On next Monday the 17th at 7:30 pm there will be a panel on Black Male Privilege at the Brecht Forum. The panel will feature L’Heureux Dumi Lewis of City College- CUNY, Marc Lamont Hill of Teachers College- Columbia University, Mark Anthony Neal of Duke University and Byron Hurt an award winning film maker. The topic is a controversial yet important one. The past months have been ripe with conversations about Black folks, gender, and the future of our community. This panel was organized by and will be moderated by Esther Armah and it is sure to be an enlightening, challenging and productive conversation. Brothers and Sisters are welcome!! I look forward to see you all there. I’ll be tweeting about, so please forward to your loved ones.  Please note the cost of entry is 10 dollars which is a small price to pay for intellectual and activist stimulation!

]]> http://www.uptownnotes.com/black-male-privilege-panel-discussion-517-730pm/feed/ 2 http://www.uptownnotes.com/where-political-hip-hop-lives/ http://www.uptownnotes.com/where-political-hip-hop-lives/#comments Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:28:20 +0000 dumi http://www.uptownnotes.com/?p=1235

You’ve had the debate, I’ve had the debate, someone right now is having the debate, it all spawns from the question: “Is Hip-Hop political?” The camps usually are divided between old school and new school, hip hop and rap, underground and mainstream … in the past 8 years I’ve squarely outgrown this debate. For me, it’s more relevant to ask, which Hip-Hop is political and what are its politics? By far, my favorite political Hip-Hop has come from the Black August Hip Hop Project. The project, orchestrated by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement merges music, politics, and activism and has been doing so for 12 years.

I remember getting fliers for Black August each year and thinking “this is the dopest line up” and remember standing in long lines waiting to see my favorite artists rock. While I can remember the performances to this day, the other thing that stuck me was the emphasis on political prisoners and global hip-hop. The project brought some of the greatest voices, both “conscious” and “non-conscious”, together to raise money and awareness with the goal of movement building. It was this project of MXGM that introduced me to a cadre of young activists who thought like me, cared like me, and most importantly got down like me. This coming Sunday August 30th in NYC at BB Kings The Black August Hip Hop Project will have its annual fundraiser for political prisoners and facilitating international Hip-Hop movement building. What is better than coming out and hearing great music, sweating it out on the dance floor (or standing with an ice grill, that’s on you!), and continuing the work of liberation?

Click here to buy your advanced tickets!!

One of the things that is always a dilemma with dope movements is the documentation of said movement, well Dream Hampton and a number of folks have been working on capturing the Black August Hip Hop Project in a documentary entitled Let’s Get Free: The Black August Hip Hop Project. A trailer for the project can be seen here (embedding is disabled but it’s well worth the click).

To me, asking if Hip-Hop is political is about as useful as asking, “why is the sky blue?/ why is water is wet?” (what you know about that?), it’s self-evident. The better question is what are you doing with your politics since you are Hip-Hop?

You know how you say “what is there to do today/tonight?” Well I have an answer for you from today until Friday, yeah that’s right 5 days and nights in a row (even kid cudi couldn’t do this!). Okay, so most of you won’t go 5 days/nights in a row, but you should! This week, two amazing artists Fahamu Pecou (he is the shit) and Hebru Brantley will be descending on NYC to share their brand of art. In this living installation at Lyons Weirs Gallery Pecou and Brantley will have Warhol-Basquiat painting session that hearkens back to Andy Warhol’s Factory. Every night at 7pm, they’ll have an “opening” which will run back the day’s events (you know all the stuff you missed while you were sitting in your cubicle or at home watching judge judy, hey unemployment is still high) and a party, no like really a party. I know sounds odd, but trust, like Fahamu is widely known as, it will be “the shit“! I’m looking forward to what these two brothas who are certainly some of the finest painters in their generation are going to put down, so roll through the Lyon Weirs which is on 7th and 20th to take part and make part of instant art history.

On Monday (July 13), I have the esteemed pleasure at speaking at the NAACP Centennial Convention in New York City. The 100th anniversary of the NAACP is a symbol of perseverance, power, and adaptation in the struggle for

civil rights and beyond. I will be on the “Building a Progressive Agenda Towards Quality Education” at 2:30 with Judith Brown-Dianis (Co-Director the Advancement Project), Dr. James Loewen (Author of Sundown Towns and Lies My Teacher Told), Dr. Charles Willie (Professor Emeritus Harvard), Dr. Edison Jackson (President Medgar Evers College-CUNY).

Murray Hill Suite, New York Hilton Hotel

This exciting Education Advocacy Workshop takes
the participants through a series of scenarios taken
from the very real challenges African American
students face in public education systems across
the country. The issues will range from student
assignment and assessments to teacher quality
and resource equity, from high takes barrier testing
to zero tolerance policies. For each scenario, the
panelists will encourage and coordinate discussion
by the workshop participants. This approach is
intended to increase the opportunity for the
exchange of analytical, tactical and strategic
approached with the context of both our strategic
priorities in education and our organizational
framework. This workshop will also review winning
strategies to reduce structural, political, financial
and other barriers, towards the goal of realizing
equal access to quality education.

Maxine Smith (NAACP Board of Directors Chair) will moderate the session which has a unique format. While each panel member will provide some evidence about their area of expertise, the bulk of the session will be responding to real life scenarios around education posed from the audience. This is a unique opportunity to move between scholarship and action, please come out if you’re in the area!

There is a lot going on right now in the world of education. So much that I’m just going to drop a bunch of links and brief commentaries for you to check out. As the spring blossoms, so do questions about the future of education from pre-K through higher education. I look forward to your thoughts.

The New York City Council‘s Committee on Higher Education will have a hearing Tuesday to discuss the CUNY Opportunity programs such Search for Education, Elevation and Knowledge (SEEK) and the Black Male Initiative (BMI) which provide access and support to important communities. The budget cuts of NY are real and will have real consequences if people don’t stand up and make sure programs like these are supported!

An interesting article on Teach for America which highlights the Urban Institute’s study on positive effects of TFA teachers in North Carolina in high schools. And asks if cities are behind the curve in accepting TFA teachers.

Here’s a quiz: Which of the following rejected more than 30,000 of the nation’s top college seniors this month and put hundreds more on a waitlist? a) Harvard Law School; b) Goldman Sachs; or c) Teach for America. If you’ve spent time on university campuses lately, you probably know the answer. Teach for America

The article really seems to oversell the Urban Institute’s findings on North Carolina. There remain big questions about TFA teacher performance, just as big as there remain about traditional public school teachers. Either way, our children need the best they can get.

Speaking of Unions, quality, and obligations, the Union movement in Charter schools, like KIPP is gaining attention and supporters/dissenters.

So this spring Ms. Nelson, 39, once skeptical about unions, helped lead an effort to unionize the teachers at the school, KIPP AMP, thinking that a contract would provide a clearer idea of expectations and consequences.

But now, with the state’s labor board scheduled to vote Wednesday on whether to certify a union at the school, Ms. Nelson has changed her mind again, withdrawing her support from a unionization drive that she says is proving to be a distraction and more about power than children.

The issues of charter schools, which was during the Bush Administration very controversial, in the Obama administration goes largely unquestioned, but the issue of unionization is resurfacing some old tensions in education. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in New York, Detroit, and around the nation.

The NY Times publishes an Op-Ed on the futility of graduate education as it is currently structured.

The emphasis on narrow scholarship also encourages an educational system that has become a process of cloning. Faculty members cultivate those students whose futures they envision as identical to their own pasts, even though their tenures will stand in the way of these students having futures as full professors.

I don’t wholly disagree with the Op-Ed’s analysis but having sat on Graduate School executive boards, national committees on graduate education, there is a lot that he conflates in graduate training. In reality, divisions in degrees and programs is partially designed to provide a “division of labor” and outcome. But I’m definitely interested in greater interdisciplinarity and collaboration.

John Jackson writes about Mary Ann Mason’s commentary in the Chronicle on the relationship between gender and tenure (can’t find an online version of Mason’s original so I’ll post a quote from From the Annals of Anthroman).

Mason doesn’t think it is an arbitrary coincidence that the uptick in part-time/adjunct instruction has coincided with an increase in the number of women getting Ph.D’s. However, this isn’t the result of a sexist conspiracy hatched by some purposeful Patriarchy. According to Mason, it is the substantively gendered byproduct of a formally gender-neutral process.

I have had a number of conversations with current and aspiring graduate students who are women about the tenure process, this should be a must read article and consideration. The deep ways that inequality is structured in prima facie neutral terms.

There is also new report which details the gap in graduation rates between the city and the suburbs

It is no surprise that more students drop out of high school in big cities than elsewhere. Now, however, a nationwide study shows the magnitude of the gap: the average high school graduation rate in the nation’s 50 largest cities was 53 percent, compared with 71 percent in the suburbs.

The urban-suburban gap is interesting to me, but not nearly as interesting as the gaps that happen within more suburban. Guess we’ll have to wait until I drop “Inequality in the Promise land” to get some more insight into that.

While you’re waiting on me get my book worked out you need to check out “Beats, Rhymes and Classroom Life: Hip-Hop Pedagogy and the Politics of Identity” by Marc Lamont Hill. This is a serious book for all those who are interested in Hip-Hop, education, and youth culture at large.

So yesterday I was all existential on twitter, which I rarely do, so today I’ll mesh my tweets with programming on my blog. I’m declaring this weekend ”wellness weekend” because I was passed three events happening in NYC that stimulate the psychological, spiritual, mental, and physical.

On Friday, Iyanla Vanzant will be helping folks “Tap the Power Within” with spiritual and psychological wellness work. On Saturday, Queen Afua will be helping folks by sponsoring a free cleanse day to aid in physical health. And on Sunday, The Association of Muslim Health Practitioners will be stimulating the mind by sponsoring a discussion forum on Health care access entitled, “NYC Covering the Uninsured: Universal Health care, Hope, or Hype?. Links to each of the events are below. Take the time if you can to check out each event or one event, you’ll surely come back with good things.

Friday: Iyanla Vanzant- Recession is Creation…Tapping the Power Within - 1700 Fulton @ Boys and Girls High. Brooklyn, NY – 10 dollars entry. 7:30pm

Saturday: Queen Afua- Spring Equinox one Day Cleansing Fast – 2301 5th ave @ National Black Theater. Harlem, NY – Free, registration encouraged. 9am – 5pm

Sunday: AMHP – NYC Covering the Uninsured: Universal Health care, Hype, or Hope? 413 W 46th St. @ Hartley House. Ny, NY. – Free, registration encouraged. 2-4pm.

This week, my dear friend Yusef Ramelize, took on the issue of homelessness. No, he didn’t decide to volunteer at a soup kitchen. No he didn’t decide to give out change to someone he saw as he was exiting the train. No he didn’t email his friends and tell them they should join a “homelessness sucks” cause on facebook. He decided to raise awareness about the issue of homelessness by getting first person experience. Yusef is going homeless for one week.

Yusef’s challenge to himself is paired with raising funds for the Coalition for the Homeless. His site contains all the information you could want to know and great personal reflections on the experience before he began the week. He will continue to update the site when he returns from his stay. I wanted to shout him out for taking action, learning, and pushing us all to contribute not just money but serious thoughts to one of the world’s most pressing issues. If you can, please do donate to the campaign. While he will only remain homeless until Saturday, most people do not have a choice in when they receive shelter again. So he will continue until May 1st or until he reaches his goal of 5000 dollars to donate. Please spread the word!!!!

So apparently there’s a real movement in the streets (not the type of movement your favorite rapper likes to call his p.r. stunts) to replace the n-word with president. A president can dream, can’t he?

Shout out to www.presidentplease.com and H/T to the lightskinned Obamaniac @GaTech

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.

In the case that you haven’t had a clear discussion of Black Liberation Theology, check out this Times article (hat tip to JCP)and if you’re uptown or actually near a computer. The Schomburg is going to have a great event on May 12th from 6:30-9:30 entitled “Understanding Black Liberation Theology: A 40 Year Retrospective“. The event will feature various experts and be simulcast.

This is the diagram that sits at the entrance to the Schomburg. One of my favorites! Unfortunately they don’t have a picture available for purchase at the store, only a very expensive original print. Maybe one day they’ll make it available!