Ramblin' with Roger

I’m rooting for the Steelers on Sunday, and it’s because of the 3 B’s: the Bus, Ben, and Bill. The Bus is running back Jerome Bettis, coming back to his hometown of Detroit for probably his last season. Ben is quarterback Roethlisberger, second year quarterback who practically promised the Bus this opportunity when the Steelers were eliminated from the playoffs last season by the Patriots. But mostly I like head coach Bill Cowher who has managed to outlast some seven or eight dozen coaches since being hired a decade and a half ago, a tribute to Steeler management as much as to Cowher.

I have nothing againt the Seahawks. They were the team I figured would win the NFC, and the team I rooted for in that conference once the Giants got shellacked (a function of a too mouthy DE). In fact, I don’t really KNOW the Seahawks. Their coach, Mike Holmgren, is the person I know most well, and only because of his success with the Packers. Yes, I know running back Shaun Alexander was MVP, but he got relatively little press before this season.

I’m aware of what I want to post this next 28 days. For such a short month, it has a lot of stuff to be aware of: Groundhogs/MidWinter, love, dead Presidents, among them. I’m so happy the Oscars aren’t until March.

And (sigh) it’s Black History Month, which is more than remembering Rosa Parks, whose birthday, BTW, would have been Saturday. I’m sure most of you heard about Morgan Freeman concluding that the idea of Black History Month is “ridiculous”. And of course it is. But if you see/read the interview, it wasn’t that he opposed the study of black history, only that it can’t be limited to one month.

One thing I’ve realized most of my life is that the very discussion of race puts some people on edge.
Martha, go hide the chickens! The man’s gonna talk about race!

I hear what some of you are thinking – “Why don’t we all get along?” Well, yeah, I’m in favor of that, except that I just think it’s a lot more complicated.

In fact, the conversation has already started on this blog. Check out the replies to this post. Correspondent Alan writes: “I couldn’t be a friends with a black person because I could never be comfortable around him, because of bad racial experiences I’ve had in the past (I’m 46, if that’s important), and because black people in general seem so easily offended and I would always be afraid I’d say the wrong thing.”

Well, here’s the thing, Alan: if I used the criteria you used – that I have had “bad racial experiences in the past” with white people (and I have, a lot more than I’m going to write about here), then by your terms, I could never have any white friends. Yet I do, a lot of them actually. As for saying the wrong thing, well, that comes with the territory in most human interaction (including marriage, your example). So what do you do? Live alone in a cave? Nope, you just listen. (And I’m not exactly sure what being 46, which is 6 years younger than I am, means in this context.) And FWIW, I really don’t think I’m “easily offended”.

Maybe you should go see the movie “Glory Road”, about the Texas Western basketball team that made history, to understand the roots of anger; it’s flawed in in a major way, which I’ll talk aboout later in the week, but it has its value.. Better yet, seek out the SAG award-winning, Oscar-nominated “Crash” , which seems to be saying, in the words of Avenue Q, perhaps “everyone’s a little racist.” Tonight on PBS (at least in this market), there’s “African American Lives”, a 2-part, 4-hour “Roots” experience for prominent blacks, and :”that’s What I’m Talking About”, a three-part talk about blacks in pop culture, neither of which I’ve seen, but want to check out.

You may have missed the story about the racial-tinged Nazi march in Toledo, OH just last year. Yup, race is still an issue. I find it interesting that it seemed to take Katrina to show that race still matters in this country. I’m not just saying it, it’s the mainstream media such as Newsweek.

And while I’m talking about New Orleans, I found the city’s mayor Ray Nagin’s explanation of his “Chocolate City” comment disingenuous at best. “You need white milk to make a deep chocolate,” I saw him proffer after the initial criticism of his remarks. Certainly he’s familiar with the song about certain cities “going black”, and the purported empowerment that would engender. Yeah, he apologized, but I doubt it was a mere slip of the tongue.

I’m a big fan of a blogger known as Gay Prof, and I recommend this column. And I believe I understand when he says in this fine piece: “Apparently the AP only thinks of ‘racial progress’ as a black and white issue (please picture GayProf shaking his head in frustration).” But GayProf is a history guy, so I’m willing to bet that he would acknowledge the Special Relationship that black/white racial issues have had in this country. And I’m not just talking slavery.

In the 1890 Census, the government was counting people who were white, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, black, mulatto, quadroon, and octoroon. Mulatto was defined as a person who was three-eighths to five-eighths black. A quadroon was one-quarter black and an octoroon one-eighth black, later defined as someone with “one drop” of black blood. And that type of thinking about race still exists.

When Vanessa Williams became Miss America in 1986, some complained that she was black, and others that she, with the green eyes and the fair complexion, wasn’t black enough. Reminds me of the Joan Armatrading song “How Cruel” in which she sings:
“I heard somebody say once I was way too black
And someone answers she’s not black enough for me.”
In Armatrading’s case, the conversation was partly skin color, partly other people’s expectation of what “being black” is. I can relate, big time.

Race matters in this country. Maybe it won’t someday, but we’re not there yet. Just last year, there was a vote in the U.S. Senate apologizing for its failure to act against the nearly 5,000 lynchings of black people that took place at the end of the 19th Century and for several decades into the 20th Century. 85 senators signed on, but the Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist allowed for a voice vote, so that the 15 other Senators, all Republicans, including the two from Mississippi, wouldn’t be recorded as “no” votes. Unsolved murders of black teenagers, and black and white civil rights workers from decades ago are only now being prosecuted. In part, that’s why Coretta Scott King was still fighting the fight nearly four decades after her husband died.

My friend Sarah McCue wrote Farce to Force : Building Profitable E-Commerce Strategies.This is at least her fourth book.

Dr. Sarah McCue is manager of the Information and Communications Technology for Development practice at the United Nations Development Program in New York. She also wrote The Federal Role of National Export Development Organizations and drafted the E-Commerce Strategy for the U.S. Small Business Administration.

I first met her when she worked for the Michigan Small Business Development Center, but she is not nearly as stuffy as all of those titles might suggest.

My former library colleague at the NYS SBDC, Jennifer Boettcher, also a prolific author, wrote a book with Lenny Gaines, who I also know pretty well. It is entitled Industry Research Using the Economic Census : How to Find It, How to Use It (How to Find It, How to Use It). I happen to be a geek for these types of data.

Finally, the NYS SBDC has published an award-winning book called “What’s Your Signage.” It was written largely by my current library colleague, Darrin Conroy. The book acts as an introduction for small business owners to the importance that signage can have on their business. Since 1 in 7 Americans move each year, good signage can make a real difference. I started attending a new church six years ago, and I had no idea where the “Rose Room” was, but subsequently, there was great signage provided throughout the building, which made me feel much more welcome.