I’m literally sitting here disgusted. I just have read about and heard discussion of the latest gang rape allegations in Cleveland, Texas. This allegation includes at least 18 young men and an eleven year old girl. The details of the case are still coming up, but there was videotaping of the rape and its circulation which went viral around local schools. We, as in the Black community and men in particular (trust me women have been doing a better job of this than us), need to have some serious conversations about sexual violence. As a young Black man, my education around rape and other forms of sexual violence was a slogan, “no means no.” If you are like me and product of the 80s then you know slogans like “just say no” gathered more laughter than followers. It’s time for a different conversation with our boys.

In fact, I wonder, are we even talking to boys and men about sexual violence? We need to engage boys and men in conversations not just about the mechanics of sex, but the responsibilities that accompany it (beyond pregnancy and STIs). While sex and sexuality are often discussed as private, in a puritanical sense, sex and sexuality are all around us. Youth are inundated with messages about sex, violence and power. Most boys have watched a pornographic film by the age of 11. You can chose not to talk about sex and sexual violence but they’ve likely already witnessed it.

Anytime one thinks about adolescents or children, the role of peer group looms large. As an adolescent I knew which friends had access to “adult materials” and also which friends or family were having (or so I thought) sex so they could tell me what I wanted to know. It was in this private context that I was taught about “running trains.” For those not familiar, that’s a colloquial reference to multiple men having sex with a single woman in succession. I was taught that if you found a real freak, everybody could participate. When I heard Snoop’s album and they sang, “It ain’t no fun, if the homies can’t have none” that was my reference and the image that came to mind. I was casually socialized into thinking that there was no gang rape, instead there were only gang bangs. Whether it’s Kid Cudi saying “me first” on I Poke Her Face or Wale ending his verse referencing “a train” on No Hands, our boys continue to learn gang rape is just a casual part of partying and growing up.

Some scholars estimate that between 10 to 33 percent of sexual assaults are multiple assailant (gang rape). Psychologically most common to these occurrences is an emphasis on power, displaying heterosexuality to other men, and drifting – where people commit crime that they may not agree with following others in a group. In short, gang rape is a group problem that makes clear we have to collectively change how we think about what it means to be a man and the role of power in our lives. At the core of the heinous act is often an attempt to validate one’s masculinity to others. Non-participation could mean being pushed out of the group or being “outed” (read: labeled as gay and this ‘not a real man’). If we don’t teach our boys to think differently about what it means to be a man, we will continue to be plagued by this issue.

This however is not simply an issue of peers. I can recall uncles saying, “you ain’t no real man till you’ve had some” or have seen parents questioning if children “have sugar in the tank” in attempts to legislate what it means to be “a real man.” When you couple these types of messages with misinformed sexual commentary, it creates a dangerous brew. As we are teaching boys about their journey into manhood, we often start with the ideas of power and control. I can’t recall how many times I’ve been in households where a 10 year old is referred to as “the man of the house” and told to “protect his mother and sisters” (I’m not even going into family structure here, just bear with me). This gives boys the idea, from an early age, that manhood is about power over women and about protect of girls and women from dangers. What if we pushed our boys to think about power sharing with girls and women? What if we restructured journeys into manhood to emphasize that best qualities of adults are neither masculine or feminine, they transcend both? What if we actually began to listen to our kids and talk to our kids about what we want our communities to look like? What if we envisioned spaces that were safe for girls and boys and women and men?

While I spend most days trying to crack the achievement gap, I cannot help but think the same questions of how do we shape peer influence and build individual personalities that can buffer against negative messages play out in sexual violence as well. In the case of education, we haven’t figured out how to transform peer influence and that’s with a million messages saying “stay in school” and “school pays.” But education has the advantage of being on the radars of millions. In the case of sexual violence, adults suffer from a lack of communication. The teenage years are guided by adults suggesting that youth not “follow the crowd” when it comes to drinking, drugs, and other speakable maladies, but sexual violence remains silent and untouched.

If we are going to provide a safe environment for boys and girls as well as men and women, we cannot afford to be silent. We cannot afford to flinch and/or turn away when they are honest about what they’ve learned about sex, relationships, and power – even if when we hear  our “messed up” messages that we’ve passed echoing back at us. We have to stand and have real conversations about gender violence and its severe consequences for all involved. This summer, I’m Program Coordinator of the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.S. (Boys Rising Organizing to Help End Racism and Sexism) where we will be working with adolescent males to become allies against sexism and gender based violence. Sexual violence is a collective issue and one that is sadly often framed solely as a “women’s issue.” I hope this post helps to highlight the extreme need of men and boys to be allies against sexual violence, if not we’ll find our boys and men being allies against it.

For resources on coping with and ending sexual violence:

A Long Walk Home

Men Can Stop Rape

RAINN

Last week, I had the pleasure of being on NPR’s Tell Me More with host Michel Martin to discuss the Vibe Article, “The Mean Girls of Morehouse.” The conversation was really interesting as we were joined by Aliya S. King, the author of the controversial piece, and Brian Alston, one of the students profiled in the article. The article’s publication has caused a firestorm that has raised some important challenges to our community around masculinity, sexuality, and race. Take a listen to the piece here.

For some evidence of the percolated conversations, check out this clip of brothers on the yard discussing the article and the greater community.

If you cannot see the video, please click here.

On February 10th, I had the pleasure of joining an esteemed set of scholars for the 143rd Founder’s Day Symposium at Morehouse College. The symposium title was, “Black Men in the 21st Century: Myths, Data and Realty.” This post has the links to all the talks, each one was uniquely insightful and I provide brief synopsis above each talk. If you’re concerned about Black men, this is the set of videos to watch. Special thanks to Dr. David Wall Rice and Dr. Obie Clayton for organizing and executing a stellar opportunity to build better Black men.

Introduction with remarks from Dr. Obie Clayton (Sociology), President of Morehouse College Robert Franklin, and Dr. David Wall Rice (Psychology)

Dr. Horace L. Griffin‘s ( Pacific School of Religion) talks on The Black Church and Black Macho. Griffin goes in depth and breaks down his passage through Morehouse as a religious fundamentalist and arrival to a deeper and more rich spirituality. Griffin breaks down his misogynist and homophobic views and his development into a more equity driven gay Episcopal minister. He is author of Their Own Receive Them Not: African American Lesbians and Gays in Black Church.

Dr. Michael J. Strambler (Yale School of Medicine) breaks down questions of educational motivation among African-American males. He reviews and challenges the current set of explanations which assume low motivation and anti-academic attitudes of Black youth. He then identifies some promising practices for reforming schools to positively affect Black male student experience and performance.

Dr. Shani Harris Peterson (Spelman College) presents on sex, media, and its implications for health. She challenges the audience to interrogate videos, including Snoop Dogg’s “Beautiful.” She also masterfully negotiates a set of questions that essentialize Black women as golddiggers and Black men as African royalty.

This is my talk and I’ll be offering more comments tomorrow in a post on Black Male Privilege (BMP) which includes the link. Also, check out Sister Toldja’s salute to my talk (blushing) and more importantly the subject matter of BMP.

Lastly, the panel closes with a question and answer session where a number of issues are clarified and challenging thoughts offered.

And one of them is not the use of the word Negro which has BEEN appearing, including on the 2000 census short and long forms.

1) The counting of prisoners – Currently prisoners are counted as residents of the counties in which they are imprisoned rather than their home communities. This serves to increase political representation in areas that tend to be rural and White, while decreasing the political representation of the home communities that folks come from.

2) Who is White? The extended racial definitions provided by OMB 15 say that, ” A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.”  Notice something about that? I was certainly surprised that folks from North Africa and the Middle East remain classified as White, despite the socially distinct lives that many lead.

3) Undercounts. The issue of Negro was raised in response to the potential of people being offended and “opting out” of the Census. If seeing Negro makes you not fill out the Census form, I’m going to wager you weren’t going to fill it out in the first place. Many communities remain undercounted: the poor, the young, immigrant to name a few, this all matters for political resources. If you’re worried about undercounts, think also about the homeless. Their undercounting means fewer resources for those feeling the hardest brunts of the “land of opportunity.”

I am all for rallying around a cause. I’m just not sure I can meet ya’ll down at the Census offices for a protest over Negro. Focus groups, lettering writing campaigns, and write ins suggest some of our older brothers and sisters still support the term. Let’s focus energy in creating greater political clout, not appropriate nomenclature.

Dear Old Morehouse,

I’ve been trying to avoid writing this for some time now. As an alumnus of the institution, it’s hard for me to see you in such condition. Many of my fellow alumni complained of your disrepair and your besmirched image when they heard about students being beaten for their sexuality, shooters graduating, and cross-dressing, but I have bigger concerns. While all these things mattered to me, they did not disturb me because of what was being done to the image of our institution; they disturbed me because they demonstrated that Dear Old Morehouse was terribly unequipped to deal with the realities and lives that Black men in America live now. In fact, it is the Old Morehouse that is more dangerous to me than any student with a gun, sagged pants, or high heels would ever be. Let me explain.

When I visited Morehouse for the first time, it was about 1994, I remember seeing hanging banners and brochures that talked about the development of leaders, community servants, and caring connected brothers. The culmination of these developments was to be the Morehouse Man. I remember reading about the crown that Morehouse held up for its students so that one day they too would embody the Morehouse Mystique. I was sold. I was ready to be in that number. I was ready to be at the only institution of higher education dedicated fully to the education of men of African descent in the United States. But like most things, I soon found out all that glittered was not gold.

courtesy of nyleharris flckr stream

When I arrived, I remember hearing brothers commonly refer to the Morehouse Mistake, not Mystique. I remember seeing Samuel L. Jackson toted out as a shining alumnus, only to learn he was actually kicked out while he was there. I was there when I realized Morehouse students had no trouble admitting rape happened, but sadly refused to admit that Morehouse students could or would rape their Spelman sisters. I know, now I’m airing dirty laundry, in your eyes, but hear me out. Morehouse, if you are committed to Black men, then you’ve got to do better. You, no WE, have got to work to make better men for the 21^st century, not the 20^th. It often feels like each time I hear about your “new moves” and “plans” you’re becoming more committed to making a middle class Black man who would exist in the 1950s or 60s, not in 2009. From clothing to interviews, Dear Old Morehouse, there is much more happening with and to Black men than you’re equipped to handle.

See, in the past, Morehouse was about accepting and graduating the “cream of the crop” amongst the Black bourgeoisie and claiming the production of the Black intelligentsia. We all know, at least at the House, that Martin Luther King, Jr. — our most well known alumnus– came from a relatively well-to-do background and he wasn’t the most stunning student. But it would be on the red clay hills of Georgia that he got a deeper social, spiritual, and political education which would lead him to change the world. It is that image that you fed us and feed young brothers who come to the gates these days. You celebrate your role as one of the top feeders to graduate schools and Fortune 500 companies among institutions of higher education.  You highlight that our alumni are Rhodes Scholars, former surgeon generals and are changing the world around the globe, as many institutions do. The problem is, those men are the ones who made it, and it is likely that they still would have made it without Morehouse. Sometimes I think you point to exceptional success from the past in an effort to keep people from noticing what you are doing wrong or simply not doing it the present. So many who come to our campus, who desire to be better men, are not given what they need because you are asking them to trade themselves for your idea of success. Dear Old Morehouse, success does not look, sound, or feel the same for all.

I almost feel like you’re in denial; we can’t keep living a lie. I’ve got to tell you five things that you seem to deny too often. First, Affirmative Action did change you and who attended you. Affirmative Action allowed a number of the brothers who would have attended HBCUs in the past to attend traditional Ivys. We have to recognize that we don’t have the economic resources to compete with the Harvards, Yales or even smaller liberal arts schools. Many brothers get drawn to these schools because they have a financial safety net and set of offerings that make it difficult for them to sign on Morehouse’s dotted line. Second, the day of male breadwinner and unquestioned male leadership is done. While the sisters at Spelman were over there involved in the freedom struggle with us, they were also noticing we were often working on “liberation for half a race.” While we spend copious amounts of time sitting in orientations and Crown Forums that convince us that we’ve “made it” because so many brothers didn’t, we’re falsely inflating ourselves and using these bloated egos to plot the path towards a wayward progress. Third, style is one of hallmarks of Blackness. Spending time trying to reduce and refashion style is like harnessing youth, a noble thought but likely to leave you more embarrassed than successful. Hip-Hop culture is here to stay and reflects a lot of what we face as a people and what many in our community aspire to emulate. Hip-Hop culture is art and yes, art and life do imitate one another. Hip-Hop is, was, and shall be anti-establishment; the more you regulate it, the more it will battle you. Fourth, gay men are Morehouse Men and they should no longer be silent and covering. For too long, Morehouse treated gay and queer brothers like the Loch Ness monster, often talked about but never fully confirmed. News flash: being non-heterosexual is neither a psychological nor a social deviance. It’s reality! Fifth, Black boys are in crisis and you have to adapt to this crisis as well. With 50% of Black boys who begin high school in the inner-city not graduating with their classmates on time, you must realize your pool of applicants and admits is going to look different. These brothers mostly come with 4.0 potential, not 4.0 GPA’s. The question becomes, what can we do to move potential to reality?! What are the supports we’re putting in place for the brothers who beat the odds and make it to the House? I am honestly not sure if you are ignorant or simply ignoring, but either way, we’ve got to do better. I seriously think that if you start to deal with these five facts, you can move from being Dear Old Morehouse to a Dear New Morehouse.

Oh I can hear you now, “Brother, we are getting ‘new’!” Unfortunately your “new” is old. With each passing year, I swear you move a step backwards towards your former self… or at least an image that you believed yourself to be. From interviews to dress codes, you’re trying to create a brand of respectable middle class black males that went out with the last sputters of the Civil Rights Movement. Yes, alumni get excited when they hear, “we will no longer tolerate…” because we all have a narrative about how Morehouse was and how it has changed. Don’t be surprised if people co-sign on your reversal of the clock without seeing the bigger picture. They’ll support more assemblies, more Crown Forums, more rules, less braids, less sagging, less gays… oops, just kidding on the last one. I know that subject is touchy in our community. Have you forgotten, it was not what was outside that made the Morehouse Man it was what was inside? The most valuable lessons are those learned collectively through struggle, failure and success.  Not from imposition, dress codes, or dress policies. College is one of the few times that Black men may be able to explore fuller and truer selves and your hallowed halls are the ideal place to do so. Instead, you threaten to lock down and narrow those very halls. I want to hear that you’re developing new models of manhood, ones that are not patriarchal, ones that deal with the needs of Black men and boys who need healing, ones that let boys become the Men of their choosing and of their community’s wanting. Few of the rules that you are implementing are creating a healthier pathway for Black men, they’re simply polishing the same “broken” brothas and yet you wonder why it is not working.

Quite regularly now, I receive emails asking “What is Morehouse doing?” Some come in agreement, some come in disagreement, but the ones I value most are the those that come from a place of love for the development of all Black men. The individual policies that you have drawn up are just echoes of the world that Black males now create and inhabit. If Dear Old Morehouse is truly interested in living up to its missions and declarations, the ones that got me to attend, the ones that got me to link up and sing, the ones that got me to love my institution enough to critique its actions, then we’ve got to begin from a point of understanding and expansion, not from a point of rigidity and constriction. Unless we acknowledge that Dear Old Morehouse must become Dear New Morehouse to serve the whole of our community, we’ll be doing this sad dance every 8 months. I look forward to your response and hope WE can grow to meet that crown of which Howard Thurman so eloquently made us aware.

In humility and community,

Dr. R. L’Heureux Lewis

Ndugu Dumi Eyi di yiye

Class of 2000

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of appearing on the Addicted to Race podcast hosted by Carmen Van Kerckhove of New Demographic. I was a guest on the portion of the podcast that discussed the Gates arrest, Obama response, and the potential for deeper race dialogue. You can hear what I had to say here. And while you’re over there, definitely make sure to subscribe to the podcast, one of the best out there on race.

Tonight, Harlem Stage courtesy of Revolution books will host a dialogue between Cornel West and Carl Dix at Aaron Davis Hall at the City College of New York (CCNY). West, who is internationally renowned as a philosopher and Dix who is also renowned as a founder of the Revolutionary Community Party and is their current spokesperson. The topic is “The Ascendancy of Obama … and the Continued Need for Resistance and Liberation” which should definitely get the juices flowing. These are two very prolific brothers, so I suggest you bring your dictionaries and your “earmuffs” because the conversation has the potential to get heavy and into “the muck and mire.” The talk costs 20 dollars if you are a community member and 10 dollars if you are student. Beneath there is a video of Carl Dix talking about the event and a video of Cornel West talking about Obama.

Update: The event looks to be sold out. There is an overflow room that will accommodate maybe 50 people. If you can’t make it, the event is supposed to be broadcast on WBAI which you can stream from here.

Today is a phenomenonally exciting day on the campus of the City College of New York. A series of lectures and talks will descend to bring some of the nation’s foremost scholars and activists, if you’re around you can hear Kwame Anthony Appiah of Princeton discuss “Race and the New Genomics.” The lecture will be in the Great Hall in Shepard Hall at 5:30pm.

After you’re done listening to a supremely academic discussion of race and science. You can head over to “Live from Death Row” featuring Pam Africa (remember Move in Philadelphia?), Yusef Salaam (remember the false conviction of the brothas with the central part jogger?), and others discuss the death penalty and its disproportionate use on poor, Black and Brown folks. This event is sponsored by the Campaign to End the Death Penalty.

These two events will likely be “contradictory” to many folks, but as an academic and activist, I think they really provide two great spaces to think about questions and realities of race. Check them out if you can!

I’ve been very busy and going through a lot of late and had resolved I wouldn’t post much if at all this week. But I just had the PRIVILEGE of watching a short clip of a full length documentary entitled Broken Social Contracts by Laura L. Rahman. In the past few weeks there has been so much “back and forth” about Rihanna and Chris Brown that many folks have turned away from a dialogue that remains perpetually silenced: an honest and critical dialogue on violence between Black men and women. While I don’t know the creator of the piece, it immediately resonated with me because as an Alumnus of Morehouse it documents and challenges many of the standing sanitized commentaries on rape in the Black community, particularly between Morehouse and Spelman. I love the metaphor that is developed in the trailer, likely in the whole film, of a social contract that positions Spelman in silent service and allegiance to Morehouse and any rupturing of that contract somehow is heretical, anti-Black male or even really anti-Black.

A few years ago I wrote a post entitled “Playing the Rape Card” inspired by the tensions happening between Morehouse and Spelman around student rape. As I talked to brothers I went to school with and looked at comments on facebook about rape between Morehouse and Spelman I was disappointed. I was at first disgusted with our “knee jerk” reaction to allegations and our emphasis on “alleged rapes” when many of us have damn well known for years these issues plague our schools, communities and families. My post was well received by sisters who read it and commented, but very few from brothas. When I looked at my hit counter it was one of my “most popular” posts and when I asked brothas who read it their thoughts they said things like, “I agree.” But men weren’t really ready to “stand up and stand out” against the growing wall of ” Black male solidarity” with Morehouse. I found that brothers were silently consenting to my argument that rape is not fiction as well as silently consenting to rape. It’s time to break that silent consent as well. While I’m sure my post didn’t do much, I have high hopes that this film will begin to re-open that dialogue. I intended to just post the video quickly, but too many things came to mind. Thank you Laura Rahman for breaking the social contracts and I’ll continue to try to break silent consent.

Hattip to Byron Hurt for the video trailer.

This weekend, the City College campus will be filled with fresh young and old minds grappling with issues of inequality and access. I’m proud to say that City College is hosting the first CUNY Social Forum. The event will take place October 17th – 19th and will feature a great range of presentations, workshops, and organizations. If you’re not familiar with the significance of Social Forums click here. If you’re a activist, come out. If you’re an aspiring activist, come out. If you’re concerned, come out. If you’re not concerned, you’re not paying attention! And for that reason you should come out. The organizers have really gotten a number of issues on the table for discussion and action. Whether it’s increases in tuition, changing of standards for admission, or health care there will be a venue and voice for it this weekend. So hop on the train and get informed and active with the best of em.

Well, it looks like Proposal 2 passed in the state of Michigan last night 58% to 42%. The passing of Proposal 2 does not surprise me, but it does disappoint me tremendously. Over the past few years I’ve seen leaders emerge from the U of M community and beyond to fight this measure. While it passed, I want to take this time to thank everyone who put their time, heart, and souls into stopping this thing. To you all I remind you, that your work will never be cancelled or distilled by this measure. You have served to heighten awareness among the unaware and provide fertile ground for the future battles that we will fight as we work to maintain civil and human rights.

While the nations applauds the Dems taking the House and the nation awaits very
tight senate races, I’ll be in mourning. It’s naive to think all the “allies” that we found in the fight against Prop 2 will be around today to comfort, walk with, and get ready for next steps, they’ll be busy returning to their jobs saddened, but not disappointed. For me the mourning is realizing that the very reason that I am able to attend U of M is under attack again. As a first generation college student and graduate of African-American descent, I was able to take advantage of programs such as the Rackham Merit Fellowship and the resources on campus targeted to people like me, who didn’t come from the best of circumstances, but when I look back down the pipeline, there will be fewer “me’s” coming in the door. Michigan voters have neatly shut the door behind them and many will continue on today with “business as usual.”

This year, like a number in the past, have continued to make me feel electoral politics failed me. The representation of “minority” issues in the electoral process rarely comes out in the minority group’s favor, no surprise right? But I realized that with Michigan’s battle of Proposal 2 that there is a silent tide that has been rising vis-a-vis the ballot proposal. While the highest courts in the land may rule in one way, the ballot proposal has become a tremendously dangerous tool to use local sentiment to contradict decisions by “activist judges.”

Last night I learned that abortion, English as the official language, gay marriage, and minimum wage were on the ballots of a number of states. Some of the bedrocks of American freedom and opportunities lay at the hands of a populous, mind you a populous that just seemed to figure out a Republican run nation was not doing us too well- but I digress. Out of all these measures the one that I think gives me the most hope it’s the increase in minimum wages, but even that is not enough (pun intended). The willingness to raise the economic floor is simple, in fact common sense. The abortion ban just got defeated, 45% of voters voted for it and they say it didn’t pass because it had too few exceptions… scary! English as an official language … I can’t even start to go there on this one. The ban on same sex marriages further demonstrates that the American people believe in freedom, for some.

Collectively, these ballot initiatives literally mean the bullet for many civil and human rights, but they all happen relatively beneath the radar. In the past week, it would be hard to count how many folks from around the country didn’t know that Affirmative Action was on the ballot here. I would be lying if I said I knew all these key issues were on the ballots around the nation. The national silence around these issues makes it difficult to build coalitions and responses, but one by one these propositions and proposals are passing. Today it was Michigan, I hear Wisconsin you’re in the cross-hairs next. Until we learn how to turn out state level populations that are willing to vote against equality, we will be seeing this tide for years to come. Forget all the talk about “the tsunami” (by the way, does anyone else think its tremendously globally insensitive to refer to political shifts by the name of natural disasters that the world is still recovering from? I mean, what happened to good old landslides, at least we Americans know what that’s like) the state level initiatives are going to continue to creep in, be on the look out.

Finally, I’ve already got a number of inquiries about what I think the passing of Proposal 2 means. Well since the best comparison we have is California this is my quick take. The passing of Proposal 2, theoretically would mean the ushering in of a California-like system. While to some this may seem “alright” there are a couple of major differences between Michigan and California: 1) demographics- Cali’s racial demographics (majority minority -I know it’s an oxymoron) make it “easier” to talk about successes without Affirmative Action 2) economies- Michigan’s economy has been shrinking and will continue to, and 3) breadth of educational system- California’s UC system is way larger and more diverse than what Michigan has to offer.

To me, this means that you will fundamentally see a large drop in entering students of color, particularly Black because of the state’s composition. You will not see these students going to other schools four year institutions, I’d guess community college and other high cost urban schools will get flooded (in a best case scenario). You will see Michigan continue to be less competitive economically as the Black middle class flee to areas that consider their race in decision making. Lastly, you’ll see Universities in particular do their best to maintain the representation of marginalized groups, but with at best marginal success.

This may serve as a wake up call to some, but I kinda think if you’re not awake already, you may not be waking up. As the nation barrels ahead and waits for the “Democratic awakening” please remember that for many of us, the party politics will not save us and in some ways, I’m not sure the ballot will either.

For the folks who are in A2 and on U of M’s campus today there are two things going on of interest: 1) at noon Mary Sue Coleman, president of U of M, will address the student body about Proposal 2 and 2) the Multiethnic Student Affairs office is hosting an Election Recovery space at the Trotter house all day.

So the big news in the Daily today is apparently Tony Saunders was ousted from the Black Student Union for being a member of Michigamua. This was not news to me, but now he’s appealing his ousting saying that it violates the BSU constitution.

For those who don’t know Michigamua is a “senior honor society” which has a long sorted history of misrepresenting and disrespecting Native folks. Black in 2000 their office space was occupied by a coalition of students of color. Eventually they agreed to not use Native artifacts anymore, etc. Just six years ago, it was common to hear folks of color displeased with Gamua and their practices. Fast forward six years and half the students of color here feel as if the Gamua offenses occurred in another lifetime. We definitely practice selective amnesia at U of M.

Now back to Tony, many folks know and love Tony. Let me make it clear, I really don’t know him from Adam, but I have known he’s been in Gamua since he got tapped last year, so I’m sure we disagree on somethings. Tony is president of the NPHC here and on MSA and was an officer in BSU.

*On a side note, how did you not think he was in Gamua? Black man comes out relative obscurity (participates largely in his frat) then wins a campus wide election with from my point of view little discernible platform… that was red flag number one for me*

In the Daily article it mentions how he refused to go public with his membership when the Daily published a list last year (both him and the Editor in Chief Donn Fresard made this decision, I wonder who else is hiding in woods?) but he said he did it to avoid what he’s going through right now? Okay, let me try to rehash this argument. 1) He joins an organization that has historically and likely con temporarily disrespects students of color. 2) He is serving on a executive board that is meant to be a political arm to the Black community. 3) Instead of resolving this conflict up front, he chose to hide it. Makes sense right?

Since the controversy has come to light, Tony apparently has been receiving threatening phone calls. I don’t think that’s cool.

*Another side note, did you notice the Daily article says it was someone from BSU… has that been confirmed or is that speculation?*

But I definitely think his choice to join a organization that is known to go back on its word and disrespect our community of color was one he has to stand on. His classmate Nicole Stallings came out when the group when public, she suffered her hits, but she’s MSA president and living life pretty well from what I hear.

*Dammit another side note, I wonder is Nicole standing in Solidarity with him?*

While I believe in including folks in our pan-African agenda, I do think lines have to be drawn. I think the decision to not have Tony in a leadership role is a wise one. That’s my two cents.

We are approximately 2 weeks away from the vote on Proposal 2. Vote no on 2. I am not a 501c3, so I can say this loudly and repeatedly!!!! Tell a friend.

It’s getting cold outside in Michigan. Marc Hill has a hilarious post on sandals and white folks over here. Check out the comment that mentions the theory of ten.

deadlines passing by. I can’t figure out where the heck my time is going. Sorry for my absence on the posts, but I’m a little bit busy these days. So I have a number of incomplete posts in my blogger account since my last post, so I’ll try to finish this one.

This past week, the Young Americans for Freedom hosted their “Catch an Illegal Immigrant Day.” They originally scheduled the even at U of M for September 28th, but YAF chickened out. I heard a number of people rumble that they were not going to do the day because “the woman” who came up with it got fired. I thought it was really interesting that the Daily plastered Morgan Wilkins on their cover. Because she was “fired” I ran into a number of people who thought the event was off because the culprit was gone. As I suspected, she may have suggested the event, but the group was going to carry it out. I was unable to make it to the Diag on Thursday, but as this article outlines, the big story was BAM-N. Same script, different cast (well not really a different cast). Maybe I’m getting old, but their silencing of dialogue and reactionary antics are killing me… well hell that can’t be my age, they’ve been annoying me since 2000. That’s enough about them, not deserving of more space. Alternatively a number of student of color and ally orgs organized a peaceful counter-demonstration. Biggup up to that, as well as biggup to metro Detroit community that responded to the ignorance of YAF (shout out to Rashidah and Dawud – ya’ll are fly).

Aight, there is much much much more going on right now, but that’s all I have the energy to type on. I’m looking to put a couple more things up this coming week.