The University of Social Realities

Helping Pittsburgh Escape Financial Ruin

2010-03-03T08:50:00.003-05:00

An almost addictive component of my morning regimen is to drink a cup of coffee and read the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. One item that jumped out at me this morning was the announcement that the YMCA has sold naming rights to PNC. My initial reaction was a tinge of outrage that such a venerable institution would succumb to corporate self-promotion. The outrage was very short lived as I navigated through the paper on my reading journey. Several local news items piqued my attention and I enjoyed the Leonard Pitts Jr. op-ed piece "Is it because Obama's black?" Across the page, I wandered into the editorial "The Road to Stability." Having digested the editorial opinion, I was suddenly engulfed in a light bulb moment. Social realities exist everywhere. The city of Pittsburgh need only utilize the social reality of corporate lust for name recognition to help ease some of the city's financial burden.

What if, the Mayor and City Council entered into a collabrative effort to sell naming rights to all of the city departments? Is the Blackwater Police Bureau unreasonable? The Teamster's Department of Public Works seems reasonable. With the number of departments available, naming rights could be a virtual economic landfall. Mayor Ravenstahl could be the auctioneer at a public auction for naming rights. With the proper marketing strategies is place, the non-profits could be induced to allocate some of their "non-profits" in naming rights.

There may continue to be a short fall in city revenues. But, it seems to me to be a better alternative than begging the state for additional revenue and bemoaning the necessity to raise taxes. I'm just sayin'.

Are you Stimulated?

2010-03-02T09:23:00.002-05:00

Some numbers just escape my ability to comprehend. I know that a million is a whole poke. I can't, for the life of me, imagine a billion anything, a trillion, forget it. I have seen varying numbers related to the dollars being spent on the "economic stimulus." Having done no actual research of my own, I will accept the accuracy of the reported dollar amounts allocated to stimulate new jobs. If the unimaginable figure of $787 billion has been spent to "create or save 1.7 to 2 million jobs, why do I not feel stimulated? If my math is correct, each job saved or created cost the taxpayers $393, 500. Please raise your hand if you feel stimulated.

Assuming an employment rate of approximately 147 million, the overall increase in employment is about one per-cent. Pardon me if I am not feeling stimulated. Throwing in costs of employment, doesn't it seem just a little exorbitant that each of the jobs cost us $393, 500? According to the United States Department of Labor, the employment-population ratio increased 0.2 per-cent. Please raise your hand if you are feeling stimulated. I know that I am not. I'm just sayin'

I'll Take Ice Hockey

2009-05-15T09:57:00.002-04:00

I don't know very much about ice hockey. I remember as a lad that the Pittsburgh team were named the Hornets. As a young adult, I sat in a waiting area with the Hornets awaiting a flight from Cleveland, Ohio to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. That is sum and substance of my relationship with ice hockey until the Penguins began play in the National Hockey League in 1967 at the Civic Arena(Mellon Arena).

As a product of the inner-city and a student at Westinghouse High School, legendary coach Pete Dimperio and the inordinately successful football program, attracted me not unlike the flickering flame of a candle lures the moth. Although I matriculated at another Pittsburgh high school, the influence of the "Bulldogs" continued to burn inside me. Football and my parent's insistence on education, provided me with an opportunity to squander an athletic/academic scholarship. Football was an all consuming addiction and I chased the brass ring via sandlot participation. When reality finally became recognizable, I gave up participation and avidly followed the National Football League(NFL), particularly the Pittsburgh Steelers. The chance encounter with the Hornets in Cleveland, however, piqued my curiosity about hockey.

Ice hockey contains some of the elements of football. I just could not grasp the concept of the game and hockey was just another game that entered my awareness, yet, not my consciousness. As with so many others, I got caught up in the fervor of the USA team defeating the USSR team in the 1980 Olympics "Miracle on Ice." I attended a Penquins game and was highly entertained. America's game had not been supplanted, but, hockey entered my consciousness. As the college football teams increasingly became training grounds for the NFL and the Benjamins increasingly drove the owners and players, it seemed to me that a new culture was being generated. Football players at all levels projected attitudes counter current to team concepts and resorted to outlandish behaviors that the media willingly beamed into television sets.

My love affair with football was dying an agonizing death. I formed a perception that a conspiracy existed in the media to provide a negative image of football players. Daily broadcasts of criminal behavior and expletive laced egotistical diatribes appeared to be the norm. Men who completed four years at institutions of higher learning could not formulate cogent sentences and grammar certainly was not a forethought.

I have not, to date, acquired a real understanding of the game of ice hockey. The speed of the game is exciting, the physicality of the game is entertaining, brawls not withstanding. The greatest attraction for me, however, is the maturity exhibited by the youngest players. "Bad boys" seem to be the exception rather than the rule in the NHL. Most, if not all, of the interviews I have seen, or, heard, are intelligible and team oriented. I cannot bring to mind reports of hockey players beating up women, fighting dogs, shooting themselves with illegaly owned weapons, using and/or trafficking in narcotics, to mention a few recurring themes associated with football players. Perhaps I do not follow hockey closely enough. Based on what I have seen and heard and my perceptions, I will take hockey.

The Reality of Perception

2009-05-13T09:32:00.003-04:00

One of the most important social realities is the understanding of perception. The human animal tends to confuse perception with truth or reality. Eyewitness testimony is influenced by perception. As perception relies on sensory input, what we perceive can be influenced by emotional input as well as the frequency of the sensory input. A young African-American male with a "Do-rag" and sagging pants, may be described as a suspicious character, based solely on the perception of a "gang banger." How people and cultures are perceived, then, is weighted by imagery and the frequency with which the images are presented.

As a child of World War II, my father being a member of the United States Navy, I had the perception that all sailors were the same. I remember asking my mother one time, if the sailor riding the trolley car with us was my daddy. It mattered not that the sailor I saw on the trolley was white and I was, at the time, negro. Since my father was serving in the Pacific Theater of Operations at that time, the only sailors I had ever seen, where white. Only years after my father's return to his family, did I learn that he served in a segregated company. Except for my father's anecdotes and the proudly displayed picture of Company 777, my perception of the military was formed by the images on the silver screen and the news photos and video images of Korea, Viet Nam and the subsequent conflicts involving the United States military.

My perception of the military and it's heroes changed radically as I learned of friends who served and died and were seriously wounded in Viet Nam. I began to view movies and news footage with a more critical eye. Although my perception was morphing, the visual imagery remained constant. In reality, white Americans suffered more casualties and deaths than African-Americans, 86 percent Caucasian, 13 percent black. Perception, then, seems to mirror reality. It was my perception, however, that the 13 percent black participants received less than 13 percent of the visual imagery. My perception that the heroes of war did not include Americans of African descent remained unaltered.

Words to describe the pride and satisfaction I felt with the production of the "Tuskegee Airmen", escape me. I eagerly anticipated a wave of theatrical productions and documentaries dedicated to the African-American heroes of all wars. Need I state that disappointment followed anticipation? Subsequent to that brief interlude with racial pride, I began to ardently watch the various military channels offered on cable television. After countless hours of viewing, I noticed a distinct difference in publicity imagery and actual military footage. Because of the segregation of the military in WW II, I did not expect to see anything significantly different between publicity and reality. Depictions of the Korean, Viet Nam, and the Iraqi conflicts, however, provided and interesting perspective. The reenactment scenes were mostly devoid of African-American military personnel. Actual military footage, though, generally included African-Americans in varying proportions.

The difference between what I consider "manipulated" imagery and "actual" imagery reinforced my opinion that perception may easily become reality. My perception of the African-American in the military was initially molded by the imagery available to me in my youth. I don't suggest any overt racial propaganda, because, I consider the perceptions generated by the media to be of a universal nature. Southern impoverished whites seem to be depicted as "hillbillies" and "rednecks" with enough frequency to create the impression that anyone with a southern accent falls within one of the parameters. Examples abound in the human interactive experience: Muslims as terrorists, law enforcement officers as heroes, Asians as bad drivers, young blacks and Hispanics as gang bangers.

It is incumbent upon us as good citizens, to be aware of our perceptions of others and recognize when our perceptions are not our realities.

Gun Control Lunacy

2009-03-04T11:21:00.004-05:00

There appears to be a preoccupation with disarming the law abiding American citizen under the guise of gun control. Pending in the United States House of Representatives is HR 45, which essentially eliminates self-protection and provides for more layers of bureaucracy and criminalization for anyone who legally owns firearms. What, one must ask, precipitates the continuing need to disarm the law abiding citizens of the United States? In my humble opinion, we have a government run amok with power obsession and pandering to greed and political dishonesty. Public disdain for the questionable application of Troubled Asset Relief Funds(TARP) and other "bailout" initiatives, suggests that the politicians and their high roller contributors fear the thinking that led to the Boston Tea Party. We are not a nation of "gun nuts" out of control. We are a nation whose government is out of control.

Eric Holder, United States Attorney General, wants to re institute the ban on "assualt rifles", to stem the flow of firearms to Mexico. "Assault rifles" as defined by the Federal Assault Weapons Ban (AWB) of 1994, are "certain" semi-automatic rifles that resemble fully automatic rifles employed as weapons of war. Mr. Holder, how in the name of sanity, does a resemblance constitute the same as? Firearms manufacturers produce many variations of sporting rifles that function in the semi-automatic mode. What the firearm looks like has nothing to do with how it functions. If a Red Ryder BB Gun is fitted with a stock to resemble and AK-47 or an M16, an assault rifle has not been created. To the best of my knowledge, at this point in time, the weapon of choice of criminals and terrorists world wide, is fully automatic, particularly, the AK-47. Fully automatic firearms manufactured after 1986, are legal only to the military and police in the United States since the passing of the Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986. If assault weapons, the United States Defense Department's Defense Intelligence Agency book Small Arms Identification and Operation Guide explains, "assault rifles" are "short, compact, selective-fire weapons that fire a cartridge intermediate in power between sub machine gun and rifle cartridges.", are produced only for the military and police and the importation is banned, where are the "assault rifles" originating?

The recent spate of legislation aimed at disarming American citizens for some greater good is nothing less than insidious obfuscation for the sole purpose of total government control of its citizenry.

2009-01-23T21:10:00.004-05:00

In a time when the global economy is failing, the American economy is failing, Americans are dying all over the world, the Palestinians and the Israelis continue to bomb themselves to oblivion, some citizens of the United States of America want to take the President to task for including all Americans in his inaugural speech. I am not a constitutional scholar, but, the last time I read the First Amendment, it guaranteed freedom of religion. By extension, does that not also guarantee freedom of no religion?

According to Bishop E.W. Jackson of the Exodus Faith Ministries in Chesapeake, Va., "The overwhelming majority of Americans identify as Christians, and what disturbs me is that he seems to be trying to redefine who we are." It seems that the Bishop needs to acquaint himself with social realities. The majority population of America does identify as Christians. That is a freedom of religious choice. Is the Bishop suggesting that anyone who is not a Christian is not an American? President Obama extended a welcome for all Americans to help fix a nation that is broken. As we have a separation of church and state, is that not the right thing for the President to do?

I adhere to Christian beliefs, but, I certainly do not feel "redefined". The President of the United States is the political leader of the country, Bishop Jackson, not the religious leader.

One Forward Two Back

2009-01-15T13:24:00.000-05:00

I recall that when I was a small child, my mother constantly reminded her children that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was the greatest organization in the country. My mother was passionate about the mission of the NAACP and her children developed respect and admiration for the organization. As an adult, the NAACP was directly responsible for my employment with a major steel manufacturer. Over the three decades of my employment, I experienced and witnessed, diminishing racial discrimination and bigotry within and without the workplace. I, as my mother, was a champion of the NAACP. We, of African descent, had taken a step forward.

My admiration began to wane when the NAACP focus, at least locally, in my perception, became an advocacy for minimizing the responsibility of criminal behavior by African American thugs. In my mind, a pervasive social reality was being developed. My thoughts were expressed and debated at social gatherings and high school reunions and then sent to the recesses of my brain with the opinion that we were taking two steps backward.

When Barack Obama was elected to the office of President of the United States of America, I gave due props to the NAACP for all of the dedication and tireless effort the organization put forth in being instrumental in the monumental achievement. Unfortunately, the great stride forward was countered by two strides backward, when Alabama NAACP president, Edward Vaughn publicly derided the participation of the Azalea Trail Maids in the innagural parade because their costuumes, "...remind someone of the plantation in 'Gone With the Wind'." Mr. Vaughn, a group of women wearing Ante-Bellum dresses are not exactly the same thing as Grand Wizards and Kleagles sporting sheets and pillowcases.

Even though any person with reasonable intelligence recognizes that Mr. Vaughn was not the spokesperson for the national body, NAACP elicits a perception associated with the national body. His apology illuminates another social reality: a bell cannot be unrung and not all of the egg has been wiped from the face. Mr. Vaughn provided powerful fodder for the conservative radio talk show hosts.

Hair Today Gone Tomorrow

2009-01-08T13:22:00.000-05:00

One thing that we firmly believe in at the University of Social Realities, is everything that affects "African-Americans" is not racist. You just don't need to be a phi beta kappa to understand that unless you own the company, you don't dictate policy. Dreads and "things" sticking randomly out of your head may be your vehicle of self-expression. When you get a job, however, you are not representin' da hood, 0r, da homies; you are representing the company that employs you. The social reality is that the company has an image that drives its marketability and its bottom line. If you show up for an interview with the above mentioned hair styles and do not get hired, is it really racist hiring practices, or, is it your ignorance of social realities? That is not to say that racist hiring practices do not exist. But it is like paying your bills on a real short paycheck. You put all the bills in a hat and draw how many you can afford to pay. If you are hounded by a bill collector, the next pay period, you don't put that bill in the hat. So even if not all qualified "African-American" candidates are hired, interviewed even, the social reality is to get into the hat.

Etiquette

2009-01-07T18:36:00.000-05:00

Etiquette is more than just pointing your pinky finger while sipping a beverage. In the realm of social realities, etiquette is related to social interactions rather than to ethical behavior, although the two are not mutually exclusive. We may believe that there is little relevance to knowing which utensil to use at a formal meal. The social reality is that there is considerable relevance attached. No matter the extent of our expertise or prowess, we are all judged by the social company that we keep. Although our brilliance may be recognized and appreciated within our work environment, if we conduct ourselves as country bumpkins while dining formally, we potentially restrict our upward mobility. We all have perceptions of how things should be. We don't always see the social realities at play. A napkin around the neck and drinking from the finger bowl just don't git it.

Keeping and Bearing Arms

2009-01-07T18:12:00.000-05:00

Since we don't seem to value history very highly in this country any more, we seem to have lost perspective of what the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution means. We are a nation born of revolution. An armed militia fought against what they considered government oppression and violation of individual and civil rights. If we learn nothing else from American history, we must learn that citizens waged war against the recognized government. The salient social reality is that the government was the oppressor. In drafting the Second Amendment, the founding fathers exhibited infinite wisdom in guaranteeing that citizens would always have the means to defend themselves against an oppressive government.

The question that begs to be asked is: "Who is the beneficiary of an unarmed populace?"

Ignorance is Not Bliss

2008-12-29T09:01:00.000-05:00

One might ask, what is a social reality and what importance does it have in my life? From this perspective, social realities are sign posts that direct us along the path of life. To fully understand the importance of social realities, an understanding of ignorance is required. The most appealing definition of ignorance that I have discovered, is that "you don't know and you don't know that you don't know."

Not knowing is not always a bad thing. There are many things in life that we don't need to know, e.g., the current weight of our celeb du jour. On the other hand, what we don't know can be a bad thing, e.g., how the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is the greatest guarantor of all of our freedoms. In future posts, we will examine social realities that have seemingly little impact on our lives if we only view them as insignifica.