College Football has a problem.  There seems to be a reluctance and/or desire to allow African Americans to be head coaches, athletic directors, and other positions of real power.

The evidence is in the absence of people of "color".
By the way, I think the lack of Asians, hispanics, and women should be questioned also. Just because they (as a group) don't play the sport, why should that still not be an issue as to a particular indiividual getting a great job?

But the glaring hint of racism deals with African Americans because of the predominance of blacks on the football field.

In many cases, A.A.'s are over 50% of players in division I football while overall about 32% are black.  Yet, out of 119 top Bowl sub-division teams, there are 4 black coaches.

But who's kidding who.  We're really not talking numbers but more so about the "big" jobs:

notre dame (maybe?)
All SEC schools (Florida,Ala, Aub.,etc.)
USC
Okl.
Tex.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/columns/st ory?columnist=lapchick_richard&id=37 55312

I agree with this column about needing a civil rights type movement.

The numbers matter at this low level, but even if over the next 5 years they went to about 25 coaches, the reall issue is about the top jobs.

It is hard not to believe it is racism because common sense would tell you that many former players would want, prepare for, and are ready to run these programs.

In the past it could be argued there weren't enough people prepared, but in today's world that isn't the case.

There are conservative, maybe even racist people running many of these schools.  They may be the boosters who raise millions and they call the tune, or it could be the actual people in charge.

But I call this racist.
It should be changed.

President Obama commented on a college playoff and not this.
He was wrong about the playoff, and should focus his attention on this instead.

I wouldnt advise he do it personally, but hire a white liberal to lead the charge in the civil rights division of the Justice department.
---
Contrast the above with the usual calls about racism:

1.
the bogus charges hurled at the Clintons during the campaign.  Based on "code words" that happen to be true.

2.
Don Imus being forced off the air for making jokes about some female basketball players in offensive language.  Something almost every black person  laughs at when it comes from Chris Rock.

3.
George Bush not signing a "hate crimes" law in Texas for the killers of James Byrd. When he sought the death penalty in that case, but disagreed with the concept of a "hate crime" for other reasons.

I could go on.

The point is that there are still reasons to support Affirmative Action because America, while the best country ever created, still has racial issues.  There is racism in some areas.  College Football is certainly one of them.

But...

Racism doesn't affect the average black person daily.  We eat where we want 99% of the time, we live and work we were are entitled to 99%, and so on.

And in the future we should stop being politically correct and focus on the real problem when they do occur.

There's more...

Yesterday, I took grief for stating my opinion about the lack of Latinos in the "A" level cabinet positions.

I thought that Obama had created a problem for himself because he willingly played the identity politics game (where you address different segments of the population as members of self-identifyed groups, and make political bargains for votes) and not adequately showing respect to Latinos who were a crucial swing group.  This was especially true with the perceived  black-brown racial tension, and the potential of McCain to appeal to latinos (at least much more than any other Republican).

For some reason, almost everyone disputed the notion of "A", "B", and "C" level cabinet posts.  They also felt that this wasn't an embarrassment for Richardson.

Well maybe a Politico headline, "Downwardly Mobile?, How bad does he want it" will show you I'm on to something.

http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/ 1108/bill_richardson_downwardly_mobile_a b77ff37-3d39-4eaf-bda5-305074d857ad.html

Well politico, which is the Conventional wisdom has come out and said:

"How bad does New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson want to be a part of the Next Big Thing in American politics?

Apparently enough so to accept what is effectively a political demotion.

Richardson is on track to become President-elect Barack Obama's secretary of commerce -- not a bad gig but also not an A-List position a la Treasury, Justice, State and Defense."

Exactly what I talked about yesterday.

Now, you can continue to disagree with the notion. But it's real.
Also, you can quibble with which cabinet posts are perceived as the best, but the fact is, Commerce is an afterthought.

Obama will now have to commit himself to fixing this problem with a grand gesture.

I suspect it could be a Supreme Court nominee,

or

maybe fix it so that a latino takes his place in Illinois.

I wish Democrats would transition away from playing these political games to get elected.  Perhaps that will be change for the future.  But I linked to a politico story yesterday that showed there was a meeting where various Latino leaders got the understanding that if they performed in terms of getting the vote out for Obama, they would get repaid.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/110 8/15375.html

My solution is for the President-elect to select the very best people for each job regardless of anything else.

He has the credibility as a Democrat to do that.

I believe in affirmative action when its' clear there are people not reaching their God-given potential because of reasons inherit in them or their circumstance.  In those cases we should take affirmative action to try to remove the barriers, stigma, or other hinderances so every child grows up believing in themselves, and we as a nation will prosper overall in the long term from greater productivity and advances.

However, Obama is the living example of the best America has to offer, and so he is in a position to move us toward a post-racial society where it truly is color-blind.  He can make it clear that this is not desirable everywhere and all the time, but where it is, that should be the goal.

Failing all of that, we will continue to play these identity politic games to the detriment of our country.

btw.

I like Hillary for sec of state over richardson because he's too weak and focused on diplomacy.

He is not qualified for any other "A" level job, so he is where he deserves to be.

There's more...

First of all this country is unfortunately still about identity politics.  Obama played the game with the best of them, and won.

One of the reasons was that he convinced the Latino community to support him over McCain who had been a friend to Latinos, especially for a Republican.

Remember the "latinos won't vote for a black guy", and "they are the ultimate swing vote"?

Well the decision by latinos as a group both individual and institutional with their media and organizations to support Obama has been insulted.

No one could have blamed some of the Latino groups to say "McCain has been the 1 republican trying, and we don't want to disregard that"... but they did.

Now they get only Bill Richardson in the mix for a Cabinet job, and even he as an afterthought.

There are "A' level cabinet positions:

Sec of State
Sec of Defense
Attorney General
and now
Sec of treasurey

They are so because of the media exposure, the importance of the decisions, and the history of the job.

No latinos.  Also, btw No people from the left.

"B" level cabinet positions:

Environmental Protection Agency (sometimes considered cabinet)
Hud (upgraded because of housing crisis)
National security advisor (sometimes considered)
Homeland Security

No Latinos so far, but probably some coming soon.

"C" level cabinet positons are so because no one either knows or cares what they really do:

agriculture
commerce
interior
Energy
Labor

To name Richardson here, when he was already there before is an insult.

If you think I'm exagerrating about 'C" level status:

We just had a gigantic spike in oil up to over $4 and now a dramatic drop, and who is the energy secretary?
What did they do during the crisis?

We are having an economic crisis, and the commerce sec's job is to do what?

--
Obama should have named Richardson to head Sec of State. It would have met his "change" image, and Richardson is Obama's type of Democrat on Foreign issues.

Richardson is too weak to hold any other "A" level cabinet jobs, so that was it.

Hillary will be a great Sec of State but she will be her own person.
Everyone has to know that.

I agree with the pick because to me it means, Hillary will run Foreign Policy.  Otherwise, why would she take the job, to implement Obama's vision?

Obama and Democrats are playing with fire with the Latino sentiment.  Of course there will be chances to fix this with departures later on.  Or maybe a Supreme Court pick.

But for now this is embarassing.

There's more...

Democrats we are the majority party now.  We have responsbilities to 100% of the population.  We can no longer look at the country from a protest point of view from various numerical minorities if we don't want to return to be minority status.

Or is that where most here feel comfortable?

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,233 5035,00.asp

This article shows that the exremists in the gay rights movements have moved past tolerance, acceptance, and even equality.  They are demanding that people who disagree with them have their rights curtailed.

In this case the E-harmony business decided it was better to settle than fight a civil lawsuit.  I think that is a horrible idea because it will re-invigorate others to use the law to force others to think a certain way.

Let's understand:

E-harmony had a business that matched

men

with

women

Everyone was welcome to purchase their service if that's what they wanted.

There are other businesses that offer similar services for people seeking same sex relationships.

Yet, the premise of this suit is that it is discriminatory for
eharmony to be in the business that they want to be in, and that the government should either force them to change their business or go out of business.

For people who keep comparing this to race, this is just one of many examples of why the comparison is not apt.

First it is offensive to me as an African American to compare what my people have gone throught to an orientation that a person can declare or not declare and switch based on their preference.

But I digress.

When blacks sue to be served by the private businesses, it was to receive the same  exact service as the next person.  No better. No worse.  No different.

This person who brought the suit is forcing eharmony to have to actually change his business, change his computer programs, and now actually do something the company obviously didn't want to do.

If Democrats on all sides of these issues can't agree that a website has the right to determine what business they are selling, and not be forced to offer a service they might disagree with, we will deserve to lose the majority.

Luckily, so far President - elect Obama has shown himself to be in tune with the American people.

It would be equal to forcing MyDD to print pro-Republican material to balance the pro-Democratic tilt on this site.

There's more...

We are entering the governing season and hopefully those of us on the left can transition from protest into policy.

I totally disagree with the Republican notion that raising taxes is always bad for the economy.

For instance if there are industries that provide goods or services where the consumer demand is very elastic, then a rise in corporate taxes (passed on to the consumer) won't have any negative effect on the economy but instead would raise government revenue.  For example, if the govt. raised taxes on luxury events such as the Super Bowl,tickets to the Oscars, or Professional Fantasy Camps-- there is so much demand and little supply that it would be a good way to raise revenue without badly impacting the economy.

On the other hand, Democrats who talk about "taxing the rich" under all circumstances as though it never matters are also wrong.

For instance, right now if you own a Starbucks franchise and are making a profit, the decision to expand and buy another store location is going to depend almost entirely on the tax environment you are expecting in the near future.   Therefore, a dramatically lower tax rate on that particular person can be the difference between:

a new store being built (construction jobs/remodeling jobs)
10 people having a job
an area having better choices in retail

and yes, that person making more money..

So in this instance, cutting taxes raises more government revenue, and keep taxes the same or raising actually lowers the revenue because it the margins some people will find it is not worth it to keep running a business at a reduced or non-existent profit.

I give these two examples to show that Democrats need to be smart and offer solutions that matter.  We should embrace supply side tax cuts where they work, and more federal spending where it can help.

1. We should cut taxes dramatically for people who are taking  a risk with their money to create jobs.  This should not extend to people who are making paper)or electronic) transactions in the stock market or some other virtual reality.  I'm talking about real risk that envisions real job growth.

2.  We should raise taxes on people who are gaining from unearned income unless they then risk it in a real venture.  So this would mean people who make money because they:

sold Google stock short  

or

hedged the U.S. currency against the Euro

should pay a higher tax rate

unless they took that money and did something productive like:

-bought and held stock in a company for a minimun of 1 year.
-bought and held debt in a company/government for a minimum of 1 year.
-started a business.

or some other economic activity that potentially could help the economy

3.  The government should pass a Universal Healthcare bill that reduced/removed the burden of healthcare from business.  This could be financied initially with debt.  If done correctly it would stimulate the economy because millions of people would become new healthcare consumers.  This is good debt because a healthy country would become more productive and easily earn more to pay off that debt.

4.  The government should dramatically increase the infrastructure spending to fix America's electicity grid, roads, rails, communication cables, etc.  Again, if done correctly it would stimulate the economy and it would be good debt passed on to the future taxpayers because they would have something to show for it.

There you have it, cut taxes for people willing to create jobs, leave them alone or raise taxes on the rich not taking real job producing risks, and massive new spending that will help the country in the long run.

There's more...