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State of the Black Family
2006

Economics and Education
Part 3 of a 4 part Series

Read Part 1| Part 2| Part 3 | Part 4

An Interview with Roland S. Martin
by Anita S. Lane  

Click "Play" to listen to the Audio version of this interview...

Roland S. Martin is an award-winning journalist, nationally syndicated columnist, political analyst and commentator.  He is the executive editor of the Chicago Defender, host of Perspective on TV One, founding editor of BlackAmericaWeb.com and author of Speak, Brother! A Black Man’s View of America.

KFF:  Mr. Martin, thank you so much for joining us today.   Today is January 31, 2006, and it is a very significant day in the history of Black America in that we learned that Mrs. Coretta Scott King died early this morning. 

I scheduled this interview with you as part of our State of the Black Family, but in light of this news, let me ask you, what should Black America’s response be to the life and legacy of Mrs. King?  How should we respond?

Roland:  I think first and foremost it is a time for us to reflect on what she accomplished with others.  At the same time, it’s a matter of saying, “Here’s what a woman did when she was about 25-26 years old and how can we emulate what she was able to do as well?” 

So, we have to remain focused on that.  All too often we spend a great deal of time reflecting on the past and talking about people in historical ways, but we don’t then do the work.  You can talk about Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer and so many different others, but the key is they worked.  They did the work. They simply didn’t hold conferences, seminars and summits — they actually got down to doing the hard work that’s necessary to advance us forward.

KFF:  Right…so it’s important for us to do the work.

Roland:  It’s critically important.

KFF:  For our four-part series on the State of the Black Family, I combined the topics of economics and education because I believe they are intricately related.   At the Macro level, what in your opinion, is the State of the Black Family in the area of education and economics?

Roland:  I think the black family is strong, but what stands out the most is that we still have far too many kids being born out of wedlock.  And so we don’t have men who are in the homes who are upholding their responsibility.  We have far too many people, in my estimation, who are sperm donors as opposed to fathers. 

It’s alarming, when you look at the numbers, in terms of the deficiency, when it comes to blacks reading at the third and fourth grade level.  Here in Chicago, roughly 31 percent of black males are going to graduate from high school.  That shouldn’t make anyone feel as if things are just so wonderful, so great that we can just move on forward and sing “Kum By Ya,” and everything is fine.  That simply cannot be our opinion.  So I think that we’ve got to be focused on the issue of education.

Education and economics are intertwined.  The realty is that you cannot have the advancements in black America when it comes to economics without education.  That’s why it was stressedsomuch by our parents and others who constantly emphasized that particular issue.  It was so important to them because they realized that we could not move forward without education.  That’s what mattered.

KFF:  You’re right — and you mentioned just how important it was to our parents; what do you suggest we as moms, dads, aunts, uncles, friends and neighbors do to improve the educational outcomes of our children?

Roland:  Well, I think first and foremost what we cannot do is get overwhelmed by the problem.  I think we do that a lot where we say, “It’s just … it’s just so much…” and we sit back and say, “Oh, what do we do? We’ve got this, we got this…”

I have a phrase that I think is critically important, and that is, “All I can do, is all I can do.”  So I focus on my particular area of influence.  In my case my, my wife and I don’t have children, but we are raising two of my sister’s kids who are twins.  So, clearly it starts right there.  Two of my other nieces and my sister are living at our home in Dallas and the other day I was on my web cam, and I was communicating with them and I told both of them, “I want you to read back to me.” 

So we are constantly driving home the issue of education, of reading.  One of my nieces just won first place in a spelling bee.  So what we do is that we make it clear that the television is not going to raise you, we are.  We set a standard.  We set a high standard.

I don’t believe in the view that says, “Well this is okay, it’s really not a problem.  It can be better…” No, we set an extremely high standard in order for them to meet it and we stay on them.  It also means sacrifice on your part.  If you think back to…I call it the “pre-Brown” parents (Brown vs. Board of Education) — the people who made it clear that, “I may not be able to read but you’re sure going to know how to read…”  I mean, there is sacrifice that goes with that.  So as a parent you may have to sacrifice buying that luxury vehicle in order to ensure that your kids are getting the right education.  That’s critically important.

KFF:  When we look back, we see the successes that many African-Americans experienced when they attended schools that were segregated in poor neighborhoods, before Brown vs. Board of Education…and yet today, we have so many challenges.  What made the difference?

Roland:  I think the difference is that people cared.  When I say people cared, a lot of people cared. It wasn’t simply one or two people.  You had teachers who cared.  You had principals who cared. You had neighbors who cared.  So that’s really what mattered —that the people actually cared about the kids.  They were concerned about their welfare.  It wasn’t simply a matter of just, “Well you know, whatever the heck.  Just do whatever you want to.”  No.  They cared.  And so we have to care today. It has to matter, to us.  It has to matter.

KFF:  There are a lot of people who would say, “Oh, we care, we love our children. How can you say we don’t care about our children?”

Roland:   But listen to what I said — parents cared…teachers cared…principals cared…neighbors cared… It was a collective caring.  What you have today is, some of your teachers might care.  Not all.  Some of your principals might care.  Not all.  A few of your neighbors might care.  But the reality is many of us don’t even know our neighbors.

KFF:  Right, exactly…

Roland:  So you don’t have the same system.  Also, you don’t have the same external forces that are visible and aligned against us.  So, that also is critically important.  You’ve got to be able to understand that aspect of it as well.

KFF:  You think that drew us closer and caused us to act collectively? 

Roland:  You had no choice.  You had no options.

KFF:  You had to stick together.

Roland:  You couldn’t live on the other side of town.  What are you going to do?

KFF:  I know the solutions may be too many to name, but what are a few key policies you think need to be implemented to help improve the education and economic outcomes of African-Americans?

Roland:  I think we have to recognize that it is not just an issue of money.  I was on a television show with Rev. Floyd Flake and we were talking about that and how in Washington, D.C. they spend upwards of $15,000 per child for education.  In his charter school in New York they spend about $5,400 per child and they have a tremendous success rate.

I’m not saying that resources are not important, but what I am saying is that the question should be, “How is he able to do it?” and “How can we emulate what they’re doing?”  Versus, automatically thinking that money is the issue — it’s not.  Kids achieving, and being high achievers happens two ways:  it happens when there is this strong intestinal fortitude in a child, to want to do better;  or when there are strong forces outside of that child, meaning parents and others who are willing them to do better.

KFF: That’s where that caring comes in…

Roland:  Yeah.  I mean, I have a niece who is eight years old and she is slightly behind in her reading.  Well, I listen to her and she’s okay…but we’re looking at sending her to Sylvan Learning Center.  It’s going to cost $1,200 a month for the next five months.  The question is, are we willing to sacrifice that money in order to do it.  Or can I sit back and say, “Well dang… That’s five grand I can save.”   I mean, do you have the level of sacrifice?  

In my case, I went to a school of communications high school in Houston and I often stayed late video taping programs, editing programs and doing things along those lines.  Well, my parents could have said, “Get your butt on that bus because I’m not driving 30 minutes to come pick you up, and 30 minutes coming back home.”  They could have said that.  Or they could have said, “We’re going to make the sacrifice now, for him to do these things because these things are preparing him for the career that he’s going into.”  And they were right.

KFF:  Is supporting black-owned businesses important to improving our economic outcomes?

Roland:  I mean, absolutely. But what are the black-owned businesses that we’re talking about?  You have to really study what sectors our businesses are in.  Supporting black-owned businesses is critical because you would hope that those businesses are reinvesting in the neighborhoods. But when we have little leagues, banquets and other events — if you go to Exxon, Exxon and other companies are going to buy a table.  But the Mom and Pop store down the street, they can also buy a table as well.  So we have to associate the possibilities with these businesses. 

Secondly, you have the black businesses in the black community that are also hiring.  They are setting us a work ethic standard.  So it’s critical that we own.  Tom Burrell with Burrell Communications explained this to me.  He said, “The American economy began as an agricultural economy and moved to an industrial economy. Now it has transitioned to a Wall Street economy.”  He said, “Our approach to black-owned businesses is still in the agricultural phase.”  Meaning, in the agricultural phase we say, “I own a farm.  I pass the farm down to my son.  He passes the farm down to his son and it’s in the family five or six generations.”  He says the issue should be the creation of black wealth, as opposed to a business.   He said that if I have a business that I’ve built up over 20-30 years, and I’ve got significant equity in the business, I have a great business that’s making money, but I am not necessarily a rich person.  If I sell my business, for 5, 10, 150 — in Bob Johnson’s case 3.3 billion dollars – now I have wealth which then allows me to do other things.  So, I’ll use Bob Johnson as an example.
 
People criticize Bob Johnson for selling BET, but if Bob Johnson had not sold BET he would not have been able to buy the NBA franchise in Charlotte.  He would not have been able to create this hedge fund.   He would not have been able to open a bank.  He would not have been able to buy hotels all across the world.  He would not have been able to acquire real estate.  He had a business that had tremendous equity value, but he did not have wealth.  He sold the business and attained wealth and now he is able to hire other people and to start other businesses because of his wealth.

KFF:  He can create other opportunities.

Roland:  Precisely.  So sure, it may not be BET, but in fact, he probably has more employees working for him in his various business ventures than he did working at BET.

KFF:  Let’s talk about incarceration.  Does that play a big role in economic challenges we face in the African-American community?

Roland: Yeah.  If you have more folks in jail, then they can’t work.  The problem is that once they get out of jail, now they are ex-felons.  And most folks aren’t going to hire ex-felons.  So now you’ve got a high unemployment rate.  And again, most of these cats who are there are illiterate.  They can’t read.  They can’t write.  So now what you got?  Now what you have is a significantly high unemployment rate in the community.  You got all these cats in jail and when they get out they are typically going to go right to the unemployment line.  So they are not contributors to society [economically].

I support the ex-felon programs, but what I support the most is not going to jail.

KFF:  You talked about illiteracy.   How pervasive is illiteracy among children?  I assume it’s happening all around us without our knowledge?

Roland: Yeah, it’s happening.  Absolutely.  It’s happening because we’re not looking at the warning signs. We’re not forcing our children to read and to read aloud so we can hear them.  We’re not forcing them to do these things.  That is what is vitally important for us.  We’ve got to make it clear to them that, “No, you’re not going to sit here and skate by.”  I’ll sit there when I’m reading with my nieces and I will make them repeat the word over, and over, and over, so that they get the word, right.  I’m not going to say, “Well, that’s okay.”  No. They are going to say the word right.  Now you may say, “Man, you shouldn’t be that hard on them.”  No. They’re going to learn. They’ve got no choice.  For us, education is not an option.

KFF:  Right, right.  I read a statistic that stated that black business owners were more likely to hold graduate degrees when they started their businesses as opposed to the national average.  That begs the question; do blacks really have to work harder to reach the same destination as whites? 

Roland:  Yes they do.  There’s no doubt.  We have to work harder because the expectations are different.  Understand something. When you hear people say, “We’re looking for qualified minority candidates.”   You’ve never hear the qualifier “qualified” when referring to whites.  So the automatic assumption is they are qualified.  So, yes you have to work harder.  There’s no doubt.

KFF:  I know our topic isn’t marriage, but you know a lot of us don’t get married because of economics.   We still have the children and often we’ll live together, but we don’t think we can “afford” to get married.   What’s your take on this?

Roland:  Well, I don’t necessarily know about that… that we can’t afford to get married.

KFF:  Well, that’s what people say.

Roland: I think that’s probably more of an excuse.  I mean, we can afford to get married.  I don’t care what you say.  If two people are working, that’s better than one person working.  If you are a single man and woman, you have two house notes, two car notes — you have double of everything.  So, I don’t necessarily buy that.  I think quite frankly that a lot of people are afraid of marriage today.   They are afraid of the possibility of divorce. 

They are also selfish.  Understand, there is nothing wrong with being selfish if you are single.  You don’t have to tell me where you are going.  You are single.  But when you are married it requires you to lose self.  To be single means to be, “I - my.”  To be married means to be “We – us – our.”  A lot of people are afraid to cross that line because they really like, “I – my” and they don’t want to contemplate, “We –us- our.”

KFF:  Let’s Talk about your books—the motivation behind them and what you hope readers will take from them.  You wrote the book, Speak Brother, A Black Man’s View of America.  What was the motivation behind that book? 

Roland:  It’s a compilation of my news columns and essays.  It was to put them all together and to present pieces that speak to the issues in black America or in America.    That’s really what it was about. 

Also I self-published it and did everything from the writing to the editing. I had it printed myself and I’m selling it through my website, so it was also a matter of being able to control my own product.  That was critically important to me.

KFF:  You’re currently working on, The Black Agenda: Charting Our Course for the Next 100 Years, right?  

Roland:  No, actually I’m currently working on Yes, God! Listening to the Spirit Within, which is a compilation of my faith-based columns and essays.

KFF: Do you plan to publish that book as well?

Roland:  Yes, but that will probably be off a little bit more.  I’m working on this one now and I have a couple of other book concepts that I’m working on as well.

KFF:  Just tell us a little about “Listening to the Spirit Within…”

Roland:  It’s a collection of my news and faith-based columns dealing with the church and homosexuality, dealing with marriage—all kinds of faith-based issues that I’ve had to confront, but also that people have sent me e-mails about.  So I’ve written a number of different pieces trying to put faith issues into a more contemporary context so people can better understand, and again…improve their lives.

KFF:  That’s wonderful.  Well, I want to thank you so very much for joining us particularly today — and we hope to talk with you soon and I wish you the very best in your future.

Roland:  I appreciate it.

For more economic and education statistics view our Data Sheet...

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See Roland's Commentary on TV One...

	Speak, Brother! A Black Man's View of America Author: Roland S. Martin

Copyright ©2006 by Keeping Family First.