Outrage in Ohio Leads To Effective Response

(Written February 11, 2011) Outrage in Ohio Leads To Effective Response An anonymous African-American man once said, in describing the attraction that black folks have for “the blues," as a musical form, that “we've been down so long, getting up don’t even cross our mind.” I had begun to accept, reluctantly, the fundamental truth in that statement, given the lack of focus and energy I’ve seen, recently, in our local and national community about things that should engage us. I’ve been disappointed that we seem not to care as much anymore about demonstrating our ability to mobilize around an issue. Sadly, we seem to have lost our interest in confronting those who insult, demean and marginalize us. Not only do we no longer accept the old, established, black leadership organizations, but we publicly denounce the concept that black people need any leadership, at all, to move from “Point A” to "Point B,” as if the laws of management and nature, themselves, no longer apply to us and we’ve, somehow, outgrown the need for them. Hell, we’ve even lost interest in being “black,” lately, and we seem to join in enthusiastically in every idle discussion about why black self-identity no longer matters. We’ve stopped defending what has always belonged to us and we have no collective thought about what should be ours in the future. In the main, black people I see – across all income and educational levels – just seem to be satisfied that they are “here.” It’s … getting ….really …. depressing. That being the case, when I see a sign, any sign at all, that we’re beginning to stir, or that we’re ready to fight again for what’s right, to do what needs to be done to preserve our families and our community, I do get a little encouraged. This past week was one of those times. I went back to look at a story that had shocked and angered me when it first circulated in late January. It was the one, of course, about a young African-American woman named Kelly Williams-Bolar who, you may recall, seemed, at first glance, to be one of the most admirable models for “bootstrap self-improvement” that our community has seen in a long time. Not only had she taken steps, back in 2006, to move her two daughters into a much better-quality public school system than the dramatically under-performing one to which her children had been assigned, she also was gainfully employed as a teachers' aide in one of her local high schools. In addition, she was just a few credit hours short of earning her degree in education at the University of Akron. Do you know what Ms. Williams-Bolar's reward was for doing all of that? She was sentenced by Common Pleas Court in Summit County, Ohio, in late January, to five years in prison- - all but ten days of which were suspended – two years of probation and 80 hours of community service. Her crime? When she transferred her children out of the Akron Public School system and into the suburban Copley-Fairlawn School District, where the average household income ranges up to $88,000 per year, where more than 90 percent of the residents are white and an astounding 41 percent of the population in one of the District’s townships have at least a bachelor's degree, she told school officials that her daughters lived with her father, Edward Williams, who actually lives within the District’s boundaries. In actuality, however, the primary residence for the young mother and her two daughters was a public housing project in Akron in Ohio. Uh-oh! Once that was discovered by the School District, the officials decided to bring criminal charges against Ms. Williams-Bolar. There is no doubt that what happened in that Summit County court room last month was designed to “send a message” to other poor, non-white families that such behavior is not only unacceptable, but that it would also lead to a conviction for having committed a felony. That being the case, the Summit County prosecutor, a woman named Sherri Bevan Walsh, who has had a highly controversial career in her own right, also brought charges against Kelly’s father, Edward Williams. The first charge, amazingly, was “grand larceny,” for misappropriating what the prosecutor estimated as $30,000 in tuition for the two girls, over a two-year period; the second was “tampering with records, in connection with a related fraud claim. The first time I heard about Ms. Williams-Bolar, her father, her two children and the criminal charges, I thought the whole thing was an ill-conceived joke. But, it was absolutely real. Gradually, however, I began to recognize, as horrendous as all of this has been, that for at least a brief moment, some black people and several whites "of good conscience," actually did wake up and become engaged in pushing back against an abusive legal system in Ohio. All of a sudden, there was the ubiquitous Rev. Al Sharpton, getting personally involved in raising cash to help defray Ms. Williams-Bolar's legal expenses, through his National Action Network. There was the equally ubiquitous Rev. Jesse Jackson, threatening to push for a piece of national legislation that would ensure equal access to quality education, regardless of family income. The Atlanta Journal and Constitution and the recently chastised and more-sensitive-to-black-folks National Public Radio (see “Juan Williams”), even weighed in, calling Ms. Williams-Bolar “the Rosa Parks of education reform.” Two online advocacy organizations, Change.Org and Color of Change, asked visitors to their web sites to sign petitions requesting Ohio’s Governor John Kasich, who, by the way, until very recently, had been widely criticized, himself, for not having any people of color in his cabinet, to drop the charges against the young mother and her father. It was very good to see more than 165,000 petitions from those two web sites signed in just a very brief period of time. Hey, even "big-time" P. Diddy took a few minutes off from selling Ciroc and generally “living large” to send out a tweet, asking his 3.2 million followers on Twitter to send messages to the governor. His tweet was very direct and “on time:” “I want all 3m of yall 2 hit up @ johnkasich and tell him Moms shouldn't go to jail for protecting their kids.” That’s what I’m talking ‘bout! That’s the kind of coordinated activity, the kind of passion and focus we’ve been missing on our issues, now, for far too long. And, you know what? It seems to be working. The Ohio Justice and Policy Center has announced that it is providing a new legal defense team to appeal Ms. Williams-Bolar's’s two felony convictions and to seek a pardon on her behalf so she can return to the pursuit of a teaching career, which had been precluded by her felony conviction. Last Tuesday, Governor Kasich ordered the Ohio State Parole Board to investigate the validity of the felony conviction. At the end of the day, the only person of note who should have, but who hasn’t, weighed in on this subject is, of course, your President of the United States. It was an appropriate issue and it might have helped. At the end of the day, what this case has shown us is that there still is great value in activism and in raising the public profile of racial and social injustice. Clearly, it has also shown us that there is an important role that social media can and must play in our efforts going forward. It’s been a rough couple of weeks, I’m sure, for the Williams family, but maybe we all learned something in the process. I hope so. And, by the way, don’t forget to send out your own tweet to Governor Kasich. #######