As the white father of an adopted black child, I was inspired to read the excerpt of Ellis Cose’s book (“12 Things You Must Know to Survive and Thrive in America”) in your Jan. 28 issue. He is a great thinker, out front on this issue, and I intend to read his book to my 9-year-old to show him that there are no limits to what he can be, regardless of his troubled history before he came into our family. Dean Boland Lakewood, Ohio
Congratulations on your cover story on African-American corporate CEOs, and also to Richard Parsons, Kenneth Chenault and Stanley O’Neal on their success. They are terrific. We want to add some texture and data to the record of the most senior African-American CEO featured in the article, Frank Raines of Fannie Mae. Frank has demonstrated in more than three years as CEO a stunning level of accomplishment. On his watch, more than 10 million American families have had mortgages financed by Fannie Mae. Fannie Mae’s mortgage portfolio has grown from $415 billion to $705 billion. Fannie Mae’s operating earnings have grown at an annual rate of 17 percent. And with Frank Raines’s leadership, Fannie Mae has met the challenge to shape new mortgage products for minorities, single mothers, new immigrants and others most in need. As Frank’s predecessors, we are very conscious that he is not only a highly successful African-American CEO; he is one of the most successful CEOs in America. James A. Johnson, CEO, 1991-1998 David O. Maxwell, CEO, 1981-1991 Washington, D.C.
All three of the CEOs profiled in “The Race to the Top” were handpicked and groomed by Jewish bosses. It’s good to see this camaraderie and trust in American boardrooms, especially after the disheartening dissolution of the partnership forged by the disenfranchised and disillusioned in the 1960s. Jim Arenson Woodside, Calif.
“The new black power” is a well-meant but failed attempt to update the controversial phrase that inspired black America and traumatized white America in 1966 when it was proclaimed by Adam Clayton Powell Jr. in his Howard University baccalaureate address and by Stokely Carmichael in his march through Mississippi. Both events specified goals and strategies for a powerless people’s acquisition of power. But the merely serendipitous existence of three black CEOs of nationally influential corporations no more reflects “black power” than the trio of, say, Secretary of State Colin Powell, national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Education Rod Paige–or Tiger Woods, Venus Williams and Marion Jones. Granted, the breaching of one historic racial barrier is a cause for black rejoicing and white exhaling in relief at this one dramatic setback for institutionalized racism. But to call it “black power” is a fallacy. As one of only 142 African-American chaired university professors, I do not have a smidgen of “black power” to change white racism’s ubiquitous persistence in higher education, particularly journalism education. But I can enhance the intellects of both white and black students, while vivifying racial pride among black students. Notwithstanding one salutary NEWSWEEK cover story and an incommensurable Ellis Cose book, you still cannot make a silk purse of black power out of the sow’s ear of white racism. Chuck Stone Walter Spearman Professor University of North Carolina Journalism School Chapel Hill, N.C.
Do you really believe the three executives on your Jan. 28 cover think they are part of “The New Black Power”? When will the news media get over reporting that “this is the first black so-and-so” instead of reporting that cream rises to the top regardless of its color? Your real headline appeared on page three of the same issue, where you described “a trio of superstars who happen to be African-American.” The news media now have an opportunity, so far unfulfilled, to take this country up to the next level of anti-bias and report things like this for what they are. By the way, this subscriber happens to be white. Kenneth R. Chane Tarzana, Calif.
The Early Kid Gets the Nod
Dartmouth ‘93
