Black Voices: Are Elite Colleges Worth the Price Tag?

It was about this time that I had paid a visit to some college fairs back in high school (GO FALCONS!). Hopefully current generations of high school students are doing what's suggested here at the Black Voices section of the Huffington Post. Evaluate what may be the best value to you in not only terms of money but the future. It was not the foresight that was allowed to me back in the day!

Sunday night at the movies: "The Butler"

My mother insisted on seeing The Butler and I finally saw it Sunday night with her at Chatham 14. It was a bit of a period piece that showed the protagonist played by Forrest Whitaker blossom from a young man in the segregated south to an elderly man who worked for several presidents as a domestic worker in the White House.

I can only imagine what discussions her heard during his time as a White House butler. He probably couldn't hear everything because well when it was time for him to go it was time for him to go. It was interesting how to see him get trained by another Black man to be a house servant and it lead him to serve in that capacity in the US Government.

The only gripe I have about this movie even if the context was understood was how they played up the election of Barack Obama as President. So the character Cecil Gaines have served from Eisenhower to Reagan - seven presidents - and was ecstatic when the first Black man was elected President. It almost seems like hero worship to insert that in the movie. A lot of time was dedicated to that although don't get me wrong the reason for bringing that into the film was understood especially for a Black man who lived long enough to see segregation, civil rights, and then it's after effects.

Gaines had two sons one went to Vietnam and was killed in action the other Louis was a radical. He saw America for what it was at the time and after starting college at Fisk University decided he wanted to do something about it and joined the Freedom Riders. As a result Louis had a strained relationship with his father.

Ah, but the more interesting scene of the movie with Louis was when he discussed with his girlfriend the reasons he joined the Black Panthers. He didn't like the more violent philosophy he found with them and sought another path. Finished his masters degree in political science and attempted to run for Congress.

BTW, The Butler was based on a true story even though it's largely fictionalized. The real life inspiration for this movie didn't have two sons and didn't leave the White House because Ronald Reagan simply wouldn't budge in his stance on South Africa. As a matter of fact there was an article out there that explained Reagan's rationale on sanctions to South Africa and attacked that particular part of the movie as a bias against Republicans.

Now before you go on the attack against how Gaines was no hero, I'm not sure this movie portrays him as such. He just so happen to be at the right place at the right time and while it's easy to be dismissive based upon his station in life there was a scene where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr defended him and workers like him. In this movie Cecil may not have seen eye-to-eye with his son Louis it's an interesting act of drama to show a domestic worker who begat an activist who took advantage of his American rights even in the face of violent opposition!

ABC News: Florida Cop Buys $100 in Groceries for Woman Caught Shoplifting Food

[VIDEO] I would consider this story a feel good story. People doing right by people even though they did wrong regardless we recognize why they're forced to do what they're doing. The police officer in question is defintiely who we need serving and protecting us.

When Miami-Dade Police Officer Vicki Thomas, 55, was dispatched to look into a shoplifting case at a Publix grocery store, a store manager led her to Jessica Robles.

“She was crying. I said, ‘Okay, what did she take?’ And he pointed to a grocery cart that was full of groceries,” Thomas told ABCNews.com. “I’ve been on [the job] 23 years, and I went, wow.”

“She just filled up the grocery cart and she just walked out, which shocked me and I asked her, ‘Why?’” Thomas recalled. “She said, ‘My children were hungry.’ And that immediately impacted me.”
....
“My grandchildren flashed before my eyes,” Thomas said. “I knew at that time what I was going to do. I knew I was going to buy her groceries.”

Thomas and her partner took the woman to their car, completed her paperwork and then Thomas asked her to wait a few minutes.

“I grabbed my debit card, ran back into the store and bought things that would sustain her for a week or so and when I walked out she saw that I had the cart of groceries and she burst out in tears and asked if she could hug me, which is kind of unusual for the suspect to be hugging the officer,” Thomas said with a laugh. “I let her hug me.”

Thomas made it clear that she technically arrested Robles. The woman had no priors for shoplifting and since the amount of goods she tried to steal amounted to just under $300, the cut-off for a misdemeanor, it was up to Thomas’ discretion whether to arrest her or give her the misdemeanor and get a promise to appear in court. She chose the latter.

The woman didn’t have a car, so Thomas loaded the $100 worth of groceries into the police car and the officers gave her a ride home.

Harvard Mag: Morehouse Man, Redux

Earlier this year Morehouse College gained a new President in John S. Wilson Jr. In addition to being a Morehouse Man, he had also attended Harvard University getting his graduate degrees there hence he's interviewed by Harvard Mag. Sadly he has to state that attending an HBCU doesn't have the allure it used to since Black college students have more choices today.

“The vast majority of African-American students in higher education are choosing nonblack colleges,” Wilson says. Today, HBCUs educate only about 10 percent of that population; and of those who do enroll, he adds, 75 percent are women, “so we are in a particular crisis in educating African-American males.” 

OK another problem we've discussed here, not enough Black males are going to college these days. It might be true of a number of campuses not just HBCUs although Morehouse is an exception since it's all male. Although let's be clear there have been reports that I have seen that illustrated that a lot of college campuses are increasingly populated with women and the population of men are going down.

Before the quote Dr. Wilson also noted that Morehouse needs to build an endowment. That endowment could go to not only the campus facility because Wilson talked about "improving the campus infrastructure which, he says, 'is basically the same buildings and landscape that I left in 1979.'" Also of course the endowment could help capable & motivated low-income students attend Morehouse and hopefully stay and graduate from there.

In any case, this is still a worthwhile article and Morehouse does have it's work cut out for them.

Today is Columbus day!

Today feels like a Sunday, but in fact it's Columbus Day. We may have learned that Christopher Columbus discovered America back in the late 15th Century in school. As time went on it turns out that story is a bit more complicated as Columbus may not have been the first European or perhaps even the first of the old world to discover these new lands.

All the same next month is another much more festive holiday Thanksgiving. I have a friend who refer to this holiday as Thanks-taking. We may celebrate the idea of giving thanks, even the origin of this holiday is complicated.

Both days are great for this main thing. These are days off from work for most and for school especially if you attend Chicago Public Schools. And here's hoping many of you see the origin of the holidays we currently take for granted.

So now we have watch phones...

[VIDEO] Earlier today on TV I've been seeing the ads for this Samsung Galaxy Gear. Basically this device is bringing to life the idea of a watch that could be used as a communication device. Basically this device used in connection with a Samsung smartphone such as a Galaxy Note or Galaxy S4 is called a "smartwatch".

The ads featured similar devices from Dick Tracy, The Jetsons, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Knight Rider, or even Babylon 5. Let me digress for a moment, the "comlinks" you saw on Babylon 5 aren't true smartwatches. They do rest on your hand perhaps connected in some abstract way to the Earth Alliance uniform the characters wore, but they were still nifty devices certainly no more than the devices seen in the other properties named above.

The Gear reminds me of the sixth generation iPod Nano which could be used as a watch although an iPod is normally used as a device to listen to music or podcasts. I was very disappointed when they discontinued this model as I always thought it was nifty but I couldn't justify paying the price to get one.

Since I'm firmly an Apple customer I hope that they may bring that style of iPod back along with the accompanying wristbands for the same purpose as the Gear. It almost seemed as if they might, but after reading all the rumors about the updated iPhones or iPads it's always possible that in spite of not seeming like they will develop it here it comes. Here's hoping if they do bring that style iPod back that it can be connected to the iPhone and used in a similar way to the devices now to be sold by Samsung.

Check out the old home of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick

[VIDEO] Well another take on the sentencing on Kwame Kilpatrick the former Mayor of Detroit. Curbed Detroit shared this video of Mayor Kilpatrick's old house and aside from the fact that it had been broken into and they showed the screen door no longer had it's knobs it appeared to be a very nice home. He probably moved out not long before he became Mayor since well Detroit has a Mayoral residence.

I recall that Kilpatrick had already been to jail pleading to guilty to charges that caused him to resign from his office in 2008. More recently he has been sentenced to 28 years in prison on various charges of corruption. That's much more than our very own Rod Blagojevich we thought he got it stiff! OUCH!