OPINION/ FORUM Chronicle ERNEST H. Pitt PublisherCo-Faunder Elaine Pitt Business Manager Michael A. Pitt Marketing T. Kevin Walker Managing Editor torm Carolina Press Assoc jrucn VEWFICATK* COUNCIL PuDMUwr* *,?? petition UL Conference to mark a Civil Rights Crossroads In 1903 when the scholar and civil rights leader W.E.B. DuBois predicted that "the probiem of the 20 Chronicle Mailbox , P.O. Box 1 636. Winston-Salem. NC 27102 Please print clearly. Typed letters and columns are preferred. If you are writing a guest column, please include a photo of yourself . We reserve the right to edit any item submitted for clarity or brevity. You also can e-mail us your letters or columns at: news @ wschronicle .com . Letters to the Editor Atkins Class of '52 reunion To The Editor: I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Rev. Rueben Gilliam, our president, and Dorothy I Gly nip. inn vii^i president. , for being such great leaders in guiding the Class of 1952 through a successful reunion on July 17 and 18. 2009. We had two classmates to come from California, one from Florida and one from South Carolina. I would also like to thank Annie Hairston. Vera Covater Cooper Hillian and Georgianna Page McCoy for adding their professional touch to our reunion. Juanita Hoover Pitts, her historic prophetic, Robert Carter, his photographic talents. Doris Carter Williams, catering talents. Donald Foster our treasurer for caring for our money. Elliott Brown and Alphonso Amos their frank ness. Blodelia Tucker for her unusually humorous ways and all of my other class mates for supporting us in our 57 years of loving each other. 1 want to thank Richard Gottieb. President & CEO of Senior Services, Dinner by G.E.M. in the Kitchen and Othesha Creative Arts Ensemble Dancers, a nation ally recognized company of African trained drummers vommmmh WISE IATINA WOMAN WOOLDREAcH ABETTER CoNCIUSIONIUANA XWHlTeMAl?? and dancers based in Winston-Salem. Thank you AKA's for the use of Ivy Arms. With much love, Beaufort Bailey Thanks for helping fire victims To the Editor: As a former resident of Alder's Point Apartments. I'd like to thank Dr. Sir Walter Mack for his inter vention and advocacy on our behalf. Without Dr. Mack's involvement, our situation would be very, very different today. Although 95 of us were not members of his church, he lived up to the rhetorical question "What would Jesus do?" Half of us would be homeless and many others confused and uncertain about our future. Joycelyn Johnson, the city's East Ward councilper son. also went beyond the call of duty. While some high elected officials were conspicuous by their absence. Ms. Johnson spent all day. every day with us in the hot. sweaty gym at the Sims Recreation Center. 12th District Congressman Mel Watt aslo met with us on Saturday. While many others obvi ously helped us, these peo ple were the prime movers in helping Correct a terrible situation. Your efforts will be remembered. Claude Carter Invite Pookie for a beer! Julian no Malveaux Guest Columnist I just happened to be reading Dr. Price Cobbs' autobiography as commen tary swirled about Cambridge happenings and the President's involvement in them. Dr. Skip Gates was arrested in his own front yard for disorderly conduct by police officer James Crowley, who apparently didn't like being called a racist by Gates. President Obama correctly said the arrest was stupid (if you can't be disorderly anyplace else, you ought to get a pass in your own front yard"), and then he backpedaled a bit and invited Gates and Crowley to the White House for a beer. Gates accepted, but there is no word from Crowley. What does this have to do with Dr. Price Cobbs' Cobbs, an octogenarian San Francisco-based psychiatrist, is one of the wisest men 1 know. He wrote the book, "Black Rage." in 1968, to attempt to explain the anger that so many African Americans were feeling then about the slights they had swallowed personally and historically. In his new book, "My American Life: From Rage to Entitlement." Cobbs examines his own life and its race matters in context, examining the anger, expressed and swallowed, that so many African Americans felt. 1 wasn t on the porch with Skip Gates and James Crowley, so I don't know exactly what was said. And as a veteran ol police encounters (I could tell you about the time a White man tried to break into my home in DC and because I was "bellicose" and would not settle down, the police tried to arrest ME), my sym pathy lies squarely with Gates. . If he raised his voice, and he says he did not, it is cer tainly understandable. And ^ - ? I PBS Photo Professor Henry Louis Gales obviously, officer Crowley is an arrogant White man who had the discretionary power to arrest Gates because he didn't like his attitude. Somebody so fully disagreed with his decision that charges were dropped before, not after arraign ment. The Newsweek journalist Ellis Cose updated Price Cobbs' work with a 1993 book. The Rage of a Privileged Class. He wrote about the Black folk who were literally seething at the micro inequities they experi enced, the racial slights they encountered as a matter of course. Going to work on a Saturday and being chal lenged by*n security guard. Hearing locks turn as an expensive store is approached. Being followed as you shop. Being accosted, rudely, by a White police officer on your own-self porch after returning home from an international flight and simply wanting peace; Dr. Gates said he didn't yell, but I wouldn't blame him if he did. Class is written all over this encounter. Years ago, there was a Washington DC statistic that more than a third of all Black men had been stopped will driving. Driving while Black is an occupational hazard for too many African-Americans. If you scratch a brother you will find some kind of a police encounter. Being made to get out of the new Porsche on one's knees and White shirt while the tags are run. Having a car torn up. supposedly in a search tor drugs and then not reassem bled when nothing is found and there is no apology, either. Being spoken harshly to, disparagingly to. in front of one's spouse. Remember the movie "Crash ? My nephew. Anyi Malik Howell, a budding journalist at Youth Radio, spent a May weekend in jail because he "resembled" a robber whose description was simple Black and over 6 feet. The robber's footprint revealed a man with a size 1 0 shoe. Anyi wears a size 16 or 17. No matter. He spent the weekend in jail, no apology, because he "resembled." In another instance, he was stopped because his 1986 Cadillac (don't ask) was mistaken for a stolen 1996 Toyota - the police officer entered the license plate incorrectly and stopped him at an Oakland BART station, accused him of theft, pulled a gun on him, and had him in tears on his knees in front of his coworkers. After one of his friends pleaded for the officer to check the plate number again, he did, and abruptly said, it's not the car. Again, no apology. Skip Gates has access to the White House by virtue of his position at Harvard. Anyi and Pookie and tens of thou sands like them don't have access, and nobody wants to hear what happened to them. President Obama was right on time when he suggested the arrest was stupid, and then he reverted to his cho sen role as conciliator when he invited Gates and Crowley for a beer. If he really wants to have a beer to talk about the many ways police misuse their discre tion and then refuse to apol ogize when found wrong, he should reach out to Anyi. Or Pookie. Or a brother who ?lives a stone's throw from the White House and just got pulled over in his new car because race still matters way too much in matters of so-called law enforcement. Dr. Julianne Malveaux is president of Bennett College for Women.