want the other person, and not just sexually. It's not that eros takes lovers to the bed and then philia finds them laughing together later in a coffee shop. Eros is at work here, too. Eros is the love that lets you be happy doing anything, as long as the other person is with you. In this way it is very different from philia: where philia finds us side-by-side, eros finds us face-to-face, oblivious to the world around us.

In our culture with only one word for love, it is easy for us to confuse storge, philia, and eros as different stages in the same journey: we start with affection (storge), move to friendship (philia), and finally to the deepest love of romance (eros). A little thought, aided by our wider vocabulary from the Greek, exposes this as ridiculous. The love a young man has for his sweetheart is not the same as his love for his mother, only stronger. At the beginning of the courtship, one would expect that it's actually much weaker than his love for his mother. The fact that his storge for his mother is strong, however, doesn't mean that he in any way desires eros with her. To the contrary, the stronger the storge, the more repugnant the idea probably seems to him. Freud's Oedipal complex falls apart when one realizes that Freud is assuming that the father and the son both love their mother with eros, as if this were the only kind of love there was. Storge allows a son to love his mother without a tinge of jeaulousy toward his father; he'd be much more likely to be jealous of his siblings, which we do see happen all the time. It is, of course, possible for different types of loves to overlap, espiecially with philia. Eros is only stregthened if it's accompanied by philia, and storge and philia combine to make you love all your cousins, but especially the one who's also a die-hard Cubs fan, or to have a special affinity for the sibling who re-enacts commercials with you when you're supposed to be asleep.

So far I've only mentioned three Greek words for love. The fourth is agape, and it's the most difficult word to understand. It's a perfect, unconditional, all-giving love. Storge leads us to make breakfast in bed for our mom on mother's day, but it's agape that's required to sit up in bed with her all night as she wastes away from cancer and retches from chemotherapy. Philia may lead us to take a good friend out to a ball game, but it takes agape to let him have your kidney when he needs a transplant. Eros will inspire us to make fools of ourselves in by singing love songs to our beloved in public. Only agape, however, inspires us to forgive them and take them back when they confess to being unfaithful. Agape is a strange animal. It is, in some way, a deeper, truer love than the others.

Here's an analogy that may be helpful: think of a relationship as a car. You need an engine to drive a car anywhere, and the engine has to be pretty powerful since a car is big and has a lot of inertia. The problem is, an engine that powerful has a lot of inertia itself and isn't the easiest thing to get going. You need a smaller motor, the "starter" to get the engine going. Once the engine is going, the starter is done and you don't need it again until the engine is stopped and needs to be started again. Agape is like the engine of a car. It's strong and can drive a difficult relationship through rough patches, but it needs help getting started. That's what the other loves are for. Storge, philia and eros are like starters for the large engine of agape. They get the engine of agape going, and help start it up again when it's stalled. If you try to drive a car using only the starter engine, you find you can't get above 1 or 2 mph and you burn out the starter pretty quickly. It's not because the starter is bad, it's just not designed to drive the car.

In the same way, relationships that try to drive on pure storge, philia, or eros tend to be pleasant enough for a time but don't last when the road gets tough. Only if agape is engaged will these relationships get through the patches where there aren't the familiar meals and comforts of home that nurture storge; or the shared pleasures of books, music, sports or even gossip that are the breeding ground for philia; or the intimate, candlelit meals or romantic bed-and-breakfasts where eros finds its full strength.

So let the loves do their jobs in your relationships. Let storge, philia, and eros inspire you to love someone, but then don't be surprised when the emotion wanes and the hard work of agape is necessary. Agape requires us to sacrifice, work, and really give of ourselves for the sake of those we love. Storge, philia, and eros may be nouns, but agape is more like a verb: you don't just feel it, you have to decide to do it. Anyone who's ever taken a risk and chosen to give themselves to this kind of love knows that there's no guarantee that you won't be hurt, in fact, it's almost certain that you will be hurt at times. Anyone who's ever taken the risk, though, will tell you that without opening yourself up to pain, you lose the chance at really experiencing any joy, either. We've learned to negotiate our lives so that we avoid the possibility of pain, but we've ended up cutting ourselves off from joy, too. We were created to love and to be loved, and giving that up gives up what makes us human. Embrace your humanity! Love recklessly and generously. Be vulnerable, get hurt, forgive, and repeat. The joy you'll experience won't erase the hurt you experience along the way; rather, love takes that hurt and somehow uses it to create the joy that makes life worth living. Life is dangerous, so love dangerously.

- "Life is a suicide mission." (I cheated, this one's from a book.)