marc's blog

I have been thinking non-stop, as have many of you, about the Inauguration and coming Presidency of Barack Obama.   Leaving behind for a moment all the political arguments from the left and right, from those who voted for him and those who did not, this is just an amazing moment.   I look at the Obama family and can't keep from breaking out into a smile.  We are facing the worst of times yet hope is the operative emotion that is coursing through the veins of this nation.   You can read it in the latest polls but more importantly you can feel it when you listen to people, talk to your friends or when people of all stripes discuss this moment.  I have never experienced anything close to this in political annals of our nation.    The closest was JFK, maybe RFK but still, this moment is different.

Over the weekend I could not get Mack Parker out of my head.  Who is Mack Parker?   Fifty years ago he was lynched.   He had been accused of raping a white woman.   Subsequent investigations revealed he was most likely innocent.   But that is not important.   He was lynched by a white mob.   White judges in Mississippi who were part of the White Citizen's Councils (a refined version of the KKK) refused to do anything about the crime.   His brutalized chained body was found floating on the Pearl River ten days after the mob dragged him from his cell.   I can only imagine the fear and pain he suffered.

When I was almost thirteen years old I opened a Life Magazine.   The picture in the center of the Magazine was of a pair of work boots neatly placed under a cot in a prison cell.   They were Mack Parker's boots left behind where he put them before a mob dragged him out to be tortured, mutilated and murdered.

I kept that picture on my wall for years.  It haunted me.   It reminded me why I fight for a new America that belongs to all of her citizens, breathing in, and living, the same air of equality.

Now Barack Obama is standing there fifty years later, an African American man about to become President of the United States of America.    Many people have written that just because we have elected an African American President of the United States of America does not mean that racism will end.   They are right, but I deeply believe that it is having and will have a profound effect on American consciousness.

It is an amazing time.    I can't believe we are here.   The hope is palpable.  Let it be real.

What are you feeling now?

-Marc

I hate watching this happen.  It is no small matter for a sitting Mayor to be indicted.

I have known Sheila Dixon for over thirty years.   We are not close friends.   We have not been in a private social setting together in 32 years. We met when we were both counselors and teachers at Baltimore Prep, a program at Westside Shopping Center for street kids who had just come out of prison or had been kicked out of school, whose lives were on the corner instead of the classroom.   Sheila was committed to those kids. She didn’t take any stuff from them and she knew every game they could play, because she came from the same streets that they did.  Baltimore Prep is also where she met Mark Smith, who later became her husband, with whom she raised her nephew Juan Dixon and his brother.   The boys’ parents had died from heroin addiction.  Sheila and Mark saw those boys to manhood.  This is the Sheila Dixon I know.

I knew her a little in the intervening years.  I remember when she was first elected to the city council.   I remember when she banged her shoe on the table exclaiming it was our turn now.   She was committed to working class black folks. She lived and knew their pain, joys and struggles.   A lot of white journalists, politicians and others thought she hated white people.  I don’t know what her innermost thoughts about race were, but I can say that anyone who came up in a certain way who was from a certain place had historical reasons to have a mistrust of white people.  Whatever she thought then, however, she has grown from that place, as did William Donald Schaeffer from his place of not caring about Black folks before he became Mayor.  She bleeds working class blue in her veins.   That is the Sheila Dixon I know.

So, these indictments are just tragic.  If they are true, they show stupidity and sheer greed.  

As I wrote last week, the only difference between the actions of our city officials and indicted power developers, and goings on in Congress between politicians and corrupt corporate leaders, is the thin but sturdy line of legality.  

Politicians are always doing favors for the powerful and their friends.  It is part of human existence.   Nevertheless, it was not the fur coats that bought Ron Lipscomb city contracts, but rather all of his city and corporate contacts.  

I am not excusing anything here.  If Sheila and others broke their sacred trust with us, they have to leave elected office at the very least.   It cannot be tolerated.  

The worst offence would be if she actually took gift certificates that were intended for poor families and children to enjoy Christmas.   I hope that even if the bribery and malfeasance indictments are true, that stealing from street kids and poor families is not true.   That could break a city’s heart.

That would not be the Sheila Dixon I know.   Soon we will know whether she broke the law.  If she did, then the court will decide her fate.  If she is exonerated, she could become one of our greatest Mayors. If not, she will become one of our greatest disappointments and tragedies.

Update: We just received news, at 2pm today (Friday January 9) that Mayor Dixon has been indicted on 12 counts.  Read more in the Sun.

We will see what the day brings but the rumor mill has it that Sheila Dixon will be indicted today, just as Helen Holton and Ron Lipscomb were indicted yesterday.

My feeling is that if she had just declared those coats she would not be in front of a grand jury. If she had just recused herself from voting for a company her sister worked for there would be no investigation.

If Helen Holton had declared that Ron Lipsocmb paid for her poll then how she voted or what she pushed for would not be an issue.

It is not what they did but how stupidly they played the game. That for me is the issue.

Like Governor Blagojevich they were too blatant and not slick enough to get it done. Sure it was greed on some level but many politicians are greedy. Many participate in a life full of graft and influence buying but do it on the edge of the line of law so they get away with it. Notice I wrote many politicians not all. There are many men and women who are highly ethical in this business of politics. Most start that way but some get lost in the power.

Two articles recently in the New York Times brought home for me the glaring reality of it all. One was about New York Senator Chuck Schumer. He was accused of being one of the culprits in deregulating banking and Wall Street that led to this economic disaster we are facing. The article pointed out that Wall Street billions backed his campaigns and campaign fund/. In Congress he did their bidding.

The other article was about the junior Senator form New York, now Secretary of State designee, Hillary Clinton. She helped push through legislation that aided contributors to her husband’s foundation and library.

All this was all legal influence peddling. The corruption in the marriage of corporate wealth and political power is insidious. It must be exposed at every turn and reformed. It is how we ensure the survival of a real democracy.

Our local elected officials played the same game but on the wrong side of the thin but sturdy line of legality.

Yesterday I interviewed two educational leaders from different ends of the ideological spectrum who had written open letters to President-elect Barack Obama.

I always love interviewing Howard Gardner (listen to our interview by clicking here). He is one of the most important educational thinkers in the world. He is just so clear in his analysis, research and thinking. In the past, we have had discussions where we paired him with leaders of educational systems to talk about how to translate his ideas into practice in our city and county public schools. On this show, he came on to talk about his open letter to President-elect Obama, which you can read by clicking here.

It is clear that changing our culture through the bully pulpit of leadership to respect and embrace education, along with treating teaching as a real, respected and well paid profession is the only prescription for success. Within that, we can make all kind of rules and regulations, but without anything implemented, it becomes meaningless and redundant.

Now, my second guest yesterday, Charles Murray, wrote a book I intellectually loathed, The Bell Curve (listen to our interview by clicking here). I just wanted to disagree with his latest New York Times op-ed (read it by clicking here) but I couldn’t. I love it when I am so challenged that I have to change my thinking or admit that life is more complex than simple ideological answers.

My show over the years has taught me that truth lives in all corners of our life. While I might disagree over some of his assumptions, Charles Murray is right. College is highly overrated. Why should someone who wants to be a computer programmer, interior designer, actor, marketing executive, software designer or hundreds of other jobs I could mention, have to take physics, European literature or required gym courses to graduate? If we restructured our world of post-secondary education, it would save money, time and produce a creative population that will build a great nation.

Charles Murray, years back I took on one of your intellectual mentors at Hopkins over the Bell Curve, but your advice to President Obama is dead on.

Deborah Sarsgard introduced us to Lucille Robinson, a grandmother in Baltimore who was raising a house full of grandchildren on her own.  We had Lucille and some other grandparent caregivers discuss their lives and the challenges they faced on The Marc Steiner Show.  Then we decided to spend more time with Lucille, and the interviews we recorded became the first three episodes of Just Words.  We'd like to thank Deborah for sharing some of her thoughts and memories of Lucille with us, which you can read  by clicking here.