Monday, November 30, 2015

Part 2: HBCU vs PWI - What If...

It seems like every time I walk or drive through University of Maryland College Park (UMCP) these days there is literally a new building being constructed. If you take a look at the campus in the year 2000, right before the football team won an ACC Championship and the basketball team went to two straight Final Fours and won a National Championship, and you look at the campus today, there is a very distinct difference. As a matter of fact, if you look at the freshman incoming class in 2000 and the class in 2014, not many similarities there either. For the Fall 2015 freshmen class, UMCP received 28,000 applications for a class of 3,975. Students admitted during this same semester had a median SAT score from 1260 to 1420 based on 1600 and a 4.22 high school GPA. The average GPA in fall 2001 was 3.72 and in 1990 it was 3.0. SAT scores in fall 2001 was 1180 to 1330, up from 980 to 1150 in 1990. How did UMCP successfully manage increasing the academic standards and accomplishments of its freshman class annually?

I can tell you that it was not the nationally ranked Economics department or the Top 5 ranked Criminology or Health and Human Performance departments; nor was it the Smith Business School or the Clark Engineering Program. Academics would love to take credit for the success UMCP has been experiencing for the last 15 years but the truth is they cannot.

Like most schools who enjoy success in football and basketball, two of the most profitable sports in collegiate athletics, UMCP took advantage of both their football and basketball teams success, at the same time, and went straight to the bank! In 2001, the home of the Terrapins won the ACC Championship and in 2002, won the NCAA Final Four National Basketball Tournament. According to the Baltimore Sun and following the basketball team's 2001 Final Four appearance, early applications for the 2002 Freshman class were up 25% which included a 30% increase in out-of-state applicants. From 2003-2004, UMCP experienced the greatest increase in tuition, 20%.

Studies have shown that a mere appearance in the annual NCAA tournament can significantly increase applications resulting in a smarter student body; the university may not increase student enrollment but they can be much more choosy in the type of students they admit. According to ESPN, "a 2009 study by brothers and economics professors Jaren and Devin Pope showed that just making it into the men’s NCAA tournament produces a 1 percent increase in applications the following year. Each round a team advances increases the percentage: 3 percent for Sweet 16 teams, 4 to 5 percent for Final Four teams and 7 to 8 percent for the winner."

This is an impressive formula: take an increase in applications, especially out of state and multiply it by your tuition, which has been increased and is, on average, double for out-of-state applicants. Typically, to get significantly increased enrollments, schools have to increase financial aid and/or decrease tuition but go to the Final Four and you don't have to do either which results in a boatload of new money.

Let's change course for a minute. The roster for the 2002 UMCP National Championship team had 12 players, 10 of them Black:

  1. Byron Mouton, Rayne, Louisiana
  2. Juan Dixon, Baltimore, Maryland
  3. Earl Badu, Baltimore, Maryland
  4. Calvin McCall, Orlando, Florida
  5. Andre Collins, Crisfield, Maryland
  6. Drew Nicholas, Hempstead, New York
  7. Ryan Randle, Duncanville, Texas
  8. Lonny Baxter, Silver Spring, Maryland
  9. Tahj Holden, Red Bank, New Jersey
  10. Chris Wilcox, Whiteville, North Carolina
What if Byron Mouton went to Southern University or Grambling? What if Juan, Earl, Andre, and Lonny all went to Bowie State? What about Chris Wilcox to North Carolina Central or North Carolina A&T?

The Fab Five of the University of Michigan (Jalen Rose, Chris Webber, Juan Howard, Jimmy King, and Ray Jackson) took merchandise sales from $1.5 million a year to $10 million a year and has remained in the Top 5 annually. The Fab Five played over 20 years ago!!!  What if they had played at an HBCU?

Victor Oladipo, Tywon Lawson, Roger Mason, Jeff Green, Rudy Gay, Roy Hibbert, Dante Cunningham, Keith Bogans, Sam Young, and Kevin Durant all have two things in common: they are all or were in the NBA and they are all from the DC, Maryland, Virginia (DMV) area. What if they all ended up playing collegiate basketball at an HBCU?  Approximately 78% of the NBA is made up of Black players and what if they all went to HBCUs before they were drafted into the league? 

Imagine this type of talent attending Howard or Southern or Morehouse and taking these schools to the NCAA tournament. Tywon Lawson and Kevin Durant on the same team could take on any team in the country including the likes of Duke, UNC, UCLA and Kentucky. Regardless if they would win or not, ESPN would want to televise games with Lawson and Durant because of their amazing talent and their ability to make any team competitive at the highest levels. Now, an HBCU can enjoy the spoils of TV revenue, extra ticket sales (because every game would be sold out), tournament revenue, merchandise sales and the possibility of increased applications. 

Michael Beasley, a first-round NBA draft pick as well as a Prince George's County, Maryland native, attended Kansas State University for one year. In that one year he broke over 15 Kansas State and NCAA Division 1 records while putting Kansas State on national landscape. Kansas State went to the 2008 NCAA tournament and enjoyed an immediate increase in applications for the Fall 2010 while increasing its tuition almost 15%, one of the highest increases in its institutional history. Again, Michael was only there for a year but Kansas State University is still enjoying the fruits of his labor years later.

Some would say HBCUs do not have the resources or facilities to attract talent equivalent to Kevin Durant or Lebron James. In that same argument, a point can be made that no university had the right resources or facilities to attract top tier talent until top tier talent arrived. They all had to start somewhere. 

Why not start at your local Historically Black University?








Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Part 1: HBCU vs PWI - Does It Really Matter?


A few weeks back I had a choice to attend the homecoming of my alma mater, University of Maryland College Park (UMCP) or my father's alma mater and a place I have been visiting since I was a boy, Norfolk State University (NSU). I chose the Historically Black College/University (HBCU) Norfolk State University, home of the Spartans! Arriving on campus, I just felt at home, like I was attending a huge family reunion and everyone there is my cousin, aunt or uncle. You can walk up to anyone having a cookout and they will offer their food and drink because you are family. There is this overwhelming sense of pride and love and everyone is just having a good time.

While in Norfolk, my friends and I were sad to hear that NSU is facing accreditation issues which has led to a drastic decrease in applications and shrinking the incoming freshman class of 1000 students each year from 2005 to 2012 to just a class of 400 in this year's class. My first year Microeconomics class at UMCP had that many students! Nonetheless, I, along with green and gold spartan alumni, had a wonderful weekend supporting, socially and financially, the survival of a university founded and created to educate Black students. Some may ask what is so special about an HBCU? Do you get more than just an education from an HBCU? It really depends on the student and your past experience. In my humble opinion, it really comes down to the type of student you are; if you can exist on a campus with thousands of other students and still find your way academically and socially, a bigger school is for you. If you need that one-on-one attention from your professor, if you need that structure, HBCU may be for you. In addition, if you grew up and went to school with all Blacks, it may benefit you more to go to a PWI and vice versa.

NSU is not alone; HBCUs are struggling with poor leadership, unequal government funding, and declining enrollment based on factors that cannot be controlled. The financial recession did nothing to help all colleges and universities because they tend to spend less during a recession. I do not want to give the wrong impression that every HBCU is having problems. Hampton University is a great example of an HBCU that has consistent enrollment numbers as well as good leadership. On the other hand, there are some HBCUs that are having fundraising issues and/or making sure their students graduate. And then there are some schools that are in dire straights or have already closed. 

There are about 15 or so HBCUs that are in serious trouble and they include South Carolina State, Wilberforce University (the oldest private HBCU in the nation), Howard University, and Elizabeth City State University. 

South Carolina State University (SCSU) was officially shut down by South Carolina House officials as of July 1, 2015 because its total debt exceeded $83 million. The university's trustees fired the president, faculty and staff, and ironically, the South Carolina House and Senate officials approved proposals to dismiss all trustees. Good news is that SCSU will be able to start fresh and resume operations during the 2016-2017 academic year.

Elizabeth City State University (ECSU), located in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, was nearly shut down in May 2014 when lawmakers amended a bill that would have looked into the consolidation or closure of the university.

Wilberforce University, located in Ohio, is suffering from a decade of financial hemorrhage and declining enrollment 158 years after its founding. Wilberforce had until December 2014 to prove to the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association that it deserves to remain accredited. In order to keep its accreditation, Wilberforce must address deteriorating buildings, poor leadership, ballooning debts, and its inability to meet and maintain academic standards.

Howard University (HU), located in Washington DC, a university trustee wrote a devastating letter in 2013 about  HU's fiscal and management issues and warned the university would be closed  in 3 years if something was not done. The trustee stated, "the combination of fewer students who can arrange for financial aid, coupled with high school counselors who are steering students to less expensive state and junior colleges, has resulted in lower enrollment and this trend is expected to continue."

The government has indirectly assisted in the decline of African-American enrollment. In the fall of 2011, the criteria for PLUS loans were tightened and communication to applicants informing them of these changes was poor. PLUS loans are direct federal loans to the families of students once the student has maxed out their federal financial aid options. Once the changes kicked in, the results were staggering; many families were unexpectedly rejected from the program thus reducing the number of students with the ability to attend school. From 2011 to 2013, the US News and World Report stated there were 45% FEWER PLUS loan recipients at HBCUs. In a 2-year period, 1 in 2 students were unable to return to school!

Morehouse College, the all-men's premier HBCU located in Atlanta, Georgia, spiraled into dire financial straits in 2012 after the PLUS credit changes. Incoming freshmen could not afford Morehouse which caused a forced faculty and staff furlough.

Another little-known tidbit when it comes to government funding at both the federal and state level, it has been inequitable between public HBCUs and PWIs. For example, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill receives $15,700 in state funding per student while HBCU North Carolina A&T University receives $7,800 in state funding per student. 

The narrative in the mainstream media will have you believe that Black enrollment in colleges and universities has skyrocketed. This is true, but not entirely. At top-tier research institutions, like UMCP, the share of Black students has dropped every year since 1994. In addition to UMCP, this list includes large public universities like UCLA, Florida State, Michigan as well as Ivy League and selective private colleges. Why?

Researchers say one of the reasons is "ever-more-selective" admission rates, that include standardized test scores, which leave high school counselors in predominantly Black schools under-prepared to respond. These same counselors, as a result of tighter admissions, steer Black students toward schools that are less selective.

Just this past weekend, I was back on campus at UMCP, a university founded by Charles Calvert, a former slave owner, and was happy to find out that a statue was being erected on campus of Frederick Douglass. This seemed like an act of embracing my community but at the same time, first-year Black student enrollment has decreased significantly over the last 10 years. At one point, UMCP was 4th in awarding undergraduate degrees to Black students, which included HBCUs; today, UMCP has dropped to 25th overall. 

If you have a reduction of Black students attending and receiving degrees from PWIs and HBCUs either closing (Morris Brown, St. Paul and others by clicking here), losing accreditation, or simply unable to recruit and retain Black students to their respective universities, where are all the Black students going to go for higher education? HBCUs enroll 11% of African-American students despite the fact that HBCUs represent 3% of all colleges and universities; HBCUs graduate 1 in 5 African-Americans earning an undergraduate degree. Research would suggest they are not going anywhere. 

If getting our Black students to college is critical, why should we care if Black students attend HBCUs over PWIs?  

From the article, "Do Historically Black Colleges Provide the Safe Spaces Students Are After?":

"In the post-Brown v. Board of Education educational landscape, HBCUs have struggled to quiet the critics questioning their relevance. At a time in which young black people are constantly attempting to have their voices heard, the ability to prioritize race as a meaningful marker in their college experience by attending HBCUs might factor into college choices more than it once had. Pushing for an inclusive university means pushing for a place that doesn't place on minority students the same type of burdens—discrimination, racism—that they’re bound to face once they graduate. HBCU students have the advantage that concern for their mental, emotional, and psychological well-being as young black adults is, traditionally at least, ingrained into the fabric of their institutions. That is what a safe space looks like for colleges today—a place that insulates students from the American racial injustices, not one that magnifies it."

US News and World Report ranks colleges and universities on an annual basis and I have yet to see an HBCU rank in the top 250. Your top graduate programs in business, law, and engineering rarely, if ever, have an HBCU on their lists. So what is the advantage of attending an HBCU? 


HBCUs seem to provide support systems that are deeply entrenched throughout all aspects of the university. HBCUs offer cultural centers tailored for minority students that offer communities-from students to the faculty to the way of life-that are culturally relevant and relatable in all kinds of ways. 

What can we do to increase enrollment at HBCUs?

  • Support and give to organizations like the Tom Joyner Foundation and the United Negro College Fund. The Tom Joyner Foundation supports HBCUs with scholarships, endowments, and capacity building enhancements. The United Negro College Fund (UNCF) raises money for and helps students receive college degrees at member institutions and with UNCF scholarships. 
  • Promote and push more of our high-performing high school athletes to our HBCUs. (This will be expounded in Part 2.)
Shani O. Hilton, editor at Buzzfeed, said, "There's something about when you strip away the oppressive bullshit of white supremacy from your life in terms of everyday making moments-from walking down the street, crossing the quad, getting in line to get a meal, sitting in class-that toll of, 'Did that person do that because I'm Black?' is gone. It just opens up your mind and gives you an elevation to your step to your way of moving around the world that I think is hard to replicate in other environments."

I think this says it all...

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Louisville Basketball: A Cardinal Sin?

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a non-profit organization that is the governing body for all U.S. colleges in the area of athletics. In 2014, this non-profit had revenues of $989 million in which they paid zero dollars to Uncle Sam. If the NCAA was a corporation, they would be in the Forbes top 250 in the category of profits!

The University of Louisville, located in Louisville, Kentucky, is a city-owned, public university which has:

  • Total of 22,300 students
  • Endowment of $877M
  • School budget of $1.2B
  • In 2013 UL Athletics had $96M in revenue but spent $92M
  • Head Basketball Coach Rick Pitino's yearly salary is $5M for the next 10 years
A self-described former madam and escort, Katina Powell, rocked the collegiate basketball world with her new book, "Breaking Cardinal Rules: Basketball and the Escort Queen," that describes up to two dozen stripper and sex parties from 2010 to 2014 in a dorm room on campus for recruits and current players to engage in paid sexual acts. Who paid Katina Powell and her "colleagues"? Andre McGee, Louisville's former graduate assistant coach, paid the "dancer" who would then go ahead and have sex with former players, recruits, and their guardians who accompanied them on visits. All of this under the leadership and direction of the $5M a year Head Coach Rick Pitino, who claims he was unaware any of this was happening. You can read the full story here

Where should we begin? The NCAA, University of Louisville, the coaching staff, or Katina Powell? There are numerous perspectives, a lot of responsibility, and plenty of blame to go around. Wait, what about the collegiate recruiting process?

Katina Powell, who actually employed her two daughters, Lindsay and Rod Ni, as part of the sex parties, decided to write a book because "I knew that this day would come, and I knew that one day they would say, 'She's lying.'" Ms. Powell kept phone records, texts, and detailed journals of the events because she did not want to be called a liar one day! At no point did Ms. Powell know that the NCAA tournament is only second to the NFL in postseason ad revenue in which the NCAA brings in billions over a span of six weeks. Also, Ms. Powell did not know that any sort of sex scandal involving high school basketball recruits and collegiate basketball players published in a tell-all book would be the first of its kind and could potentially be worth millions which makes exposing her own children worth it!

For those without kids or if you have children that do not play a sport, you maybe unaware of the recruiting process. Most, if not all, collegiate sports recruit players from high school to attend and play at their respective schools. Recruiting for football and basketball has greater stakes than say volleyball because the arena, Papa John's Stadium, the Louisville Cardinals football team plays in, holds 55,000 spectators; the arena, KFC Yum! Center, the arena the basketball team plays in, holds 22,000 spectators. These two stadiums gross over a million dollars in revenue per game but spectators are only going to buy tickets if the teams are worth watching. Well, how do coaches at the college level put together a team that is worth the price of admission? They have to recruit good players!

This is where it becomes very complicated and competitive. The price tag of a college education is at astronomical levels to the point you have to be Donald Trump to afford a 4-year institution for one child! If you do not have the financial means, you are relying on scholarships, academic or athletic, to get your child into school. The most visible athletic scholarships are for football and basketball. Parents are now pushing, almost shoving, their child into these sports and doing whatever they can to make sure their child is recruited. Side note, this has given rise to power of AAU but that is for another blog.

So now you have competitive parents doing whatever they can to get their child recruited to play a sport at the next level while obtaining their education for free, coupled with the coaches of these collegiate teams looking for the best talent. A collision course that has resulted in what has happened at Louisville.

Let's pretend you are the mother of Lebron James, a senior in high school, #1 in his class and the most sought after recruit by every university in the United States. Lebron is being visited by every college basketball coach and is being invited to visit their schools over a weekend in what is referred to as an official recruiting visit. The NCAA stipulates that a recruitable high school student can only make five official visits, therefore, Lebron has to officially announce his top five schools. Let's just say those five schools are Ohio State, Duke, UNC, UCLA, and Kentucky. Lebron has to pick 5 different weekends to visit these five schools. On these visits, the coaching staffs for each school has to somehow sell Lebron on why he should attend their respective school. How can these coaches accomplish this hard sell? What will differentiate each school from each other? The NCAA has created rules for what can be done on these visits but the NCAA also lacks the manpower and resources to monitor each and every collegiate recruiting visit by the thousands of recruitable students that do this year in and year out.

At this point, the coach and his staff will do whatever possible to sell Lebron and his guardian (whether a parent or otherwise) on why he should attend said school. Ohio State may give Lebron a bag of money, or a "bag" as it is commonly referred to. It has been rumored that schools have given over $100K for a recruit, maybe more. Duke may elect to buy Lebron a car, UNC may elect to buy his mother a house, UCLA may elect to give his mother a new job and Kentucky may do all of the above and supply sex! How is a guy like Lebron to choose? Here in lies the rub!

How did we get to this point? The coaching staff, in particular the head coach, is under tremendous amount of pressure to win and get to the NCAA tournament. Every team that goes to the tournament can receive, at minimum, $1.6 million. If the coach does not win, game revenue decreases and alumni support waivers. If the alumni stop writing checks, the athletic director is now under pressure because the president of the university is now breathing down his neck because the university endowment is shrinking, applications are down, research money has been reduced, and now the university has to start firing people because of shrunken budgets. The domino effect here is tremendous and it all starts with the recruitment of a kid named Lebron. The future employment of pretty much everyone at the university depends on the recruitment of great players that can lead to the football and basketball teams winning. Talking about pressure!

Jalen Rose, member of the famed Fab Five, who went thru the recruiting process over 25 years ago said, "If I'm not getting laid, I'm not coming". You can read more about his story here. Is it inconceivable to believe the young men today who are being recruited today are not saying the same thing? Do we actually believe that college coaches are not doing whatever they have to in order to appease the best recruits and get them to sign on the dotted line? And are we too naive to realize that everybody in the power structure, including college presidents and the NCAA, do not know this is going on but turn the other cheek until a Katina Powell comes along?

If you were in Lebron's shoes, hypothetically, and you are 17 years old, would you turn down sex? Money? A new job for your mother? A new car? A new career for mom? On a college campus, outside of attending class, having sex is something just about every collegiate student is doing. But now we are taking the oldest profession, prostitution, and using it to attract great athletes to institutions of higher learning.

This problem is bigger than Katina Powell, who, in my opinion, is merely taking financial advantage of an industry that operates around money. The problem cannot be the recruitable athlete and his parents because all they want to do is play basketball and go to college and would not be able to otherwise because of the high costs of a college education. Do we blame the head coach, the man whose career is in the hands of 18 to 22 year olds and their ability to win games and bring in revenue for the university? How about the athletic directors and collegiate presidents who are in the business of bringing in money and have figured out the biggest money makers lie in collegiate sports, in particular, football and basketball? If we cannot blame any of those people, the NCAA is the one without a seat when the music stops.

A billion dollar a year operation, that does not pay taxes, could potentially put a stop to all of this but they run the risk of not meeting their billion dollar profit quota. Here is what is going to happen:

1. Andre McGee, the man who actually conducted these sex parties, will be forced out of NCAA coaching and essentially black-balled from coaching ever again at the collegiate level.

2. Head Coach Rick Pitino, who just signed a contract extension, vowed to not resign and he will not be fired. He will claim he knew nothing and there will not be any proof that will prove otherwise. He will continue to coach and recruit at a high level with the potential to take Louisville back to the Big Dance, aka, the NCAA Tournament.

3. The athletic director and president will issue statements supporting Head Coach Rick Pitino because there is not a reason not to but they maybe willing to sanction themselves before the NCAA does.

4. The NCAA will continue to make billions but will sanction Louisville but I am guessing it will be a slap on the wrist.

At the end, this story will pass, Katina Powell will make her money and have her 15 minutes of fame but the institution of bribery, prostitution, deceit, lies, and extortion will continue through what we refer to as the recruiting process.


Wednesday, April 29, 2015

A Gray Baltimore...

“The organizing principle of any society is for war. The basic authority of the modern state over its people resides in its war powers. Today its oil, tomorrow water. Its what we like to call the God business; Guns, Oil, and Drugs. But there is a problem, our way of life, its over. Its unsustainable and in rapid decline, that’s why we implement demand destruction. We continue to make money as the world burns. But for this to work the people have to remain ignorant of the problem until its too late. That is why we have triggers in place, 9-11, 7-7 , WMDs. A population in a permanent state of fear does not ask questions. Our desire for war becomes its desire for war. A willing sacrifice. You see fear is justification, fear is control, fear is money.”

History

The American Revolution, which took place between 1765-1783, was described as "political upheaval" by the Thirteen American Colonies against their British rulers in which they overthrew the authority of Great Britain and established the United States of America. The climax of this revolution was the Boston Tea Party of 1773 in which American Patriots, led by Samuel Adams, tossed over $1M (today's worth), 45 tons of tea into the Boston Harbor. 

The organizing principle of any society is for war...

Today

The Twitter account of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund posted every unarmed person of color killed by police since 1999 starting with the death of Amadou Diallo. With the latest unarmed killing of another man of color, Freddie Gray, we are well over 80 victims.

Technology has reached new heights since 1999 where the popular form during that time was a beeper; nowadays, we have "smart" phones with cameras that can produce small feature films. A lot of the killings are caught on a camera phone and replayed back to the world to witness. Never before in history has the "revolution" been televised...

"Baltimore has paid $5.7 million since January 2011 for settlements and court judgments in lawsuits accusing city police officers of false arrests, false imprisonment and excessive force. Virtually all of the people who won large awards were cleared from criminal charges." More on this, click here.

Personal

I am by far anyone's boy scout so I am comfortable with describing my run-ins with law enforcement, as they are almost too many to count! During my senior year in high school, I was captain of the basketball team and voted All-District, A/B student as well as the local NBC news 1 of 12 citizens voted as "One to Look Up To". I was bestowed this honor in the middle of my Senior year and for two days I had cameras following me around school because a full expose was going to be re-played on the 6'o clock news. Did I mention I was the only high school student chosen, the other 11 were clergymen, businessmen, community activists, lawyers, doctors, and educators. 

Everything seemed good if you were to take a look at my life from an outside perspective. The truth, I was constantly harassed by Henrico's finest. During the same star-studded senior year, I was pulled over 40-45 times for reasons that varied from "broken taillight" to literally "driving while Black". Yes, I was told that I was pulled over because I was a "n*gger" in the wrong neighborhood and they wanted to know what I was doing there. Suffice it to say that I have the pullover routine down to a science; I know exactly what to do, what to say, as well as what not to say to immediately keep a possible heated situation to a minimum. 

Did this change my attitude towards police? Absolutely. Am I bitter? To a certain extent. Do I believe all police officers are bad or racist? I DO NOT! Can I empathize with the people of Baltimore? At any point during my younger years when I had my run-ins with the cops, I could have easily become a "hashtag" (even though social media had not been invented yet), my Mother could have lost a son, my brother could have lost a brother and for what? You become angry, frustrated, and most importantly, powerless because you feel and, most often, it is proven that there is nothing you can do about it. It becomes something you just live with, you deal with it and you do not complain about it. It becomes a punchline to our favorite comedian's joke, a mere head nod between Black men because we already know that one or both of us has experienced some level of police brutality and it is just another page in another chapter of our lives. 

Questions

While I sit back in the luxury of my DC home and watch the Baltimore riots on TV and read the commentary on Facebook, I keep hearing words like "thug", "shame", "ignorant" and other names I would rather not even spell out. The first thing I think about is if I, and the thousand of other students, were called thugs when we were rioting during our victorious University of Maryland win over Duke back in the early 2000s? I mean come on, we walked, not ran, but walked through the middle of campus to the football field, tore down the goal post (still have no idea why we tore up the football field over a basketball game), walked the goal post back down the same street through the middle of campus, crossed Route 1, arguably one of the busiest thoroughfares on the East Coast, placed it in the middle of Frat Row and set it afire! Oh, it gets better, we proceeded to burn up over $250K worth of Comcast cable lines, broke the windows to the bike shop (as well as stole a few bikes), looted the pizza shop and just basically ran College Park a muck until county police officers arrived with rubber bullets and sent us all home. Yea, do not remember being called a thug then! 

Then I fast forward to a month ago when the Kentucky Wildcats lost in the Final Four, which ruined their perfect Cinderella season, and watched on tv how the Kentucky students rioted. Were they called thugs, ignorant, shameless? Oh wait, property was destroyed...more on this hypocrisy can be seen here.

If you have ever been to Baltimore, and I mean experienced it in person and not through an episode of The Wire, it isn't exactly Shangri-La. It is a very blue-collar city where the people can be described as "subjugated, underprivileged, undervalued, underrepresented, marginalized, victimized, enslaved, and terrorized" and probably the most important, fearful. Freddie Gray was 25 when he was "injured" while being arrested by Baltimore's Finest. Mr. Gray has become a name on a long list of unarmed men killed by the very people charged with the responsibility to protect and serve. 

I am going to try my best not to make this about color, race, creed, sexuality, etc but what this is about is death. A person is dead for no reason, no excuse and there is a distinct possibility that the person(s) responsible may not be brought to justice. History has proven that there is a good chance the death of a person at the hands of a police officer may go unpunished. As a human being, you mean to tell me you do not find this frustrating? 

So let me place myself in the shoes of a Baltimore citizen that is subjugated, underprivileged, undervalued, well you get the picture, and try to understand how I would feel with death of Mr. Gray. Who is to say that I won't be next? What is the difference between Mr. Gray and I? I now have an overwhelming feeling of fear because what is there to protect me, to protect my family? The system set up to protect us is the same system killing us without any recourse. What do I do, what should I do? Do I wait for my turn or do I fight back?

Now imagine a whole community of people, an entire city of people, feeling the same way, asking the same questions. Now imagine an entire city of people arriving at the same answer! If you push somebody to a corner, they are either going to fold and die or they are going to fight back, viciously. Furthermore, they are going to fight back with the same visceral they are being attacked with meaning, an eye for an eye. You get a bat, I will fight with a bat, you get a gun, I am getting a gun.

Is this right? I keep hearing people ask this question as if this situation has come down to what is right and what is wrong. It is a little deeper than that. Is this about color? An argument could be made but it goes even deeper than that. Human lives are being taken and nothing seems to be happening to prevent it. As a man, I am going to protect my own and not wait around to be exterminated, I am going to take the fight to them. Just like Samuel Adams and the rest of the patriots did not want to be under the authority of the British, the citizens of Baltimore no longer want to sit by and let another Black man die at the hands of the police. This is not right or wrong, about Black or white, it is about self-preservation and wanting to fight for the basic right to live. In this spirit, I support and pray for Baltimore.

Let me be clear about what I do not agree with; if you are a rioting in the streets because you feel you can obtain some free items or doing something other than supporting the actual cause, which is the right to live, then you can stay home. Do I agree with taking lives, burning up businesses, attacking the police, etc.? No I do not BUT I am only one man that believes that there could be another way. I DO NOT CONDEMN OR PASS JUDGEMENT on those who are doing those things because at the end of the day, I have no idea what exactly that person is going through. Emotions are running high, anger is rampant, frustration is visible and people are going to release these emotions the only way they know how and that could come in various forms: speeches, fighting, looting, marching, etc. What I do know is that a city of people feel like they have had enough and they are expressing it right now.

Solutions

As of 2014, did you know that 1 in 2 women in the US married to a cop are victims of domestic violence? That is correct, law enforcement officers beat their significant other at nearly double the national average. I will come back to this...

I listen to The Breakfast Club interviews all the time and today I listened to their interview with Montel Williams, from the Montel Williams Show. No idea why they were even interviewing him, I thought his relevancy ran out years ago. Well, I listened anyway and it turned out to be one of the more interesting interviews they have had. It just so happens that Montel is a native of Baltimore and of course, during the interview, they start talking about the riots. 

As I have tried my best to come up with solutions for this problem over the last couple of years, it just so happens that Montel came to my rescue. First point, the military, has noticed an extreme uptick in the number of soldiers coming home and committing suicide and/or suffering from PTSD. So now, the military is limiting the number of tours a soldier can do in the battle zone. The military finally figured out that keeping soldiers in the battlefield, in a constant, prolonged state of stress, exposure to hard conditions and hard fighting would result in soldiers just snapping and going on a rampage.

Let's think about police departments across America, the institutionalized organizations that have been "nepotistic, closed societies" for 20, 30, even 40 years. And you have officers that have been working at these departments for 20, 30, even 40 years. Heck, for 5, 6 years, constantly in the battle zone without ever taking a break. Think about it, we have officers that are working a heightened, on-edge, day-to-day role for years on end. This is not an excuse, and I want to stress this, this is not an excuse, but when you have a person whose mind is living in a constant battle zone, how do you expect them to react in any situation? And this person carries a gun and interacts with regular citizens, daily. 

Now I will circle back and take a step further; the aforementioned statistic about 1 in 2 women married to a cop being victims of domestic violence. Take that same cop who just smacked his wife is now on the streets, with a gun, a "battle zone" mentality, sent to diffuse situations. This man just smacked his WIFE, you think he is going to think twice about laying hands on you???? 

Solution #1, maybe police departments across America should take a note from the military and start rotating officers from the streets to the desk. Let's train the officers, and then re-train them, on how to cut off the "battle zone" mentality. Let's help the officers research, find, learn, and understand different ways to diffuse a situation, conflict resolution. It could be 3 months in the streets, 1 month on a desk or 2 and 2, whatever but we need to find a way to help re-program and retrain officers on their approach to situations that may occur on duty.

Solution #2, mea culpa. I know loyalty runs deep within police departments and a police officer will never condemn or "snitch" on another officer. Those are the rules and they are understandable but at some point you have to call a spade a spade. It would go a long way if an officer, or officers, would step up to the mic and condemn the actions of their fellow officer. It would be nice to hear, and could go a long way, actual police officers admitting that the action of their colleague was wrong. The perception is that if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. If you cannot admit to your partner doing wrong, then you are part of the problem. I could be wrong but I have not heard an officer condemn the actions of their colleague.

Solution #3, we are going to have to take a good look at our judicial system and figure out why very few of these cases end with an officer being convicted and going to jail. I am not sure of the actual percentage but of all the cases, I can go out on a limb and say less than 20% have led to an actual prosecution. The interesting part about it is the fact that most of the cases, the killing is actually on video. In a trial scenario, the burden of proof is on the prosecution to determine guilt. I am pretty sure a video of the actual murder is proof enough but I could be wrong! Besides, there have been cases where people have been sent to jail with less.

Solution #4, in concert with the aforementioned, the President and the Department of Justice will have to get involved and take a detailed look at the federal, as well as, the state laws surrounding murders by law enforcement. It is happening often enough that it deserves some Federal attention. What exactly, I am not sure, I do not have all the answers!!!

Solution #5, examine how and why a community of people feel disenfranchised? How did it get to the point to where they were "subjugated, underprivileged, undervalued, underrepresented, marginalized, victimized, enslaved, and terrorized?" This is more of a conversation, research, and an examination in economics, law, and finance. 

The organizing principle of any society is for war. Baltimore is having their own Tea Party but they are not tossing tea off of boats because of unfair taxes, they are rebelling against unfair, unpunished police tactics that is costing lives. Baltimore is only a culmination of what has been happening since 1999. I leave with two quotes from Samuel Adams:

"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending against all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks"

"Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can"

#prayforBaltimore