C(pjj
c^w
DflUl7 l;2/0:i/09
SERIALS DEPARTMENT
DAVIS LIBRARY CB#
UMC-CHAPEL HILL
CHAPEL HILL
**CHILL
5938
\ J:
Michael’s Shortcomings in No
Way Equaled His Strengths
The North Carolina Legislative Black Caucus Foundation, Inc held its 23rd annual Education Scholar
ship Weekend June 19-20 at the at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel and Convention Center, Research Triangle
Park. From left to right are NCCU Chancellor Charlie Nelms; Erskine Bowles president of the multi
campus University of North Carolina ; Rep. H.M. “Mickey” Michaux-Durham; and Rep. Alma Adams-
Guilford, chair of the Legislative Black Caucus. See photos on page 2. (Photo by Lawson)
Republicans: Will Sotomayor
uphold Constitution?
By Laurie Kellman
WASHINGTON (AP) _ Senate Republicans on June 23 unveiled a new narrative ahead of Sonia Sotomayor’s
confirmation hearings, questioning her commitment to constitutional guarantees on the right to keep and bear
arms and equal treatment under the law regardless of race or gender.
The senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee even questioned whether Sotomayor sufficiently
opposes terrorism, citing what he said was the “extensive work” she had done for a group formerly named the
Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. If confirmed, Sotomayor would be the first Hispanic Supreme
Court justice.
“This is a group that has taken some very shocking positions with respect to terrorism,” Sen. Jeff Sessions of
Alabama said.
Sessions said the group, now called Latino Justice PRLDEF, in 1990 came to the defense of Puerto Rican
nationalists who 36 years earlier had wounded five lawmakers during an attack on the House while It was in ses
sion.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont said PRLDEF is a mainstream group modeled on
the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. . The National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People used its legal defense group to file lawsuits to bar racial discrimination.
In multiple public and private speeches June 23, Republican senators began weaving a few select themes
through their remarks and stepped carefully around others that could alienate constituencies Sotomayor repre
sents. Without enough votes to filibuster or stop Sotomayor’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, Republicans
have few tools even to slow it down.
The Republican messaging from now through the confirmation hearings beginning July 13 includes issues
popular among conservatives: Sotomayor’s commitment to Second Amendment gun rights, her opinions on
whether the Fifth Amendment protects against public taking of property without just compensation and on the
equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
Sotomayor worked with the legal defense and education fund in 1990 when New York Mayor David Dinkins
called the nationalist attackers “assassins,” and a Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund official said
Dinkins’ terminology was insensitive.
“The president of the organization continued explaining, that for many people in Puerto Rico, these men were
fighters for freedom and justice,” Sessions said June 23. “So, I wonder if she agreed with that statement and if she
agreed that the mayor of New York’s comments were insensitive?”
Republicans said they have clarified their strategy in recent days by documents Sotomayor has turned over to
the Judiciary Committee in advance of her confinnation hearings. But it was clear that with only seven Repub
licans on the 18-member panel and Hispanics and women already wary of Republicans, the party needs to tread
carefully with any outright criticism of the first Latina nominated to the high court.
Democrats and Sotomayor supporters, meanwhile, scoffed at the notion that Republicans could stop or slow
Sotomayor on substantive grounds, given her American dream background. Ivy League education and record as
a federal judge.
“It has become clearer and clearer as we look at her record and vast experience that attacking this nominee
IS like throwing rocks at a library,” said Sen. Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat. “It’s uncalled for and it
doesn’t accomplish anything. Her opponents are grasping at straws.”
“There’s only one thing that can stop her and that is politics,” said Art Acevedo, chief of police in Austin,
Texas, and president of the National Latino Peace Officers Association, which endorsed Sotomayor on June 23.
But Republicans said they had substantive questions for Sotomayor.
Texas Sen. John Comyn, a member of the Judiciary Committee and chairman of the Republican Senate cam
paign committee, said he wants to know more about “whether Americans can count on her to uphold one of the
fundamental liberties enshrined in the bill of rights: The right to keep and bear arms.”
From the Second Amendment, Comyn said he would move on to the Fifth whether the government may take
property from one person and give it to another, “based on some elastic definition of public use.? Finally, Comyn
said he would move on to her thoughts on the equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment.
Republicans also want to know more about whether Sotomayor woulij hew to the Constitution and the law in
her mlings or also employ the empathy that President Barack Obama said he wants in a justice on the high court,
■sotomayor has told senators that a justice must ultimately and completely follow the law.
Sotomayor’s comment that she hoped a “wise Latina” would come to better decisions than those who had lived
other lives gets right at the empathy question. But Republicans are chastened by the public outrage that resulted
™en conservative commentators said that comment made Sotomayor a racist in reverse _ then reversed them
selves and backed off.
Instead, look for Republicans to say merely that the “wise Latina” concerns them _ and then pivot to ask more
Proadly about her “judicial philosophy.”
As we consider this nomination. I’ll continue to examine her record to see if personal or political views have
influenced her judgment,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor.
That was all before lunch. Republicans then retired behind closed doors for their weekly policy session. There,
nn Jon Kyi, the Republican whip, joined Sessions and Comyn in a discussion of the party’s strategy leading up
® the hearings.
The leaders emerged describing the strategy as allowing her to explain “whether she’s truly committed to
“lorblind justice.”
On the Net:
Senate Judiciary Committee: http://judiciary.senate.gov
By Rev. A1 Sharpton
NNPA Columnist
(NNPA) - It was the mid-1970s.
The nation was fresh off the heels
of the Civil Rights Movement, the
Vietnam War was finally over and
people began adjusting to a newly,
fully integrated society. Blacks and
whites worked side by side, and
women and minorities slowly but
surely began to crack open that all
too visible glass ceiling in trium
phant ways.
NEWS ANALYSIS
As society progressed however,
we waited - and yearned - for that
one individual who could break the
mold in mainstream pop culture and
truly make it acceptable to not just
speak of equality in all endeavors
but transform it into an actuality.
We awaited someone who defied
raeial impediments and institutional
barriers, and could finally normal
ize African-Americans onto tele
vision sets and into living rooms
across the country. That someone
who possessed enough raw talent
that even the most discriminatory
of individuals could not help but
respect and acknowledge his or her
sheer gift.
Little did we know then that the
youngest member of the Jackson 5
was about to revamp our complete
social, political and entertainment
structure in unfathomable ways,
and in the process, reshape the
perception of an entire race on the
world stage.
I was a young teenager when I
first met Michael. ,We were both
blessed to have known the late
great Godfather of soul James
Brown, who, in many respects, was
like a surrogate father to us both.
Throughout the decades, we formed
a close kinship that many may nev
er be able to comprehend. During
his 1984 Victory Tour, Michael and
I began working together as I took
on the role of his community rela
tions director. In 2002, the King of
Pop came to our National Action
Network headquarters in Harlem,
and he and I marched together to
Sony Music along with hundreds
of supporters as we fought for Mi
chael’s ownership of his own music
catalogue. And during his tough
trials and legal bouts throughout the
years, I openly supported Michael -
and that itself will never change.
I was one of the lucky few to
have known this Apollo legend and
bear witness to not only an excep
tional career, but to a compassion
ate, determined, driven individual
whose greatest qualities are often
underscored. A man who dominat
ed the charts with sales of some 50
million copies of his “Thriller” al
bum alone, but who never forgot his
humble roots of Gary, Indiana. He
was an incomparable artist, dancer
and entertainer who dazzled audi
ences on every comer of the planet,
and still created and participated in
countless charities.
Penning humanistic, moving
lyrics like “We Are The World”
and “Man In The Mirror”, Michael
took his message well beyond the
TV sets of America. He was a true
groundbreaker who paved the way
for many of today’s artists who of
ten imitate his signature style, and a
man who relentlessly opened end
less doors for African-Americans
to be acceptable idols around the
world. During the 1980s, music
channel MTV refused to play vid
eos by black musicians, but it was
Michael’s undeniable talent that
won him heavy rotation for years
to come.
We as African-Americans and
people of all races as a whole owe
a tremendous deal to Michael Jack-
son. He not only set the standard
for excellence in entertainment, but
maintained a positive outlook de
spite all his trials and tribulations.
And in his sheer existence, he
(Continued On Page 15)
MEETING JAMES BROWN - James Brown, The Godfather of
Soul and Michael Jackson.
Jackson’s complex color story
transcended race
By Jesse Washington
Michael Jackson had a complicated relationship with his blackness.
In 40 years in the public eye, Jackson’s skin lightened, his hair changed
from Afro to bone-straight perm, and his wide nose was surgically whittled
down to a point. His music went from R&B to pure pop and beyond. His
close friends included Elizabeth Taylor and Nancy Reagan.
By the time his last smash hit, “Black or White,” was released in 1991,
many people wondered if the song title applied to Jackson himself.
But those who knew him well say he always maintained his black iden
tity. And as a trailblazer for a new breed of global multimedia stars, he
helped create an era in which race was a piece, rather than the definition,
of a person.
“I think that Michael really, in his career, just transcended race. His
work and his life was sort of about undefining race,” said Bill Bottrell,
who co-produced “Black or White” and worked closely with Jackson from
1986 into the early ‘90s.
“He obscured the issue, or obscufed it at least as far as he was con
cerned, or just transcended the issue,” Bottrell said. “I watched him with
his friends, they came from all walks of life. He certainly surrounded him
self with lots of African-Americans, also a lot of white people, including
me.” '
Jackson grew up in hardscrabble Gary, Ind., performing with his broth
ers. The Jackson 5 were weaned on rhythm and blues, a name coined in
the 1940s to describe the fusion of several black music styles with a new
instrument, the electric bass.
The first Jackson 5 album was released in 1969 on the Motown label,
which carved a place in history by making black music “safe” for white
people to enjoy. Jackson was an instant child star. In 1975 he moved to
Epic Records, a division of CBS, and hit the solo stratosphere in 1979
with his album “Off The Wall,” an irresistible combination of funk and
pop music.
It sold 9 million copies, the most by any black perfonner up to that
point. On the album cover, Jackson has a puffy Afro, and his skin is slight
ly darker than the brick wall behind him.
“There really were two phases to the career of Michael Jackson,” said
the commentator and community activist Earl Ofari Hutchinson.
“There certainly was a relationship with and an identification with Afri
can-Americans _ music, dance, lifestyle, his performances,” he said. “That
was essentially black music. That was, quote-unquote, the black Michael
Jackson.”
His next album was 1982’s “Thriller,” the biggest record of all time,
which has sold 50 million copies worldwide. He was the first black artist to
get video play on the fledgling MTV network, and became one of the most
famous people on the planet _ of any race.
“He was beyond a skin color. It was about the message in his music.
That’s why people related to him,” said DJ Spinna, who produces parties in
the United States and internationally showcasing Jackson’s music.
Yet the wider Michael Jackson’s fame spread, the whiter his appearance
became.
Jackson said he had vitiligo, a disease that produces white splotches
on the'skin. He compensated with treatments and makeup that turned his
overall complexion lighter and lighter, to an extent never seen before in a
black celebrity. Serial surgeries kept altering his facial features.
Successful blacks _ from Sammy Davis to Oprah Winfrey to Barack
Obama _ have often been accusing of losing touch with their roots. But
Jackson also had to contend with historic changes in the music industry:
(Continued On Page 15)