GIVING VOICE TO THE UNDERSERVED: Journalist, poet, and urban difference-maker Mark Anthony Thomas during the launch of the City Limits project's Brooklyn bureau.
Mark Anthony Thomas is director of City Limits, an independent investigative journalism organization that reports on civic affairs in five boroughs of New York City. He previously served as the Deputy Director of City Futures, the parent organization of the public policy think tank Center for an Urban Future. He has served on numerous philanthropic boards and earned an MPA in Financial Management from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. Thomas was featured in Time magazine in 2000, was named one of Essence magazine’s “50 Do-Right Men of the Year” in 2006, ranked in the top ten on AUCMagazine’s “Top 30 Under 30 in Atlanta” in 2005, and was featured on NBC’s Atlanta affiliate as a “Future Leader of Tomorrow.” He is the author of two poetry books and was nominated for Georgia Author of the Year (Poetry) in 2005. UrbanFaith talked to Thomas about the motivating forces in his life and work. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
UrbanFaith: How does your faith inform your work?
Mark Anthony Thomas: To some extent, it’s so integrated into every facet of it that people don’t realize it. In New York City, you don’t really talk about your faith. People don’t really have a knowledge about how closely aligned you are to God in guiding everything that you’re doing. The type of work I do at City Limits comes from a core ethical place of strong relationship with God.
Do particular passages of Scripture or aspects of the gospel message motivate you?
I grew up Church of God in Christ, so, for me, it’s much deeper than a particular Scripture. I was definitely taught to think and believe in a certain way, that the righteous are never forsaken, and Proverbs 22:6: if you raise a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not depart from it. All of those things have always stayed with me. When you look at it in the bigger context, it’s understanding what you reap is what you sow, so if you reap positive energy and you’re purpose driven in all that you do, then the Lord will make a way for you.
In high school I wasn’t the best reader, so when I got to college, I had to take a remedial reading course. That was very humbling. To go from that to two years later being the first African American editor of one of the largest college papers in the country, and then to have won scholarships and plenty of awards at a young age, I remember being at church and testifying that every time I turn around I feel like God is blessing me. When you have ministers and people within the church community all constantly feeding you that kind of excitement, and that kind of focus, it doesn’t disappear.
And, even though Atlanta is not as ambitious as New York City, there’s this constant reminder that you can do great things. It’s the home of Martin Luther King Jr. and the whole Civil Rights Movement, so a lot of that ideology and teaching was passed down to my generation.
Why did you choose that focus on investigative journalism in your career?
When I was 20 years old, I said that I wanted to be an investigative reporter because I believed that was the best way to inform people how to make their communities better. You actually did the due diligence of making sure people could be well informed and be well versed in the issues that mattered to them. I still believe in it. When you’ve come from the side of society that I came from and you’ve worked in policy to the degree that I have on a corporate level, you don’t want to produce content that’s not enriching.
Did you grow up in an affluent family?
No, I grew up in a single-parent family, where faith was the only means of staying inspired. I’m the first college graduate on my mom’s side of the family. My grandfather, who’s passed now, was excited to have lived to see his grandson break down a writing barrier as a first black editor at a school [The University of Georgia] that he saw integrated.
Here’s a taste of Thomas’s poetry …
First-generation college students face unique challenges. Was that true for you?
I write about that journey in my poetry and my policy work addresses a lot the issues that were hurdles in my journey. With Helping Teens Succeed, the organization whose board I chaired for six years, we worked with 30 schools in Georgia and 10 in Washington, D.C., essentially running college access programs as part of a federal initiative to work with first generation students to make sure they had the right road map to go to school.
What was key for you?
The first kicker for me was in high school, we had a 1000 SAT club. I remember my 16-year-old mind thinking, “This is just not that ambitious. If I get 1000, I won’t even get into the schools that I want.” So I found an old SAT prep book and studied it. My parents didn’t know this is what their child should be doing. I just knew I had to do that to get into school.
When I got to college, I realized how under-exposed my high school was. When I met students who had better business opportunities, had more AP courses, it was striking. I was like, “Okay, there’s a reason you’re more sophisticated and educated than I am, because I didn’t have access to these opportunities.”
In order to reach a level where you feel equivalent, you have to do a lot of outside work to catch up. My first two years of college, I spent catching up to my peers. It’s tough. I wanted be among the top graduates, especially in that racial environment. Georgia is still very, very conservative and it still has a rich confederate culture that, to some extent, made it a very unwelcoming environment for a lot of black students.
Because I did very well in that environment, reporters wanted to know how that happened. I was in a lot of media explaining how I managed the system. For me, it goes back to faith and growing up in a church environment that nurtured me to where if I stayed focused, I could make things happen. Those are formative years, so once you’ve mastered them, to some extent fine, you’re after that.
But I watched discouragement set in on people year after year, like when only 370 students of 700 that I began high school with graduated. Then, as a college student, watching people in this very unwelcoming environment get discouraged and just focus on graduating, if they even made it that far. If you can learn to maneuver through that, when you actually graduate into the corporate world, you can be okay.
How did you get your start in urban policy issues?
As a high school journalist, I was interested in city and policy issues. I continued that writing focus in college, and had a real eye for policy issues, education issues, disparities, and things of that nature. When I graduated, I went to work in corporate philanthropy as a community affairs rep for one of the largest companies in the world, Georgia Pacific. I was able to play a major role in education reform, policy issues, urban planning, and a lot of arts and community development initiatives.
Essence named you a “Do-Right Man.” What does it mean to be a do-right man?
It means you’ve learned what’s right and wrong and your mission in life is to do right. I was one of 50 men to receive the inaugural award. Of those 50, I was one of six who were brought to the Essence festival to represent the best of the guys. That was pretty exciting.
What are your long-term goals?
I don’t necessarily have a road map, but I want to have an influential voice. I think I come from a place of compassion, passion, and ideas. I trust if I’m using those in the most influential places I can then I’ll be making an impact. For example, the State Department has an international visitors program that brings in guests who want help in some major area. I’ve met with 25 guests from Jordan, China, and Japan. I’ve helped them learn the kind of media that we run here in New York. That’s something you can’t measure in unique visits, but when you’re helping advocates in Jordan try to understand how to use media to push for women’s rights or freedom of speech, it’s a powerful opportunity. For me it’s great to be the kid from Decatur, Georgia, who has that opportunity.
Good manners are “keepers of the peace,” according to a lengthy article in The Christian Science Monitor, and many Americans have “tuned out politics” because they are tired of incivility in that highly combative arena of public life.
Is Limbaugh Paying More?
Such incivility was on display last week when conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh called a Georgetown University law student a “slut” after she testified about contraception at a congressional hearing. Limbaugh has since been pilloried by pundits on the left and right, and numerous businesses have announced that they would no longer advertise on his radio show. On Saturday, Limbaugh issued a qualified apology, but it failed to satisfy most critics.
At The Daily Beast, Kirsten Powers joined the chorus of condemnation, but also wondered where the left’s outrage is for the misogynistic outbursts of progressive pundits Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher, Matt Taibbi, and Ed Schultz.
Powers said Schultz described former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin as a “bimbo” and called Laura Ingraham a “right-wing slut,” while Keith Olbermann “has said that conservative commentator S.E. Cupp should have been aborted by her parents” and Michelle Malkin is a “mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick.” Matthews has referred to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as a “she-devil,” “Nurse Ratched,” “Madame Defarge,” “witchy,” “anti-male,” and “uppity,” according to Powers, and Maher has called Palin a c-nt, among other insults.
“Many feminist blogs now document attacks on women on the left and the right … but when it comes to high-profile campaigns to hold these men accountable—such as that waged against Limbaugh—the real fury seems reserved only for conservatives,” said Powers.
Debating Breitbart’s Legacy
The debate about which political bent produces the most incivility extends to notorius conservative publisher Andrew Breitbart, who died suddenly March 1 at the age of 43. While some liberals, like Arianna Huffington, offered public praise for the man who orchestrated successful media attacks against Acorn, Shirley Sherrod, and former congressman Anthony Weiner, others, like Slate’s Matt Yglesias reveled in his death.
Today, at The Root, Joel Dreyfuss said there’s been too much public praise for Breitbart.
“Avoiding speaking ill of the dead is not a reason to remain mute about an evil legacy,” said Dreyfuss. “Breitbart was an agent provocateur who lied and cheated and distorted the facts to support his right-wing political agenda. He was largely responsible for destroying ACORN, an organization that worked for decades on behalf of the poor and disenfranchised. He nearly ruined the reputation of Shirley Sherrod, who had a distinguished civil rights record. Before he died, Breitbart was promising to expose unsavory information about President Obama’s college days.”
But, conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat compared the legacy of Breitbart with that of respected and respectful social scientist John Q. Wilson, who also died last week.
“Wilson thrived … in precisely the kind of media-intellectual ecosystem — institutionalist, high-middlebrow, genteel — that Breitbart spent his career putting to the torch. Whether Breitbart was working for Matt Drudge or Arianna Huffington or building his own empire, his first loyalty was always to the sensational scoop, the wild-and-crazy stunt, the overcaffeinated public feud with whichever enemy happened to be hating on him. … He was a P. T. Barnum figure, at once lovable and deplorable, who embodied the online media landscape like no other figure on the right or left,” said Douthat.
“It’s easy to see the shift from Wilson’s old-media conversation to Breitbart’s new-media circus … as a straightforward story of cultural decline,” Douthat said, but he concluded that American journalism in the Internet age represents a return to form and said “a republic that survived the excesses of William Randolph Hearst can presumably survive the excesses of HuffPo and BigGovernment.com.”
Manners Empower People
It may survive, but is the republic made better or worse by incivility?
“Manners empower people to demonstrate respect for others, to avoid inflicting the unintentional insult, to defuse the kind of confusion that leads to conflict and violence. The mannerly know how to make good apologies when they mess up, as they inevitably will. And – as with the well-placed snub – they know how to deviate from convention as a means of voicing their concerns. Observers say manners and civility, in fact, form the core of an ethical life, one lived first with respect for others,” the Christian Science Monitor article said, and I agree.
What do you think?
Is incivility destroying public discourse and damaging the republic?
MODELING SERVANT LEADERSHIP: Manassas High School coach Bill Courtney sought to teach more than football.
We’ve seen the story before: a white coach turns around a failing inner-city football team and, in the process, helps ease racial tensions in his community. This time the film is Undefeated, a documentary about three black players from North Memphis, Tennessee, and their volunteer coach Bill Courtney. The film won Best Documentary at the Academy Awards last Sunday night (snagging an Oscar for executive producer Sean “P.Diddy” Combs), but while Courtney is humbled by the honor, he isn’t all that impressed and says he didn’t set out to save anybody. UrbanFaith talked to this no-nonsense coach about his faith, his motives, and his goals for working with the team. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
UrbanFaith: In an interview with MSN before Undefeated won the Academy Award, you said if the film defines you or the players featured in it, or if it is the best thing that ever happened to any of you, you’ve got real problems. How do you feel now that it’s won?
Bill Courtney: I feel the same way. The film winning a little 14-inch gold statue doesn’t make it any better or worse than it was before it won it. It’s a great honor and it’s humbling. In Hollywood, societal statements or environmental statements are the types of things that are typically celebrated, so when a film about perseverance and kids wins, it speaks to the power of the film. I think it’s great, but it doesn’t define us and it cannot define us. What needs to define us is the experience that we had together so that when we go on in our lives 20 years from now, and we’re raising families, having graduated from college, and have jobs, that’s what needs to define us, not a moment in time that was captured on film. Don’t take me wrong. It’s humbling. It’s a wonderful experience and we should allow ourselves to enjoy it, but if something like that defines you, you start taking yourself too seriously and that’s a pretty tough road to hoe.
An employee of yours had asked for time off to cook pre-game meals with his Sunday school class for an inner-city football team and you told him about Manassas High School, which is down the road from your lumber company. He then told the Manassas team about you and that’s how you got involved. Did faith play a role in your involvement too?
Courtney: Faith plays a role in everything I do. I’m a Christian. It’s my job to be as Christ-like as I possibly can. I sin daily. Thank goodness for forgiveness; otherwise my life would be in shambles. Certainly faith played a role in it, because I feel compelled and I feel that it’s all of our calling to help out those in the greatest need. These kids were completely deficient in a number of basic tenets and fundamentals that I want my own children raised with. The need was there and it was the most rewarding experience of my life to be able to share my life with them. It’s inspirational that they shared their lives with me. I don’t think they would have been welcomed into my neighborhood nearly as quickly and generously as they welcomed me into theirs.
What did you learn from these young men who came from a different culture and a different racial background than you?
Courtney: The racial thing didn’t really have anything to do with it. I didn’t think of them as my black players and they didn’t think of me as the white coach. I know society is going to look at this film and want to have that conversation. It had nothing to do with our relationship. Therefore, I don’t have anything to say about it.
With regard to what I learned from them, prior to my experience with them, I probably would have had the attitude that this is a free country. My mom and dad were divorced early. I grew up with very little and I made it, so if you don’t make it, it’s your own fault. Frankly, that’s a lie. That’s something we want to tell ourselves to make ourselves feel good. The truth is the playing field isn’t level. When children grow up having seen perpetual generations that have no hope and feel lost, and feel like they’re not even part of society, that’s what they’re going to feel and grow up doing. All the money and governmental programs and everything in the world simply does not replace true love, care, and compassion, and true mentorship.
What they taught me was that no matter what you’re circumstances are, when you try to do the right things, and you work toward commitment and discipline, and you work on your own soul and character, then amazing things can happen. I will forever be indebted to those kids and that community for welcoming me and accepting me.
You’ve said that football doesn’t build character, it reveals character, and that if a person’s foundation is football, they’re going to fall on their behind.
Courtney: I don’t think something as trivial as a game builds character. You build your own character when you build a foundation of the tenets you want to make yourself. Things like football, a job, a marriage—the real things in life are what reveal your character. If you think football is going to help you to rise up above your circumstances and have a great life, I think you’re wrong. You can’t stand on a football. Football cannot be a foundation for anything. Your foundation has to be your discipline and your commitment. If you build your foundation on those principles, then you can hold 20 footballs over your head all day long.
In the MSN interview, you talked about the servant leadership of a coach you had growing up who made seniors get water for the team and things like that instead of making freshman do it, as is customary. Is Christ-like servant leadership something you taught your players and modeled for them?
Courtney: I believe that Christ lived on this earth and gave his life so that I could be forgiven for the things I do on a daily basis that I’m ashamed of. So, when I believe the ruler of the universe served me, I pretty much feel like it’s my responsibility to serve everyone I can. In serving, you then lead, because you give an example to people of a way to lead your life that is more selfless than self-serving. I didn’t say that, because it comes off self-serving if you say, “Hey, look at me.” I just did it. My belief is: I can’t save anybody—I can’t save anybody from circumstances; I can’t save anybody into a faith. It’s my job to introduce my faith and then let the Lord work his will the way he sees fit. The way you do that is you walk what you talk and do the very best you can to serve and to share what your life is about, if they ask. Hopefully from there, they find a place in their own lives to grow from that.
“I regret any comments I have ever made which may have cast any doubt on the personal faith of our president, Mr. Obama,” Graham is quoted as saying. “I apologize to him and to any I have offended for not better articulating my reason for not supporting him in this election — for his faith has nothing to do with my consideration of him as a candidate.”
In the 15-minute panel discussion on the “Morning Joe” show, Graham, who is president of the Samaratin’s Purse relief organization and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, declined to affirm the president’s Christian faith, but heartily affirmed that of Republican presidential candidates Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich.
“We can disagree about what it means to be a Christian engaged in politics, but Christians should not bear false witness,” the open letter to Graham said. “We are also concerned that Rev. Graham’s comments can be used to encourage racism. We urge him to be mindful of the unprecedented verbal attacks on President Obama based on his race and be careful not to allow his own voice to be used to help drive such hateful words.”
The letter also warned that “statements like Rev. Graham’s have potentially dangerous consequences domestically and internationally.” Signatories included leaders from predominantly African American denominations and members of the NAACP Religious Affairs Committee.
President’s Faith Council ‘Has Gone Dark’
In related news, less than a week after members of the president’s first Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships participated in a press call that was designed to defend the president’s faith, Politico reported that “three years into his presidency, Obama’s marquee council of faith advisers has gone dark.”
“The president’s first Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships delivered a 163-page report in March 2010 and then disbanded. The second council has waited more than a year for a full slate of appointees and has yet to meet. And the hottest issue — whether religious groups that receive public money can discriminate in hiring — remains unresolved more than three years after Obama promised to address it,” the article said.
On last week’s press call, the Rev. Joel Hunter and Melissa Rogers, both of whom served on the president’s first advisory council, conceded to UrbanFaith that the Obama administration had “stumbled” in its recent communications with religious people and groups, particularly in regard to a controversial contraception mandate that was included in the Affordable Care Act. No mention was made on that call about delays in assembling his second advisory council.
“President Obama continues to expand and strengthen faith-based initiatives and the faith-based advisory council is an important part of that effort,” Joshua DuBois, director of the faith-based office, said in a written statement to Politico. “Advising the president on our ongoing partnership with faith-based groups and other nonprofits around the country is critical and we are committed to ensuring they have as much impact as possible. It is a big country with significant religious diversity, and we are very thoughtful about our approach.”
What do you think?
Are these two leaders, President Obama and the Rev. Franklin Graham stumbling badly or is the press amplifying minor missteps?
SPEAKING OUT: Tianna Williams joined hundreds of others outside the Tweed Courthouse in New York Jan. 19 to confront the city on its controversial restrictions on houses of worship. (Photo: Christine A. Scheller)
Sixty-eight New York City churches that were evicted from public schools February 12 only missed one Sunday of worship in those schools before U.S. Chief District Judge Loretta A. Preska issued an injunction against the city’s Board of Education, saying that “losing one’s right to exercise freely and fully his or her religious beliefs is a greater threat to our democratic society than a misperceived violation of the Establishment Clause.”
“A law is not neutral if its object is to infringe upon or restrict practices because of their religious motivation,” Preska wrote in the ruling that was issued Friday afternoon. “The policy also is not neutral because it discriminates between those religions that fit the ‘ordained’ model of formal religious worship services and those religions whose worship practices are far less structured.”
For example, she said under the current policy, a Catholic or Episcopal service could not meet for worship in a New York City public school, but a Quaker meeting or Buddhist meditation service that did not follow a prescribed order and/or was not led by an ordained clergy member could.
She cited new facts that document “excessive government entanglement with religion” and referred to the United States Supreme Court’s recent decision in Hosanna-Tabor Lutheran Evangelical Lutheran Church and School vs. Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, saying the court had “emphasized the wide berth religious institutions are to be given with respect to their core activities, including worship.” She also found that the BOE’s ban on religious worship services is “ineffective” in achieving its stated goal of avoiding a violation of the Establishment Clause.
“The objective, fully informed observer who passes by the Board’s schools and witnesses a wide variety of community groups meeting on weeknights, followed by a Jewish Friday night service, a Ramadan Saturday evening service, and finally a Sunday morning Christian worship service, could not reasonably infer that the Board was endorsing religion in its public schools. Rather, the informed observer would conclude that the Board opens its schools during non-school hours to a diverse group of organizations pursuant to a neutral policy generally aimed at improving ‘the welfare of the community,” Preska wrote.
The BOE did not show why less restrictive measures, like installing signs outside the schools “disclaiming endorsement,” would be ineffective in achieving its goal, she said.
Email communications presented for the first time between the BOE and the Rev. Brad Hertzog, pastor of Reformation Presbyterian Church, about his church’s latest application to meet at P.S. 173 in Queens demonstrated that the BOE did not take descriptions of the church’s proposed activities at face value, she said.
A BOE representative had pressed Hertzog to describe church activities like reading and studying the Bible, prayer, singing, and fellowship as worship. Hertzog said he could not do so because he did not know how the BOE defined worship.
“The email string attached to Hertzog’s declaration reveals the improper manner in which the Board inquires into religious matters and ultimately determines whether particular sectarian practices amount to ‘worship services,’ a determination that only subscribers to the religions themselves may make,” Preska wrote.
She said all organizations are required to certify that their activities are in accordance with BOE policy and thus certification should be “no different for the Boy Scouts than for a synagogue seeking to hold Torah study classes.”
“Apparently the Board only asks those organizations that plan to use the schools for religious purposes to certify compliance with the ban against religious worship services. These revelations certainly suggest that religious organizations are targeted throughout the application process,” Preska wrote.
The BOE “has evidenced a willingness to decide for itself which religious practices rise to the level of worship services and which do not, thereby causing the government’s entanglement with religion to become excessive,” she concluded.
Her ruling does not give houses of worship permanent access to New York City public schools, but allows them to keep meeting while the Bronx Household of Faith continues to pursue its case in the courts.
The church sought the injunction on Feb. 3, arguing from First Amendment violations it said had not previously been ruled on in the case. While 67 churches made other arrangements for Sunday services last week, the Bronx Household of Faith was issued a last minute 10-day reprieve that preceded this ruling.
New York City Council Member and pastor Fernando Cabrera said in a press release that he is “hopeful about the preliminary injunction,” and “believes it should push the New York State legislature to act.”
A bill that would effectively overturn the BOE’s worship ban passed the state senate earlier this month, but the state assembly version of the bill has not yet been brought to the floor for a vote.
“The New York State Assembly should wait no longer,” said Rev. Cabrera. “Speaker Sheldon Silver expressed concerns about the bill and now it is sufficiently evident that there are indisputable grounds to repeal this policy. The bill has 74 formal co-sponsors in the assembly, and others who support it. If it were brought to the floor today, it would pass.”
City attorney Jane Gordon told The Associated Press that the BOE will pursue another appeal. Gordon described Friday’s injunction as “inconsistent with the recent Second Circuit order and that court’s prior decision on the case’s merits.” The BOE will “consider pending applications from churches for school space this weekend,” AP reported.
Public Tuning Out Incivility
