Kelley Williams-Bolar, Al Sharpton to Appear on Dr. Phil: Is Dr. Phil Exploiting The Situation?

Many of you might remember the case of Kelley Williams-Bolar, the single black mother of two who was jailed for sending her children to a school that was outside their home district. Well, Dr. Phil McGraw has decided to do a show on Kelley's situation, set to air in the coming week.

Shortly after AOL Black Voices brought Kelley's case to the nation, I found that there were quite a few citizens around the country who were concerned about her situation. Millions of people around the world rallied to Kelley's defense, and ColorofChange.org and Change.org did a wonderful job of gathering hundreds of thousands of signatures on petitions that were eventually delivered to the governor of Ohio.

Rev. Al Sharpton and I went to Ohio in February to hold a rally on Kelley's behalf. It was at that point that I made it clear to Rev. Sharpton, as well as other members of the audience, that this case is not about one person, but about the broader issue of educational inequality. Sharpton and I agreed on this point, and I was actually comfortable with the fact that Ms. Williams-Bolar didn't show up to the rally. I was only a bit surprised that she provided no explanation for not coming, which I honestly felt to be an insult to all of the people who packed the church in order to support her cause. I presume, however, that the attorneys were the ones who advised Kelley not to show up, since the consequences of being associated with "trouble-making negroes" can be dire. Why the attorneys would tell Kelley to ignore the people in her community, but then to appear on national TV shows appears on the surface to be quite disingenuous.

It was a week or so later during a trip to Massachusetts (I was speaking to the black students at Regis College), that I received an email and phone call from Dr. Phil's show, as well as ABC's Nightline. I could understand Nightline's interest in covering Kelley's case, but not Dr. Phil. After all, Dr. Phil is a psychologist, and I have personally seen Kelley's case to primarily be a matter of racial and social justice, two topics on which Dr. Phil rarely expounds. So, it honestly appeared to me that Dr. Phil's producers might be seeking to exploit the attention being garnered on Kelley's case, similar to what they did with Ted Williams, the "man with the golden voice."

I mentioned to the producers of both shows that my interest in Kelley's case focuses primarily on three key issues: educational inequality in America, economic inequality's impact on our children's opportunities, and racial inequality as it pertains to the criminal justice system. The fact that Dr. Phil has invited Al Sharpton onto the show lays out hope that perhaps there will be room to address the broader issues of inequality that continue to plague our nation, and I hope that Sharpton gets a chance to make his points. To some extent, the events that occured in the life of Kelley Williams-Bolar are merely a microcosm of the very same inquality that affects all of us, and I am hopeful that the discussion on Dr. Phil will encourage black politicians at the federal level to start taking notice.

After watching the trailer to upcoming the show, I admittedly find myself offended. It appears that Dr. Phil is taking the same paternalistic approach to Kelley's case that many across White America use to justify the mass incarceration of African Americans at all costs. The trailer shows him being hard on Kelley and asking her to "own up" to the fact that she broke the law. Yes, she broke the law, there is no question about that. But breaking the law does not always imply that a person is doing something unethical. We must remember that we live in a nation where it was once illegal for slaves to learn how to read. So, the same way we had to break the law to get access to a quality education 200 years ago, we are sometimes forced to do the same thing right now. According to nearly every statistical and sociological measure imaginable, Kelley Williams-Bolar would not have had to violate the law to get access to a quality school had she been born a middle-class white female. So, at the end of the day, women like Kelley are the only ones forced to make such difficult decisions in order to provide their children with a chance to have a better life.

I won't be watching Dr. Phil, I don't need a spike in my blood pressure. But at the end of the day, we must remember that Kelley's case is about all of us, and only a righteous, determined pursuit of racial equity is going to create the nation that America proclaims itself to be. As it stands, our educational system is downright shameful, so rather than beating up on Kelley for making a difficult choice, Dr. Phil should be speaking to legislators about improving the systems that continue to destroy our children. But then again, single black mothers always make the most readily-available scapegoats.