Today’s short takes: Trump, wolves, crime, and art

National: The national news media let Donald Trump off the hook so many times during the just-concluded presidential campaign. It was extraordinarily frustrating to see interviewers fail to pin the candidate down on his slogan to make America great again. He used that phrase, borrowed without attribution from Ronald Reagan, repeatedly without being required to identify even a time frame, much less any measurable yardsticks.  A general consensus seemed to emerge, without help or direction from the candidate, that Trump most likely was referring to the 1950s, a decade when white male egos were unchallenged. White men controlled everything and Father Knew Best. Civil rights were openly suppressed, in many cases with the authority of law. Gays were in the closet, women had healthier relationships with home appliances than husbands, and the throwaway culture was perhaps at its zenith. 

That consensus appears to have been wrong. As the nominees of the Trump administration are rolled out, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the era Donald Trump has in mind when he talks of making American great again is pre-modern, perhaps even Paleolithic. The presumptive Secretary of Energy is … Rick Perry, the former Texas governor who wanted to abolish the Energy Department.

The foxes are no longer in charge of the hen house. Wolves are replacing them.

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Tavis Smiley

National talk show host Tavis Smiley was in Cleveland last week for a forum, "Courting Justice," that among other things highlighted the harmful effect the high cost of fines, fees and bail have on the criminal justice system. The forum, which was filmed before a live audience at WVIZ/PBS ideastream, will be shown in two 30-minute segments, tonight and tomorrow at 11:30 p.m. on public television. Readers outside the Cleveland viewing area should check PBS.org their local viewing times.

The show’s panel included Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, Cleveland Municipal Court Administrative Judge Ronald Adrine, Lakewood Municipal Court Judge Pat Carroll and former Ohio Supreme Court Justice Yvette McGee Brown.

Nothing against the chief justice or the Lakewood judge, but we can vouch from personal experience that Judge Adrine and former Justice McGee Brown are exceptionally thoughtful and knowledgeable.

The forum was part of a nationwide series. Previously aired segments were in Los Angeles [June] & Little Rock [Sept.] and are likely available online through Tavis Smiley show archives at PBS.org. Local sponsors included the City Club of Cleveland and the Cleveland Foundation.

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Speaking of ideastream, we attended a spirited public meeting there yesterday afternoon that addressed the way Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, the agency that determines which arts organizations get funded from the county’s dedicated 30-cents-a-pack cigarette tax, may change a core program.

Meeting of Cuyahoga Arts & Culture Board of Trustees
at Playhouse Square, December 12, 2016

At CAC’s November 14 meeting, held at the Mandel Jewish Community Center in Beachwood, where more than $14.5 million in grants was announced, public comments from two outspoken members of the local arts community, helped focus concerns on CAC’s proposed shift in how individual artists are funded. The comments, by CAC board member Gwendolyn Garth and Donald Black Jr., addressed perceived inequities in the administration of the

Joseph Gibbons chairs the Board of Trustees,
Cuyahoga Arts and Culture; Karen Gahl-Mills is CAC
executive director.

individual artists awards process, which is separately handled by the nonprofit Community Partnership for Arts and Culture.

Tension and concern over proposed changes being considered by CAC as to how individual artists awards may be handled in the future led to yesterday’s meeting being attended by an SRO crowd of nearly 200. The normal 15 minutes reserved for public comment at each board meeting had to be extended to nearly 90 minutes as a series of speakers, almost all of whom were disciplined enough to stay within their allotted three minutes, voiced support for the current system, decried proposed changes that would replace the current Creative Workforce Partnerships [aka individual artists awards] and replace it with new awards that would be managed by an entity based outside the state.

CAC trustee, Steve Minter

Of equal concern, judging from how the audience regularly responded with applause to the public comments, were sentiments expressing concern over how artists of color seemed not to find favor in the awards process, and how some neighborhoods, including Glenville, Hough, and Mt. Pleasant, were left out in the cold when public projects were considered.

It seemed clear that the trustees wanted to hear from the artist’s community, and that this was a dialogue that should have been routinely occurring during the decade CAC has existed. Board members announced even before the public comment that no decision on changing the Creative Workshop Partnership program would be taken at yesterday’s meeting. Following the public comment period, each board member addressed the crowd, and the prevailing sense was that the board would be doing its homework over the holidays before the next meeting.

While several artists of color spoke about their frustrations or questions regarding the distribution of funds, it was illuminating to see a significant number of nonminority artists also speak to inequities and process issues that disproportionately hinder black and brown artists. This first time visitor to a CAC session left with an appreciation for the robustness of Cleveland’s artistic community, its energy and sense of fair play, and the under appreciated role that public support of the arts must play in any genuine civic renaissance.

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This last point was underscored by the attendance of both former Gund Foundation president David Bergholz and former County Commissioner

Dave Bergholz,
former Gund Foundation President

Peter Lawson Jones. Bergholz, who arrived more than an hour early and led off the public comment period, set the tone when he spoke strongly in favor of maintaining and strengthening the CWP awards and challenged the trustees to find more money to support artists. Jones, who is now perhaps the area’s busiest actor, did not speak; during his tenure as a public official he was a vocal and committed champion of the arts and a prominent spokesman for the tax that created what is now a strong contributor to the Cleveland arts scene.

The next regular meeting of the Board of Trustees is scheduled for February 13, 2017 at the Idea Center, 1375 Euclid Ave.

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Celebration and Community; also, Community Police Commission seeks director

Where have all the lawyers gone? 

Musings on the Minor Bar Association Trailblazer Awards

Judge Randolph Baxter,
US Bankruptcy Court [Ret.]

Today the Norman S Minor Bar Association hosted its annual Trailblazers luncheon at a posh downtown hotel. Today's luncheon was a celebration of the wildly successful careers of three extraordinary African American attorneys: Randolph Baxter, Paul Harris, and Yvette McGee Brown.

Yvette McGee Brown
Partner, Jones Day

Judge Baxter served with distinction for more than a quarter century as a US Bankruptcy Court Judge. Judge McGee Brown rose to the highest echelons of her profession when she was appointed to serve on the Ohio Supreme Court. And Paul Harris has over the years emerged as one of the most influential behind the scenes leaders in Cleveland's professional and civic circles as corporate counsel at KeyBank.

Paul Harris, KeyBank

The resume of each of these lawyers is impeccable, and filled with community service beyond their outstanding legal accomplishments, a larger record of which can be found here. Indeed, while Judge Baxter has been retired for some years, Judge McGee Brown and Mr. Harris will no doubt continue to be active community leaders for some time, Harris here in Cleveland and McGee Brown in Columbus where she is now a partner in Jones Day, one of the world's leading law firms.

The Norman S. Minor Bar Association is itself to be saluted for continuing its unblemished record of highlighting the best and brightest careers that black lawyers are forging against the odds.

And make no mistake; even the law profession itself recognizes how daunting the prospects are for black attorneys to succeed. Just this year both the Cleveland and Ohio bar associations addressed rampant discrimination within their own ranks. Leadership within each of these organizations has stepped forward to address the ways in which America’s original sin continues to infect personnel decisions in law firms and corporate offices.

I was a guest at several sessions addressing these issues at this year's annual Ohio State Bar Association meeting in Cincinnati. Hundreds of attorneys from around the state were held at rapt attention for the sessions I attended. One featured the incomparable Nathaniel Jones, a retired federal appellate court judge of the Sixth District based in Cincinnati. Judge Jones deserves a post of his own and we will soon deliver on that responsibility, especially because a part of his remarkable journey left indelible tracks here in Cleveland.

The most lasting takeaway from the State Bar meeting was the presentation on implicit bias. Some may have recognized that phrase when Hillary Clinton used it this month in her presidential campaign while responding to a question about police practices. The oppositional heat her mere use of the phrase generated was irrefutable proof that implicit bias resides as a virulent force in the body politic.

My real concern here, enmeshed in today's worthy celebration of noteworthy careers, is how these successes seem in some ways increasingly estranged from the communities that made them possible.

Community has been a focus of ours these past few weeks. Much of this recent conversation has focused on Glenville — the warm, rich, diverse and vibrant neighborhood of my youth. What happened to it? Why did it happen? Most importantly, what can be done to renew it?

To the latter point, Glenville's community development corporation, the Famicos Foundation, held its second annual fundraiser last night, where it unveiled a master plan[1] into which more than 500 of its estimated 20,000 residents had input. As we surveyed the nearly 200 supporters in attendance, we recognized several black attorneys of our acquaintance — Vanessa Whiting, Sheila Wright, Mona Scott, among them. While Ms. Whiting is in private practice, and a fierce and devoted warrior in the ongoing struggle for racial and social justice, we didn't see one attorney there who might routinely address the legal issues of ordinary community residents. [2]

The absence of black attorneys whose practices are rooted in the community is starkly emblematic of larger issues. Back in the 1950s and early 1960s, when America was great (chuckle, chuckle) black attorneys in high-powered corporate legal circles were more rare than hen's teeth. But there was an abundance of black lawyers in the community, with offices in plain sight up and down Cedar Ave., East 55th, and East 105th. Former Congressman Louis Stokes noted in his just-published posthumous memoir how proud he was to open Stokes and Stokes with brother Carl on St. Clair Ave., immediately east of East 105 St. Ironically, that office was short-lived: not long after it opened, Lou's jaw dropped when the already-legendary Norman S. Minor himself stopped in unannounced to invite the brothers to join him in establishing Minor, Stokes and Stokes.

The record shows there never have been more talented lawyers of any hue than the community-based Norman Minor and Lou Stokes. As opportunities slowly began to open in the legal profession in the late Sixties, black attorneys, including black women attorneys, began to show their extraordinary professional competence on a wider stage, even while regularly battling outright hostility, to say nothing of implicit bias, from colleagues, judges, and corporate clients. The experiences of early pioneers like Paul White (Cleveland’s first black law director and subsequent Baker Hostetler partner) Owen Heggs (Jones Day), Andrew L. Johnson, (first black president of then 4,000+ member Cleveland Bar Association), or Leonard Young (Ferro Corporation) were fraught with aggressions both macro and micro directed their way.

We have come a mighty long way. Today, we are no longer surprised to learn that Robyn Minter Smyers has been selected to lead Thompson Hine, that Rhonda Ferguson is chief legal officer at Union Pacific, or that the aforementioned Paul Harris is KeyCorp general counsel. We have no doubt they earned their positions and the perks attached thereto. Undoubtedly they heeded the injunctions of the ancestors to be twice as good.

But something has also undoubtedly been lost when black neighborhoods are no longer home to the legal descendants of Norman Minor, Lou Stokes, Perry B. Jackson, Jean Murrell Capers, Lillian W. Burke, John W. Kellogg, Al Pottinger, Stanley Tolliver, and a host of others. Glenville councilman Kevin Conwell touched on this last night when he talked about the paucity of day-to-day role models in the community.

The absence extends to professionals of all stripes. Commercial thoroughfares in black communities were once full of physicians, accountants, and dentists. I

Marvin M. Fisk, DDS
[1916-2003]

remember the much-beloved Marvin Fisk actually living above his dental office at 8923 Cedar Ave. Dr. Fisk served his profession and community well enough to be recognized with an annual award given by the Ohio Dental Association.

I'm not a Luddite. I don't wish a return to the glorious days of somebody else's mid-century America. I don't even pine for the glorious days of the Kansas City Monarchs and the Cleveland Grays of the old Negro Leagues, though I would love to have seen Satchel Paige on the mound, Josh Gibson at or behind the plate, and most especially Cool Papa Bell on the base path.

Nonetheless, something has clearly been lost. The path to desegregation, integration and inclusion has parallel tracks labeled corporatization and monetization and globalization that have collectively assaulted our Glenvilles, Houghs, Centrals, Fairfaxes, Mt. Pleasants and Lee-Harvards. Independent doctors have all but disappeared; virtually all are now on the payroll of our local medical behemoths. Solo legal practitioners operate from home or have flexible virtual space in suburban office parks. Dentists may retain the best balance in terms of independence, community connections, and compensation.

Mike Nelson, current president of the Cleveland NAACP is perhaps the last African American to have run for significant non-judicial political office from a private law practice base. Almost all black judicial candidates run from the cover of a job. Common Pleas Court Judge Cassandra Collier-Williams was a notable, and successful, exception. Is the quality of our political representation diminished by the reluctance of our highly trained legal talent to get into politics?

We only intimate here the challenges ordinary central city residents face in securing affordable professional services to help navigate their lives. Transportation can become a major obstacle when you can no longer walk or take a simple bus ride to a lawyer, doctor, accountant, dentist or realist’s office.[3]

How do we bridge the aching chasm between our professionals and the ordinary Willies and Willie Maes whose protests and votes and marches and demonstrations and riots helped open the doors so that our prodigious natural talent could attain a broader platform?

What are your thoughts and observations?

I invite you to share your responses, ideas, and comments here. Those of you who do respond — I appreciate each and every response — typically do so by direct emails that we think have so far escaped Politburo attention. And I always reply. But these issues require a robust public discussion that we hope you will join.

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Cleveland Community Police Commission seeks executive director

The Cleveland Community Police Commission emerged out of citizen advocacy and a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice and the City of Cleveland announced in May 2015. The Commission is made up of ten civilian representatives and one representative each from the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association, the Fraternal Order of Police and the Black Shield.

The Cleveland CPC has a broad charge to:

• Develop and make recommendations for comprehensive police reform.

• Represent community voice and interests and develop recommendations that reflect an understanding of the values and priorities of Cleveland residents

• Publicly report to the City and community and provide transparency on police department reforms

To assist in carrying out this charge, the Commission will hire an executive director. The application deadline is Nov. 8.

The Job description can be found here.

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[1] The plan can be accessed here.

[2] John Anoliefo, executive director of Famicos, did announce his agency's free legal clinic and its valuable work in helping people caught up in our system of justice to get a solitary blemish expunged. More than 600 people have benefited from this service, which I think he said is open to all. Call 216.791.6476 for more information.

[3] The term Realtist may seem a typo to some. It relates to the fact that black real estate agents were excluded from membership in the all white realtors association and even un able to access the comprehensive listing service of properties available for sale, just another way segregation and subjugation were reinforced. The Realtors went so far as to copyright the word Realtors, forcing black agents to invent a new term — Realtist — for their organization.