Denise_White's Blog

     Historically black Morehouse College in Atlanta is graduating its first white valedictorian.  22 year old Joshua Packwood from Kansas City, Missouri will address his classmates this month as the first scholar in the 141-year history of a school dedicated to educating black men. 

     Packwood could have gone to an Ivy League College, but he chose Morehouse and Morehouse chose him. He's graduating with a 4.0 in economics and will join the prestigious banking firm Goldman Sachs in New York City. 

    The racial divide doesn't feel quite as wide today. Perhaps, as Barack Obama is fond of saying, we can be one America.  

Did you see this little gem. Microsoft  is going to spend 280 million to build a research and development center in Beijing, China. Too bad thats not being done in the states, so those American made products could be sold to China and elsewhere around the world. Its just more jobs going out the front door.

The candidates aren't talking much about sending American jobs overseas and outsourcing right now. It deserves a bigger place in the conversation.

But  its not going to happen in the present climate as the media and pundits get caught up dissecting perceived racial voting in the primaries, or whether Clinton should stay in or get out, or  why Obama hasn't closed the deal given his higher delegate count.

Heres hoping all three candidates can get back to the issues -- and stay there.

And heres hoping reporters will ask the questions that need answers.

 I don't know about you, but I'm cutting back. I find myself organizing my errands so I can get the most gas mileage for the buck. I think about saving all the time. A coworker joked today that he'd lend me a couple of bucks for gas since I'm holding a nickle so tight it would make a buffalo holler. I told him to double that, if  he didn't mind, since gas is almost four bucks a gallon.

My husband, who is already carpooling to work in St. Pete, was checking out the bus schedule the other day to see if he could ride the bus from Tampa. But Tampa's bus schedule is so  lousy it wouldn't make sense. Right now when we need reliable  mass transportation more than ever, Hartline (which is now called Hart) is no help.

I've thought seriously about riding my bicycle to work. I'd have to go over a bridge, but the higher gas prices rise the less daunting the prospect of using pedal power.

    The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld lethal injection. Florida is one of three states that uses this form of deadly punishment. Now that the moratorium is over executions will resume. 

   There are 388 prisoners on death row. Governor Crist has asked for a list to see who among the worst in this lot should die first.  Mark Dean Schwab, who raped and murdered an 11 year old boy in Florida, was supposed to die last November.

   Justice delayed is justice denied.

   Perhaps Mr. Schwab, who had no mercy for Junny Rios-Martinez, should go first.

      Teaching a teenager to drive is a wonderful and scary thing. My daughter is now officially on the road. I'm not too worried. She's a good driver. Its everybody else out there driving next to her I'm more worried about. I still can't get used to being at this point in our lives so soon. I could have sworn I  laced up her white hightop shoes and played patty cake just yesterday. Today she can wear my high heel shoes and would rather play 'finding a sale at Nordstrom'.

     As a parent you have to put more slack in the rope as you ease them gingerly into young adulthood. I am, but I'm still holding on tight as I try to guide her in the right direction. Too much slack and children can hurt  themselves and someone else.

   Theres too much evidence of that. Teenage girls ganging up to beat up another teenager and videotape it to post on Youtube. Teenage car thieves striking any given night or day. Gun toting teens, who should be preparing for exams or the SAT, are instead robbing and hurting the weakest amoung us.

  Perhaps somebody in their lives let go too soon.

    Once in a while as an anchor you read things on the air you wish you hadn't. Take this story for instance.  Its about a new board game thats popular at a feed store in Sweet Home, Oregon and is being sold at Toys R Us and Amazon Dot Com. Its called the 'Game of Redneck Life'. The story reads as follows: Players can do things like pick a career, pick a place to live and choose a car to drive. Players lose teeth through accidents and brawls. After all is said and done, the player with the most teeth left wins. The creator is a self-proclaimed redneck.'

    I'm outraged and offended. What about you?

     Barack Obama's brilliant speech on race and politics was a courageous leap to educate Americans about the complexity of race relations in this country. He exposed the often ignored nuances that exist between white and non-white people. Obama revealed his personal story and put it in a broader context to show how and why Americans are stuck in a racial divide.

  I think he was honest, right and has shown great leadership.

 Obama's revelation makes up for the awful mistake in judgment he made when he didn't leave Reverend Jeremiah Wright's church during the first racial rant. It was wrong, but we've all put up with racial comments from relatives, friends, spouses, children, and coworkers. Haven't we.

   Geraldine Ferraro just did John McCain a huge favor when she said, and keeps saying, that if  Barack Obama were white or a woman he wouldn't be where he is today. Translation: Barack Obama is winning so many primaries and caucuses because he's black. The reason that is so ugly and offensive is because it negates the accomplishments of a Harvard educated presidential candidate who sits in the U-S Senate.

 When you reduce a person's qualifications to his or her color,  you cut that person off at the knees by destroying years of preparation and hard work.  It means that no matter how good you are or how hard you work, you're only as good as the color of your skin.

Ferraro and those who think like her are fooling themselves if they think they're anything but racist.

    At this stage of the game the New York Times should know better than to publish a story implying a sex scandal with no smoking gun. Okay. I know its about alleged 'inappropriate behavior' on the part of Presidential candidate John McCain and a female lobbyist. But it still smacks of sin. I think the Times needed a lot more than a few anonymous sources from McCain aides given today's anti-media climate. What do you think?

   I can't wait for the Obama-Clinton debate on CNN tonight. Be sure to watch and post your opinions on my blog.

Everytime I see the video my blood boils. Have you seen it? A deputy at the Orient Road jail dumps a man, who is a quadrapeligic, out of his wheelchair on to the floor. Its cruel and inhumane. Then to add to the crime, the other deputies who saw it, did nothing. No one moved a muscle. There was no outrage, no compassion for the man. One blogger suggests it was a racist act. The deputies are black. The quadrapeligic man is white. I wonder if that blogger is right?  Perhaps its a hate crime too. Its a legitimate question. I'd charge the deputy with that too along with stupidity, ruthlessness, lack of compassion and  professionalism, gross negligence and anything else that fits the crime.

        The days of old fashioned chivalry are dead and buried.  Money hastened its demise. Consider this recent assault in  Cleveland, Ohio.

        A contractor was remodeling a woman's home  when he noticed something inside the walls. It was a treasure trove of rare bills -- 182,000 dollars in cold hard cash wrapped in newspapers from 1949 along with articles about Elliott Ness and Adolph Hitler.  Appraisers say the loot is really worth a half million dollars by todays standards. The homeowner offered the contractor ten percent as a kind of finders fee. He turned down the offer.  He wants more. A lot more. Now  he's hired a lawyer to get it.

       So much for a gracious response that would have thanked the homeowner for her generosity.  Instead greed reared its ugly head.

    The walls aren't his. They belong to her and everything inside them. But the contractor thinks he can get the money under the finders/keepers law.  We'll see.

Are you paying attention to world events? The dollar is weak, rising gas and oil prices, the mortage crisis, and China may switch to the euro from the dollar as America flirts with the prospect of inflation. And thats just part of it.  

The national and world stage feels really shaky. Pakistan is in a state of emergency as President Musharaff suspends the courts, arrests lawyers, prohibits sales of satellite dishes and essentially tries to crush dissent and democracy. Don't forget Pakistan has nukes.

Iran and Russia are best buddies now as the threat of a cold war looms on the horizon. China is making it clear it doesn't like President Bush seducing its republic of Taiwan with dreams of democracy and independence. Add to that, American outrage over the lead based and GHB tainted toys made in China.

Thank goodness french fries are back in fashion.  The Prime Minister of France visited Mister Bush and now (I guess) we're best buddies again.

Geopolitics is creating new alliances now.  Pay attention.

       Did you read Bill Maxwell's column in the St. Pete Times entitled 'School Integration is Not the Answer'.  He says people 'naturally' congregate by race and so its a waste of time and money to force white and minority children to learn and play together. I'm sure there are many people who share his views. I'm just as sure a lot don't. I'll cast my lot with them. 

     I started thinking about my own journey in this relatively young 'social experiment'. I began life in an all black , modest single family neighborhood in Virginia. I attended segregated elementary and middle schools. Then I was bused to a new high school that  opened to  black and white students for the first time. After graduating I went  to a predominantly white university. I've endured racial slight, slurs and  isolation on one hand. And on the other, made friends, got a helping hand now and then, and expanded my horizons across racial lines.

    The recent rash of 'nooses' to frighten black students, daily slights and injustice does not  mean integration is a failure. In the span of time, the last seventeen years is just a blink of an eye. Racial integration is a process of evolution.

     I'm pro-integration. I'm grateful for laws like Brown versus the Board of Education. It ended legalized racism. I'm happy, not because I felt my education was inferior before it passed. It wasn't. But because it gave me new choices, introduced me to people I would never have met, allowed me to share my talents with them and absorb what they were willing to offer. And I've made a few friends a long the way. It has not been a cumbaya experience, nor is it now. Its about being a part of the world and a wider community and finding my place in it. 

      This planet is not one race of people, isolated from one another.  School is a great place to learn that and life's greatest lesson: Getting along with people who don't look or think like you.  Some learn it. Some don't. Thats no reason to stop trying.

      The best solution is education. The legislature is in a special session looking to make deep budget cuts. Once again the head of education is on the block. It shouldn't be. It should never be. We should be insisting on more money, much more money for education. Teaching and inspiring children will pay huge dividends in the short and long term. We should be throwing money at our educational institutions and our teachers.

    The fourty million Hillsborough county was planning to spend on a baseball and soccer complex should be spent where it would do the most good. Educating students and paying teachers higher salaries.