Atlanta Daily World

Even after the White House and Congress stagger to reach a last-minute deal to avert yet another budget crisis, there is a fundamental difference in approach between the Obama administration and House Republicans. And those two stark approaches to governing goes to the type of society we want to be: one that protects the needy or one that protects the greedy.

Surprisingly, the Republicans’ position is crystal clear: they favor extending special favors to the wealthy at the expense of the most vulnerable in our society.

“Republicans say that from here on, we should do only spending cuts, focusing on entitlement programs.  But their approach to entitlements is highly selective — they seek to cut the entitlement programs on the spending side of the budget, whose benefits go overwhelmingly to middle-class and poor families.  But they want no deficit reduction to come from the most wasteful and inefficient of entitlements — those embedded in the tax code,” observed Robert Greenstein, director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).

Republican leaders say they will not budge on cutting tax expenditures, a term for tax deductions, exclusions, credits, and other tax preferences that disproportionately benefit the wealthy.

“Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell proclaimed in an op-ed … ‘I have news for [President Obama]:  the moment that he and virtually every other elected Democrat in Washington signed off on the terms of the current arrangement, it was the last word on taxes.  That debate is over,’” Greenstein wrote. “Similarly, House Speaker John Boehner’s staff declared, ‘As far as we’re concerned, the tax issue is off the table.’ This, despite the fact that Boehner proposed several hundred billion dollars of additional revenues during his negotiations with President Obama only a few weeks ago.”

What is it that Republicans are so adamant about protecting?

As Greenstein notes, “Tax expenditures cost about $1.1 trillion a year, far more than Social Security or than Medicare and Medicaid combined and nearly two-thirds more than the total cost of all non-defense discretionary programs.”

It is such a logical – and fair – place to cut that Martin Feldstein, former chair of President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers, said that “cutting tax expenditures is really the best way to reduce government spending.”

The Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center estimates that for tax year 2011, the top fifth of the population will receive 66 percent of the $1.1 trillion in individual tax-expenditure benefits (the top 1 percent alone will receive 23.9 percent of the benefits), the middle 60 percent of the population will receive slightly more than 31 percent of the benefits, and the bottom 20 percent of the population will receive only 2.8 percent.

The headline of another CBPP report says it all: “Contrary to ‘Entitlement Society’ Rhetoric, Over Nine-Tenths of Entitlement Benefits Go to Elderly, Disabled, or Working Households.”

According to the study issued last year: “…”More than 90 percent of the benefit dollars that entitlement and other mandatory programs spend go to assist people who are elderly, seriously disabled, or members of working households – not to able-bodied, working-age Americans who choose not to work.”

Mitt Romney was arguing the opposite position in a surreptitiously recorded video that contributed to his defeat against President Obama.

“In Obama’s ‘entitlement society,’ everyone receives the same or similar rewards, regardless of education, effort and willingness to take risk,” Romney charged. “Once we thought ‘entitlement’ meant that Americans were entitled to the privilege of trying to succeed in the greatest country in the world. Americans fought and died to earn and protect that entitlement. But today the new entitlement battle is over the size of the check you get from Washington.”

That was a callous lie. In fact, the CBPP study notes, “Federal budget and Census data show that, in 2010, 91 percent of the benefit dollars from entitlement and other mandatory programs went to the elderly (people 65 and over), the seriously disabled, and members of working households.  People who are neither elderly nor disabled – and do not live in a working household – received only 9 percent of the benefits.”

Moreover, the study found, “the vast bulk of that 9 percent goes for medical care, unemployment insurance benefits (which individuals must have a significant work history to receive), Social Security survivor benefits for the children and spouses of deceased workers, and Social Security benefits for retirees between ages 62 and 64.  Seven out of the 9 percentage points go for one of these four purposes.”

Contrary to public perception, it is Whites who benefits disproportionately from entitlements.

“Also, contrary to what a substantial share of Americans may assume, non-Hispanic whites receive slightly more than their proportionate share of entitlement benefits,” the CBPP study found. “Non-Hispanic whites accounted for 64 percent of the population in 2010 and received 69 percent of the entitlement benefits.”

George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine, is editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service (NNPA.) He is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. Curry can be reached through his Web site, www.georgecurry.com. You can also follow him at www.twitter.com/currygeorge.

Over a 43-year career in journalism, I have been blessed with some memorable experiences: I have covered presidential and vice presidential campaigns, I have flown on Air Force One, I have gone to parties at the White House, met Pope John Paul II, spent two weeks in Egypt, visited former slave dungeons in Dakar and Accra and have traveled around the world, including  Rome, Paris, London, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Havana, Vienna and recently Beijing and Shanghai.

Of the thousands of stories I covered since I began my career in 1970 – primarily for Sports Illustrated, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Chicago Tribune, Emerge magazine and the NNPA News Service – one has affected me more than any other. It was the violent death of 23-year-old Mark Essex on Jan. 7,1973.

Essex, who was known as the New Orleans Sniper, killed nine innocent people, including five police officers, and wounded 13 others. I was sent to Emporia, Kan. to interview relatives and friends in an effort to learn what triggered Essex’s outburst. What has stayed with me over the years is not the carnage he inflicted – though that’s unforgettable – it’s the events that led up to that point. Essentially, Essex felt that he had been harassed in the Navy, an account partly supported by friends, and he became so embittered that he was ready to die.

In fact, that’s exactly what he wrote home to his parents shortly before his death. I interviewed Essex’s mother and father after his bullet-riddled body was pulled from the roof of the Howard Johnson Hotel and sent back to Emporia for burial. Family members told me how a quiet, happy-go-lucky youth became embittered in the Navy. So bitter that he began hating all White people and was never the same again.

I suspect the reason the story has stuck with me for four decades is because I realized that had I not been able to handle the stifling racism while growing up in segregated Tuscaloosa, Ala. during the 1950s and 1960s, that could have been me.  Because I had relatives and adults who coached me on how to deal with overt racism, I didn’t go down that bloody path.

When I first heard about Christopher Dorner, the former Los Angeles cop who also went on a murder spree, I was reminded of Mark Essex. Like Essex, he complained of reporting racist acts to his supervisor and nothing was done about it. His manifesto, while rambling, gave clear details  of his torment.

Dorner wrote about a White police officer using the n-word. Dorner said when he challenged the officer to not use the word in his presence, the officer replied, “I’ll say it when I want.” At that point, Dorner said he jumped over the passenger seat and began strangling the officer until they were separated by other cops.

Dorner also wrote about the blue line, the code of ethics that prevents cops from testifying against one another, even when that officer is wrong.

Interestingly, while in the midst of killing innocent people, both Essex and Dorner spared some lives. In his case, Dorner did not shoot the person whose vehicle he hijacked toward the end of the police chase. He also did not harm two maids who had arrived to clean the cabin he had staked out in the mountains.

At the Howard Johnson hotel in New Orleans, a Black maid said Essex told her, “Don’t worry. We’re not killing Blacks today, just Whites.”

In the aftermath of the deaths of Mark Essex and Christopher Dorner, there is something we can take away from their lives.

One of our greatest challenges when dealing with young people, especially, is that we must teach them how to survive life’s slings and arrows without going over the edge. It would be interesting if community-wide forums were organized for young people to listen to what their elders went through. Not just listen to them, but learn from them.

Alex Haley said his grandmother taught him to listen more than he spoke. She said if God had wanted us to talk more than listen, He would have given us two mouths and one ear.

Like you, I don’t know exactly how we can prevent people from resorting to self-destructive deadly violence. But I know we must start somewhere in our community – whether it’s school, church, home, community centers or a combination.

In an interview Sunday night with blog radio host Zandra Conway, we discussed various coping techniques. I told her that whenever I feel down, I always visualize life as a Ferris wheel. I try to hold on while I am at the bottom because sooner or later, I will glide back to the top.

How do you manage to cope during difficult times? Don’t tell me, tell someone close to you. It just might save their life.

George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine, is editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service (NNPA.) He is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. Curry can be reached through his Web site, www.georgecurry.com. You can also follow him at www.twitter.com/currygeorge.

The murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955 was a watershed moment, marking the beginning of the modern Civil Rights Movement. While visiting relatives near Money, Miss., the Chicago native was murdered for allegedly whistling at a White woman. The brutal act was intended to send an unmistakable message to Black boys everywhere: If you even whistle at a White woman in the Deep South, you could pay for it with your life.

Like everyone else, I was appalled to learn that rapper Lil Wayne had made a vulgar reference to Till’s death. On a re-mix of an upcoming CD by Future called “Karate Chop,” Lil Wayne essentially spewed the line: “Beat that [female sex organ] up like Emmett Till.”

When I sat down to write this column, I planned to excoriate Little Wayne about his insult. I started to remind him that musical artists don’t have to be ignorant fools, even while showing their underwear on stage. I was going to say that Curtis Mayfield of my era and Chuck D of his generation demonstrated that African-American artists can make good music and provide uplifting race-conscious lyrics at the same time.

Rather than spend another nanosecond on Lil Wayne, we should use this Black History Month moment to educate young people who may not have ever heard of Emmett Till. While serving as editor of Emerge magazine, I had the pleasure of interviewing Mrs. Mamie Till Mobley, Emmett’s mother. For the 40^th anniversary of his death in 1995, I wrote a story on Emmett Till.

This is how it began:

Mamie Till Bradley was about to experience a mother’s worst nightmare. She had to identify the corpse of her only child, 14-year-old Emmett Till, who had been abducted, beaten, shot in the head and tossed into the Tallahatchie River near Greenwood, Miss., for allegedly whistling at a White woman.

As she approached the cold, metal slab that held the mutilated body at A. A. Rayner & Sons funeral home in Chicago, the grieving mother thought to herself: “I got a job to do and it’s not going to be easy.”

Mamie Till wanted to look directly into her son’s face, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Not yet. So she started with the lower extremities and worked her way up.

“Those are his feet,” she concluded. The ankles? Yes, those were her son’s skinny ankles. Next, she surveyed the knees. Most people have sharp, pointed kneecaps. But the mother and son had flat ones. “Those are the Till knees,” she told herself.

Her eyes continued up her son’s body and stopped on his genitals. Later, she would be happy that her inspection included that section of her son’s body because some people later would say, incorrectly, that Emmett had been castrated. Now, she would know otherwise.

Mrs. Mamie Till Bradley Mobley — who will be called Mrs. Till hereafter to make it easier to follow the cast of characters in this drama — examined Emmett’s hands and arms, which provided more confirmation of what she did not want confirmed. Finally, she took a deep breath and looked at her son’s decomposed face. This, too, she did piece by piece, separating his face into imaginary compartments, starting with his chin and moving to the top of his head.

“Bo,” as he was known, had flashed a perfect set of teeth during his short life. Now, in death, only one or two were visible. “Oh, my God,” his mother thought. “Where are the rest of them?”

The bridge of his nose, though all chopped up, was recognizable. She looked for his right eye — it was missing. There was only an empty socket. She looked at the left one and it was detached, dangling from the socket.

“That’s his hazel eye,” Mrs. Till said. “Where is the other one?”

She searched for one ear and it, too, was missing. Peering through the ear hole, she could see daylight on the other side. The remaining ear protruded from her son’s head, just like hers— another family trait. “That’s Emmett’s ear,” she said, softly.

His hair? Yes.

After inspecting the outstretched body inch by inch, Mrs. Till came to the sad but inescapable conclusion that the remains of what remained before her were those of Emmett Louis Till. Still, she turned to Gene Mobley, later to become her third husband, hoping he might have noticed something that she had not, anything that would cast the slightest doubt about whether this was indeed Bo. But Mobley had identified young Till in his mind long before the child’s mother had finished her methodical examination. The barber had recognized the haircut he had given Emmett two weeks earlier, just before Bo left for Mississippi.

Mrs. Till had one thought over and over: What kind of person could do this to another human being, especially a 14–year–old boy?

Her second thought was that this was a sight so ghastly, so inhumane that people would have to see it for themselves to believe it.

“Gene, I want you to go home and get some of Bo’s pictures,” she said. “We’ll spread the pictures around.”

The undertaker politely asked, “Do you want me to fix him up?” Mrs. Till did not hesitate: “No, you can’t fix that. Let the world see what I saw.”

Obviously, Lil Wayne never saw that story. If he had, he would have realized this isn’t something to be taken lightly.

George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine, is editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service (NNPA.) He is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. Curry can be reached through his Web site, www.georgecurry.com. You can also follow him at www.twitter.com/currygeorge.