A Matter of Faith: Three Approaches to Religion

We haven’t spent much time writing about it yet, but as will become evident as this blog continues and in our memoir, all three of us take matters of religion and faith quite seriously.  Though we grew up in traditional, all-black, Protestant (Baptist and Methodist) churches, each of us has taken a spiritual journey that puts us in a different place from where we began all those years ago. With this piece, we start periodic exploration of our journeys in an effort to convey the faith experiences that have taken us to the spiritual spots in which we now reside.

Who we worship with represents one issue we think many may find interesting, given where we started. The issue isn’t insignificant. One of us views the ethnic and racial composition of a congregation as a defining factor in the substance of his faith.  Another of us finds himself torn between an ideal and the practical when it comes to the need for and function of congregations composed of certain kinds of people.  Finally, one of us puts his focus on the theology of his places of worship, sacrificing undoubtedly desirable demographic characteristics for theological purity. None of these approaches is necessarily “right” or “wrong.”  They are just “different” and explain an important component of our religious and spiritual existence.

Woodson’s Mosaic Woodson attends and participates actively in a multi-ethic, multi-cultural, socio-economically diverse church.  Mosaic of Little Rock operates from a decidedly Christian perspective and its members, by and large, strongly profess a belief in redemption and salvation through Jesus Christ as personal lord and savior.  They present varying denominational histories and, most important, arrive at the church from a potpourri of racial and ethnic backgrounds, widely varying economic and social strata, and lacking the homogeneity typically associated with churches in the United States.  If 11 a.m. Sunday remains, as Martin Luther King once said, the most segregated hour in America, Mosaic’s members opted out of that circumstance some time ago.  

Mosaic’s big tent character, for Woodson, includes a substantive theological component.  He says, “Worshiping in a multi-ethnic church demonstrates our commitment as co-laborers with God in bringing the Peace of heaven to earth.” He adds, “If the Kingdom of Heaven is not segregated, then why should the local church on earth be? Failure to overcome racial division within the church makes us less credible witnesses to the faith.” He roots in scripture his view that worshiping in a diverse church means something real spiritually. He cites John 17:21-22, quoting Jesus speaking to God: “That all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. [22] And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them: that they may be one, even as we are one.”   An adherent of the multi-ethnic church sees joining together different kinds of people in worship as a way of bringing people together spiritually, economically, and politically and, therefore, to bring God to all people.

That Old Time Religion Mosaic, and fast growing churches like it (many Christian denominations stagnate or shrink now), may represent a new ideal that connects different cultures. Henry, however, still sees a need for “a place that offers rest for the weary.” Despite his hope and wish that congregations “care not at all about skin colors or the diverse cultures within,” a need remains for churches that primarily serve the spiritual and practical needs of particular ethnic populations. Given what he calls “cultural reality,” he acknowledges settling for a place called “the black church,” despite his desire for a different world. In other words, the practicalities of race and racism demand the continuing existence of places that primarily serve the needs of a historically disenfranchised group. These churches, for example, help preserve a history too often overlooked.

Henry prefers “to express my love in a place where diversity reigns and understanding abounds.”  But, he knows, the realities of America, even in 2017, do not always make that possible. Ministries that focus on the black community remain essential to the spiritual needs of many black people.  Community service that black churches render represents a significant part of the continuing need for such places.  So, Henry attends Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, an iconic black church that traces its history to 1803. According to Henry, it serves a need and that’s just a fact.

Purity   Rob, for the majority of his adult life, has attended Unitarian Universalist Churches.  He’s been a member at Northwoods UU in The Woodlands, Texas since 1991. In the last few years, as his interest in and affinity for progressive Christianity deepened and expanded, he has sometimes attended United Church of Christ (UCC) churches.  These UU and UCC churches are overwhelmingly white, raising the issue of how much it matters what one’s fellow travelers should look like. Theology, not demographics, determines his answer.  That theology makes God as an all-encompassing concept with no all-powerful deity ruling the world and envisions Jesus not as savior but as a human, historical figure who walked the earth for an all-too-brief period teaching timeless lessons that remain models for living.        

Having attended Mosaic with Woodson, Rob finds that church’s diversity amazing, almost seductive.  Mosaic “looks like America,” to quote a former President. He admires the ministerial outreach and commitment to social justice at Alfred Street that Henry reports.  But, he knows, he could never attend either on a regular basis because the theology doesn’t match. The theology at his UU and UCC churches defines church for him. Nothing about the color of the people in the pews changes that.

So, there are three ways of looking at this. How do you look at it?        

             

            

                

     

One of Life's Inevitable's: Cheating in College Football

Constants exist in life. Some things seem inevitable -- death and taxes, Wyoming voting Republican, the New England Patriots making the Super Bowl, and, until this year, the Connecticut women’s basketball team going undefeated. In the years we’ve been following sports, we’ve seen one more -- cheating in college football. The NCAA recently passed recruiting changes designed to streamline the process and reduce incentives to bend rules.  We doubt these so-called reforms will change much because none of them – an early signing period, adjustments in the calendar regarding visits and contact with recruits, limits on hiring relatives and people close to prospects – address either major recruiting abuses or the culture of impatience that fuels rampant cheating.

The Major Problem   There always has been cheating in college football.  We think there always will be cheating in college football.  If you can’t un-ring a bell or take politics out of politics, you can’t get cheating out of this sport.  That doesn’t mean fans, media, and administrators shouldn’t think about the problem.

One part of the equation involves coaches who funnel under-the-table payments to players.  We see nothing wrong with banning coaches, for as much as three years, proven to have engaged in this conduct, so long as the NCAA retains discretion to mitigate penalties under certain circumstances.  Another part of the problem involves the presence on college rosters of players whose character makes them unfit to represent institutions of higher education.      

Anyone who keeps up with the sport knows about the horror stories like the sexual abuse scandal at Baylor. What people who don’t follow the sport might not know is how close to the line many programs operate by taking risks on players who, before they enroll, showed a propensity for bad acts that predict future problems like  sexual misconduct, academic fraud, and drug and alcohol abuse.  Many coaches, especially in their early years at a school when they’re trying to establish a winning culture, know the risks associated with particular players, but recruit and sign them anyway because they see no alternative.  If they don’t take them they likely will never win enough to get or keep a college head coaching job.

Hot Seats   While athletic directors and presidents claim they want things done the “right way,” college football’s dirty little not-so-secret maxim is that doing things the “right way” works only so long as the team wins 8-10 games a year and regularly gets a bowl invitation.  Drop below that and no matter how good the team’s academic record, no matter how many good citizens the program turns out, the coach will find himself on the proverbial hot seat.

Take, for example, Arkansas coach Brent Bielema.  We all follow Arkansas for one reason or another – each of us grew up in the state, one of us went to school there for a short time, two of us have daughters who earned degrees from Arkansas.  Bielema arrived in Fayetteville in 2013 off a 68-24 record and three Big 10 championships at Wisconsin. He followed two major Arkansas coaching disasters – Bobby Petrino’s implosion in a sex scandal and the ill-fated John L. Smith interim experiment that resulted in a 4-8 record for a 2012 team some predicted would win the South Eastern Conference championship.

Bielema faced a major overhaul project at Arkansas.  Aside from the team’s on-the-field shortcomings, Razorback players performed dreadfully in academics and more than a few couldn’t stay out of legal trouble.  The published indicators show marked academic progress among Arkansas players and the number getting into legal difficulties has dropped to almost nothing.  Arkansas appears to now have a team in which the university and its fans can take pride. This progress, however, may come with an expensive price tag for Bielema.

No one other than Athletic Director Jeff Long and a few other top UA officials know if Bielema really is on the hot seat as the 2017 season approaches.  But, read websites and fan message boards and you can feel unrest building.  Last season ended badly for Arkansas. The Razorbacks finished a pedestrian 7-6, suffering a crushing loss to a bad Missouri team in the regular season finale and an embarrassing bowl defeat at the hands of Virginia Tech, despite a 24 point half time lead.  The bottom line: all Bielema’s progress in cleaning up the program won’t mean much if he doesn’t win more games. Fans and media acknowledge that Arkansas plays in the toughest division of any conference in America – the SEC West – but nobody cuts Bielema slack for that.  It won’t save his job if the Hogs don’t get better soon.

Limits   Many college football fan bases dismiss or ignore the limits under which the program they support operates.  Arkansas, for example, sits in a geographic area that makes it unlikely (not impossible, but unlikely) the Razorbacks can compete, year in and year out, for SEC and national championships without cutting corners on players.  Arkansas’s small population base makes recruiting against Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and the like exceedingly difficult.  Arkansas can develop and nurture enough high character players to field an outstanding team every three or four years.  But, without player personnel compromises, the Arkansas fan base shouldn’t count on winning ten, 11, or 12 games every year.  That hasn’t happened since Arkansas joined the SEC in the early 90s and nothing makes us think it’s about to start.

So, what’s reasonable under such circumstances?  What’s wrong with supporting a program that every year produces a bevy of graduates headed for careers as businessmen, professionals, corporate executives, teachers, coaches, community leaders, and government officials? What’s wrong with cheering for players who stay out of trouble, even if they win “only” seven or eight games a year?  Nothing we can see, especially when the program must live with built-in limitations that likely make doing better contingent on cutting corners and compromising its integrity.  Like we said, nothing we can see.                  

 

                              

Racial Stereotyping: Still a Problem After All These Years

From time to time, the issue of racial stereotyping arises for us, either in the form of a thought provoking article or book or real world experience.  The now widely-debunked idea of a “post racial” society notwithstanding, judging people on the basis of stigmas and stereotypes remains with us and demands continuing attention.

Different Forms   
Racial stereotyping, like other kinds of racial animus, operates both underground and in plain sight.  Some come out and express their view that members of racial minorities, generally people of color are, by definition, inferior.  Others hide their views behind ostensibly race neutral language and attitudes.  Either way, perpetrators of stereotypes harbor the idea of what one of us calls “presumed incompetence.”  This concept rests on the difficult-to-rebut presumption that the work product of a person of color won’t measure up to the standards of the majority culture.  We wrote about this last year in discussing the difficulty black coaches and sports executives have in getting high level jobs in colleges and professional franchises and the tendency of those colleges and franchises not to hire minority candidates if that organization hired one who failed.

In higher education, minority students face a similar challenge.  A prominent black federal judge, for example, recently reported black law students attending elite law schools still experience hostility from white professors who believe them fundamentally unqualified for admission to those schools, despite fifty years of successful black graduates of such schools.  We suffered large and small indignities as students at such schools in the 1970s and 80s.  Despite our hope that such behavior would have ended by now, the problem apparently still exists. It seems the more some things change, the more some things stay the same.

It is worth asking why this continues. Conservatives often claim preferential minority admission policies promote stereotyping. If elite graduate and professional schools eliminated racial preferences, goes the argument, no one would have a reason to stereotype since everyone would get admitted solely on merit --- translated, grades and test scores.  This argument ignores one of the dirty little secrets about higher education admissions – the tenuous connection between traditional admission criteria (numbers) and success in a particular field of endeavor. One study of graduates of a prominent state law school found “no significant relationship” between LSAT scores or undergraduate grades and achievements after law school graduation.

This study confirms what one of us intuitively thought while working as a law school admissions officer.  A small group of applicants looked like sure winners, people who would do well at whatever endeavor they tried.  Another small group seemed headed for disappointment, at least in terms of practicing law and other things people do with law degrees. It just wasn’t possible to tell from the paper record about the vast majority. Which category a given applicant fell into did not depend on test scores and grades. Applicants with good, bad, and indifferent admission numbers fell into each of the three categories. Some studies show admission numbers can predict grades in school, but that is an entirely different matter than actual life achievement.

Some people, of course, see no need to dress up their stereotyping with arguments like the suggestion that it results from racial preferences in things like professional school admission. These individuals just presume minority group incompetence and assign the most derogatory characteristics to group members.  We’ve lived for over fifty years in a society in which overt racial discrimination has been illegal. Three generations have come of age since the civil rights era of the 1960s. We’ve had a black man occupy the White House.  As he pointed out in one speech, black people now own sports franchises, dominate the television production world, run major cities as mayors, and serve as CEOs of corporations.  If all that doesn’t change things, maybe nothing will, but victims of stereotyping still must cope with it.

What To Do?   
Since stereotyping remains with us, what response does it merit?  We’ve employed two not necessarily mutually exclusive approaches. One involves working to change the systems that allow stereotyping to flourish, while the other more resembles one of the fundamental principles of golf – play the course as you find it. Henry points out that by practicing civil rights law, advocating for minority rights in various contexts, and supporting organizations that fight prejudice and discrimination, he sought to affect change and demonstrate that blacks and other historically out groups are not presumptively incompetent. He organized his law school life, law practice, and professional career around those principles. Similarly, Woodson obtained major political appointments, became active in civic and professional organizations, and generally sought to place himself in positions where he could exert influence on the broader community.  He designed his activities to change institutions and make them more receptive to minority group participation. 

Rob, however, never believed he could achieve significant societal change and focused on scaling the roadblocks stereotyping placed in his path, in other words, playing the course as he found it.  His focus remained on surmounting the obstacles presented by stereotyping by working each and every day to be a better broadcaster, a more efficient administrator, and to write better briefs as a lawyer. This approach, as we note, is not mutually exclusive with a change-centered focus, but it does offer a different emphasis.                        

As we’ve said, stereotyping has survived revolutions during our lifetime. Objective disproof of presumed incompetence has not eliminated stereotyping. The way individuals in historically out groups deal with it varies by personal choice and attitude. Since it’s not going away, anyone who may confront it will need to pick one of our approaches or decide on others. Ideas?

   

                    

                        

      

The Impeachement of Trump: History and Two Views

The United States constitution provides for impeachment and conviction, resulting in removal from office, of a President for “High Crimes and Misdemeanors.”  The three of us agree the issue of impeaching President Donald Trump will arise. Enough of Trump’s actions present questions of illegality and/or impropriety that the matter will come up.  We don’t agree on when and how it might happen. Woodson says impeachment will occur within the first year of his presidency. Henry and Rob are not sure it will happen.

Recent History  
The two recent impeachment cases involving Richard Nixon in 1974 and Bill Clinton in 1998 raise questions related to what might bring about Trump’s impeachment and when. Nixon faced a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress, but he could have avoided conviction if enough Senate Republicans had stayed with him, since conviction requires a two-thirds vote. Republican control of both the House and Senate, at least until the 2018 elections, represents a major obstacle to impeaching Trump. The effort to remove Clinton never had much chance because, though passage of a resolution by the House was not in doubt, hardly anyone believed the Senate would convict.  Similarly, Trump can survive as long as 34 Republican senators stick with him.

One View   
Having acknowledged the history and the potential difficulty of removing Trump from office, Woodson still believes it will happen within the next year.  He says, “Donald Trump’s behavior is more egregious than the behavior of either Nixon or Clinton. Donald Trump is a Kleptocrat.  We are less than 60 days into his presidency and already his choice for National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, has resigned under a cloud of treasonous suspicion for working as a foreign agent while serving in the Trump administration.  I think Trump knew. I think it will be proven that the Trump campaign staff was in collusion with the Russians in the 2016 Presidential election. I think Trump knew. Trump has been involved with the construction of a hotel in a foreign country that was partly financed by the Iranian Revolutionary Army, when Iran was declared a terrorist state.  I think Trump knew." 

"Trump has done dirty business with members of the Russian oligarchy, in one instance selling a property to one oligarch for 100 million dollars that Trump had just purchased for 40 million dollars.  No property appreciates in value that fast.  His daughter, Ivanka, and son- in- law Jared Kushner, continue to do business with foreign countries while sitting in on foreign policy meetings with Trump.  I think Trump is certain to be found guilty of running afoul of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, both prior to and during his presidency.  Trump’s denigration of democratic institutions – the federal judiciary, federal judges, investigative agencies, and a free press – has already injured the foundation of this democracy and major western democracies around the world."

“It is just a matter of time before the few statesmen that we have left in Congress – Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Lindsey Graham, and John McCain – will decide that the future of democracy as we know it is at risk and decide to do something about it.  They will have to wait a little while longer, for public opinion to turn, before they can act. But, act they will. Trump’s assault on the ACA and health care, to the detriment of his base, will certainly hasten the deterioration of his popularity with his base.  As of this writing, his disapproval rating is at 54% and climbing.  Sure, Republicans will have to abandon their hopes of passing much of the legislation that they have waited years to pass.  But it will become increasingly clear to them that the choice is between a short term goal of getting a Republican agenda passed and preserving democracy. I am betting that the choice will be to preserve democracy.”

Different Views   
Henry and Rob don’t see it that way, despite how much they’d like to see Woodson’s prediction of a year one impeachment come true.  Rob, for example, holds out some hope Democrats can win back the House in 2018, giving them the levers of power in the lower chamber. If that happened, an impeachment resolution theoretically could get out of committee in 2019.  With a Democratic majority, it might pass. If Trump’s bad acts are serious enough, his support in the Senate could collapse, as Nixon’s did, with Republican senators scurrying to save their own skins instead of going down with a sinking ship.  They would have to calculate that doing otherwise would assure their own political destruction.  Rob can at least see this scenario after 2018, if a lot of things come together.

Henry sits back with some amusement, and angst, at this and concludes that while Trump will do something (or already has and we don’t know about it yet) meriting impeachment, the odds are just too long. The congressional math doesn’t add up and probably won’t before most of America concludes that finding the right candidate to run against Trump in 2020 represents a better use of time, energy, and resources than trying to impeach him.  Henry also thinks too many people “put two and two together and get five,” meaning Trump’s disinformation campaign has succeeded well enough that he can hold onto sufficient public support to stay in office until the electorate kicks him out the old fashioned way.

Your turn.

  

             

The Trump Voters: A Pox on Their Houses?

One of us heard a National Public Radio report of a situation that raised the question of how to look at Trump voters who may suffer because of his polices. We found we couldn’t speak collectively because we see the answer to the question differently.

One doctor lost   
The NPR story involved a hospital in an unnamed rural Georgia county which, well before Trump’s travel ban, hired a doctor from one of the affected, predominately Muslim countries.  Because of the travel ban, the doctor couldn’t get to the United States. With the intervention of the courts, the matter likely got straightened out and no long term harm resulted, but in the situation we found an ethical issue.

The doctor hired might have been the only one available to that rural community for a while. That has political implications because a not insignificant number of the people the doctor would serve likely voted for Trump. After all, he won many rural Georgia counties by 2-1 or better.

Rob, in particular, hasn’t been shy about expressing his disdain for Trump or about casting aspersions on the motives of his voters, believing many voted for him out of mean-spirited hostility toward America’s changing demographics and fear of immigrants, Muslims, and people of color generally. He wants Trump out, and has dared hope some who voted for him experience hardships as a result of his policies and, therefore, turn against him. This reap-what-you-sowed outlook may seem cruel, even unpatriotic, but people opposed to Trump think and say it. That came to mind with the report about the Georgia community that might lose its doctor as a result of this President’s harsh immigration policies.

Woodson and Henry hold similar disdain for Trump and harbor suspicions about the motives of some Trump supporters, particularly self-described Tea Party adherents. Woodson, in particular, believes Trump won partly because the prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency so failed to appeal to voters concerned about the threat posed to their jobs by trade agreements and technology. Polls show a number of Trump voters, especially in the decisive states in the upper Midwest, twice supported Barak Obama.  These voters may not have seen a choice between Clinton and Trump in the same stark terms we did, so wishing a pox on their houses seems unfair.        

Ethics, morality, spirituality   At a basic level, is there ever a justification for wishing ill on fellow humans because of political differences? Henry, in particular, finds no justification for that.  Scripture (1 Peter 3:8) reminds us that compassion requires “Not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary blessing, knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing.”  

Rob acknowledges the righteousness of that view, but still sees ways in which ethics and morality demand a different response.  If Trump’s policies will ultimately do the nation maximum harm, doesn’t that justify whatever would get rid of them, and him, quickest? Might not more people suffer from continuing Trump’s policies into a second term? If so, the sooner Americans realize their mistake, however they come to that understanding, the sooner the country rids itself of him.

Woodson disdains this view because it operates from an ethically questionable ends-justifies-the-means philosophy and Henry largely shares his concern.  Republicans, they remind us, employed this approach in their unsuccessful effort to assure Barack Obama’s failure as President. Putting party over principle hurt the country and, whatever its political benefit, amounted to a failure of leadership.                           

Senators in Turmoil    Senate Democrats face this dilemma every day in deciding how to vote on confirmation of Trump’s appointees, many of them unqualified advocates of dastardly policies opposed to every value those senators were elected to advance.  A few Trump nominees merit the office they would hold and could do the country good.  But some in the Democratic base want their senators to oppose every Trump nominee on general principle and threaten retaliation against those who don’t take that approach.

So what’s right? Adhere to your political desires and wish ill on Trump supporters, despite ethical, moral, and spiritual qualms or take the high road, knowing that failing to oppose Trump’s policies may result in their continuation to the detriment of even more people?  Vote for the good nominee knowing that person may do well and make it more likely Trump remains in office? Oppose them all on general principle, no matter the individual merits? Woodson and Henry believe Democrats should strongly oppose Trump when they think he’s wrong, but support him when they think he’s right, viewing each nominee and situation individually. They see that as leadership.

Rob ends up conflicted about this. For him, both positions come with high costs and neither satisfies.  The moral high ground runs the risk of making Trump’s path easier. Regressing to pettiness arguably compromises basic values, but perhaps makes an early Trump exit more likely. He thinks Trump may have changed the rules, making dealing with him as a normal political leader with whom one disagrees not possible. In other words, isn’t Trump an outlier requiring an extraordinary response?

Woodson and Henry are not conflicted. They see moral leadership as good politics and point to the moral authority of leaders like King, Gandhi, and Mandela.  The power of their moral authority ultimately led to victory in the struggles they led. They point to King’s often quoted observation that the “moral arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.”

This isn’t an easy issue.  We don’t see it the same way. What do you see?             

We Are Parents - First: Or, How Our Kids Turned out Fine Despite Us

To date, we’ve devoted most of our attention in this blog to race, politics, and sports. We’ll have more to say on those subjects as time goes on. Believe it or not, however, we care about other things and it’s time we explored some of them.

First and foremost, being parents has defined our lives. Though our children have reached adulthood, we remain involved in their lives. We still try to “be there” for them and help when we can, particularly by sharing the knowledge we’ve paid so dearly for in the form of our own mistakes. Though some of our parents withdrew from taking intimate roles in our lives once we left home, we’ve chosen a different path.

Admittedly, cell phones, e-mail, and social media make staying in touch with our children easier as they’ve spread out across the country.  Even if it wasn’t so easy, however, we’re convinced remaining involved in our children’s lives, without meddling, offers significant rewards for us and them.  To date they’ve welcomed our involvement and we’re confident if we get overbearing about it, they’re independent-minded enough to tell us to back off.       

Our Children   
Between us, we raised 13 children.  There are, therefore, 13 stories. We won’t claim to have gotten it right with each and every one, but we can say this:  within their individual limits as people, all 13 are solid, respectable citizens who contribute to society and their communities as best they can.  They all enjoy reasonably well-balanced existences that bring them the highs and lows that go with living in America today. Eight have baccalaureate degrees, three are nearing one, and four have professional or graduate degrees. Yes, we’re proud of them and, we think, for good reason.        

We should note that their family stories diverge considerably because the marital and relationship histories of their fathers vary so much. They grew up in different kinds of families.  One of us, Woodson, has survived and thrived through 46 years of marriage to the same woman.  His five children, therefore, came of age in the stability and security of a two-parent household.

Rob and Henry, and their children, lived different lives.  Both married young, but experienced divorce.  They parented a total of eight children and held together blended families. Rob and his children endured the death of a spouse, mother, and stepmother. 

Gifts We Gave   
Though our children traveled different family paths to adulthood, we tried to give each of them, regardless of what else might have been happening in our lives, four treasures:  unconditional love, emotional support, financial stability, and a moral compass.  We didn’t always succeed. We know we made our share of parenting mistakes.  We’re often tempted to regret our failures, but as one of our wives once said, “You don’t get to do this over, but you do get to do it better.” That’s such good advice that it has helped us decide to stay involved with our children and do better in the process.

We find discussing these concepts difficult because of their subjectivity and the fact they defy easy description.  We would never, for example, try to define how a parent gives a child unconditional love.  We certainly wouldn’t try to tell another parent how to give it.  We try to make our children see what they mean to us, to let them know through words and deeds how much they remain a priority for us. Beyond that, we can’t say much, except that if we tried we’d have to say a lot.

Emotional support meant, in our children’s younger years, helping with homework and attending countless football, baseball, and basketball games, soccer matches, dance recitals, art festivals, school plays, and swim meets, as well as offering a shoulder to cry on when somebody wasn’t properly impressed with the prom dress. Today, emotional support may mean career advice that respects professed desires and objectives, yet remains grounded in our real world experience.

Assuring financial stability meant late nights, meeting deadlines, and enduring demanding clients. It also included doing without things we wanted for ourselves. Today, we focus on teaching financial literacy.

Providing a moral compass didn’t necessarily mean the same thing to each of us, given differing ideas about methods of discipline, religion, and sexual morays.  Each of us, however, stood by the conviction that we wanted our children to seek and work for a just and peaceful world, treat others with dignity and respect, and eschew violence if at all possible. As a result, we are confident they all now treat their fellow human beings civilly and compassionately.

Parenting isn’t a science. No assurance exists of getting out of it what goes into it.  We each know parents who did everything right, and more, yet ended up with children who did not turn out as the parents hoped. We understand just how much uncertainty attends parenting. Our experience, however, teaches that adhering to basic principles makes a positive outcome more likely.  The fact we’ve decided to stay involved in our children’s lives as adults and they, so far at least, welcome that involvement, indicates the wisdom of the path we’ve followed.                                 

  

       

Hidden Figures and the Super Bowl: The Skewed Relationship Between Black Athletes and Black Academic Performance

Along with 111 million other Americans, we watched the Super Bowl Sunday. Depending on your perspective, it ranked as a classic because of New England’s historic comeback or as a colossal disaster because of Atlanta’s unprecedented meltdown.

 A Movie   The first month of 2017 we’ve been as enthralled by a movie as we normally are by football.  Hidden Figures chronicles the “colored computers” – African American women who worked as mathematicians for NASA, helping plot trajectories for the early Project Mercury flights.  What does the movie have to do with the Super Bowl?  A lot, we think. Though the three of us disagree about some implications of this determination, none of us doubt the tie or the importance of the issues it raises.

The player introductions demonstrated the on-field black dominance of pro football. Each team’s starting 22 included 14 African-American players.  That dominance extends into the college ranks. Clemson’s national championship football team featured ten African-American starters on defense and six on offense.  In basketball, black players comprise 75% percent of National Basketball Association rosters and the best college teams aren’t different.

Woodson and Henry contend that African-American success in athletics results from the investment society makes in athletic facilities, financial rewards for coaches, and junior college alternatives for athletes not ready to play at major colleges.  They argue that similar investment in African-American scholastic endeavors would produce similar results, an assertion Rob contests because he sees the academic and athletic structures as too different to draw such a conclusion without more evidence than we have.  

Facts and Figures   This racial composition of sports teams leads us to the Hidden Figures analogy.  African Americans do not come close to similar academic performance. In a 2013 study, for example, 81% of white 12^th graders scored better than the average African American 12^th grader in math and 78% of white 12th graders scored better than the average African American 12^th grader in reading.

 This, we stress, is not about deemphasizing sports in school or society. We do not attack youth sports programs.  Our children benefitted greatly from participating in athletics.  Sports programs serve a useful purpose in developing young people, including youth from families historically lacking in educational achievement.

The movie, however, makes us ask how the United States can produce more minds like the spectacular ones in Hidden Figures, as well as better educate the masses. African Americans, like the women in Hidden Figures, continue to excel at the highest levels in many fields. The hidden figures remain with us.  But the nation must also confront how to raise achievement levels of all students.     

One thing we know works and a debate   While we don’t underestimate the role of poverty in the educational achievement gap, evidence abounds that parental and adult support make a huge difference in the development of young minds. Before we reach the issue of government funding for public education, we emphasize that educational achievement starts with parental/adult involvement and support for the individual student. That support runs the gamut from simple encouragement to helping with homework to tutoring to parent-teacher contact. Parental involvement lifts mediocre schools and makes good schools great.

Despite consensus on that point, we differ on a related issue. Woodson and Henry contend that institutional racism plays a predominant role in limiting African American academic achievement. They point to essentially abandoned public schools that have become little more than prison pipelines and where the war on drugs often serves as a vehicle for criminalizing young men of color, creating a culture of hopelessness.  Rob acknowledges that such racism exists, but argues that his colleagues put too much responsibility on it, giving blacks a pass for their academic failings.    

 Leaving aside political debates about “taxing and spending” and mind numbing battles over “school choice,” most people who’ve thought about this understand the need to better fund public education. We acknowledge both sides of the arguments about teacher pay and the role of teacher unions. Experts disagree about why some things work in education and others don’t. Still, given America’s middling standing among developed nations in student achievement, doesn’t it make sense to resolve our differences over these process issues and find a way to better educate young people?

We believe education can help solve many of the nation’s economic and racial problems.  The days of a high school diploma automatically leading to a middle class income are going fast and won’t come back.  As Tom Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum demonstrated so well in their 2011 book That Used to be Us, increasingly, the ability to earn a good living depends on understanding mathematics, science, and business and possessing critical thinking skills, not making things with your hands.   An educated populace, equipped with superior analytical and critical thinking skills, we think, might also give us a better chance of breaking through our never ending racial discord.

Inspiration   The Hidden Figures women should inspire all Americans and African Americans in particular.  Rob asks that if they could do what they did, given the obstacles and handicaps under which they worked, what excuse do blacks have for not equaling or exceeding their accomplishments in a much different world, one with many fewer legal and institutional barriers to success?  As he sees it, no one now must petition a judge to get into engineering school, as Mary Jackson had to.  No one must sneak a book out of a public library to learn computer programming like Dorothy Vaughn, and no accomplished mathematician like Katherine Johnson has to run to a different building to use a rest room.

Woodson and Henry, however, argue that obstacles African Americans face today present at least as much of a challenge as those in Hidden Figures.  They point to loss of control of public schools and the exodus of the African American middle class to the suburbs brought about by desegregation, creating an underclass trapped in failing inner city schools and devastated by a mean spirited war on drugs.  They assert investment of more money in education (and less in prisons), with the laser focus currently reserved for athletics, would produce the kind of success African-Americans enjoy in sports.  Rob challenges this position, contending, again, that the arenas differ too much to justify such a conclusion.       

Despite some differences in philosophy, we agree communities of color need a new emphasis on education. Success in sports and academics is not mutually exclusive.  Hidden Figures and the Super Bowl provide examples equally worthy of emulation.