Dear young, black men:

 

Today, many of you are angry. You are angry at a society that has swiftly and vigilantly punished a superstar quarterback for dogfighting, but often looks the other way as a grotesque number of black men die in the streets. You are angry at the NFL, which has punishments some of you feel unfairly targets those who look like you. You are angry at Michael Vick's buddies and criminal cohorts for "snitching" on Vick, noting that trainer Greg Anderson, a white man, sits in federal prison with his lips sealed, protecting Barry Bonds and refusing to cooperate with authorities.

 

Michael Vick heightened the stereotypes of black men instead of eroding them.

 

You are feeling a lot of things -- some possessing merit -- but I caution you not to make Vick a martyr. Do not applaud him for taking his comeuppance like some modern-day gangster. Do not blame others for Vick's predicament when he alone should be held accountable for his actions.

 

Let this historic unraveling be a wake-up call for the young, black men caught up in the same lifestyle that claimed Vick. Let his prison sentence send the message that a continued allegiance to street culture successfully keeps young, black men frighteningly behind in American society.

 

As the Vick case shows, millions of dollars are little protection if a certain mentality remains. Until now, Vick was considered one of the lucky ones. He rose out of poverty to become one of the most mesmerizing athletes of our time. He went from nothing to millions. He wasn't the American dream, but the American reality. He had the support of a city, of a people and he struck a chord with many young, black men because they saw themselves in him -- rebellious, strong and heroic.

 

But Vick let you down. He betrayed you. He heightened the stereotypes of black men instead of eroding them. Racists certainly will feast on Vick, but he was the one who made himself an entrée.

 

You can say Vick was persecuted unfairly by the white media, say we should be more concerned with the war in Iraq than an illegal dogfighting ring or say his downfall wouldn't be a 24-hour news event if he were the highest-paid white quarterback.

 

But it's impossible to stand on moral high ground while trying to defend something so low. Vick did something wrong, something against the law, something disgusting and vile. Even worse, he appears to be the financial backer and mastermind behind the dogfighting ring.

 

I understand Vick's guilt is a tough, humbling thing to swallow because the one thing black men in this society understand is the feeling of being piled upon, discounted and discarded. Last year, several studies showed that American black men are failing at an alarming and heartbreaking rate. More than half of black men in the inner cities don't have a high school diploma. There are more black men in prison than in college. Everyone else in society -- whites, Latinos, women -- is gaining ground, but black men are falling further and further behind in virtually every category.

 

Black men have a history of being marginalized and demonized in the mainstream, so although your rush to defend Vick was misguided, it also was understandable.

 

But now that we know of his guilt and complicity, let's be honest and not use racism as an excuse. Let's not point to Rae Carruth, Ray Lewis and Leonard Little and cite their crimes -- as if wrongs can exonerate other wrongs. Racism isn't putting Vick in jail. Awful decisions did that.

 

Instead, let's attack this poisonous idea in the black community that equates only negatives with success. Surely, one reason Vick kept his circle of friends is because successful black people are pressured into keeping their toxic buddies around for the sake of "keeping it real" -- even though they've spent most of their lives trying to escape the street lifestyle in which many of those friends remain.

 

Of course, what's forgotten is that if Vick's "friends" truly cared about him, they never would have allowed him to jeopardize his freedom, NFL career and family for an illegal enterprise. A $100 million man involved in dogfighting isn't keeping it real. That's keeping it stupid.

 

I wanted to address this letter to young, black men because they fall victim to this mentality more so than any other group. It's not just black athletes facing a crisis but black men, period.

 

Vick was in a position to show that young, black men are not something to be feared. But instead of leading the Falcons to the playoffs this fall, Vick will be among the nearly 800,000 black men in prison -- which sadly constitutes half of the nation's prison population. Instead of wrapping himself in the support he received from millions of fans -- many of whom look like you -- Vick aligned himself with a destructive culture that is being indirectly endorsed as long as some African-Americans continue to make pathetic excuses for an immature millionaire.

 

You may not believe this, but I hope Michael Vick recovers. I hope he plays in the NFL again. I hope his comeback is just as good, if not better, than Ray Lewis'.

 

But mostly, I hope that, through Vick, other black men learn that society is quite capable of gobbling them up. No extra help is needed.

 

Page 2 columnist Jemele Hill can be reached at jemeleespn@gmail.com.

ATLANTA (Aug. 23) - Police said Juanita Bynum, a televangelist who has won a national following with sermons about women's empowerment, was assaulted by her preacher husband in the parking lot of an Atlanta hotel early Wednesday.

Bynum and her estranged husband, Bishop Thomas W. Weeks III, the founder of Global Destiny churches, met at Renaissance Concourse Hotel near Atlanta's airport to try to reconcile, police said.

About 4 a.m., they fought in the parking lot until a hotel bellman pulled Weeks off, Officer Ronald Campbell said.

"She was bruised up and battered," Campbell said. "She had purple bruising around her neck and upper torso."

No charges had been filed by Wednesday night against Weeks, who left the scene according to police.

Bynum, a Pentecostal evangelist who lives in Hempstead, N.Y., has administrative offices in Waycross. The former homemaker, hairdresser and flight attendant got a break when Bishop T.D. Jakes invited her to speak at one of his conferences several years ago. Her ministry blossomed further after her "No More Sheets" sermon on breaking free of sexual promiscuity at a singles event.

She writes books, records inspirational CDs and preaches to millions through televised sermons.

She married Weeks in 2002 in a televised wedding.

 

"The more places you go, the more you see, the more you know needs to be done," he says. "I've spent a lot of the last few years in Africa, and it's a big place, man. And it's like the United States, or Europe, everywhere you go is different, with different issues. It's not just Darfur and the killing, or South Africa with the HIV and AIDS. Every place is unique."

 

One of the things Tucker did on what he calls his "unintentionally extended" hiatus from filmmaking was participate in PBS's "African-American Lives" project, which uses participants' DNA to trace their African heritage.

 

For Tucker, it was a revelation.

 

"We always thought the family had come from Ghana, but it turned out my father's people were from Angola, and my mother's from Cameroon. So I got to go there. We visited this tribal region in the bush in Angola where my father's ancestors might have lived. It's fascinating stuff."

Tucker is quick to point out that he was involved in African issues "before it was any big cause among celebrities," but says he's pleased for any attention the continent and its problems receive as a result. 

    

For years, Toinetta Jones played the dating game by her mom's strict rule.

 

"Mom always told me, 'Don't you ever bring a white man home,'" recalled Jones, echoing an edict issued by many Southern, black mothers.

 

But at 37, the Alexandria divorcee has shifted to dating "anyone who asks me out," regardless of race.

 

"I don't sit around dreaming about the perfect black man I'm going to marry," Jones said.

 

Black women around the country also are reconsidering deep-seated reservations toward interracial relationships, reservations rooted in America's history of slavery and segregation.

 

They're taking cues from their favorite stars from actress Shar Jackson to tennis pro Venus Williams as well as support blogs, how-to books and interracially themed novels telling them it's OK to "date out."

 

It comes as statistics suggest American black women are among the least likely to marry.

 

"I'm not saying that white men are the answer to all our problems," Jones said. "I'm just saying that they offer a different solution."

 

She reflects many black women frustrated as the field of marriageable black men narrows: They're nearly seven times more likely to be incarcerated than white men and more than twice as likely to be unemployed.

 

Census data showed 117,000 black wife-white husband couples in 2006, up from 95,000 in 2000.

 

There were just 26,000 such couples in 1960, before a Supreme Court ruling banished laws against mixed marriages.

 

Black female-white male romance has become a hot topic in black-geared magazines and on Web sites, even hitting the big screen in movies like last year's "Something New."

 

Read the Article in its Entirety

 

In the U.S., race ideology, as a body of beliefs and attitudes about human differences, evolved in the wake of the establishment of slavery only for Africans and their descendants. The invention of race was primarily a product of efforts to justify slavery and the continuing exploitation of Native Americans on the basis of "natural" difference and inferiority. Race from its beginning was a mechanism denoting social ranking and inequality of human groups.

American slavery, which was known as "The Pecular Institution" is distinctive because it is the first system based on race, or innate difference. In many parts of the world, those captured in battle were often enslaved. Anyone could be enslaved if they were on the losing side. But only in America do you get this special category of human bondage. Ironically, that's because we are the first to propose that man has God-given natural rights.

Race came into the American consciousness as a way of expressing social distinctions in a population with considerable physical variation. Skin color, hair texture, nose shape and size, and eye shape, were some of the features Americans used as markers of race status in the 18th century. When Chinese and Japanese immigrants began to arrive in North America in the 19th century, their physical features also became interpreted as evidence of an inferior race status.

What do you think America would be like today if the ideology of race was never created?  

I think that there would still be predjudice, discrimmination, and hatred but not on the basis of skin color.  Almost everyone would be fair game.

What do you think?