Two state Supreme Court justices stun some listeners with race comments

State Supreme Court justices Richard Sanders and James Johnson stunned some participants at a recent court meeting when they said African Americans are overrepresented in the prison population because they commit a disproportionate number of crimes and not because of racial discrimination.

By Steve Miletich

Seattle Times staff reporter

State Supreme Court justices Richard Sanders and James Johnson stunned some participants at a recent court meeting when they said African Americans are overrepresented in the prison population because they commit a disproportionate number of crimes.

Both justices disputed the view held by some that racial discrimination plays a significant role in the disparity.

Johnson also used the term "poverty pimp," an apparent reference to people who purportedly exploit the poor in the legal system, say those who attended the meeting.

Sanders later confirmed his remarks about imprisoned African Americans, saying "certain minority groups" are "disproportionally represented in prison because they have a crime problem."

"That's right," he told The Seattle Times this week. "I think that's obvious."

Johnson did not respond to several messages left Wednesday and Thursday with three staffers in Olympia. He also did not respond to messages left Thursday at his home and with Sanders. Johnson's staff said he was with the court in Spokane to hear cases at the Gonzaga University law school.

African Americans represent about 4 percent of Washington's population but nearly 20 percent of the state prison population. Similar disparities nationwide have been attributed by some researchers to sentencing practices, inadequate legal representation, drug-enforcement policies and criminal-enforcement procedures that unfairly affect African Americans.

Some who attended the meeting say they were offended by the justices' remarks, saying the comments showed a lack of knowledge and sensitivity.

Kitsap County District Court Judge James Riehl, who attended the meeting, said he was "stunned" because, as a trial judge for 28 years, he was "acutely aware" of barriers to equal treatment in the legal system.

Sanders, who is seeking a fourth term in the Nov. 2 general election, and Johnson, who was elected to a second term in the August primary, offered their opinions during an Oct. 7 presentation at the Temple of Justice in Olympia.

Staff from the state Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), as well as Riehl and a social-justice advocate from the Seattle University School of Law, presented a report on improving the effectiveness of boards and commissions set up by the Supreme Court to ensure fair treatment in the courts for minorities and other groups.

Shirley Bondon, an AOC manager who oversees programs to remove barriers in the legal system, said that during the discussion she told the justices that she believed there was racial "bias in the criminal-justice system, from the bottom up."

Bondon, 50, who is African American, said Sanders told others to turn to a page in the report that listed barriers to the justice system, including age, race, disability and other factors.

Sanders asked for the name of anyone who was in prison because of one of the barriers, according to Bondon and others who attended the meeting.

Sanders also stated that he didn't believe the barriers existed, except for poverty because it might restrict the ability to afford an attorney, Bondon said.

Ada Shen-Jaffe, the Seattle University participant, responded that she didn't have names but could provide research, Bondon and Riehl said.

Shen-Jaffe, said to be traveling, couldn't be reached for comment.

Bondon said she told the group that African Americans comprise a small percentage of Washington's population but comprise a much larger percentage of the prison population.

Sanders replied that African Americans commit more crimes, Bondon and others at the meeting said.

Sanders, in an interview, said he replied with words to the effect that maybe prison statistics reflect crimes that were committed.

After Sanders' remark, Johnson said he agreed, noting that African Americans commit them against their own communities, Bondon said.

Bondon said she told Johnson that was unacceptable and that she didn't believe that to be true.

Johnson then remarked that he believed some people are taken advantage of, and in connection with that, used the term "poverty pimp," Bondon said.

Bondon said she didn't know what Johnson meant by that comment but later concluded he likely was referring to legal-service workers who provide services to the poor, particularly since Shen-Jaffe has a background in that field.

Shen-Jaffe objected to Johnson's remarks and invited Johnson to later talk informally with her about them, Bondon and others at the meeting recalled.

Johnson explained during the meeting that he had heard the term "poverty pimp" from someone else, Bondon said.

The pejorative label has generally been used to describe individuals who represent the poor for their own gain.

Justice Debra Stephens said she heard Sanders and Johnson make the comments, including Johnson using the words "you all" or "you people" when he stated that African Americans commit crimes in their own communities.

Stephens said she was surprised by the "poverty pimp" remark.

"If that were directed at me, I would have felt accused," Stephens said, adding that she doesn't believe that was Johnson's intent, but instead that he chose an unfortunate phrase.

Justice Susan Owens said she heard the comments but didn't understand what Johnson meant by "poverty pimp," though she added that she didn't believe he was directing the term at anyone in particular.

Chief Justice Barbara Madsen said she recalled that Sanders disagreed with the premise that anyone was in prison because of race and asked for a name of someone there because of race.

She also recalled Johnson said something about African Americans committing crimes in their own communities, but that she only heard later that he used the term "poverty pimp."

Madsen said she stopped the conversation because she didn't think it was productive.

Some justices said they didn't hear the comments, in part because of overlapping conversations taking place along a long table.

Riehl, the Kitsap County judge, said he was stunned that the term "poverty pimp" would be used in a meeting where the comment didn't relate to the presentation, and that it was made in front of staff and the Seattle University representative.

Johnson made clear that he didn't think the court's boards and commissions should be funded and said the meeting was costing $25,000 in people's time that could be used for better purposes, Riehl said.

"That obviously took me back a little," Riehl said.

Johnson is widely considered to be the court's most conservative justice.

Bondon, the AOC manager, in a written statement to The Seattle Times, said she was stunned by Sanders' remarks.

"I know that people in all walks of life hold biases, but it was stunning to hear a Justice of the Supreme Court make these outrageous comments in my presence," Bondon wrote.

Bondon said she took the "comments personally, as though he were saying that I and all African Americans had a predisposition for criminality and I was offended."

Bondon said she remembered thinking that she didn't need data or statistics to prove that she and other African Americans don't have a predisposition for criminality.

"Just the idea that it was necessary to disprove the assertion was sickening," Bondon said.

Johnson's pimp comment inferred that "poor people have no right to legal representation. Where's the justice in that?" Bondon wrote.

Sanders, in an interview, said he has a reputation for standing up for those accused of crimes but that he hasn't seen evidence that African Americans are disproportionately imprisoned because of race.

He said his concern was for "individuals," and that if someone is in prison for any reason other than committing the crime, "I want to hear about it."

But statistics aren't proof, he said.

Sanders, a self-described civil libertarian, said he had written court opinions making it clear that prosecutors can't dismiss prospective jurors because of race.

Seattle Times news researcher David Turim contributed to this story.

Tyler Perry Gives ‘Oprah’ Graphic Details of Abuse

*USA Today 

has detailed Tyler Perry’s appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” Wednesday, which saw the filmmaker candidly discuss several different moments of sexual abuse as a child growing up in New Orleans.

“I was about five or six,” the first time, he said. He was building a bird house in his backyard and a man from across the street came over and put “his hand in my pants,” said Perry. “I thought, ‘What is this?’”

The next person was “a male nurse at the hospital. And he was doing the same thing. … Then there was the man in the church who used God and the bible to justify a lot of the things that were going on. That was my first sexual appearance – this man performing oral sex on me as a boy.”

And there was the mother of a friend of his, who seduced Perry when he was 10. He went over to play with her son and she locked the front door, stretched out on the couch and spread her legs, not allowing him to leave.

“She puts the key inside herself and tells me to get it. I get the key but I feel my body betraying me again. I felt an erection. This is so disgusting – what these people did to this little boy – she pulled me on top of her and I felt myself inside of her,” he said.

He spoke of his father who “hated me so much.” (Watch here.) And of his mother, whom he “loved so much.” He also talked about how the molestation affected him during sexual experiences with women later in life. “Every time after sex I would go to the shower and wash it off of me. I needed to get way from it.”

He wept when Oprah asked him what he would say to the little boy left behind? “I would say, ‘It’s going to be all right.”

Tyler first raised the subject of his childhood abuse in 2009, when he posted a letter on his website after experiencing a flood of memories following a screening of the Oscar-nominated “Precious,” which he co-produced, including a story of remembering a man in his church who molested him.

Perry’s new movie, the adaptation of “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf,” comes out in November.

Perry wasn’t the only one who cried during the show. He brought tears to Oprah’s eyes by thanking her for all she’s done for viewers for 25 years.

At the end of the show, Winfrey announced that Perry will return for a special Nov. 5 broadcast that will feature an audience of  200 men who suffered childhood sexual abuse.

White House fall harvest turns up turnips and more

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Michelle Obama munched a baby turnip, dug up giant sweet potatoes and snipped pumpkins off the vine as she teamed up with local schoolchildren and world-class chefs for a fall harvest day in the White House garden.

One hulking sweet potato weighed in at 4 pounds on its own, drawing an admiring stare from the first lady.

"You guys have witnessed the first White House pumpkins," she told the children as they loaded up wheelbarrows and weighed in their haul.

Mrs. Obama later posed for a group photo with the harvest team, and at first prompted the children to smile and say "cheese." But then she had a better idea, declaring, "Let's say 'veggies!'"

After the kids finished their harvesting, they were put to work once again, washing the produce and then slicing and dicing vegetables for a fresh garden salad made just for them.

The White House kitchen team got some help from world-renowned chefs Daniel Boulud and James Kent, representing the United States in the 2011 Bocuse d'Or cooking competition, known informally as the Olympics of cooking.

Boulud quizzed the schoolkids on what to do with turnips and then told them, "We can make a good soup with that."

The garden has produced 1,600 pounds of food this year, used to feed the first family and White House guests and for donations.

___

October 20, 2010 06:04 PM EDT

Copyright 2010, The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

African-American History Going to the Smithsonian

Oct. 21, 2010

Bernard Kinsey is a collector - and a storyteller. Get him started and he can't stop. His converted wine cellar is filled with fine, vintage African Americana, reports CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker . 

"This stuff is not only valuable, it's really rare," Kinsey said. It's a passion he shares with Shirley, his wife of 43 years. "I buy the dead artists, she buys the living artists," Bernard Kinsey said. The retired Xerox executives collected for four decades, until their L.A. house was bursting. "I got so much stuff, I can't even keep up with all of it," Bernard Kinsey said. But they didn't truly know what they had until they let it go. 

First it traveled to the African American Museum in L.A. "It's a very special collection about who we are and where we come from," said Charmaine Jefferson, the executive director of the museum. Then the collection went to Chicago, Cincinnati, Palm Beach and Tallahassee. More than 200,000 people have seen their collection of artifacts and works by celebrated artists like Romare Beardon and Jacob Lawrence. "I think it's wonderful," said Jon Moyle in Tallahassee. "It will bring tears to your eyes." It is not bad for a couple of kids from Florida who met in college in 1963 in the heat of the Civil Rights Movement. They built a good life, and piece by piece this remarkable collection. "I grew up with my grandmother," said Shirley Kinsey. "Mama would not like this if I didn't share this with others." 

Now they're sharing with the country. Their collection just opened at the Smithsonian Museum of American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., the first private collection at the new African-American gallery. "What we're trying to do simply is give our ancestors a voice, a personality, a name," Bernard said. Adding their stories to America's story.

Obama's Approval Rating at New Low in Most Recent Quarter

His favorable rating and re-elect figures are also at new lows

by Jeffrey M. Jones

PRINCETON, NJ -- Barack Obama averaged 44.7% job approval during the seventh quarter of his presidency. His average approval rating has declined each quarter since he took office, falling by more than two percentage points in the most recent quarter to establish a new low.

These results are based on Gallup Daily tracking surveys conducted from July 20-Oct. 19, including interviews with more than 90,000 Americans. The seventh quarter included Obama's new low three-day average approval rating of 41% in mid-August. His approval rating has recovered somewhat since then, with his latest three-day average at 46% for Oct. 17-19 interviewing.

Obama's seventh-quarter average ranks on the low end of comparable averages among the nine presidents since Eisenhower, although it is similar to that of several of the more recently elected presidents, including Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton.

Obama's decreased popularity is also evident in his favorable rating, updated in an Oct. 14-17 Gallup poll. For the first time, more Americans view the president unfavorably (50%) than favorably (47%), and his favorable rating is the lowest of his presidency.

His all-time low favorable rating of 42% came in Gallup's initial measurement of Obama in December 2006, at which time 47% did not know enough about him to give an opinion and 11% viewed him unfavorably. As he became more well-known over the course of the 2008 presidential campaign his favorable rating gradually rose and hit a high of 78% in January 2009 just prior to his taking office. Since his inauguration, positive opinions of him have declined by 31 points.

The Oct. 14-17 Gallup poll also finds that, at this point in his presidency, 39% of Americans believe Obama deserves re-election and 54% say he does not. Earlier this year, between 46% and 48% of Americans said Obama should be re-elected.

The current results for Obama are remarkably similar to what Gallup measured for Clinton in October 1994, at which time 38% of Americans thought he was worthy of a second term as president and 57% disagreed. That was just before Clinton's party lost its congressional majority in the 1994 elections, but two years later voters re-elected Clinton by a comfortable margin.

By comparison, in September 2002, 62% of Americans thought George W. Bush deserved re-election. Two years after his party's strong showing in the 2002 midterms, Bush won a narrow victory over John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election.

Implications

With the midterm elections less than two weeks away, Obama's diminished public support means the Democratic Party is vulnerable to heavy losses in Congress. The president's party has lost an average of 36 U.S. House seats when his approval rating is below 50%.

However, both Clinton and Reagan were in similar poor standing at this point in their presidencies, and both recovered in time to win second terms as president.

Explore Obama's approval ratings in depth and compare them with those of past presidents in the Gallup Presidential Job Approval Center.

NPR Fires Juan Williams After O'Reilly Appearance

Published October 21, 2010 | FoxNews.com

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National Public Radio fired Fox News contributor Juan Williams on Wednesday after a Monday night appearance in which Williams said that it makes him nervous to fly on airplanes with devout Muslims.

Williams was terminated following a discussion with "O'Reilly Factor" host Bill O'Reilly on the dilemma between fighting jihadists and fears about average Muslims. 

"I mean, look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country," Williams said.

"But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they're identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous," Williams said.

Williams also commented on remarks by Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad warning Americans that the fight is coming to the U.S. 

"He said the war with Muslims, America's war is just beginning, first drop of blood. I don't think there's any way to get away from these facts," Williams said.

NPR issued a statement saying that it was "terminating" Williams' contract over the remarks. 

"Tonight we gave Juan Williams notice that we are terminating his contract as a senior news analyst for NPR News," CEO Vivian Schiller and Senior Vice President for News Ellen Weiss said in a statement.

"Juan has been a valuable contributor to NPR and public radio for many years and we did not make this decision lightly or without regret. However, his remarks on 'The O'Reilly Factor' this past Monday were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR," they said. "We regret these circumstances and thank Juan Williams for his many years of service to NPR and public radio."

Williams said Thursday he wasn't given the chance to have a face-to-face conversation with his superiors at NPR before he was let go.

Recalling a conversation with NPR's head of news, Williams said he was told, "This has been decided up the chain." 

"I said, 'I don't even get the chance to come in and we do this eyeball to eyeball, person to person and have a conversation. I've been there more than 10 years. We don't have a chance to have a conversation about this.' And she said, 'There's nothing you can say that will change my mind. This has been decided above me and we're terminating your contract,'" Williams recounted to Fox News.

Williams said that he meant exactly what he said about his fears during his appearance on O'Reilly's show.

"I do a double take. I have a moment of anxiety of fear given what happened on 9/11. That's just a reality," he said, noting that when he told his former boss, she suggested that Williams had made a bigoted statement.

"It's not a bigoted statement. In fact, in the course of this conversation with Bill O'Reilly, I said we have an obligation as Americans to be careful to protect the constitutional rights of everyone in our country and to make sure that we don't have any outbreak of bigotry. but that there's a reality. You can not ignore what happened on 9/11 and you cannot ignore the connection to Islamic radicalism, and you can't ignore the fact of what has even recently been said in court with regard to this is the first drop of blood in a Muslim war in America."

Watch Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" at 8 pm ET Thursday night for an interview with Juan Williams.

The conversation on O'Reilly's show stemmed from a well-publicized argument the previous week between O'Reilly and "The View" hosts Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg, who walked off their own set when O'Reilly said, "Muslims killed us on 9/11."

The comment had been an explanation by O'Reilly why the majority of Americans don't want a mosque housed in an Islamic cultural center built near Ground Zero.

The women, who argued that Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVeigh wasn't a Muslim, returned after O'Reilly said that he was -- perhaps inartfully -- talking about Muslim extremists.

The conversation has been fodder for both shows. Goldberg appeared Wednesday night on"On the Record With Greta Van Susteren," and said when she cursed at O'Reilly on air -- a word that was bleeped for broadcast -- she knew she was beyond reason and had to leave.

"He wasn't thoughtful and he knew he wasn't thoughtful and once he said, 'if I offended someone I apologize' ... it showed me that he recognized it," she said. 

"But he knew that for us it was not ok. ... He got what he wanted and I don't feel bad about doing it. Should I have sat and just bit my tongue? I don't think I could because it was too much like all the things I heard about black folks and women," Goldberg said, adding that she has no hard feelings and planned to appear on O'Reilly's show in a few weeks..  

Williams, a liberal African American commentator who has written extensively on civil rights in America, previously got in trouble with NPR for comments he made while appearing on "The O'Reilly Factor" in February 2009. At that time, he described first lady Michelle Obama as having a "Stokely Carmichael  in a designer dress thing going."

Carmichael was a black activist in the 1960s who coined the phrase "Black Power."

After the Carmichael quote, Williams' position at NPR was changed from staff correspondent to national analyst.

Watch Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" at 8 pm ET Thursday night for an interview with Juan Williams.

Black preachers who 'whoop' -- minstrels or ministers?

Preacher 'whoops' it up at the pulpit

http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/10/20/whooping/ By John Blake, CNN STORY HIGHLIGHTS "Whooping" is a form of preaching that's dividing the black church "Whoopers" use vocal gymnastics and storytelling to inspire congregations Can white preachers whoop? Critics: Whoopers are minstrels, not ministers CNN's Soledad O'Brien looks at how some are fighting debt from the pulpit in "Almighty Debt: A Black in America Special," premiering at 9 p.m. ET on October 21. (CNN) -- The Rev. E. Dewey Smith Jr. bangs on the pulpit with his fist. He shuts his eyes and moans. Then a high-pitched sound rises from his throat like the wail of a boiling tea-kettle. "I wish you'd take the brakes off and let me preach," he tells his congregation during his Sunday morning sermon. Rows of parishioners stand to shout. One woman in a satiny blue dress jumps up and down like she's on a pogo stick. A baby starts to cry. Smith had already given his congregation the "meat" of his message: scriptural references, archaeological asides, modern application -- all the fancy stuff he learned in seminary. Now he was about to give them the gravy. It was the time to "whoop." "One Tuesday morning, I heard the voice of Jesus saying, 'C'mon unto me and rest," Smith shouts as he punctuates his delivery with a series of guttural gasps and shrieks backed up by an organist's riffs. "But can I tell you what I did? I came to Jesus, just as I was. And I found in him joy in sorrow. Somebody shout yes. Yeessssss!" To whoop or not whoop? Smith may have sounded like he was screaming. But those who grew up in the African-American church know better. He was whooping. He was practicing a art form that's divided the black church since slavery. Whooping is a celebratory style of black preaching that pastors typically use to close a sermon. Some church scholars compare it to opera; it's that moment the sermon segues into song. Whooping pastors use chanting, melody and call-and-response preaching to reach parishioners in a place where abstract preaching cannot penetrate, scholars say. Whooping preachers aim "to wreck" a congregation by making people feel the sermon, not just hear it, says the Rev. Henry Mitchell, a scholar who identified the link between whooping and African oral traditions. "The old folks used to say, 'If you ain't felt nothing, you ain't got nothing,''' Mitchell says. Yet the black church has long been ambivalent about whooping. Some scholars say contemporary black churches are abandoning whooping because they think it's crass. But more white preachers are discovering it through YouTube and by sharing the pulpit with black preachers. The most persistent debate over whooping revolves around its legitimacy. Is it fair to call it an art form? What's so hard about a preacher screaming and sweating in the pulpit? Those are the critics who say whoopers are minstrels, not ministers. "The hairs on the back of my neck stand up when people say that," says the Rev. Martha Simmons, a whooping preacher and scholar. "It is a genuine art form." Simmons says the best whoopers use their voices like instruments. They're following rules of rhythm, tone and melody. All good whoppers have some "music" in their throat, says Simmons, editor of "Preaching with Sacred Fire," an anthology of black sermons dating back to 1750. If you think whooping is easy, Simmons says, try listening to a preacher who can't whoop but tries to anyway. "It's like listening to someone try to sing opera who is not an opera singer," she says. "It's a train wreck." Earning the right to whoop Whooping isn't confined to vocal gymnastics. The greatest whoopers combined "learning and burning." They are theologically sound, well-read and excellent storytellers, scholars say. Smith, senior pastor of Greater Travelers Rest Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, says a good whooper has to preach a solid message before they whoop. "When I was in seminary, I was taught that you had to earn the right to whoop," Smith says. "What earns you the right is solid exegesis, scholarship, being able to apply the message." Those whooping legends that blended theology with "whoopology" are people like the Rev. Caesar Arthur Walker Clark Sr., a diminutive man with a powerful voice that could sound like God's trombone. Contemporary whooping legends include the Rev. Charles Adams, dubbed the "Harvard Hooper" because of his Ivy League education, and the Rev. Jasper Williams, who teaches "whoopology" classes through a DVD series. But the Rev. C.L. Franklin, the father of singer Aretha Franklin, is widely considered the greatest whooper. Many of Franklin's sermons, like the classic, "The Eagle Stirreth Her Nest," and "Dry Bones in the Valley," were sold as popular records during his lifetime. Whoopers not only sound different; they preach different, says Mitchell, the preaching scholar and author of "Black Preaching: The Recovery of a Powerful Art." Most whoopers shun abstractions. They preach with stories, parables and metaphors -- like Jesus did. "When Jesus wanted people to be compassionate, he didn't say 'Be yea compassionate,''' Mitchell says. "He told the story of the Good Samaritan." Mitchell says European culture tends to distrust emotion. That instinct, he says, goes as far back as the Greeks who frowned upon the exuberant worship of pagan religions. Scholars quibble over the origin of whooping. Most trace it back to West Africa griots, the dramatic storytellers who preserved a people's oral tradition. Some trace it to the "tonal" nature of African languages, the drums of Africa; the need for the slave preacher to rouse the battered spirits of enslaved Africans. "It's in the DNA of our people," Smith says. "When people were beaten and bruised, the slave preacher, with the intonation of the voice, was able to lift the spirits of the people." Can white people whoop? If whooping is the soundtrack for the black church experience, some want to change the record. More black megachurch pastors are classifying themselves as "teaching" or "word" ministers. Their sermons resemble lectures, complete with studious congregations taking notes. Smith, the Atlanta pastor, says some of the discomfort blacks have with whooping springs from "self-hate." They're ashamed of an authentic expression of black culture. He cited E. Franklin Frazier, the black sociologist who wrote "The Black Bourgeoisie." "Frazier wrote that the higher we climb on that social and economic ladder, the less intense and heartfelt our worship becomes," Smith says. Some of the criticism of whoopers, though, is warranted, even some whoopers will acknowledge. The Rev. Patrick Clayborn, an assistant professor of homiletics at Methodist Theological School in Ohio, says some preachers treat whooping as mere entertainment. Clayborn says he was once accompanying his brother-in-law, a church organist, to a Sunday morning service when the visiting preacher slipped in a quiet request before the service. "He said make sure you're in D-flat when I get to the end of my sermon," Clayborn recalls. Teresa L. Fry Brown, director of black church studies at Emory University in Atlanta, says people use to scoff at the itinerant "jackleg" preachers in the 1940s and 1950s who whooped their way through empty sermons, making up texts. Preachers who give their congregation a whoop but no substance leave their parishioners with nothing to get them through the week, Brown says. "They deliver diabetic sermons. You have a shot of insulin, but you have to come back later," Brown says. "It's like a candy high. They never look at the text; never any substance. All they give you is sounds." Another debate in the whooping world revolves around race: Can white preachers whoop? Some black preachers say yes, and point to white pastors such as the Rev. Paula White. Featured at many of Bishop T.D. Jakes' events, White says she doesn't try to whoop. It's simply an "authentic" expression of her preaching passion. "Can I whoop? Yes," White says. "It's very natural for me. But I don't try to be black. I don't try to be white. All I know is to be me." Yet Clayborn, the homiletics professor in Ohio, says the fuel for the whoop grows out of the black perspective, the experience of being among "the least, the last and lost." "When I see a white preacher do it, it feels like they went and learned it, just like a parrot can imitate the human voice," he says. "They're like spiritual parrots." Despite criticism, whopping is still popular, says Simmon, editor of "Sacred Fire." Preachers who don't practice whooping will call whoopers when they want to pack their churches for special events. "Tell me about somebody who is having a revival," she says, "and I will tell you where the whoopers are." No matter how sophisticated they get, whooping still speaks to black folks, Mitchell says. One of Mitchell's preaching students who earned all sorts of advanced degrees had something odd happen to her after a family tragedy. "She was preaching one morning and, before she knew anything, she started whooping and the place went crazy," Mitchell says. ""She didn't know she had it in her." Simmons wouldn't be surprised by such a story. Some people may look down on it, but many black people still respect the power of the whoop. "There's a sense of home in it," she says. "If you're a black person that hasn't been acculturated away from it, you say, 'This is us.' '

Find this article at: http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/10/20/whooping

$18 Million to Man Wrongly Imprisoned

By ANAHAD O’CONNOR

A Bronx man who was imprisoned for more than two decades on a rape conviction before being cleared by DNA evidence was awarded $18.5 million by a jury on Tuesday.

The judgment, which came about four years after the man, Alan Newton, was released from prison, is one of the largest ever awarded to a wrongfully incarcerated person in New York City. Mr. Newton was convicted of rape, robbery and assault in 1985 — based largely on eyewitness testimony — and spent years fighting to have DNA evidence from the case located and tested after more advanced testing procedures became available.

A rape kit from the case was found in a Police Department warehouse in 2005 — about a decade after Mr. Newton and his lawyers had requested it — and subsequent testing showed that DNA collected from the victim did not match.

Mr. Newton, now 49, was released from prison in July 2006. On Tuesday, a jury ruled that the city had violated his constitutional rights, and found two police officers liable for intentional infliction of emotional distress for failing to produce Mr. Newton’s evidence when requested.

“I’m just real numb right now,” Mr. Newton said in an interview on Tuesday. “It hasn’t really sunk in. It’s so emotional. It’s something I’ve been fighting for the last four years, since I came home. I’m just glad things worked out at the end of the day.”

A spokeswoman for the city’s Law Department said the city was “disappointed” with the verdict, which was rendered in Federal District Court in Manhattan, and planned to appeal it.

Mr. Newton’s lawyer, John F. Schutty III, argued that the Police Department’s system for storing and keeping track of post-conviction evidence was so shoddy that the city showed a reckless disregard for his constitutional rights. Mr. Schutty pointed out that for years the city had been registering and tracking the movement of evidence strictly by paper and pen.

“Only this year are they attempting to introduce a bar-code system,” he said.

Mr. Newton’s claim was supported by the Innocence Project, a nonprofit group that seeks to free convicts through DNA evidence. It said that of about 50 people from New York City it had represented in the last five years, half had received the DNA evidence in their cases from the city. In the other cases, the city was unable to produce the evidence or explain what had happened to it.

“The City of New York,” Mr. Schutty said, “has been engaged in a pattern of failing to pay proper attention to their duties to preserve post-conviction criminal evidence and its associated paperwork.”

Since being released from prison, Mr. Newton has tried to catch up on lost time. He immediately enrolled as a full-time student at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn and completed his studies over the next two years.

He now works as a research associate at the Black Male Initiative of the City University of New York, helping to recruit, retain and assist students to ensure they graduate from college, he said. And he recently took the law school admissions test and plans to apply to law schools this year. Eventually, he said, he would like to do public interest work, helping to prevent people in poor neighborhoods from suffering the fate that he did.

“I want to work with people that really need that legal assistance that’s just not there for them,” he said. “There are so many issues where people need competent counsel, and it’s just not out there. I think I’ll jump into it with both arms.”

Asked if he planned to celebrate his verdict, Mr. Newton said he was in no rush.

“There’ll be time for celebration, but there are some other things to take care of,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of patience in my life. I’ve learned not to rush anything. Good things take time. This decision took time, but it was worth every moment.”