Opinion: In a Culture War, American Values Lose

Featured at Roll Call

Over the weekend, a group of white nationalists returned to Charlottesville, Virginia, faces proudly uncovered and tiki torches in hand, with a message of division.

White supremacist leader Richard Spencer said to applause, “You are going to have to get used to white identity” — and warned of more to come.

The story barely lasted one news cycle, perhaps because, this time, no one drove a car into a crowd of anti-hate counterprotesters and killed a woman.

What you have heard plenty about, the story that has made ripples and had serious repercussions, is Vice President Mike Pence’s staged walkout at a Colts-49ers NFL game in Indianapolis — a political stunt that cost the taxpayers plenty — because he disrespected several players’ support of equality, justice and police accountability.

And no matter the spin, that’s what the pregame protests have been about since former San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick consulted with military veteran Nate Boyer and decided to kneel silently (instead of sit) during the playing of the national anthem.

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Oct122017 TAGS: , , , , , , , ,

Opinion: The Language of Diplomacy, Democracy — and Division

Featured at Roll Call

“He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured,” then long-shot candidate Donald Trump saidin 2015 of Sen. John McCain’s service and time as a prisoner after his plane was shot down by North Vietnamese troops in 1967. It was a quote that many thought would end Trump’s White House dreams.

That it did not slow the Trump train was a clear sign that something fundamental was broken in America’s definition of what it means to be a patriot.

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Sep282017 TAGS: , , , , , ,

NFL meeting with black women’s groups on domestic violence a ‘productive’ beginning

Featured at The Washington Post

Representatives of the Black Women’s Roundtable said a meeting with NFL executives on Wednesday was productive, and just the start of a conversation. The roundtable had requested a meeting with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell after the league announced a domestic violence advisory panel that included no women of color.

“We agreed to have a meeting with commissioner Goodell in the next 30 to 45 days,” Melanie L. Campbell, president and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and  convener of the Black Women’s Roundtable, told She the People.

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Oct022014 TAGS: , , , , ,

Fans and domestic violence survivors find common ground on an NFL weekend

Featured at The Washington Post

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Though Carolina Panthers fans can’t be happy with the Sunday night thrashing their team took in a nationally televised game against Pittsburgh, they didn’t mind thinking about football – just football. But even as Steelers and Panthers fans exchanged some pre-game trash talk while enjoying a meal in the Carolina sunshine, they had some things to say about the issue of domestic violence, one that has enmeshed NFL leadership and the team that plays in Charlotte.

In some ways, their sentiments were not that different from members of a panel of survivors of domestic violence the day before – both groups were critical of the NFL’s reaction to the Ray Rice episode but grateful that the issue is in the open. On Saturday, at a meeting of the Charlotte Area Association of Black Journalists, three women added dimension to the image of victim. And fans and survivors found common ground.

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Sep232014 TAGS: , ,

Message in letter to Roger Goodell: NFL women’s advisory panel needs diversity

Featured at The Washington Post

Amid the controversy and charges of too little, too late hurled toward the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell after publicity involving charges of domestic violence against players, one move has been praised – the announcement this week that the league has named four women to shape new policies on domestic violence and sexual assault.

But while the Black Women’s Roundtable views the step as positive and “appreciates the fact that the NFL has established an advisory group of women,” it also points out what it views as an omission. In a Sept. 16 open letter to Goodell, the roundtable offers words of praise, then states: “However, your lack of inclusion of women of color, especially Black women who are disproportionately impacted by domestic violence and sexual assault; and the fact that over 66% of the NFL players are made up of African Americans is unacceptable.”

The message to the NFL is “you are headed in the right direction, but you have missed the mark,” Melanie L. Campbell told She the People on Wednesday. Campbell heads the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and is convener of Black Women’s Roundtable, an inter-generational network of women leaders representing black women and girls from across the country. “We want to be supportive and helpful.” Goodell needs to know, she said, that “you have to do it right, and make sure you have a diverse group of women working with you and your team.”

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Sep172014 TAGS: , , , ,

Violence – and nonchalance – in shocking Ray Rice video

Featured at The Washington Post

Ray Rice looks so casual. After he hits Janay Palmer, his then-fiancée, now wife, the Baltimore Ravens running back stands over her, and when the elevator door in the Atlantic City casino opens, he drags her limp body halfway out, walks back and forth, then stands around, even chatting with people who come along. He doesn’t seem shocked. He doesn’t check to see how she is. It takes a passer-by to comfort the still-groggy, disheveled Palmer.

TMZ on Monday released more of the video that the public only saw a fraction of in February. It graphically shows the argument, the punch, the fall and the scene outside the elevator – nonchalance from Rice that is almost as sickening as the violence. Now anyone can view the beginning, the middle and what the NFL hoped would be the end of a controversy that is only heating up.

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Sep092014 TAGS: , ,