Sixty four schools will likely close in Philadelphia. New York is aiming at closing forty seven schools this year, down from its original target of sixty two schools. These numbers should be alarming to all of us. They should be a rallying cry for helping our schools and children. Instead, school closings have become so commonplace that we barely react when we hear about them–even in large numbers. Just like many of us have become desensitized to gun violence and reports of death, we have become desensitized to the educational violence that befalls our children and community.

Philadelphia’s recent announcement to close these schools has not been a media lightening rod. Instead, the case of Philadelphia is just the latest in a string of national stories of struggling urban districts shuttering school building doors to keep budgets afloat in turbulent financial times. But is that really all there is to it?

If we look more carefully, the patterns of national school closing are tied to poor academic performance among schools, but also the formerly controversial trend to close traditional public schools and opening charter schools. I say “formerly” controversial, because under the Bush administration there was a national debate about the expansion of charter schools, school choice, and educational privatization. Yet under President Obama, all three of these issues have gained traction with little national resistance or Democratic party challenge. Read More

As I climbed the subway stairs on an unusually warm and sunny Spring day, I saw the shadows of two people in conversation. I could see from their body language they were in a conflict. One was male and the other female. As I waited for my shuttle, I could not take my eyes off the way the young man, likely in his early 20s, was speaking and gesturing towards the young woman, at best 18 years old. I stopped the music blaring in my headphones to listen.

“I’ll beat the shit out of you, b*tch. You think I won’t. Keep talking slick to me!” My heart sunk and the heat of the day intensified. The young woman stood leaning against the wall as her companion berated her. He then demanded her phone and said he’d call whomever she had been speaking to “speak to them.” She refused. The more he yelled, the less she engaged him. Enraged by her silence he continued on, “Oh, so you think you’re smart? You think you’re a woman now? You ain’t no real woman! You’re immature. You’re a little girl. You spend your money on dumb things like clothes and red bottoms [the popular and expensive Christian Louboutin heels]  You ain’t not woman, I’m a man. I take care of myself. I get money. I put a roof over my head. I’m in school.”

As he barked, I then noticed something: I was the only one watching. We were on 145th and Saint Nicholas in Harlem at one of the busiest train stations in New York City and the corner was well populated. But no one, besides me, was paying attention. Read More.

The arrest and charging of George Zimmerman can be the start of a movement for justice or it can be a flashpoint moment where we foolishly think “justice has been served.” In this piece for Ebony.com I discuss the potential of moving from a moment of discontent to a movement for justice.

The recent arrest and charging of George Zimmerman​ with the murder of Trayvon Martin is cause for celebration. However, this is only the beginning of a long struggle for justice, not just for Trayvon but for all. As concerned citizens we can take a second to congratulate ourselves, but we cannot wait too long before channeling the energy of a moment into a movement for justice.

In the past twelve months, the names Trayvon Martin, Troy Davis and Oscar Grant have been forced into the national consciousness via news, protest marches, as well as social media, but as quickly as they’ve come into our minds…they then disappear. I’m not sure if short attention spans drive short news cycles or if short news cycles drive short attention spans, but the two correspond. Recognizing this means we must make sure justice is pursued in each case and that we must also make sure our activism doesn’t end when we feel a case has been settled. Read more

This past week, the world lost a giant intellect and talent. Gil Noble, one of the architects of critical Black journalism, transitioned to the ancestors. I prepared this obituary for Ebony.com:

The media, the Black world, and the nation have lost one of our most powerful and fearless voices. Gil Noble passed away on April 5th at the age of 80. While his name may not be known by all, Noble’s programming was nothing short of genre redefining and revolutionary. His path through journalism and the mark that he left on media are indelible. With his passing we have lost more than a man, we have lost a cultural institution. Read more

I have also received more information on Elder Noble’s funeral arrangements and ways to contribute from the FB page of Dr. Leonard Jeffries:

Wake: Thursday, April 12th from 7-10pm
Funeral: Friday, April 13th at 10 am
Both will be held at the Abyssinian Baptist Church, West 138th St. between Malcolm X Blvd and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd in Harlem, NY
In lieu of flowers the family is asking that donations be made to the Gil Noble Archives

Gil Noble Archives Fund

PO Box 43138, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043

It is a not for profit set up to digitize his work for posterity. We urge everyone that realizes the importance of his rich legacy to contribute to the fund.

This Monday New York City is lucky to witness the new performance piece “Window Sex Project” by Sydnie Mosley.

The Window Sex Project addresses and tackles the every day practice in which women are “window shopped,” that is forced to bear unsolicited verbal harassment from men while walking on the street. Through community workshops and choreographed performance, The Window Sex Project will give voice to these concerns and restore agency to women by equipping them to manage street harassment, celebrating their bodies and creating a public artwork, specifically a dance performance which takes place in an art gallery.

This performance will be followed by a panel that I will be moderating.
The performance and panel will be held at Barnard on Monday April 2nd at 6:30pm in the Diana Event Oval.

Hear Sydnie Mosley speak about the WSP and International Anti-Street Harassment Week.

Follow this link to see some excerpts of the performance
(sorry wordpress is not letting me the videos)
The Window Sex Project: World Premiere Promo from Sydnie Mosley on Vimeo.

I will be moderating a panel discussion on the performance, responding to street harassment and how to create safe communities.

To get tickets and learn more about the Window Sex Project click here.

All are welcome some tell your brother, sister, mother, cousin and others to be in the place for dynamic performance and conversation.

I remember growing up and learning how to “holler” at girls. I’ll be honest, I’ve never found it particularly natural to stand in a group of other guys and whistle, catcall, or bark compliments to women, but somehow it was supposed to be a rite of passage. In my younger days, I thought of street harassment as bad, but shrugged it off a bit because there were a lot of worse things that I could do toward women and since I didn’t catcall, I wasn’t really an offender. However, each day I see greater connections between street harassment and violence against women.

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“There’s a war going on outside no man is safe from, you could run but you can’t hide forever.” These words, by Mobb Deep, resonate as I think about the conditions facing Black males in 2012. While news story after story will talk about Black males as perpetrators or victims, the issue is still more complex than we typically let on. If we look carefully, Black folks will have to take a deep breath and examine not just the conditions of racist society but also the negative images we have internalized about Black males which ask us to determine our allegiance to Black males based on their perceived “guilt” or “innocence.” These two options slice like a razor forcing choice between brother or other, friend or foe, or other binaries. In reality, Black males, like all humans are complex and simple categorizations will never provide enough traction for justice work and community healing.

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At the close of each Black History Month I often feel a profound sense of loss. This feeling is not because there will be less programming that deals with the plight of people of African descent on television, fewer commercials from multimillion dollar corporations claiming they “care” about our communities, or because the classrooms of America will once again settle into their predominantly White curricula. Instead, I feel the pain of a missed opportunity to engage how race continues to shape our lives today, not just historically. However, at the close of this Black History Month, I felt the prospect of hope come from a thirteen year old in Rochester, New York – Jada Williams.

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Over the past few years it’s come in vogue to make the statement, “I’m not homophobic. I’m not afraid of gay people.” Without fail, a comment about disagreeing with “lifestyle,” “sin” or something similar follows. I’m not here to debate your faith, I’ll let others take that on. Instead, I simply wish to address why there is rampant insistence that homophobic comments, deeds, and thoughts are not homophobic. Just as the trend towards folks saying, “How can I be racist? I don’t see color!” is concern worthy, our collective tolerance of homophobia should be examined and changed.

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I have a confession: I watch the Real Housewives of Atlanta. Religiously. Now, before you tune out, I watch and examine the show as a sociologist and scholar of the African Diaspora. These years of watching the shenanigans of RHOA have culminated in the glorious spectacle that was the cast visiting South Africa. When I heard about these infamous Atlanta socialites spending time on the continent I covered my eyes in fearful anticipation. Without fail, the last few episodes have delivered cringe worthy moments (like Marlo trying to buy children perm kits) but in the midst of my cringing, I realized that the cast’s (mis)conceptions of Africa were not much different than those shared by many folks in my life. If we uncover our eyes long enough to watch, we may see some all too common trends in the relationships between African-Americans and the continent of Africa. In watching RHOA, I was reminded that there is a lot of healing to be done between the Motherland and her Diasporic children.

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If you watch the news, listen to friends, or click on links you’d think the only thing Black males have to offer is violence, incarceration, and failure. This is definitely not the case! Like all groups, Black men are diverse and we need to recognize what is going right as well as what is going wrong. Check out my latest on Ebony.com “Realizing Black Male Success.”

“Black male success”. These three words are elusive in the press and too rarely associated with the brothers in our everyday lives. A recent report, however, may prove to be the game changer we so desperately deserve.

Dr. Shaun R. Harper, Professor of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, recently released results from a comprehensive study of Black males who have excelled at college and beyond. The report, “Black Male Student Success in Higher Education” is the first research report released by the Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education (CSREE). In the study’s pages we get an all too rare glimpse into what enables success for Black males. Read More

Every Black History Month there are a slew of pieces on why the month is irrelevant, unnecessary, etc. This is not one of them! I think Black History Month remains an imperative but I hope that we will deepen our understandings of our ancestral past so that we pave way for a different understanding of our people and the future. Unfortunately, the rush to get our history into a 29 days (it’s a leap year) will lead to a lot of misinformation. Let’s see if we can disenroll ourselves from the Willie Lynch School of Social Research.

It’s Black History Month and as both a professor and a lover of Blackness, Black things and Black people, I want us all to study up. Just make sure you don’t enroll in The Willie Lynch School of Social Research. Now some of my pro-Black, head wrap rocking friends who are very passionate about Black history 28-29 days a year are nodding their heads right now because they’re familiar with Willie Lynch and think I’m about to berate folks for taking up his ways. These are the alumni of that school I so desperately want to shut down.

For those who are unfamiliar, there is a notorious letter- “How to Make a Slave”- that was said to have been read by a slaveholder named Willie Lynch on the bank of the James River in 1712. The document explains how slaveholders should keep the various enslaved Africans of their plantations at odds with one another to ensure that they are never able to revolt and to keep the psychological chains on their “property” as tight as the physical ones. The colloquialisms used and the improbability that someone would have ever presented such a plan that effectively predicted the long-term effects of slavery (for example, our issues with complexion) have long been used by scholars and researchers to refute the authenticity of the document. But you can still find copies of it and even films devoted to explaining how it manifested in Afrocentric bookstores across the country.

The Willie Lynch myth is just one example of the lazy “research” we tend to do online about our community, forward to others or, worse, try to convince our children of. If we want to Black history to be known, felt and understood, we as adults have some work to do! Read more

My twitter profile reads, “Scholar, author, hater of Drake.” Of all the things on that profile “hater of Drake” is the one that I most commonly get hit up about. While this post won’t tell you all of the many reasons I dislike Drake, it will tell you one reason why I’m disappointed in him and Common. When the beef started people immediately hit me up asking how happy I was that Common was going at Drake. If you want to know, check out what I wrote for Ebony.com.

A few days before Christmas 2011, Nike re-released the Concord Jordans to wild fanfare. As a rash of people lined up to scoop a pair or two, if they were lucky, the media swooped in to spin narratives of Black consumerism, irresponsibility and violence. In this piece on Ebony.com I talk about why myths like the Tyreek Amir Jacobs death emerged and why if we’re talking just about the shoes, we’re missing the big picture…

Like many young brothers growing up in the 1990s, I had a serious love affair with Jordans. I can recall getting my first pair (the IV’s for my sneaker heads) and wearing them sparingly, jumping over every puddle, and feeling like MJ himself when I stepped on the court with them (too bad my skills were more like Sam Bowie’s). My adolescent fascination with sneakers was at first looked upon strangely by my family and then frowned upon as news reports of young people being robbed or worse for the big-ticket shoes began to circulate. Since the 1980s there has been concern about violence, the high price of Jordans, and Black youth (and now adult) obsession with the shoes. While the sneaker madness may seem like an area for special concern, in reality, it’s hardly a unique expression of the all-too-familiar American consumerism. Read More

How are you doing Uptown Notes readers? I know I’ve been pretty absent but I’m back! I recently joined Ebony.com as a contributing writer so be on the look out for pieces that are new and exclusive to Ebony as well as other original writing to Uptown Notes.

I’m very excited about the new Ebony.com site that launched last week. Under the stewardship of Kierna Mayo and Jamilah Lemieux the site is sure to be a space for cutting edge writing on the Black community.

We are in a very special moment. Recently a dear friend of mine and great comrade told me about an art project that she is embarking on that connects incarcerated mothers and their children. For those who don’t know, women of color represent one of the fastest growing prison populations, so much so their growth is outpacing that of men of color. These booms in incarceration are additionally painful because many of these women were living with their children prior to incarceration. Katie Yamasaki has stepped up to craft an amazing project that begins the work of healing families that are being torn apart by the criminal (in)justice system. I can’t express the beauty of this project so I’ll let her tell you about it. Please watch the video, please donate (there are are only a few days left but she wants to raise over the goal to fully fund the project), and spread the word.

About two years ago I sat down for a conversation with TheGrio.com discussing the role of discrimination and testing in promotion and hiring in fire departments. While it may appear to some to be idiosyncratic, the battles being waged in America’s firehouses are harbingers of things to come regarding diversity and public employment. I talk about this more in-depth in this piece “Fire Department Discrimination Burns African-Americans.”

As a child, I can remember my favorite toy at my local New Haven Head Start was a firefighter helmet. I was convinced that when I grew up that I would be put on a bright yellow coat, red helmet, and save the lives of people, cats, and burning properties that were on the brink of disaster.

For me, those dreams of being a firefighter waned over time, but for many other African-Americans the dreams of rising as a firefighter have been forced to give way due to discriminatory promotion and hiring practices. While these issues are not new, they are now getting more national attention due to rising numbers of court cases and challenges to outdated hiring and promotion practices. Read More

Image courtesy of reena rose photography

Tonight from 6 to 8pm at City College in the Morales/Shakur Student and Community Center (NAC 3/201) in Harlem I have the honor of facilitating a Men’s roundtable on helping to end gender violence. The program is part of CCNY’s 16 days of activism against gender violence spear-headed by three amazing sisters: Ms. Nathalie Deller, Ms. Stephanie Petit-Homme, and Ms. Asatenwaa Harris. For the past two weeks CCNY has been flooded with programming trying to heighten awareness and resources around ending issues of rape, sexual assault, harassment, and battering. While people often talk about these as women’s issues, they are not. They are issues for men and women to confront, retrain ourselves on, and help create safer environments in our communities. This is an event to engage men as allies in this ongoing struggle to end violence in our communities that women have been taking a long lead on. Please tell a loved one to attend and spread the word. We’ll have refreshments and resources! We are thankful to be joined by Quentin Walcott of Connect NYC.

For days, months, and years family and friends of Troy Davis have been praying that his execution would not occur. At 11:08pm he was executed by the State of Georgia. In the past month, activism around Troy Davis’s case reached a fever pitch as Amnesty International, the NAACP, celebrities and the twitterverse raised his name from obscurity to a global trending topic. The pain that many felt realizing that no matter the advocacy offered, his life would not be spared. This should not make us feel futile, instead it should make us see where we need to go from here. The death penalty must be abolished and we must all check our conscious to assure that we move this country’s moral barometer ahead. This year alone 35 people have been killed by state governments.

I recently had a conversation with a friend who lost a family member to homicide in the last month. She confessed to me that she used to think that considering the death penalty was unconscionable, but in her current state she too had begun to weigh it as an option. Her arrival in to the “gray area” of ethics guided by her personal loss reminded me of Martin Luther King’s words, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” King understood that in midst of challenge, the ability to determine right from wrong is often obscured. This lack of clarity is not just individual, it happens within this country’s justice system making the death penalty unequally and mistakenly applied. With 273 post-conviction DNA exonerations in recent years, it is clear that a judgment does not equal truth. When we leave the death penalty on the table we yield an irreversible option to conclude a process that is rife with margins of error.

When I asked my friend if she would support a family member going out to kill the person(s) they suspected of killing her cousin she said no. I cannot justify vengeance killing by an individual any more than I can justify vengeance killing by the government. While some may suggest closure as the reason for carrying out killing, I cannot understand the emotional calculus that suggests one can become whole by taking the life of another. In capital punishment cases, the loss of a life has already occurred and nothing can serve to return that life.

The death of Troy Davis occurred at a moment when the world was watching and still 3,250 people remain on death row. Most of their cases will likely get far less attention than Davis’s, but we deserve to give the death penalty equal consideration. In the many conversations about Davis’s case I was asked, “Do you believe he is innocent?” I never answered that question because neither guilt nor innocence could convince me to leverage the ultimate sentence without ultimate knowledge. My love for humanity, possibility, and community is far too large to believe that gray area of vengeance is one that individuals or the government can or should remain. May the weight of our hearts over the loss of lives, match our commitment to stop the taking of more lives.

For more resources on [ending] the death penalty please visit:

Amnesty International

The Innocence Project

Campaign to End the Death Penalty

Death Penalty Information Center

Capital Punishment Clinic

“I think I’m Malcom X, Martin Luther/ Add a King, Add a Jr.” –Lupe Fiasco Building Minds Faster (B.M.F.)

Recently, Lupe Fiasco has been catapulted to national media attention, not (just) for his music but his political commentary. Two weeks ago on an internet interview with CBS Fiasco said, “To me the biggest terrorist is Obama in the United States of America. I’m trying to fight the terrorism that’s causing the other forms of terrorism. You know the root cause of terrorists is the stuff the U.S. government allows to happen. The foreign policies that we have in place in different countries that inspire people to become terrorists.” While this set off a firestorm of angry comments and media attention about Lupe’s uncritical eye and virulent condemnation of the continuing trope of Barack Obama as a terrorist, most of these comments miss the mark. Lupe Fiasco, as his name signals, routinely finds himself in controversial positions that are both contradictory and illuminating at the same time. Lupe’s comments about Obama and politics, in a way, channel Malcolm X’s and Martin Luther King Jr’s political commentary.

In November of 1963, Malcolm X commented on President John F. Kennedy’s assassination by suggesting the violence that took Kennedy’s life were “chickens coming home to roost.” At this time, Kennedy was thought of as a friendly president to Black folks and ultimately this became a wedge comment that alienated him from many Black Americans who identified as politically progressives but found his comments irresponsible given the contentious political climate.

Less well known, but equally allegorical Fiasco’s remarks eerily reflect Martin Luther King’s speech in 1967 at Riverside Church in Harlem where he said, “They ask if our own nation wasn’t using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government.” While Lupe is no Martin Luther King, both were concerned with the government’s role in supporting violence locally and internationally. At the time of King’s comments the United States was enmeshed in a war that he found unconscionable and history would reveal was unnecessary.

In many ways Lupe has been outspoken about Obama’s military advocacy and in 2008 found himself in a flap with another Chicago rapper turned political candidate RhymeFest. Fiasco is no stranger to politically complex views, which he laments are often “dumbed down” into sound bites. Later in the CBS interview, Fiasco states that he does not vote and that his own beliefs about what a vote endorses keep him from the ballot box. Not surprisingly many have responded “If you don’t vote you can’t complain.” To Lupe’s credit he follows in a long line of Black commentators and activists who chose not to vote but offer critical commentary. For many, including Fiasco, voting in a two party system connotes support for a system that they find too limiting and non-representative. In “Words I Never Said”, Fiasco outs himself as a non-voter, “Gaza strip was getting bombed, Obama didn’t say sh*t/That’s why I ain’t vote for him, next one either.” His decision not to cast a ballot doesn’t curtail his speaking or even wearing his politics on his chest. Fiasco, as an avowed Muslim, has been known to rock “Free Gaza” shirts on stage just as easily as he does designer fashions. For Lupe, the continued instability of the Middle East is directly linked to United States involvement which makes Obama culpable given he is Commander-in-Chief of the US Military.

While we may not all share Lupe’s critical stance on Obama or American politics (and most of us don’t read the wikileaks wires, though we should) there is a line of logic and historical precedence for his comments. In listening to the knee-jerk responses to Fiasco’s words the significance of his hit single “Words I Never Said” rings out. The song is a critique of the curtailing of rights, particularly free speech, in an era of perceived freedom and liberty. If we don’t listen and take Lupe’s words seriously, it’s almost as if we’ve made his point even louder.

I had the honor of being invited by Holly Kearl, author of Stop Street Harassment, to be a guest male ally blogger on her blog. This was the first piece that was published in March.

In days past, a canary in a coal mine was critical for safety. Miners would keep a caged canary in a mine and as long as they heard the canary singing they knew they were safe from the noxious gases that they were exposed to. If the canary stopped singing and/or dropped dead, miners also knew the mine was no longer safe to work in. Our neighborhoods are our mines and street harassment is a noxious gas that threatens our community safety and stability but goes unacknowledged. The time has come to notice the canary is no longer singing, our communities are getting less and less safe and if we don’t take notice, no one will.

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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

Everyone should watch this video of Tony Porter as he delivers a talk in DC earlier this month on masculinity. Masculinity, in its simplest terms, is “what it means to be a man” in a given society. Porter does a great job of sharing his personal narrative of growing up and fathering and how they have forced him to rethink what it means to be a man. Because of work of folks like Tony Porter, Jewel Woods, Mark Anthony Neal, Daniel Black, Byron Hurt and many others I’ve been pushed to rethink what manhood is and to find/develop healthier models of masculinity. I’m pleased to announce this summer I’ll be working with the non-profit A Long Walk Home to develop and implement a program in Chicago that deals with these very issues. We’ll be working with Black male youth on being allies in the struggles against sexual violence and gender oppression, while providing these young men the scaffolding to be advocates for their selves and peers. But more to come on that later. In the meantime, please click and share widely!!

If you can’t see the video, click here.

Hat tip to E. Mari Morales-Williams for sharing this with me.

I recently penned a piece on TheGrio.com about the Georgia Prisoner Protest that is being overlooked by too many. Please check it out and spread the word about the brave actions of our people behind the walls to change their conditions and all of our lives.

For nearly a week, prisoners throughout the state of Georgia have been engaged in one of the largest prison protests in this nation’s history. Why is this not plastered across mainstream media, blogs, and 24 hour cable news? The simple answer maybe that the more we focus on prisoners’ rights, the more we are forced to focus on human rights and community transformation.

It is erroneously taught in many U.S. schools that the 13th amendment abolished all slavery, when in fact the amendment reads, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” The italicized text leaves a powerful “loophole” in the American narrative of equality and freedom. In fact, the conditions in many U.S. prisons continue to spiral towards a peculiar form of industrial slavery.

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Corrigendum: In the piece I mean to say “under correctional control” not incarcerated when referencing Michelle Alexander’s work in “The New Jim Crow.”

Marc Lamont Hill, Susan L. Taylor, Talib Kweli, Kephra Burns, and April R. Silver invite you to a benefit celebration on December 7th.

To Purchase tickets click here (this takes you to brown paper tickets site).

To make a donation of another amount click here (donations are collected by Akila Worksongs).

For more information click here (this takes you to the facebook event page).

You may have noticed that I haven’t been posting much on here lately, don’t worry! I’m in the lab cooking up some goodies that you’ll see sooner or later.

In the meantime, definitely check out the archives which go back years! If you read through all the archives and are still thirsty for more, let me know, so I can get a restraining order.

Okay, some of you may know that there’s this little Tyler Perry film coming out today …if you don’t, oh well! Here is a pretty good parody on the trailer.

“All the real OGs, I’m a solider cause you told me study Malcolm, Garvey, Huey/ Study Malcolm, Garvey, Huey, their life is like a movie”

- M1 of Dead Prez on the song “Malcolm, Garvey, Huey”

This week I’ve been peeking in on Ta-Nehisi Coates‘ musings as he re-reads the autobiography of Malcolm X. Coates has done us a great service by sharing his reading of Malcolm’s life as told by Alex Haley, but this service can easily slip into a disservice. Malcolm on one hand has been deified and on the other hand demonized. We must humanize Malcolm, like all the figures in the African Diasporic canon, but we must do it with a particular degree of care and context.

Thus far Coates has posted three entries: “Black Men are Watching Every Move I Make“, “She Had Broken the Spirits of Three Husbands” and “Confronting Valhalla’s Humanity” all of which I received with resonation and reservation. This post is to illuminate my reservations. Most of us are familiar with figures like Malcolm X, Huey P. Newton, and Marcus Garvey as icons. In our history, each of them has become flattened, polished, and made rigid caricatures. Ironically, this is something all three would deeply object to, but this is often the consequence of canonizing. In breaking apart these images though, we must go deeper than just problematizing these brothers, we have to contextualize them.

In “Black Men are Watching Every Move I Make” in the closing Coates states, “I don’t say that to clean Malcolm X. I don’t buy the image of him as a complete convert to integration–nor do I need it, anymore than I needed it for Grant or Lincoln.” When I read this sentence my first thought was, “Malcolm as an integrationist isn’t cleaning it a pure whitewashing.” Coates, like many revisionists of Shabazz’s legacy, passively suggests that integration became a part of his worldview after returning from Mecca (Hajj). Of the many lies perpetrated about/against Malcolm, this is probably one of the most consistent.

Hajj served to reorient Malcolm’s thinking about race, but it did not make him an advocate of integration. He remained steadfast in his non-support of integration. On the day he was assassinated he was to deliver a speech on the OAAU that included him saying, “We consider the word “integration” a misleading, false term. It carries with it certain implications to which Afro-Americans cannot subscribe. This terminology has been applied to the current regulation projects which are supposedly “acceptable” to some classes of society. This very “acceptable” implies some inherent superiority or inferiority instead of acknowledging the true source of the inequalities involved.” X was not an integrationist. X died a Pan-Africanist. X died a nationalist. His travels throughout Africa and the “Middle East” in 1959 and his Hajj in 1964 were watershed moments, but were not 180 degree turns. While many suggest that he created great distance from the Nation of Islam and their beliefs around the racial order of the world, careful students will come to a different conclusion.

The second piece that Coates offers is “She Had Broken the Spirits of Three Husbands.” In this post, Coates takes Malcolm to task on his discussion of and attitudes towards women. Undoubtedly informed from his misogynistic hustling past, the excerpts presented show a cold and shameful side of Malcolm. I can recall just last year re-reading the Autobiography and many of the passages Coates selects stood out to me as well. I wondered, “If Malcolm is our model of Black masculinity and this is perspective on Black women, where does that leave us?” As someone who is very serious about the operation of gender oppression and privilege within the Black community, I too struggled to understand where Malcolm was. While the Autobiography represents a summative work, it is not a complete story. In fact, if we look at Shabazz’s work in with the Organization for Afro-American Unity (OAAU) you see a man who was growing and struggling around gender. In William Sales’ book “From civil rights to Black Liberation: Malcolm X and the Organization of Afro-American Unity” we find Malcolm pushing to systematize and expand the role of women within the OAAU. He felt concerned that the gender oppression popular in his other organization Muslim Mosque Inc. was unduly sabotaging the liberatory work of OAAU. He began to make statements like, “Africa will not be free until it frees its women.” Yet these sentiments were nestled along side a profound distrust for women, which Coates captures in his excerpts. Between the popular image, Coates’ excerpts, and Sales’ analysis we get a fuller and better Malcolm, one that we can look to critically and lovingly.

Malcolm X is undoubtedly one of the most profoundly debated people of the African Diaspora (Sidebar- I’m anxiously awaiting Manning Marable’s book on X). Numerous volumes have attempted to capture that man in various stages, but not surprisingly all falling short. After all, who can truly capture human life in a few pages, a play or a film? But what I learned from reading the Autobiography, from reading beyond the autobiography, and being blessed to sit at the feet of elders who knew and worked with X is that there is a danger in simplifying the complex.

When Dead Prez says, “study Malcolm, Garvey, Huey their life is like a movie” I almost feel as if they’re reeling us in to find a deeper level of truth. The movies that depict all three of these men are often too narrow and too clean to capture their fullness. This fullness includes good, bad, and ugly. If you study them your learn strains of misogyny and feminism run through them all. They were not perfect; they were people. People who brilliantly taught us how to help our people rise while simultaneously showing us their personal limitations. Their vilification in mainstream media has led many to deify them within Black culture. Beginning the process of re-reading Malcolm, and I believe this applies to most known Black political figures, must come from a place of information if it is to lead to transformation.  If we are not informed and transformed, our people get no better. And after all, isn’t that what Malcolm was about?

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.

Recently, I had the pleasure of appearing on “Our World with Black Enterprise” hosted by Marc Lamont Hill. The show hosted a panel discussion on education reform with me, David C. Banks – CEO of the Eagle Academy Foundation, and Keli Goff – Political Contributor on the Loop21.com. The conversation was a good start to seriously engaging the issues facing our schools, particularly Black boys. Check out the panel below and make sure to check out future episodes of Our World, which is covering some cutting edge topics.

If you cannot see the video, click here.

This morning I have a piece posted on theGrio.com where I discuss the response to the forthcoming Vibe article, “Mean Girls of Morehouse.”

Update: the folks at theGrio are so dope and responsive that they changed the title of the piece. Salute to them for  journalistic and social integrity!

Morehouse College, my beloved alma mater, has again been catapulted into the national spotlight due to a forthcoming article in Vibe magazine. The story entitled, “The Mean Girls of Morehouse”, by Aliya King, traces the experience of three gender bending current and former Morehouse students. Before the article could hit the Internet or news stands the President of Morehouse Dr. Robert M. Franklin issued a letter to alumni decrying the portrayal of Morehouse. Franklin’s move, while to some may be proactive, is actually reactionary and misses the mark on the importance of the story. Where Franklin and other see the maligning of Morehouse, when I read the article I see the space for a richer discussion of masculinity, higher education, and community.

Read more here.

Today many will celebrate Columbus Day, I won’t. Here’s a little history lesson for all the kids home from school.

The recent buzz around education reform is growing, but silenced in this buzz is race. The amazingly taboo yet significant social phenomena is giving way to colorblind policy makers and educational activists. Can we truly transform an educational system if we don’t take account of one of its most enduring cleavages? Check out my thoughts on Atlanta Post.

Silver screens across the nation will soon be buzzing with “Waiting for Superman” directed by Davis Guggenheim and the team that brought us “An Inconvenient Truth.” Backed by media powerhouses like Oprah, the film has the potential to change the nation’s perspective of education and what needs to be done. While this is promising, conspicuously absent from these bubbling discussions on changing education is the issue of race. The absence of race is not just a pitfall of the film; race as a taboo topic permeates most of the education reforms being considered.

Read more here.

For the past few years, I have been diligently working on issues of inequality in well-resourced school settings. My book is coming along nicely, but I thought I’d share some of my insights with the public, well the non-academic public. As the nation turns its attention towards education, we cannot think that suburban spaces are more equal. While many of our families move to these cities for their reputation and resources, we are often locked out of these amenities. Check out my piece on theGrio.com about this.

The achievement gap. These three words have launched a million initiatives, all with the goal of closing the average differences in test scores between black and white students. While more and more people are getting in on education reform and more attention is being placed on it due to films like Waiting for Superman, we cannot make the mistake of thinking that black students who are not in the inner-city are safe from inequality. In fact, the gap in test scores between black and white youth in the suburbs is only slightly smaller than the urban and national gaps that we observe. As we turn out attention towards reforming education, we must think about inequality in the promised lands of suburbs.

Read more here.

This morning, another piece of my writing on education reform and “Waiting for Superman” was posted on theRoot.com. This is a lengthier discussion of the state of educational reform research and what we know. While I don’t cover the universe of education reform policies, I do cover six key ones: charter school success, money matters, evaluating teachers, teacher pay, paying students, and Promise Neighborhoods. I close out the piece with a discussion of solutions and food for thought around changing urban education. Check it out.

Education reform is a hot topic these days, thanks to the recent release of the much-hyped documentary, Waiting for Superman.  Directed by the same team that produced the award-winning An Inconvenient Truth, the documentary takes a hard look at the dilemma of American educational failure. Viewers get a heart-tugging tour de force of issues plaguing low performing American public schools. What viewers do not get, however, is an education on the realities that hamper real reform. The problems that our schools face are complex, but director Davis Guggenheim and crew tell viewers the solutions are simple and “we know what works.” While that’s a powerful statement, there is little research — or reality — to back up that claim.

The truth is, when it comes to implementing education reform, we don’t know for sure what works.

Read more here

This week “Waiting for Superman” premiered nationally and it has reignited the conversation on the United States’ failing schools. The film stirs concern, but also presents an all too narrow portrait of what’s really happening in schools and what we know about reforming schools. This week I’ll be dropping a number of pieces in part inspired by the film’s arrival and the excitement around education reform. Keep on checking back and I’ll keep on posting. Please check out my review of the film on theGrio.com. Here is an excerpt:

Waiting for Superman is a powerful film about educational reform and the potential of our schools from the same team that brought us the Academy Award winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Unfortunately the filmmakers leave the audience hoping for a change that is as likely as a caped crusader appearing in real life.

While the film taps into the concerns that many of us have towards a failing educational system, it fails to provide a full portrait of what is really happening in the nation’s schools. If you’re interested in heart wrenching stories, see this film. But if you are interested in changing education make sure you bring your x-ray vision so you can see beyond the veil of what the filmmakers are advocating.

For more click here

Nationwide, the conversation on education is increasingly dominated by teacher accountability, charter schools and test scores. While these things are critical, we cannot forget about the numerous hazards that many African-American students face in their communities as they pursue an education.We must remember that school is much more than just what happens inside brick and mortar buildings. What happens outside is equally, if not more, important and deserving of attention. As we ramp up our discussion of what needs to happen inside schools, we cannot forget about a hazard Black youth often face: violence in their communities.

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As you may know, I support gay marriage (yes, it is a civil rights issue.) As you may also know, I have a pretty interesting sense of humor. So when I saw this video (from 2009! it’s a shame i missed it) which breaks down what marriage is “biblically” I had to share it with you all. It’s amazing what we, humans, will use to selectively justify discrimination and exclusion. Let Sister Betty Bowers – “America’s Best Christian”- teach you what traditional marriage is.

If you can’t see the video, click here.

p.s. I’ll be awaiting some angry comments … I said awaiting, not necessarily replying to them

Yesterday, protests at Ground Zero continued to gain international attention. What’s at issue is a figment of the American public’s imagination: the ground zero mosque. Herds of “well-intentioned” Americans flooded lower manhattan to chant down the construction of what they are calling a ground zero mosque, but what really is an Islamic community center. This case is a powerful lesson in framing, which I was first introduced to by the George Lakoff but you and I experience constantly. If we want to make sure The Community Center at Park 51 is built, we’ve got to re-frame the conversation, or else the Islamophobes have won!

Read more here

Since the introduction of the Race to the Top fund I’ve had a series of nagging concerns about what Obama is doing with education. Recently for the Atlanta Post, I offered some of my first set of critiques of his plan (trust there are more to come) which I call “A Race to Inequality.” Check out my thoughts here.

“Justice for Oscar Grant!” As I sit in front of these keys I know that I could have written this essay 100 a times before and will likely need to write it 100 more times before I die, simply because I knew there would be no justice for Oscar Grant. Justice for most would have been a conviction of Officer Mesherle on a second degree murder charge, but that still would not equal justice — that would simply be a small step on the path towards justice. Justice is larger than the Oscar Grant case, the Sean Bell case, or any of the host of assassinations of unarmed Black men by the police. Justice is about their totality and the space that lies between popular unshakable belief in state innocence and Black male criminality. Justice is knowing and doing something about, as Mos Def said, “the length of Black life [being] treated with short worth.” When Oscar grant was killed nearly 2 years ago at the age of 22, he would exit this planet knowing that this society had done him no justice and his family was reminded of that when the jury deliberated for 8 hours, about the misery they will have to cope with the rest of their lives. So many will wonder, is the judicial system even the place to look for justice?

Read more on the Social Text Blog

Last week a firestorm surrounding Shirley Sherrod erupted. A spliced video of her speech ended in her force resignation from the USDA and condemnation by the NAACP. Following the debacle, there were multiple editorials and comments about the failures of the NAACP. While I completely agree the NAACP and USDA failed to respond appropriately to Sherrod, I don’t think the picture that has been painted of the NAACP is accurate or contemporary. Beneath I offer some reasons why and what it means for movement building.

It’s time that we as Black folks come to address our NAACP problem. As we’ve watched the news coverage of the Tea Party declaration and the Shirley Sherrod debacle, many of us have been thoroughly disappointed by the NAACP. However, even with this disappointment, we should be equally enraged by our response to the missteps made by the NAACP.
Read more of the full article at the Atlanta Post.

So you all know that I’m a hater of Drake (here’s a partial explanation offered by Marc Lamont Hill), nothing new there. But this parody of Drake by Affion Crockett is pretty amazing. Check the original video on the upper right inset. Watch, laugh, and join the “Drake is the Illuminati” movement

For those who can’t see it embedded, click here.

For a few years now, Michael Steele has been trying to meet me on Beat Street by being more “Hip-Hop” and showing me that “this ain’t your momma’s Republican party.” His pandering to the Black electorate has been both condescending and naive, but recently in a complete gaff, Steele captured my attention more than he ever had before. While the political Right and Left are calling for his neck and blaming him for stoking flames on the dead topic of the War in Afghanistan (which is now the longest war in America’s history) Michael Steele and me may have found some common ground!

This pic is hilarious to me

While many are calling for his resignation, Steele’s outspokenness has made the question of war and public opinion resurface in the American media. The War in Afghanistan has quietly slipped out of the media’s topics and from the American public’s consciousness. While Steele has been wrong on many statements his comments leave me believing the adage, “even a broken clock is right two times a day.”

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*The title of the post is a play on Black like Me, get it?

With the World Cup coming to an end yesterday in South Africa, here’s my commentary on African-Americans and World Cup watching from the Atlanta Post from June 2010.

The world is engulfed in World Cup mania, but not many from my family or old neighborhood are. Recently I wrote a piece for the Atlanta Post on the peculiar feelings I have as an African-American watching the World Cup.

Every four years, I suffer from a condition. I feel confused, disconnected from friends and co-workers, yet strangely compelled to engage foreign matters. These feelings are brought on by the arrival of the World Cup.  Through conversations with a number of my black American friends I’ve learned that I am not alone in this sentiment.

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1) Isn’t WorldStarHipHop just the digital equivalent of BET?

2) Speaking of which, why does Riff Raff (of from G’s to Gents) fame have more videos on there than Kat Stacks? And folks call her a whore for attention….

3) How come Boondocks used to have multi-layered critiques of Black culture and now it just makes obvious jokes?

4) Why is our mascot the pimp and no longer the panther?

5) How come you’re a microwave activists? (You know, the folks who weren’t political then something happens and they get all heated and over do it because they weren’t doing anything before)

6) Why don’t you bring me to your University or Organization to speak and spit hot fiyah?

7) Why do you assume because I tweet or blog I’m not writing academic material?

8 ) Why can I feel BP slipping out of the media spotlight?

9) Why did the War in Afghanistan slip out of the spotlight despite being the longest war in US history?

10) Why would you rather sit in obedience than stand in resistance?

Let me get it out of the way: I wasn’t the biggest fan of Pac’s music. I am the dude who loved “Me Against the World” but didn’t feel “All Eyez on Me.” Despite this, I really appreciated Tupac as a thinker and Hip-Hop icon. He really pressed the limits of our understanding of Black Power, urban decay, and the voices of the youth. While so many glomed onto his Thug Life persona, they missed his deeper analysis and critique of social conditions, generational divides, and his raw honesty.

I have said before and will say again, Tupac was a living metaphor for the Black man in America. Brilliant and Ignorant. Powerless and Powerful. Loving and Abused. Oppressed and Oppressor. Tragedy and Triumph in real time. To many, Pac’s approach was hypocritical, dissonant, even schizo. But if you listened with love, then you understood Pac was truly the rose from concrete. There was/is much to be learned from our brother Tupac Amaru Shakur.

Beneath is a video of one of Pac’s speeches at the Atlanta banquet of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. Free the Land! Rest in Power and thank you for your honesty and the lessons that you’ve left behind Pac.

I recently wrote piece for the Atlanta Post on the voyeuristic gaze we take towards Detroit. I love Detroit and I think we all need to if we’re going to help turn it around. Detroit isn’t my hometown, but we all have reason to make sure that the city carves a way into the future. We can do more than just look on “with contempt and pity” by joining in on the work that is underway.

June 17-20th Detroit hosts the 12th Allied Media Conference. June 22-26 Detroit hosts the second US Social Forum. June 26-28 Detroit hosts the 9th annual Hip Hop Congress National Conference.

From the Atlanta Post

Detroit: The city that represents the prospects and failures of American industry.The city that is the punch line of a million jokes. The city that is Blacker than nearly any other in this country. Detroit is under intense scrutiny as of late and the the flashing lights of attention may have served to take the life of seven year old Aiyana Jones as a TV crew filmed a home-raid by the Detroit SWAT.

read more

Not too long ago, I had a chance to discuss the question of a Black Agenda and President Obama with Kelli Goff- author of Party Crashing. The discussion is part of The Atlanta Post’s 50/50 segment and was moderated by China Okasi. There were some surprising points of agreement and disagreement. Click here and hear all three parts of the conversation.

*this conversation was taped in January 2010 so keep that in mind/ context.

Recently, I penned a piece discussing the need for Black folks to join in with the fight against Arizona’s racist immigration bill SB 1070. My goal was to challenge Black folks, to think beyond the immediate immigration bill to the larger injustices that are taking root in Arizona. In the past few weeks, Arizona has continued to make their intentions clear. Whether you agree with SB 1070 or not, the state of Arizona has begun a march towards making the state free, open and inhabitable to Whites and closed to people of color, particularly Latinos.

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I told ya’ll to stop using the word swagger back in 2008. See you didn’t listen, now we have the swagger wagon! LOL!

If you can’t see the video click here

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/careful-of-some-school-choice-advocates/ http://www.uptownnotes.com/careful-of-some-school-choice-advocates/#comments Thu, 06 May 2010 14:20:28 +0000 dumi http://www.uptownnotes.com/?p=2075

The term racial profiling has been part of my vocabulary and reality for nearly 15 years now, but it shouldn’t be. While the terminology for the practice of profiling people based on their perceived race, ethnicity and nationality is regarded as taboo, many in this nation have a nasty habit of trying to re-introduce it over and over again. As African-Americans, we are well aware that, whether driving or walking, our skin color can be a legal liability. The problem is that we, as united communities, have not learned to speak out against the various forms of racial profiling that continue to be floated as legislation and policy. The controversy of SB 1090 in Arizona is a perfect time for us to join our voices against injustice, but too many of us are without comment and are missing the larger picture.

Recently, the Arizona legislature signed a bill which allows agencies to demand verification of immigration status if there is “reasonable suspicion” that the person being questioned is an “illegal alien.” The minute I heard “reasonable suspicion,” I myself became suspicious of this bill given my own experiences with racial profiling. The sad reality is that there has been a continued emphasis on immigration control, not immigration reform, in a national culture that increasingly centers on fear. This culture of fear continues to allow racial profiling to curb the civil and human rights of Black and Brown people.

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So I like watching sports highlights. Over the years I’ve seen a number of trick plays that have impressed me. This is not one of them!!

If you can’t see the video, click here.

Moral of the story kids, practice your plays or you may be the one tricked.
p.s. and before you say it, she’s okay, look the girls were laughing at the end. sheez! i would never post something with someone got hurt … or would I?

Unless you have been in hiding, you have noticed the Census 2010 is in full swing now. From rapping commercials to inflatable census forms, there are a large amount of resources going into getting people to fill out the 10 Census questions. Despite all this hoopla, the biggest controversy has been the use of the word Negro on the Census. The word Negro is not new on the census and it’s there now because more than 56,000 Black folks wrote in “Negro” last Census. While many are in a tizzy about Negro, the count of prisoners should be getting us more riled up and more attention.

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There is a quiet storm brewing in American schools. While the nation is keeping close watch on health care reform and the nation’s economies, the base of our school system, traditional public schools, are failing and may have a new competitor. When Bush was in office, the question of traditional public school vs. charter schools was hotly debated. Many suggested that charter schools should not be expanded because they undermined traditional public schools, didn’t protect their employees, and were not successful at educating students despite their promise. However, under the Obama administration, there is much less public debate and quietly charter schools are being advanced as a solution to the dilemmas of urban education. The quiet arrival of charters should be raising questions and debate, but it is not.

The No Child Left Behind Act signed in by George W. Bush in 2002 placed a great deal of weight on schools to equalize student test scores by 2014. Well, we’re 4 years from the deadline and we’re about as close to that goal as we are Jetsons flying cars. Recently, Barack Obama introduced his education reform blueprint, which takes aim at creating college and career ready students by 2020. The bill places a great deal of emphasis on teachers and school administrators to turn around sinking schools and offers consequences for the failure to do so.

No one wants a failing school and only a few know how to successfully turn around a failing school. On top of that, failing schools are often located next to other failing schools which makes a failing school district. Few know how to turn around a failing school, but nearly no one has shown us they know how to turn around a failing district. The issue is not just creating success in one school, but creating success in multiple schools!

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I love Hip-Hop. I love battles. I hate the same tired themes and references in them. I love this translation.

If you can’t see the video, click here

On Monday night, Tavis Smiley’s convening “We Count! The Black Agenda is the American Agenda” aired on CSpan. What? You missed it?  Well about 50 percent of folks I know didn’t tune in because they think Tavis is The Game of politics and does anything possible to start beef and get attention. Another 48 percent tuned in with their snark meter set to 10. I’m worried that we’ve fashioned Tavis such a “hater” in the Black community we’re missing some important discussions that were happening around the table and outside of that room.

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Some of you may know I recently went to see the Scottsboro Boys (musical) at the Vineyard Theatre here in NYC. I took a few minutes to compile my thoughts for Centric’s Culture List Blog.

My blackberry buzzed and I looked at the message, “Do you want to see a play about the Scottsboro boys?” I replied, “yeah.” Then the second message came in: “It’s a musical.” At that moment I wondered, who and why would someone make a musical out of tragedy of the railroading of nine Black men for the alleged rape of two White women in Alabama … after watching it I had more questions and even more anger.

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I recently penned a piece for the new website The Atlanta Post about the passing of Malcolm X and the fear of the passing of his legacy on Black leadership. Check it out.

45 years. 45 years ago, Malcolm X, also known as El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, was taken from the earth. While I never knew Malcolm, I came of age believing that Malcolm X was the prototype for Black leadership. I wonder, will our children believe Barack Obama is what Black leadership means? In 2008, we organized, ran to the polls and chose the ballot over the bullet and elected Barack Obama. A year later, many of us are looking at Barack Obama wondering what has happened, but maybe we should be asking, “Where are the Malcolm X’s of today?” During the presidential campaign, many in our community embraced Obama as the continuation of a grassroots legacy.Well, if Obama is the continuation of that legacy, what remains is buried in politics. It’s now, more so than ever before, that we need a strong grassroots to push forward a truly progressive agenda for Black Americans.

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For all my folks who remember Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out on Nintendo and for those of use who watched “Epic Beard Man” whoop up on ol’ boy on the bus.

If you can’t see the link, click here.

“Fire Toure!” is a call being made from many corners these days, but I’m not sure I can go that far. This is not just about Toure and his degrading tweets about Black women; this is about our whole community. My ethics demand that Toure be held accountable for the foolishness that he says, but not that he be removed from his job as a result of his opinion, no matter how warped it is. This may seem contradictory, but I think what we call for in our protests has tremendous ramifications on free speech, the presence of our voices on the national stage, and most importantly how we build and maintain community.

For those not familiar, Toure is a journalist who rose to prominence through hip-hop journalism and now is a featured media commentator on MSNBC, Vh1, Fuse and a host of other networks. For all his success, Toure has also accumulated quite a bit of enemies, and rightly so! Recently on twitter, Toure went into a tweet tirade about enslaved African women, rape, and liberation via bartering sex to White slave owners. Yeah, sounds like dangerous territory to step into, right? And trust me, Toure mis-stepped!

After posting the aforementioned tweets, he proceeded to blame his cousin for “stealing his blackberry” and tweeting from it. Almost en masse the twitterverse replied, as Jay-Z said, “We don’t believe you, you need more people.” Rather than stop the train wreck there, Toure continued to keep up the rouse that his cousin tweeted from his account, but soon admitted that he, in a fit of having a bad day had penned the tweets. There after, he deleted the tweets. To err is human, to lie about your err and cover your tracks is ridiculous. As a result, sites like What About Our Daughters are calling for MSNBC, where Toure is a paid contributor, to address Toure. They’ve created a phone in campaign as a way to put MSNBC on notice about Toure’s antics. They smartly have not called for a direct outcome, just an address, but I’m worried that MSNBC’s only paths will be: a) ignore the call in campaign or b) fire Toure. Neither of which are getting Toure any closer to being held accountable for what he said. WAOD aptly points out that MSNBC admonished David Shuster for his inappropriate twitter use on an MSNBC sponsored page. But there are a few key differences between Toure and Shuster. Toure is a “hired gun” who provides periodic commentary. Shuster is a MSNBC personality who reports daily and is really a part of the Brand of MSNBC. I wouldn’t have thought about the difference had I not noticed Toure’s case is dangerously analogous to that of Marc Lamont Hill’s issues with Fox News last year.

A few months ago, David Horowitz went on a chase to get Marc Lamont Hill, a Columbia Professor and paid Fox contributor off the air for his support of Assata Shakur. Horowitz started beating his propaganda drum to suggest Hill was supporting a cop killer, rather than acknowledge Shakur’s case was largely a miscarriage of justice and her guilt has been under question by many. As a result, Hill was dismissed from his position at Fox. Hill, while a regular contributor on the channel was “expendable” in the eyes of Fox News. See, news channels hire people to make commentary. They hire them because they want their perspective, but they’re not invested in the “contributors” and will fire them at first opportunity. Unlike Schuster, Toure is affiliated with MSNBC but is not one of their key personalities and holds a role akin to Hill. I certainly think that having one’s own perspective is what networks want, but we shouldn’t encourage corporations to chastise when we don’t agree with a person’s perspective. I believe in protest, I believe in taking action, but I also believe you must consider what you want as an outcome.

Many point to the dismissal of Imus as a great moment on in contemporary Black protest, which it ALMOST was. The reason Imus was dropped wasn’t because of his comments, rather he was dropped because the dollars attached to his show were in question. As my grandfather who grew up in Selma, Alabama told me, “Protest don’t mean nothing until you hit them in their pockets.” Advertisers dropped, Imus was dropped. Fast forward a couple years and Imus is back on the air, receiving a healthy paycheck (I’ll assume), and most of us barely bristled at his return to air. Kind of seems like he got sent to the adult version of “timeout.” Did he learn a lesson, maybe… but then again, what was the lesson we wanted him or others to learn?

If we want to “teach Toure a lesson” what is it? Networks are more into policing free speech than holding people accountable; it’s easier for them to do the former. After all, what does accountability look like for a corporation? Over the years I’ve heard some egregiously offensive commentary on air by personalities ranging from Former Secretary of Education Bill Bennett on aborting Black babies to Pat Buchanan arguing White people built the United States, but at no point did I think their removal would leave us in a better place as a people. I’d rather have Bennett and Buchanan babble themselves into the point of irrelevancy or at least would organize to demonstrate their flawed perspectives and their consequences. And these are folks who are outside of my community. In community, couldn’t this be an ideal time to re-invest in dialogues about race, gender, violence? No I mean literally, grapple with and push those who carry quieted biases out of the closest into open engagement. I don’t expect corporations to have an interest in making my community better.  When it comes to MSNBC, the stakes are low for them but high for Toure … and even higher for us as a community. To me the issue is much bigger than Toure. This situation made me think: As a Black community, what do we do when someone offends, assaults, or contributes negatively to our community? What does meaningful dialogue and action on gender and race sound and look like?  How do we heal as a community when we are affected? Is there a way to handle matters “in house” –deciding what is to be done among the Black community without involving non-community members? Is there even such as thing as “in house” anymore? These are questions we need to think about beyond Toure’s tweets, because they set the stage for our activism and the standards of our community.

I’ve been running around so much for the past week I forgot to post my reaction to the NAACP Image Awards that I wrote for Centric’s Culture List Blog. Well, after watching the show, @sedat30 and I decided we need a moratorium on these shows until we can do better. Just kidding … not really. Join the Do Better Movement (shout out to on.us.tees who stay on the vanguard of the DBM).

I’ve had it! I can’t take it any more. I cannot bear to have one more Black Awards show go on like this. That’s right, this is a cease and desist notice to: The NAACP Image Awards, The BET Awards, The Soul Train Awards, The Vh1 Hip-Hop Honors, The Source Awards, The You’re a Person of Color Awards, (okay you caught me—I made the last one up). However the point remains, the more Black Award shows we seem to have, the lower quality they seem to get!

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A few days ago, my talk at the 143rd Morehouse Founder’s Day Symposium went up on the web. The talk was entitled, “Shadowboxing the Self: Confronting Black Male Privilege.” I was very excited to give the talk because I knew that it would ruffle some feathers, but I viewed it as a labor of love.  My goal is to speak truth that inspires thoughts and actions. While not everyone will agree with me, this is not a surprise, I do think the conversations that Black Male Privilege (BMP) has generated thus far are good. The responses have been overwhelmingly positive and many are asking for clarification. I’ve decided to respond to three thematic questions I’ve received, most often from incredulous Black men. I highly recommend that you watch the video of the talk below. This is an emergent area of research for me, though I’ve been living Black male privilege (BMP) for some time now. There are a number of great talks from the Founder’s Day symposium with was a 4 hour plus affair (My talk was only 35 minutes). Please do check them out.

Response:

1) What is Black Male Privilege? Is that like irregardless?*

I got this question a bunch. I think its because, on its face, the placement of the words Black male and privilege close together appears contradictory. Indeed, I want you to think about the juxtaposition and open up to the possibility of its existence. While most of us are used to the crisis narrative of Black men in America, we continue to overlook the ways that male privilege is experienced and leveraged by Black men in our everyday lives. While most folks who asked this question didn’t watch the video (all you have to do is click play). I’ll write out the working definition I gave during the talk, “a system of built in and often overlooked systematic advantages that center the experience and concerns of Black men while minimizing the power that Black males hold.”**

The hidden and overlooked nature is what is crucial for understanding privilege. It is the careful analysis of the social fabric of our world that will make privilege visible, even to Black men. I am not suggesting BMP explains all gender and race inequality -that would make it a perfect explanation- I am saying BMP has a significant contribution to gender and race inequality- thus BMP is a partial explanation. I am most concerned with the Black community, so I have discussed BMP as it relates to Black men and Black women. I’m not making an argument about BMP relative to White Male Privilege. If you want to do that, do so at your own risk .  BMP is akin to White privilege in that it is often invisible to those who benefit from it the most! It is the accumulation of these unearned advantages that matter but are often dismissed as inconsequential. These advantages are often thought to be insignificant, unless of course you are on the receiving end of the oppression.

2) Why are you trying to tear down Black men?

I have no desire to tear Black men down, quite the contrary, my goal is to build US up. However, I am all about tearing down undeserved privilege. I delivered this talk first at Morehouse because it is the premier space for educating Black men and the site where I first realized some of the ways I was falling prey to Black male privilege. Years later, I met brother Jewel Woods who had been doing some amazing activist work with Black men around men’s issues which included work on domestic violence. His dedication to building stronger brothers by confronting issues of privilege that emerged as compensation for oppression was renewing. My goal is to extend Jewel Woods’ work and add contextual nuance around BMP. I have two central gripes with BMP: 1) it oppresses others – particularly Black women- and 2) it robs Black men of their power. That’s the part many brothers beefing with me keep missing. If we continue to rely on our privilege for a sense of worth, purpose, and manhood we’re going to recreate the same broken community we have now.

3) What has BMP gotten me [insert incredulous screwface]?

Again, if you listen to the talk, I point out a number of material benefits that are not commonly, easily, or often documented: sexual consumption that a blind-eye is turned to, the silencing of black sexual assault, greater pay and promotion, to name a few. Still many have asked me via facebook/twitter/email, “so what has BMP gotten me?” this is often attached to saying “I got thrown in jail” or “I’m unemployed.” The answer is right there, Black Male Privilege has created the ability to sidestep your own power to oppress by saying you’re oppressed. Sadly, it has been a tradition to revisit the harm we feel as Black men on Black women. The most traditional example is, abuse at the workplace for the Black man has meant abuse for the Black woman at home. But you don’t have to go that extreme to understand that privilege for one begets oppression for another. See, BMP breathes and breeds on the idea that no one could possibly do harm if they’re being harmed, nothing could be further from the truth. Black Feminists/Womanists have been pressing Black men on this false belief and exposing its consequences, but  men, by and large, have ignored them. I am clear that my engaging this as a Black man (sadly) adds legitimacy to the concept, but if this is the case I hope that we as Black men can begin the work of dismantling BMP. There are many ways we can begin, some of which are referenced in the video like male study circles on campuses. In everyday life we can begin by holding our brothers accountable on the ways we manipulate opportunity for the advancement of Black men, and the oppression of Black women. That could be calling out male-centered networks, calling out exploiting the Black dating pool, there are many areas. It is easy to turn our back on BMP and many will. Ignoring it says nothing about merit or value, but it does say something about our future. As Deming said, “It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.” I am ecstatic to hear many people talking and grappling with this concept and these issues. This is about community. This is about accountability, not blame.  Accountability can transform a community, lack of accountability can destroy one.

I look forward to hearing more from you.

Footnotes (yeah I put footnotes on a blog post!)

*Get it? Irregardless isn’t really a word. Regardless = without regard. Irregardless would = without without regard … there’s an internal conflict that makes it illogical, get it? Never mind, it’s a nerd joke. You’re probably not even laughing right now… unless you’re a nerd.

**It’s a working definition because there are a lot of things to be worked out and I don’t want to define it in a too limited way. More study will refine and potentially expand or narrow the definition.

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.

I’ve recently penned a piece for Centric’s new Culture List blog on the Pants on the Ground video. While the song is still getting downloaded en masse on itunes and used as a rolling joke, we’re missing an important political message and issue within the Black community.

“Pants on the ground, pants on the ground, looking like a fool with your pants on the ground!” This refrain was made famous by General Larry Platt on the opening of another season of American Idol. While I’ve long stopped watching the show and “stunts” to get on the opening shows are known, this performance was important because it captured the political complexities of contemporary Black struggle and the significance of generational divides to the Black community. WHAT!?! Okay, before you think I’ve jumped off the deep end, hear me out. If you look and listen closely to Platt, you would notice he used his exposure to draw attention to Troy Davis on death row, the National Action Network, and lastly told young men to pull their pants up. While many took the performance as all about laughs, we should have taken it as all about politics.

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“Traditionally, in American society, it is the members of the oppressed, objectified groups who are expected to stretch out and bridge the gap between the actualities of our lives and the consciousness of our oppressor. For in order to survive, those of us for whom oppression is as American as apple pie have always had to be watchers, to become familiar with the language and manners of the oppressor, even sometimes adopting them for some illusion of protection. Whenever the need for some pretense of communication arises, those who profit from our oppression call upon us to share our knowledge with them. In other words, it is the responsibility of the oppressed to teach the oppressors their mistakes. I am responsible for educating teachers who dismiss my children’s culture in school. Black and Third-World people are expected to educate white people as to our humanity. Women are expected to educate men. Lesbians and gay men are expected to educate the heterosexual world. The oppressors maintain their position and evade responsibility for their own actions. There is a constant drain of energy, which might be better used in redefining ourselves and devising realistic scenarios for altering the present and constructing the future.”

-Audre Lorde

This morning I woke to #RIPBIGPUN as a trending topic on twitter and was conflicted about bigging up Pun. Pun was a lyrical mastermind, a Boricua emcee who indelibly marked the game, and a domestic abuser. Now it may seem strange for me to highlight the last portion, given Hip-Hop is known to many as a space of misogyny and violence, but to me that’s never what defined hip-hop.*  The reality is that Big Pun may too powerful of example of Hip-Hop for me or us to face all he brought. Over the past few years getting a chance to meet and work with Hip-Hop legends, I’m reminded of the adage “never meet your heroes.” While there is a natural distortion upon meeting ones favorite celebrities, Hip-Hop’s unmasking has a particular timber. In Hip-Hop we depend so heavily on rappers presenting themselves with a certain mask. The mask that rappers, and we all wear, provides protection as well as blind spots. The reality is that we are all imperfect, but we as consumers highlight what we like and ignore what we don’t. In a twisted way the question becomes, “What violence is acceptable and what violence do we not accept?” Sadly the answer tends to be that within Hip-Hop domestic violence is one of the lowest priority violences.

I remember the first time I saw that clip I was stopped in my tracks. I didn’t know what to say. Of course the scholar in me says, if you like violence in one context, why not expect it in another one? I was hurt as I watched Pun pistol whip Liza Rios and then fail to make it up the stairs to continue his onslaught. In sick irony, in the most classical sense, Liza’s life was saved by Pun’s own nemesis of poor health, which would eventually take his life.  When I hear folks say, “Hip-Hop is entertainment. Movies are violent, but you don’t see anyone coming down on them.” I’m reminded of the words of Liza Rios who talked about the evolution of her husband, “I knew him as Chris. And as he became Pun, he actually became Punisher. That wasn’t just a stage name, that was his way of being.” Cinematic violence, whether on screen or in our headphones, often requires us to suspend reality but with the visual evidence of Pun’s violence, my suspension of reality shattered.

I must be honest with myself and recognize that many of my rap idols like Biggie were domestic abusers, they just never had the camera rolling. To many, domestic violence is unconsciousable. But as a man, I have to grapple with the fact that we, Black, Brown, White, Asian men are the purveyors of the violence and must develop the tools to stop it. I’ve been in a number of conversations with sisters who do sexual abuse work over the years and when I ask them earnestly, “What should be done with brothers that abuse, rape or enact violence on women?” Sadly a number have responded, “jail”, “death penalty”, “let the community have their way with him.” From some of the most progressive sisters I know, this hurt me too. What is the cost of not acknowledging domestic violence? What is the cost of not making space for healing for the abused and abuser? This is complicated work, but the work that a community must do if it wants to be sustained. The reality is that violence remains a serious issue in our community and we cannot afford to turn a blind eye to punishment or healing.

*Part of my denial of violence as central to my definition of Hip-Hop is rooted in my understanding that many rappers are spewing perverse fantasy, and my black male privilege which puts me in precarious location of the potential purveyor and victim of violence. This would take a whole book to really go into, but had to offer that caveat.

Today’s BHC (Black History-Contemporary) speaks to the position of Women, leadership, and racial uplift. Undoutedbly we are accustomed to hearing Black HIStory but there is equal and sometimes greater value in hearing Black HERstory.

“We are tired of hearing Negro men say, “There is a better day coming,” while they do nothing to usher in the day. We are becoming so impatient that we are getting in the front ranks, and serve notice on the world that we will brush aside the halting, cowardly Negro men, and with prayer on our lips and arms prepared for any fray, we will press on and on until victory is over.

Africa must be for Africans, and Negroes everywhere must be independent, God being our guide. Mr. Black man, watch your step! Ethiopia’s queens will reign again, and her Amazons protect her shores and people. Strengthen your shaking knees, and move forward, or we will displace you and lean on to victory and glory.”

-Amy Jacques Garvey 1927

I love hip-hop, love some reggaetón too, I love the youth, but I’m pretty sure I don’t love this!

How many things can you count wrong with this video?

This ignorance brought to you by 2dopeboyz!

N.B. Uptown Notes does not support the exploitation of children, but it does support laughing at them under certain circumstances.

1) So you watched Pants on the Ground and laughed. Did you notice that General Larry Platt had on a Justice for Troy Davis button, a National Action Network tee shirt, and Red, Black and Green wristbands? Message!

2) So when you heard that Yele had financial issues did it stop you from donating?

3) How come when you heard that Red Cross had bigger issues it didn’t stop you from donating?

4) How come the resolutions that people make for the new year usually end by Martin Luther King Day?

5) Wait, there’s a rapper named Wacka Flocka? So we naming ourselves after Muppets now?

6) If people read Dyson nearly as much as they hated on him, would they hate as much?

7) Why do you think King’s life work was about integration, when it was really about fighting poverty, war, and racism?

8 ) On Jersey Shore, why did the cops know Ronnie by name?

9) Why didn’t you even notice the Supreme Court eeked closer to putting Mumia to death?

10) Why the hell haven’t you offered your assistance to the cradle of our liberation struggle – Haiti?

hat tip to @AroundHarlem

“History is not a procession of illustrious people. It’s about what happens to a people. Millions of anonymous people is what history is about.” – James Baldwin

The partner post to this post, Haiti in Context: History gives you the long view of how we have arrived to the crises in Haiti. This post gives you the story of the people connected and concerned with Haiti. I’ll let people’s voices speak for themselves:

Jo Nubian penned a powerful and inspiring reflection on Haiti

My heart has many compartments, sacred spaces for sacred people, and one of those spaces belongs to the people of Haiti.  I don’t love Haiti because I pity her, let me be clear about this so that there is no misunderstanding.  Haiti suffers with more pity and inaction intertwined than possibly any other place on this planet and my revolutionary spirit does not care much for those types of  bandwagons.  My love for her sits beautifully, poised  and majestic, eagerly recalling a freedom that somehow my heart knows more than two hundred years after she became free.  Yes, I celebrate her sons Toussaint Louverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Alexandre Petion, but also every slave, every overseer, every African spirit who decided that our people were not chattel and were destined for liberation.  That spirit is still very much alive in her, despite and maybe because of all the hardship that she faces.  When I ponder Haiti, I ponder her with these feelings of love, respect, and adoration.

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A good and brilliant scholar friend of mine Ferentz Lafargue fills us in on Haiti’s progress, not just its peril.

In recent months there has been a spate of articles exploring different aspects of Haiti’s progress and progress of Haitian-Americans in the United States. These articles range from a gushing profile by Amy Wilentz in Conde Nast Traveler to a Wall Street Journal piecehighlighting a rise in Haitian American football players, titled aptly enough “These Days, Everybody’s All-American Just May Be a Haitian.” These come on top of feature articles about prominent Haitian-Americans such as 2009 MacArthur recipient Edwidge Danticat, White House Director of the Office of Political Affairs Patrick Gaspard and musician and activist Wyclef Jean. On the one hand, these profiles suggest that Haitian-Americans are taking another step forward in gaining recognition in the United States, much as our immigrant predecessors from Ireland and Italy did in the first part of the 20th century. At the same time, when read alongside glowing reports from Bill Clinton, U.N. Special Envoy to Haiti, about improved conditions for entrepreneurs and improved security on the island, it appeared, as one colleague recently put it, that Haiti was finally “open for business.”

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I am not sure who to attribute this poetic reflection I Am H.A.I.T.I. but it is ripe with painful truth, hurt, and prospect.

I AM H.A.I.T.I.

The only time the world cares about me is when I rise up and bury my own children, when I eviscerate my offspring. I am H.A.I.T.I., you pay attention to me when my children are entombed by the shoddy concrete that is left over for me to house my family while the grade concrete is shipped off to Western cities and suburbs. I am H.A.I.T.I., you now cry for me, when usually you don’t give a shit about me.

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Both TastyKeish and Southside Scholar have beautiful and painful insights into what is happening to folks in Haiti today as well as super informative links, please visit their sites and be enriched!!! Remember it is the elevation of these and your voices that let the world know that we care. Not just that we care about disaster relief, but that we care about the next steps, policies, and programs towards Haiti. A friend recently told me of a set of Black folks who talked about many reasons for giving, but came to conclusion that it didn’t matter. Remember your dollars not only help with disaster relief but send a message that there is a real connection and concern with Haiti and her people. To me, the past few days have been draining and renewing at the same time. I am humbled to be surrounded by such great caring and loving thinkers and doers, I pray that it is this energy that is carried forward in the resurrection of Haiti.

*please pardon me for not citing where all these pieces came from. Folks have forwarded me so many things. Charge it to my head not my heart.

Note: This is a Partner Post to Haiti in Context: Voices. Please check out both. They represent some of the best information I’ve seen on Haiti that’s emerged over the past few days.

It has been a tough 4 days for Haiti and its Diaspora but from struggle emerges strength. I first want to say I am every renewed by the way I’ve seen folks in my own personal network and internationally begin to pull together for Haiti. I am clear that what we are doing now is small and late, but there is nothing like watching community form before your eyes and working together. Political differences become supplanted in the midst of crisis and when heavy lifting is occurring. A number of people have reached out to me regarding Haiti and the context surrounding the country that would allow an earthquake to do so much damage. In reality, like most “natural disasters” there are very human causes that lead to such catastrophic consequences. I have assembled some of the best writing I’ve seen on the context and figured I’d let you read the experts words moreso than mine.

Alternet covers the emergence of Haiti and the deep connections between the United States, Haiti and the globe:

However, more than two centuries ago, Haiti represented one of the most important neighbors of the new American Republic and played a central role in enabling the United States to expand westward. If not for Haiti, the course of U.S. history could have been very different, with the United States possibly never expanding much beyond the Appalachian Mountains.

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The Socialist Worker has a good article on the policies that helped produces deep issues of political and economic infrastructure.

“The media coverage of the earthquake is marked by an almost complete divorce of the disaster from the social and political history of Haiti,” Canadian Haiti solidarity activist Yves Engler said in an interview. “They repeatedly state that the government was completely unprepared to deal with the crisis. This is true. But they left out why.”

To understand these facts, we have to look at a second fault line–U.S. imperial policy toward Haiti. The U.S. government, the UN, and other powers have aided the Haitian elite in subjecting the country to neoliberal economic plans that have impoverished the masses, deforested the land, wrecked the infrastructure and incapacitated the government.

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Democracy Now features a good discussion of how US Policy has shaped the “underdeveloped” state that Haiti was in prior to the Earthquake

And they got there because they or their parents or grandparents were pushed out of Haiti’s countryside, where most Haitians used to live. And they were pushed out of there by policies thirty years ago, when it was decided by the international experts that Haiti’s economic salvation lay in assembly manufacture plants. And in order to advance that, it was decided that Haiti needed to have a captive labor force in the cities. So a whole bunch of aid policies, trade policies and political policies were implemented, designed to move people from the countryside to places like Martissant and the hills—hillsides that we’ve seen in those photos.

Watch the video here or read the transcript beneath the video.

Make sure to check out the piece in the UK Guardian by Peter Hallward on OUR ROLE in the creation of the Haiti we know today. And the interview on Democracy Now with Randall Robinson, founder of TransAfrica, who explains the sick irony in the appeal to George Bush for assistance.

I certainly acknowledge there is a lot to read and watch there but while the media concentrates on framing this as a unconscionable ”natural disaster” as if Haiti is perpetually “bad luck” there needs to be a deeper conversation about Ayiti (Haiti) and her people. The strength and resilience that formed Haiti will be what allow it to return to being the Pearl of the liberated African Diaspora. Please read the partner post to this Haiti in Context: Voices which capture the voices of the people.

*please pardon me for not citing where all these pieces came from. Folks have forwarded me so many things. Charge it to my head not my heart.

I write this post with a heavy heart for the people of Haiti and its Diaspora. As you likely well know by now Port-au-Prince, the nation’s capital was hit with a 7.0 earthquake and many sizable aftershocks. Given that Haiti is the most impoverished nation in the Western Hemisphere, the consequences of this “natural disaster” are far beyond what many of us can conceive. I see this as a time for us to join in support in spiritual, emotional, physical and economic ways.

Beneath I have included some immediate ways that you can donate and offer aid from abroad. I have opted for donating with AmeriCares because of their long standing relationship with relief work in Haiti, their four star ranking from charity navigator, and their expertise/infrastructure in similar crises. In times of crisis, relief is needed and after watching the American Red Cross stumble, squander and misappropriate funds from Katrina Relief I decided to exercise a greater degree of caution with my donations. No matter where you chose to donate, God willing, some help will be given. So please give freely so that we can help our dear brothers and sisters of Haiti.

Partners in Health (comes highly recommended)

Doctors without Borders

Yele (Wyclef’s Organization – this is a smaller org and has been getting a lot of hits and is struggling with their website and possibly other matters)

American Red Cross

MercyCorps

Unicef

An additional list of options here and a great post with options from South Side Scholar here.

While I am not Haitian (the francophone name L’Heureux is just a given name from my mother) I feel a special kindredness with our brothers and sisters there. While the poverty and squalor are often concentrated on, Haiti remains our first liberated republic which was won through struggle. Now is the time to practice what Dr. John Henrik-Clarke preached, “PanAfricanism or Perish.” Let’s move from ideology and voyeurism to activism and engagement.

Special thanks to @alone_cuzzo @aisha1908 @saigrundy @Ssidescholar

On Tuesday, the New York Times published a story entitled “As Population Shifts in Harlem, Blacks Lose Their Majority.” The article started a firestorm of commentary on listservs and in my twitter feed so I thought I’d throw a couple of things out there. Many are treating this article as if it’s a formal obituary reading R.I.P. Black Harlem. Before we inscribe Rest In Peace, what if it meant Rise in Power Black Harlem? Not following me yet, I think the article missed at least 5 key things.

1) Captain Obvious to the rescue

If you have walked around Harlem in the last ten years, this story should not or does not surprise you. Everyone I passed the link or story around to who has lived here for a while responded with amusement, confirmation, and continuing with their day. Why? In part because demographic shifts get picked up by the census after people experience it in their everyday lives. The standard “quick and dirty” test of racial segregation within NYC that I give my students is the “train test.” I ask them, “Where do you get on? Where do you get off? What type of people (ethnicity) get off at your stop? When can you get a seat?” These questions lead them to think about demographic change in terms of race, ethnicity, economy, and space. In short, ride a train and you’d know that non-”Black” folks have been streaming uptown for a while now.

2) The Great White Fear

The article features a lovely picture of a White man, Joshua Buachner and his 2 year old daughter. It’s amazing how a docile picture of brownstone can create such a panic. The responses I saw highlighted the booming White surge in Harlem. Well kids, look at the numbers! First, the article plainly states Central Harlem has received a boom, doubling so now that means 1 in 10 residents in Central Harlem are White! Whoa! One in 10 … yeah, that’s right let it marinate … oh wait, not running scared? Right! The percentage of White residents was so low that a doubling lead to 1 in 10. If you look at the graphs provided, you’ll see there is a significant uptick but not one many are concentrating on. And trust me, 1 in 10 should make you think when you get of at 125th that you got off in the Upper East Side. Perspective is everything.

From IRAAS Harlem History Photo Essay

3) Urban Amnesia

The article pretty much steps over the entire history of redlining and other forms of systematic depreciation of Harlem properties and shuffling of the Black population into Harlem. Redlining served to keep people from buying property, served to make folks who had property sell instead of “riding the tide”, served to limit commerce in Harlem, and even carried a premium for services used by residents. Yes, there was significant outmigration, but this outmigration operated in concert with the “invisible hand” of financial incentives for some and disincentives for others. In reality, Black Harlem has really been leased space. A significant number of Black folks were able to buy, but many if not most Black folks in Harlem did not own; they rented. The result is that the owners left, the renters stayed, and Harlem’s economic depression continued for far too long. The out-migration and in-migration (depends on who you ask also known as gentrification) is not happenstance. Yes, everyone has individual agency and choices, but one’s choices are shaped by larger forces.

4) Black is, Black ain’t?

The article stresses the decrease in “Black” families, which the author never defines but we can take to mean largely African-American families. In passing the article mentions the increasing numbers of Black residents who are not African-American such as West Indian and Continental African immigrants. This expansion of the African diasporic presence can be seen in food choices, neighborhood institutions, and has undoubtedly added to the flavor of Harlem… but what about the “other” folks? You know, the ones the article gives short sell to? The most rapidly increasing groups in Harlem according to the chart are the “other(s).” And I’d bet, though I don’t have the data, this is an increase in Latinos, particularly Afro-Latinos. The article quickly mentions that the Latino population is at an all time high in Central Harlem and Harlem at large. It seems that that for the past 30 plus years, Latinos have been moving in and occupying neighborhoods throughout Harlem without large alarm and cover stories. Uptown has a bustling Afro-Latino population which should not continue to be overlooked. If you are a student of Harlem, you know there has been tension but also very fertile ground around race and ethnic solidarity between African-Americans, Continental Africans,  Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, etc. This could represent a greater Pan African possibility … or panic, it’s up to us to decide.

5) Whose/Who’s Harlem?

The next steps for Harlem are in motion. Yes, there is an increasing White presence, but to me the more important part is that there is an increasing Latino presence, particularly Afro-Latino population. These are the moments when Harlem residents have a chance to redefine what it means to be Black Harlem. While in the 20th century Harlem witnessed the extreme flight of Whites and its Blackening, the process does not have to be reversed. Everyday when I walk around Harlem and the Heights I see the beauty of the Diaspora. A key to maintaining our stake and status in this historic “capital of Black America” is looking for links of solidarity around affordable housing, living wages, and community. Black Harlem has always been what its residents made it out to be. Ownership has never been the bedrock of the community, instead its vibrance of our people creating beauty in the midst of struggle.

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.

This is my reflection on Imani: Faith…

Faith is often thought of in a religious and spiritual way. Having grown up in a Baptist church I often heard, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) This common articulation suggests that there is a higher power ordering our lives and we must remain faithful to see it come to fruition. This orientation asks one to have faith in a higher power, often called God, and if I asked many walking the street, “Do you have faith in God?” they would likely answer, “Yes.” If I ask them, “Do you have faith in Black people?” I’m not sure I would receive such an affirming response.

Karenga defined Imani in the following way, “to believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of struggle.” The definition noticeably and intentionally does not ask the basic question of faith in a higher being, but more so asks can you have faith in those with home you walk this earth? Can you have faith in those who you live with, go to school with and struggle with? The older I get, the more I find people openly acknowledging faith in a higher power and disavowing faith in our people. While I do not want to get into a question of religious or spiritual beliefs (that may come though), it strikes  me as peculiar that with the tremendous history and contributions that people of African descent have made, that many of us – myself included, will suggest “we ain’t gonna make it.”

Is it an understanding of history or not understanding history that allows one to draw such a conclusion about the African Diaspora and particularly African-Americans? In the past year, I’ve been trying to push myself out of being a member of the Possible Police. The Possible Police are a unit of Black folks who whenever a discussion of change begins to happen, they ruminate, “It ain’t gonna happen.” “We already tried that.” “Let me know how that turns out.” Or “It’s impossible.” In all honesty, the election of Barack Obama pushed me to more deeply question my beliefs around struggle and victory. While I’ll be the first to say the election of Barack Obama is no magic salve, I must also acknowledge that his election is the fruit of significant struggle.

It worries me that at the age of 31 I can say “It won’t happen in my lifetime,” This in some ways reflects a resolution of defeat at worst or delayed gratification at best. This tradition of nay saying, instead of affirmation, conveys a deep lack of faith among the population who most need it and have the most to offer, the youth relatively young people. My walk with brothers at CCNY has pushed me to articulate hope, in spite of defeatism’s presence. In listening to their questions about the future, family, and opportunity I kept hearing a lack of faith in themselves, our people, and the world. I have taken to asking, “Why would you tell yourself you can’t? There are a million people who would tell you “you can’t”, “don’t try it”, “you’re not worthy” in a heartbeat. So why would you be the first in line to do that?” The path that we have walked has been a long one and often bitter one, despite this strong men and women keep coming.

Some brothers have asked me, why I keep a faith in our people? For me it is about faith in a higher power and in our people to make change.  I would venture to say, a lack of faith in our people and ourselves individually often reflects a lack of faith in a higher power and/or the ability of people to produce change. While some may argue, “place your faith in God, not humans”, it is the divinity that I see in my people that forces me to fight through the muddy terrain of self hatred and doubt. A faith in Black people often is one that necessitates we see beyond the obvious and embrace the possible which were denied for so long. It is necessary that we are grounded and realistic, but not necessary that we concede defeat in the beginning of the battle. Can you begin to imagine if our ancestors, held in the bondage of slavery throughout the globe stopped themselves from dreaming and working on freedom? If the answer is no, then why should we come this far and give up our faith?

This is my reflection on Kuumba: Creativity

I have to admit, I never really remember reading the “official definition” of Kuumba.

“To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.”

I always kind of remember thinking of arts and crafts, dances, etc. you know what we generally take creativity to be. But in this year’s ritual of writing and reflection I realized that it is about creating what we need. This week, I have the honor of participating in a marriage ceremony that melds two Muslim families of differing ethnic backgrounds: Indian american and African-American. In preparation for the wedding, the question of rituals and ceremonies came up. Given that the Bride comes from a large Hyderabadi family in India the number of rites and traditions that she brings are extensive. There is a beauty in having a history and culture that is uniquely identifiable and has been passed on for multiple generations. When I initially asked the groom, “what are you bringing [traditions, etc.] the wedding?” He responded with uncertainty.

All too often, still in this country, African-Americans when looking for our cultural roots and rituals we feel alienated from things that fall too far outside of our everyday life. As I mentioned before, one of the serious dilemmas of Kwanzaa celebrations, etc. is the stigma and fear of engaging a “foreign culture.” I have always taken Afrocentrism to be a middle-class Black phenomenon (that’s for a whole ‘nother entry) and truly understand why so many of us do not gravitate towards Africa as our cultural home. However, this does not preclude us from having a culture that offers a contribution to the world, and in this case a ceremony.

After a bit of discussion, and brow beating, the groom and I discussed the rite of “jumping the broom” as a marital tradition that harkens back to our ancestry as African-Americans. Additionally, it is something that is visually distinct enough to let all in attendance know that through marriage their new family would be connecting Indian and Black, and that each held equal value. While for many, this would have sufficed, the groom’s mother took an additional step and pushed to incorporate the recent Native American ancestry in their family. She will present the new marriage ritual with an explanation and have it close out the final ceremonies for both families. This is one of three wedding in the groom’s family this year and this ritual will be repeated at each wedding. Through the creation of this ritual, in company with the bride’s ritual, all in attendance get to not only witness a marriage but marry each other in a new cultural and spiritual space. This is the creation of community. By drawing on our Kuumba we have created what we need and made it available to all in attendance. Let us never forget, there is an equal beauty in creating a cultural ritual that is based in history and the present that will be passed on for multiple generations.

This is my reflection on Nia Purpose ”To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.”

While there is no one path, ritual creates a space for purpose to emerge and understanding to evolve. I think the rituals that we do can serve to build greater understanding of self and with each successive engagement expands the meaning of the ritual and principle. This year’s participation in rituals of writing daily on Kwanzaa served to enrich my understanding of each principle’s purpose and my own purpose.

From B I R D flickr photostream

I have been having conversations all Kwanzaa with adult brothers and sisters about celebrating it and there are a number of who respond, “I did when I was kid and it was cool then but ….” As someone who did not come up celebrating Kwanzaa, I’m from one of those Black families where members-only jackets were more common than dashikis, I have appreciated the adult understandings that have developed for me from the Nguzo Saba or Kawaida. While many enter the festival of Kwanzaa as a ritual where the Kinara needs to be there, corn and squash is around, and we should yell Harambee, this can be a part of Kwanzaa but the reflection on the principles as an individual and within a group are paramount. Through participation in the rituals associated with Kwanzaa (both reflection and actions) we have the opportunity to deepen our understanding of their purpose, our purpose, and often discover things that were beyond the original conception.

I recently was discussing Ujamaa with a sister online who was talking about explaining it to four year olds and how difficult it is. She had settled on an example of a lemonade stand. I added, “Maybe you can explain it as sharing. Tell them it’s about businesses that share with the community. Maybe point out businesses that share usually know your name or other folks in your community’s name.” While this was a rough and dirty way to explain it, I think it begins to get at some of the core dimensions of Cooperative Economics. Now I don’t think “businesses that share” is the limit of Ujamaa, instead as adults I think the purpose of the principle is to get us to think more deeply about the economic systems that we are involved in. Julius Nyerere enacted a system of Ujamaa which was a form of socialism in Tanzania. Imagine if in the same room we had young folks talking about sharing, adolescents discussing the validity of buying Black, and young adults and adults talking about the promise and pitfalls of differing economic systems and policies? Those types of discussions would invariably benefit our community. It seems with each step in one’s development, the purpose in the principle should be seen differently. Each year, we must bring the year’s gains, losses, and insights to the festival of harvest. While the ritual remains the same, the purpose does not change, it just grows as we do.

This is my reflection on the principle of Ujamaa – Cooperative Economics…

The title of the post is a variation on a sage comment by bell hooks who stated,”… black self-determination is not the same as black capitalism.”

This excerpt of her quote summarized many of the issues that I see floating around now when we discuss the evolution of Black Power and its evolution into cultural practice and social organization. In this new constellation, the new Black Power is seated in Washington DC on Pennsylvania Avenue, self-determination has become “grinding” for you own good, and cooperative economics has been transformed into buying Black. While I am all for the evolution of ideas, when the spirit of the thing is lost, the question of “how does the individual part relate to the whole?” becomes all the more critical. Last year, I wrote about the issues of reducing Ujamaa to buying Black, which I still stand by, but we must also realize that true cooperative economics demands the sharing of investments and rewards for our community which can include but is not limited to monetary contributions. It is true collaboration in the (financial, social, and cultural) economy of our community’s which will keep our collective and individual mouths fed and determining the direction of our community.

What if the investments we made today were in community? To most, this means “buy black today” but couldn’t we also suggest “donate Black today” or “volunteer black today”? The idea that consumption is the only way to participate in economics is misguided, there are multiple way to participate in economics that are not just based in consuming but are based in building. Beneath the image I offer some suggestions for economic contribution for spenders, philanthropists, and activists:

For spenders:

I recently tweeted about The Power of One card which I was introduced to at my favorite uptown bookstore Hue-man. The card is a Harlem based Susu that is designed to provide a reinvestment into the community via programming and provide members with discounts at participating vendors. This type of program is particularly important in a community like Harlem where we, people of African descent, compose the majority, but are the minority of business owners and often have our interests and needs overshadowed by those concerned with capital first and people second.

For philanthropists:

Our communities are in dire need of more resources to deal with the host of issues that we face. When I talk about “giving” folks often hit me with, “I ain’t got it.” While times are hard, a donation of 20 dollars can really help boost an organization’s ability to work in the community. A gift of twenty dollars is often what many of us spend on a meal. Could you carry a lunch twice a month or dine in one more night? We show what we care about by what and how we invest in it. If you don’t have the time but you have a dime, please spend it with organizations that deal with the issues you care about. Recently I’ve been really concerned with issues of sexual violence, grassroots community programming, youth advocacy with social media and homelessness, so these organizations have gotten my attention. No you can’t donate everywhere, so like all investments, make them wisely and with care so that they’ll have the greatest (community) return.

For activists:

I listen to Jay-Z and find him to be a wise man (I know some of you are trying to take away my “conscience black card” right now, but hear me out). Jay has been know to be a huge philanthropist and on Minority Report he reflected on philanthropy and Hurricane Katrina, “Sure I ponied up a mill(ion)/But I didn’t give my time/ so in reality I didn’t give a dime or damn/ just put my monies in the hands of the same people that left my people stranded/ Nothin but a bandit/ just left them folks abandoned/ damn that money that we gave was just a band-aid.” Often times we think of investment in our community as ones that come from “giving back” and “donating” but there are many things that your dollars cannot do, but you as a person can. Whether it’s mentoring, spending time collating papers, or donating your voice to share perspective, there is a need for you to give more than from your pockets. The intangibles often mean just as much if not even more than marks in a ledger book.

This is my reflection on Ujima: Collective Work and Responsibility

For more than a year, I’ve entertained way too many conversations about the shortage of Black men and Black women who remain hopelessly single. I tend to avoid these conversations, because it seems little can come of them other than hurt feelings and finger pointing. Well while reflecting on Ujima, I wondered how the principle could help this discussion given my inbox and twitter feed was abuzz with a recent story on the “crisis” in the Black community. I am certain that the blame game that comes around from discussions of relationships nor is it something that is unique to Black folks. I however realize it can come into special relief when we begin to talk about the numbers of Black women and men that are not married or the number of “out-of-wedlock” births that we have. The “crisis” of the Black family is not new, the placing of blame on Black women is not new, blaming men is not new, but the repackaging of it continues to draw attention and the opposite of productive discussion, mainly it ends up being a new opportunity for us to sidestep personal work, overlook progress, and undermine community work.

The principle of Ujima asks that we all acknowledge our role in the current condition and collectively work to repair it, this seldom happens in the current discourse. The recent Washington Post profile of Helena Andrews and the Nightline segment on unmarried Black women have kept us consumed with chatter. The Nightline segment features a number of sisters talking about the dilemma of being single and successful and then they’re joined by relationship guru comedian (who is asked to speak on a serious social issue) Steve Harvey. Harvey offers some commentary on the women’s aesthetic beauty, says older men failed to socialize younger males, and then tells the sisters to date older men to fulfill what the story purports as “missing.” The story created quite a buzz and part of it, I’d say, is due to the way the piece is framed. The piece highlights an ever declining population of marriagable men and high achieving women, pitting men against women in a zero sum game which results in a decaying Black family. When I saw the piece I didn’t get bent out of shape about it and reach for a lighter to reignite the battle of the sexes,  instead I saw a more promising narrative on mate selection, accomplishment, and community. This was, in part, because I listened to the voices of the sisters, rather than the voice that framed the piece. If you listen to the women’s testimonies they articulate clear expectations, a desire to settle down, but not the desire to settle. Quite the opposite of what is popularly emphasized where sisters have unrealistic standards, are hungry to trap men, and emasculate the men in their lives. Their voices and stories, like so many that I’ve read or watched on the topic, get twisted and are used to suggest there is more space for discontent and disunity than for collective work and responsibility.

The reality, as I see it, is that the changing forms of family, gender, and community mandate that we not look at each other and assume we will replicate the systems of the past. This doesn’t mean a total disavowal of what we had, but it often means me must acknowledge what we used in the past may not work today. In order to begin collective work we have to agree upon a problem or set of problems, which I’m not sure we do. What if what one called a problem another saw as an evolution and a success? Too often we assume marriage is the bedrock for a strong community, however family is much more-so. And family, for African-Americans and people of African descent has been defined in many ways that clash the mythos of the nuclear family. Are we ready to begin the work of collective uplift be acknowledging we may not be all shooting at the same target of family? Are we ready to acknowledge the role that emotional scars hold for men and women in choosing partners? Are we ready to move beyond discussions of “baby mama” drama and enter the work of  co-parenting? These are some of the questions and topics I’d love to see tackled so that we may truly begin to see our brothers and sisters problems as our own, as well as, our brothers and sisters strengths as our own. From there we can begin to do the work of collective work and responsibility for the Black community.

My reflection on the second principle of the Nguzo Saba of Kwanzaa is Kujichagulia – Self-Determination

“To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves” is often commonly articulated as the definition of Kujichagulia. For many this principle has been all about identity and selecting names, memorizing phrases from different African cultures, and suggesting Pan-Africanism is the ideology we must take on. But all this still seems to miss part of the boat when it comes to Kujichagulia. In fact, many take this principle as a call to develop our individual identities rather than determining the direction of our community. For so many, the process of developing a strong Black identity or African centered identity is a highly personal one. You struggle with who you are, where your people are from, what you and your people have contributed, so inevitably it starts with one questioning their relation to the greater whole. Finding answers to these questions can lead to an identity, but not necessarily self-determination.

I recently had a conversation with a teacher who works at a local school, by her account, that features a very visibly Afrocentric staff member who talks often of African greatness, rattles off facts of the civilizations of Kemet, and floats regally through the halls. The teacher’s qualm with the staff member was plainly, “he treats the families at the school and the staff members like shit.” This narrative is one that I have heard all too often when it comes to the development of an identity. The idea that one can identify with the greatness of the past, but one fails to identify with the contemporary reality of Black people. It is great to be able to look at the pyramids and talk about African greatness, but can you look outside your window at the brothas on the corner too and see that greatness?

As a college professor, sometimes I find myself frustrated with students who are developing answers to who I am, but these identities are not tied to who and where we are as a people. Put another way, too often a romantic view of the past leads us to underestimate the value of our people in the present. Knowing where we are in the present, valuing it and challenging it, builds the path to self-determination. Kujichagulia demands that we take seriously our identities but that these identities must be linked to needs of the community and deeds that serve the community. It is this seeing beyond the “me” or the “i” to the “we” is what links identity and community. Identity without community is as useful as a word for which no one knows the meaning. Identity and community give us the core for determining the next directions our people should explore. No matter our allegiance to the past, we must be also be aligned with the present conditions of our people, if not, then self-determination will be centered on the “I” and not the “We.”

*The question of “and then what?” was really brought to me by the Boogiemonsters on this classic joint.

This is my reflection on Umoja, the first principle of Nguzo Saba of Kwanzaa…

Does it make sense that fighting could lead to unity? On its face, my first thought is, absolutely not. I could imagine for “highly evolved beings” we could probably resolve our differences quickly, with out malice or attitude, and unify for the strengthening of community. But then, I’m reminded of reality. Most times the things that are most important to unify around are also the most controversial. Yesterday, I watched and listened to a number of conversations occur around Kwanzaa, its relevance, its creator, and whether or not we should celebrate it. In fact, a year ago when I wrote Quit Frontin on Kwanzaa my goal was to provide a base that made people feel informed and comfortable about celebrating and reflecting. What I forgot is that, no matter how much I believe in a thing, everyone has the right to feel differently and do as they please. As an African people, we too often have been told what to do, what to believe in, and when to do it. This is not a cycle I wish to re-create.

So in the sense, I believe in freedom of choice as individual within a community. This type of belief could be a serious quandry. Instead, it was this very point that reminded me of a conversation that I had with my Grandfather who moved from Selma, Alabama to Connecticut in the heights of the Civil Rights Movement. I recall reading about the Civil Rights Movement and thinking proudly, “Those are my people.” I returned home to talk to my Grandfather with the goals of hearing organizing stories, fighting stories, you know – eyes on the prize the personal version. When I spoke to him, he told me none. He told me none when I asked, “When you were down there and everything was happening what was it like?” He simply replied, “It was very busy … and I was working.” I remembering feeling betrayed and thinking, “What? Are you serious? Wait, does that mean that I don’t have a personal contribution to the legacy of Civil Rights?” All these questions I later realized came out of ego, not out of a genuine concern for uplift and unity. I wanted his activism to look a certain way, to fit a script, for it to be side-by-side with the van guard of Black grassroots leaders. This was my issues, not his! In fact, after I spoke to my grandfather more he told me about the different meetings and how he was a part of those who did not participate in the most traditional or easily identifiable ways. He didn’t march, he didn’t pass out fliers, but what he did do was actively engage the question of change in his heart, his mind, his church and in his familial work.

You don’t have to have unity in action to have unity in spirit. In fact, sometimes the things that divide us on the surface unify us by send us questioning the deeper dilemmas and understandings that we all hold. It is this fight that is unifying, this fight that provides the engine for change within our community, this fight that we all begin when we begin to seriously think about what our community is. Who is in it? And how shall we move forward? From the seeds of dissent, a new, fuller, tradition of community and change can evolve, even if what we do doesn’t look the same. This can occur only when we enter with humility and value each others’ contributions and questions with a welcoming, challenging, and affirming spirit.

A year ago, I began a series on Kwanzaa, this year I will finish it (thanks to all who remember I didn’t and reminded me all year, accountability) Here’s entry one! Habari Gani?

“Pro-Black like Craig Hodges but my dashiki’s in the cleaners.” – Common

Being Pan-African is a weird thing. To many folks it means wearing dashikis, avoiding swine, and shouting ase at every opportunity. I, however, realize that you aren’t going to do that. For most Black folks, the holiday of Kwanzaa is one tied to Pan-Africanism and thus gets mentioned more in their living rooms on TV commercials than at family gatherings. I’ve decided we’ve been frontin’ on Kwanzaa for no real good reason. So here are some pre-emptive responses to questions and concerns.

Read more of why you should Quit Frontin on Kwanzaa here

So for the past X months everyone who visits NYC finds it necessary to sing some part of Empire State of Mind or insert a line of it into conversation as they’re visiting … very annoying. If you’ve done this, no need to apologize, just stop it! But in other news, Stephen Colbert ripped it the other night with Alicia Keys performing Empire State of mind 2.

If you cannot see the video, click here.

Hat tip to JF

Back in May, I wrote the Possible and the Probable part 1 which dealt with questions of gender, expectation, and realities. This time I’m onto a subject near and dear to my heart, education. Last May, David Brooks penned an editorial called, “The Harlem Miracle” which reported on the Harlem Children’s Zone’s Promise Academy charter schools. Brooks bases the editorial on a correspondence with Roland Fryer, economist at Harvard and NYC public schools Chief Equity Officer, who had just completed a study with Bill Dobbie says they found the Promise Academy “eliminated the Black-White test score gap.” For Brooks and Fryer, this was a miraculous occurrence which created a firestorm of attention and riled voices of “what can be done in high poverty school, when there are no excuses.” I have been working with urban schools since the early 1990s and I know that “miracles” are possible but they are not probable. I must admit, I approach claims of unmitigated success, miracles, and beating the odds with a degree of skepticism, not because I don’t want these claims to be true, but because as folks often say, “if it’s too good to be true, it probably is.”

They deserve better, but do we know how to make better for all?

Now some will read this and view me as a pessimist around education, in fact, I am the furthest thing from it. My vision and goal is to have an urban education system where chances of success exceed chances of failure, where families have options, were school staff are supported, and youth become critical thinkers. Is that too much to ask? If you look at the condition of our cities public schools you would begin to believe the answer is yes, that is too much to ask. On the Left, there’s often the cry that resource inequalities are the reason for poor performance. On the Right, the call suggests that instead of working hard, schools, teachers, and students are hardly working and inefficent. Unfortunately the people trapped in the middle of these ideological battles are poor, Black, and Brown families lodged in failing schools in: Detroit, Baltimore, New Haven and the list goes on. The biggest confusion that I see emerging around urban education is the highlight of a few successful schools in a city and mistaking that as the probable, that is what will likely happen, in the city as the whole. These schools are the possible, they are what can happen against dire conditions but they are not probable.  These exceptional schools, like breakfast sausage, are quickly consumed by people but most are afraid to look at what it goes in to making the end product. These schools, which have gone by many labels such as No Excuses, High Flying Schools, Tough Love or Miracle Schools all reflect a desire to point out exceptional success, but with little scrutiny of how this success emerges, if this success is sustainable, and if this success can be replicated. Most, if not all of the schools talked about in these articles and segments, have had huge investments of resources both material and non-material (e.g. dollars, partnerships, unmitigated administrative power, strict standards of enrollment, parental mandated behaviors) which are not reported on in news stories. They carry with them conditions and rules that if you clamped most urban schools with and demanded conformity to in wide-scale would surely mean the casting out of many students, abuses of labor law, and spikes in test but not the sustained development of critical thinkers. What often looks like a miracles upon first glance for a small group would be a nightmare for the mass upon deep investigation.

The reality is that the schools you see championed on the news for exceptional performance are in part being elevated to support mental and material divestment in traditional public educational systems. You sit and say, “If they can do it, why can’t the others?” These schools appear to be anomalies at first glance, but with further reading you see why they look as they do and why often their success is not sustainable or transferable. Replicating success in urban schools has been policy alchemy since the days, and even before, Ron Edmonds and continues to demonstrate that urban education will not be solved until we can see a system wide change in results for children. Despite the caution of social analysts like Richard Rothstein, the trumpets of success of a few urban schools continue to defeaningly blare out the cries of whole cities in educational disrepair.

Some will suggest are being used to suggest the thing missing from our schools is hard work, but that too is an incomplete picture. While all schools could be improved marginally with more hard work, the solution is often not simply pulling harder on bootstraps or throwing dollars. In fact, we have seen time and time again, that neither in isolation works. If educational research has taught us anything, it is that we do not know the formula for success in contemporary urban schooling. There is little to no evidence that more charter schools are better for kids in urban areas. There is little to no evidence that more charter schools improve the “market” of urban schools. There is little to no evidence that success in one year on a standardized test will be repeated in the next. There is little to no evidence that cities schools perform at an equal level to suburban schools consistently. Yes, this portrait is bleak, but it is the state of affairs. This is a hard truth to swallow, this is why in part people continue to point to “the miracles.”

To me, the situation of urban education is much like the common cold, as technology advances, we find more and more options that tend to abate sickness, cover the symptoms, but still there is no cure. Like the snake oil salesmen of the past, what works for one, seldom works for many, or may not work at all. I am hesitant to listen to anyone who tells me, “We know what works” because suggesting so would be based on the possible, while ignoring the probable.

As 2009 draws to a close, let us not forget that we celebrated two cultural phenomena: 20th anniversary of Do the Right Thing by Spike Lee and Sesame Street’s 40th anniversary. What’s more appropriate than these two cultural juggernauts coming together!?!

If you can’t see the video embedded click here.

hat tip to LM

A year ago, I did a tribute post to the late Fred Hampton on Uptownnotes.com and one year later I sit in front of the computer reflecting on the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Fred Hampton. For me, Hampton represents an idyllic portrait of young organizing, fire, and revolutionary praxis. His life, cut down at the age of 21, reminds us of the power of youth in struggle, but also must bring sobering reality. We’ve got to garner young energy for fighting against oppression and building a different social world but we must also be honest about the stakes of engaging full-on in this struggle. There is little glamorous about authentic revolutionary struggle. There are no pensions, benefits, or cameras for people working from the grassroots to transform communities and the world. In fact, their lives are ones that tend to go uncelebrated and are at best acknowledged in memorial. As I reflect on Chairman Fred Hampton’s life and his work with the Black Panther Party I am glad to continue to grow in understanding of him and struggle. Because that is what he would have wanted…

“If you ever think about me and you ain’t gonna do no revolutionary act, forget about me. I don’t want myself on your mind if you’re not going to work for the people. If you’re asked to make a commitment at the age of twenty, and you say I don’t want to make a commitment at the age of twenty, only because of the reason that I’m too young to die, I want to live a little longer, then you’re dead already. You have to understand that people have to pay a price for peace. If you dare to struggle, you dare to win. If you dare not struggle then damn it, you don’t deserve to win. Let me say peace to you if you’re willing to fight for it.”

-Fred Hampton

I am an African-American man. I am a heterosexual man. I am a middle-class man. These three statements are the basis for my social justice work and advocacy, but each carries its own hazard for working on social justice. While many will assume my position as a Black man in America makes me sensitive to “minority statuses”, in reality, over the past 10 years I’ve learned nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, in many ways, my status as Black man in America has the potential to undercut my work of engaging the pursuit of equality of opportunity, equality of outcome and the right to self-determination for all people. I am both privileged and disadvantaged. I have identities that I celebrate, identities I conceal, and all these decisions matter for my view on the world and what I choose to fight for and against.

Sorry, this image was hilarious to me.

I didn’t really begin to grapple with my privilege as a Black man until I was a student in Beverly Guy-Sheftall’s class on Black Feminism at Spelman College. I can remember rebutting each point she made about the Million Man March (MMM) as an extension of patriarchy, heteronormativity, and an attempt to further embed misogyny. Besides being a slew of words I didn’t fully understand, I could not understand why she fixated on all the “negatives” of the March. In the class, she essentially argued the MMM because of the patriarchy, etc. she could not support it and thus thought it held little value. By the time I landed in her class I was a senior at Morehouse and certainly had come to believe the MMM was one of the most transformative events I’d ever personally experienced and I refused to have the event mischaracterized.

I paraphrase, but I told her, “Yes, it does ask men to come back into the family, but it doesn’t always mean that have to be at the head. I know some talked about being at the head of the household, but not everyone believed that. We didn’t invite sisters because it was our time as Black men to redefine our commitment to the Black family and Black community.” I wanted to her to see the value of the event beyond her points. She let me finish and sagely replied, “It must be a nice privilege to tell someone to overlook the oppressive elements of a program, because it was helpful to you.” My face fell, my mouth shut, and I  sat sheepishly quiet. My head spun between realization, frustration, and confusion. For the next few classes, I sat quietly and tried to figure out how I had not “seen it coming.” I realized that the lesson I had learned on the athletic field so many times applied to social justice work, “sometimes you got to get the wind knocked out of you to bring you back to earth.”Guy-Sheftall had pointed out what I’d seen done so many times but by those who came from outside of a community to do social justice work in my community. Someone(s) coming from the outside, declaring themselves an ally and expert and overlooking the view of those who were subject to the oppression in favor of their own perspective.

The blind spots I exhibited in my conversation with Dr. Guy-Sheftall were not limited to the Million Man March and helped me to begin to grapple with other blind spots in areas of class, gender, race, sexuality, ability, and the list goes on. While I often stand with my brothers and sisters in justice struggles, I have to equally recognize when I’m standing in front of them rather than by their side of behind them. Unfortunately too few of us who are committed to social justice do this. Over the past few months I’ve had a number of conversations on my standpoint around social justice on twitter, but 140 characters of social media is too short to begin to do it justice (pun intended). About a year and half ago, I was speaking with a friend who identifies as a Black feminist and we were discussing Black feminism and the role of men. I told her I did not identify as a feminist for a number of reasons: first, I respected that many feminists had argued men could not be feminist because of our inability to completely overcome our gender privilege and stop our contribution to oppression. Second, many of the men that I’ve known who publicly identified as feminist behind closed doors used it to their advantage to carry out the same practices we critiqued as patriarchal and misogynist. Third, men who identify as feminist tended to treat it as an ascribed and static status, which meant that brothers often suggested because they could quote bell hooks or had participated in enough campaigns, circles, or conversations they had arrived at plateau, to which others must ascend. The third reason is the most crucial, we spend far too much time labeling our ideologies and activism and treating them as perfected statuses. In reality, a commitment to social justice work is constantly tested, re-evaluated, and iterative. Too often we stand on and assign labels (e.g. conscious, feminist, anti-racist, etc.) rather than doing the work that these labels imply and expanding these from labels to ideologies and actions which effectively expands their reach.

I tend to prefer to be known as an ally when working against oppression but still oppressing. To me, being an ally is about much more than advocacy on behalf of a group or interests that may not, on their face, appear to be your own. Being an ally is about a commitment to social justice grounded in an understanding of one’s self. To me, the most important element to allyhood is the ability requirement of reflexivity. First, we must interrogate our own privilege and power. Second, an ally must listen carefully to the conditions and needs of the group or individuals they are attempting to align with and define his or her work from there. Third, we must become comfortable with outsider status. It’s perfectly fine to not have full ownership of a struggle, in fact no one expects you to be a perfect proxy, but you are expected to hold your own. Fourth, we must be comfortable with being wrong and getting pushed to rethink our beliefs. Being committed to a thing does not mean you see all sides of it. We must be open to being challenged for the better. From this point, an ally can begin the work of advocating and more importantly supporting the efforts of others and themselves. If you believe in social justice work, you realize that being an ally to a cause that you don’t see “directly” affecting your life is still intimately tied to other interlocking forms of oppression. As bell hooks eloquently said:

“Feminism is not simple a struggle to end male chauvinism or a movement to ensure that women have equal rights with men; It is a commitment to eradicating the ideology of domination that permeates Western culture on various levels- sex, race, class, to name a few – and a commitment to reorganizing U.S. society so that the self- development of people can take precedence over imperialism, economic expansion and material desires.”

The reality is that the forms of oppression are related so working on them simultaneously is necessary. Of course there are issues that I have a greater commitment to, as do all of us, but through mutual support our power grows exponentially.There is no perfect formula for being an ally but those are things that I think of when engaging social justice work.

Recently, I had the pleasure of being on the Addicted to Race podcast. I was on with Tami from What Tami Said, Andrea Plaid  who guest blogs at Racialicious, and Deesha Philyaw of CoParenting101. The conversation was a great one which started with a discussion of Black women and women of color’s absence in the growing body of Mommy Memoirs.We then talked about my post “I’m for Gay Rights but…” and issues of civil rights, gay rights and social justice in the African-American community. Followed up with a discussion of the movie Precious which has been received with very mixed results and why we think this has been and what it means for Black media representation. We concluded with a discussion of CNN’s Black men in the Age of Obama. We talked about the ways that CNN has met the challenge of covering ethnic communities but questioned what could have been done better. Great topics, witty commentary, what more are you waiting on? Click here to hear it!

I just watched Precious, Lee Daniel’s film based on the novel Push by Sapphire, and the only way I can find to describe it is extraordinary in the superlative and literal sense. Extraordinary, in the superlative sense, for its craftsmanship in visually and textually telling a narrative of the composite character Precious. It is extra-ordinary (beyond ordinary), in the literal sense, in that it concentrates on a particular set of lives ravished by sexual abuse, physical abuse, and poverty. This is not the tale of all in poverty, but it is a tale that exists. I’m only at the computer writing this because the debate about Precious seems to catapult between a discussion of poverty porn, a Winfrey and Perry produced fetish film to being called a diamond or the Audacity of Precious (a play on Obama’s autobiography). I read the reviews, watched the film and come down somewhere inside and outside of these takes. I did not read the book, I am not a cultural critic, heck I even took a group of friends to see the wrong movie, despite these things I came to Precious open to what it had to offer and enjoyed what I received.

From the moment of the opening credits when the viewer beings to read phonetic words, you are forced inside the life of Precious. I found the narrative was powerfully weaved. The viewer gets to see the compounding hazardous factors that assault Precious on the daily: failing schools, inadequate academic preparation, lack of healthy food options, substandard housing, negotiating the social welfare system, domestic violence, sexual assault, just to name a few. These hazards, for me, fall into two categories, the former are normative of many families mired in poverty and the latter two are often more prevalent in families mired in poverty but are not necessary conditions of poverty. Put another way, the first are features of what it usually means to grow up in a poor neighborhood and household. For the last two, the odds of them occurring are increased by being in poverty but that does not mean they happen in most poor homes. Poverty, like most social forces, has a way of making bad things worse and Precious illustrates this painful circumstance. The movies portraiture of the mid 1980s New York scene is disturbing and rings with a tenor of truth and fantasy. I expect nothing less from a film about urban issues and youth.

The character Precious’ agency, her ability to make independent choices that affect her life, is wonderfully represented in the face of the social maladies she encounters (yes, I know most have an opposite take on this and I’m likely setting myself up for a battle but it’s all good). For those of us who have committed many hours to working with urban Black poor communities, we know that success or transcendence is not always or even often the outcome. You begin to look for the small victories that some would not see as minor, but are nonetheless steps to persevering with the goals of thriving. Our communities are resilient and I think the film captures this and puts context on that resilience. For example, in the movie, the decision to speak up in the welfare office knowing she would compromise her safety, housing, and potentially her life was beyond brave. While sitting in an arm chair and suggesting such a decision is the “obvious” one or one that is “unhelpful” is too narrow a perspective on the faces at the bottom of the well.

I was moved by the film and the story because it represented, in many ways, the lives of the students who I could not touch in New Haven, Atlanta, Detroit and New York. The children who moved, by force and by choice, from the classrooms and schools which I’ve visited, taught in, or spoke at. All too often their agency becomes rendered invisible while their transgressions such as imprisonment, welfare receipt, and deaths are hyper-visible in the public sphere. For this reason, I appreciated the voices and lives the film narrated. There are a number of excellent reviews on what the film missed and some issues that deserve serious consideration. Both The Root and Racialicious do an excellent job of taking these on and I won’t rehash them so please do read them!!! This is not so much a review but rather a reflection and endorsement of stepping out to see the film for yourself. I am excited by the debates and conversations that are erupting for the film and hope they lead us to new ground in transforming communities.

It’s been a minute since I dropped a Friday Funny on ya’ll, probably because I’ve been traveling the Diaspora for gems! Here you go, you’re welcome in advance

I don’t know why every day I hear folks saying “romance” is dead or “black love” is dead. Bangs is trying to bring it back. Applaud this young brother for this sure fire banger. Please send my hate mail directly to pleasestoprapping@comeonson.com.

If you can’t see the video embedded click here.

hattip to SR

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

For the past few weeks I’ve remained unsettled by the videotape of Derrion Albert’s death at the hands of Black youth in Chicago. Like many, I avoided the tape for days on end, only to finally watch it in horror, with pain, and without direct recourse. This feeling of paralysis that many of us have felt is not one that is new to our community, whether it was the viewing of Emmett Till’s body in Jet or the railroading of the Central Park Five, the loss and defilement of Black male life at the hands of those Black, White or other remains sickening.

We, the concerned, the tired, and the committed have a rare opportunity to join not just in frustration, but in production. This week, at the Think Tank for African American Progress’ meeting in Memphis, Tennessee entitled: “What is the future of Black Boys?” While the media, and by admission in many of our community, suggest there is little being done to combat the conditions that black male youth face, there is work, there is opportunity, and there is the need for your voice and energy.

The Think Tank for African American Progress is a young organization birthed from the Brothers of the Academy with a unique mission and method of operation. This meeting marks the 4th in a series of ongoing discussions and actions surrounding the conditions that African Americans face and create. The think tank uniquely does the work of on problems as well as solutions! When conditions are detrimental, the question is asked, “What can be done to create change?” When conditions are producing the results we desire the question is asked, “What can be done to replicate this success?” Another of its unique features is the structure and value of collaboration. All participants, whether a concerned community member or renowned scholar have input in the structure and solutions offered by the Think Tank. Under the model, differing experiences lead to differing expertises, which lead to the diverse collaborations. Our community is certainly in need of diverse solutions to common challenges.

While not everyone will be able to make it to Memphis this week, there is much that can be gained and contributed to this ongoing work. Soon after the meeting, presentations and documents that emerge from the meeting will be made available via the Think Tank’s website. While so much time is spent on concentrating on what is “going wrong” with our community, Black males in particular, this is a unique opportunity to move from a discussion of Black men as endangered and disconnected to a conversation where care, concern and community lie at the center. On this 14th annivesary of the Million Man March, let’s put in the work to move the condition of Black boys from crisis and construct a new future for Black boys and more healthy Black community overall.

One of my favorite things to do when giving speeches or teaching is to provide a quote and ask the audience to identify who said the quote. Often I will quote about Black self-determination or Black love and the answers I typically receive are “Malcolm X” or “Marcus Garvey” but seldom do people guess Martin Luther King, Jr. The video beneath of Dr. King would be the type of source I would quote from. At the twilight of his life, a life that was taken too soon, MLK was more outspoken, more insightful, and more beautifully pro-Black than most remember him. Beneath you will find a clip that is likely from 1967 or 1968. I received it from a friend but I have not been able to track exactly which speech it is from. It features some lines from his 1967 Southern Christian Leadership Conference Address, but it deviates from that speech’s script. Enjoy and may this push us to determine our future and love ourselves more fully.

If you can’t see the video, click here.

hat tip AM and KK

p.s. BHC stands for Black History-Contemporary, check the explanation here.

So for the past few years I’ve been jousting with my family and loved ones around the issue of same sex marriage and repeatedly found my argument falling on deaf ears. In fact what I most often heard was, “I am for gay rights but…” and what would follow would immediately sweep away any indication of actual support for the union of two people from the same sex. As a service to myself and those with whom I will soon have this discussion with, I’ll provide some statements and my rebuttals. Instead of taking our 45 minutes on spinning wheels, let’s work and see and if we can cover some different ground.

1) “I’m for gay rights but … you can’t compare being Black to being gay.”

I feel you, I understand that being Black is different than being gay, but did you realize even in that statement you’re implying that we don’t have Black gay folk? No really, this is the part of the conversation where you keep on throwing out “they” which you might as well then say “those people.” I know you don’t like me bringing that up, because for so long and so often within the dominant White culture of America Black folks are referred to as “they”, “those people” and even recently “that one.” It’s really a process of othering, trying to make a distinction of who is “in” and should receive privileges and who is “out” (pun intended).

2) No, you’re not getting it, I didn’t choose to be Black and I can’t hide being Black.

Touche, you’re probably don’t remember when you chose to be Black, if you ever did. In fact, since we’re talking – heterosexual to heterosexual, I don’t remember when I choose to be straight, but that’s besides the point. The point is that being “Black” and being “gay”, as we sociologists say are both “socially constructed”. Yeah, fancy academic words but definitely important. By socially constructed I mean that we create the boundaries and meanings for these categories. There is a great film that breaks this down and books, but let’s be real, you ain’t gonna pick up a book or watch a movie in the middle of this blog post, so let me do what I can to break it down now. While we’ve come to think of meaning of Blackness as something that can’t be changed, avoided, and pretty much is like gravity, we’ve forgotten that was created. In fact, the dominant images and tropes of “What is Black”, weren’t even our creation. Think about it, how many people who identify as Black, would say “my skin is actually the color of Black.” Very few, in fact, we respond by saying things like “I’m brown, caramel, dark chocolate, etc.” all descriptors that side-step an imposed moniker. Also have we forgotten that for so many years, the oppression of being Black and not having access to rights made many of our ancestors pass? Yeah, that’s right, not all of us are “definitively Black” and certainly what it means to be Black has carried consequences.

3) That’s my point, almost exactly, you can tell when someone is Black usually, but you never know if they’re gay! Well unless they’re really flamboyant or something.

Ah, I get it, if you are gay you don’t have to “look or act gay” and if you don’t act gay, you’ll be fine in society. Yeah, that’s called passing … well actually more appropriately covering. See, as a Black folks, I really hope we think deeply about oppression and how oppressive it must be to not be able to show your love for someone else. If I walk outside and decide to kiss a strange woman in the middle of the street I won’t get many strange glares (other than folks saying “Dumi’s a wild cat”) but if I love someone of the same gender and walk arm-in-arm with them down the street I’m likely to get screw faces down the block. As a result, we, heterosexual folks often say stuff like, “I don’t care what you do behind closed doors but I don’t want to see it.” Interesting… we live in a society were the physical expression of romantic love between people is common, but almost completely forbidden for certain groups. In order to be one’s self we ask people not to express themselves and “pass” or “cover” for straight. That doesn’t sound very equal or liberated to me. Can you imagine a community where love was the norm and hate was not what we used to regulate others behaviors? (that’s rhetorical)

4) Okay, I get that, but doesn’t it piss you off when they use the Civil Rights Movement for their movement?

Once again, what’s up with the us and them type of thinking. Gay Black folks have been around for a long time, to act as if they are not us is to deny part of ourselves. In fact, the most prominent voice and architect of the Civil Rights Movement was Martin Luther King Jr. His work centered on non-violence which he derived from Gandhi but he learned from Bayard Rustin who was a queer Black man. Gay, Lesbian, Bi and Queer Black folks have been at the center of our movement for rights as well as our cultural and social uplift, why try to write them out of history now? Or rather why not acknowledge the central role they’ve played in the collective Black struggle which should include lgbtq brothers and sisters? We can only say gay folks are piggy-backing on the civil rights movement if we don’t acknowledge the contribution of gay folks to the movement. Now has the equal rights movement around sexuality taken on some tropes that came along during the Civil Rights movement, absolutely! But all subsequent movements do that, in fact, a marker of a successful social movement is an adoption of some its techniques. But let’s not forget what the Civil Rights Movement was about! It was fighting to make the 14th and 15th amendments real!!! Those amendments legally gave Black folks equal civil rights but when we looked at how Black people were treated and what they could do, it is seen that it’s unequal. I think we can take a similar look at the Gay Rights movement which is simply fighting for the same rights that heterosexuals have, be it marriage, adequate healthcare, or to live freely in society.

5) I hear what you’re saying but God made “Adam and Eve” not “Adam and Steve”! We’re a Christian country and marriage is a bond before God between man and woman.

Ah, you got me with that one, I didn’t realize a rhyme could break down an entire situation. Oh wait, no it can’t. There is an entrenched myth in this country that marriage is exclusively a religious, often insinuated Christian, practice that the government sanctions. Not true at all, anthropologists have long observed and discussed marriage as beyond Christian and beyond the sanctioning of the state. It is true here that many associate the two, but that does not seem logical that it must also be seen as such. First, the mythos of the United States as  Chrisitian nation is based on ignoring that colonies were founded out of the fleeing of religious oppression. How ironic is it that religion would then become the basis for oppression in 2009 and 1619 when non-Christian Africans arrived in captivity and quickly were proclaimed subhuman and savage. If you are going to invoke the credo of a nation, then I’d suggest you invoke the ones of equality and diversity, which means you are welcome to have your beliefs but your beliefs should not be the basis for impinging on other’s rights.

Now I know by this point you likely still don’t agree with me, but I do want you to see there is validity to a discussion about gay rights and the civil rights or more importantly gay rights as civil and human rights! I do want you to see that all to often we neglect and relegate a part of our people to inhumane and unjustified treatments through our active and passive condoning of covering. I do want us all to think about what MLK meant when he said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” I do want us to really grapple with the fact that if Huey Newton in the 1970s could see the connection, we should be able to see it in 2009. I wrote this because I worry about a people’s ability to turn a blind eye to injustice in a world and nation that often has suggested the unjust is just the way it should be. For a people who have fought for existence and rights, it should only be natural to continue that fight with our brothers and sisters.

***this piece is designed to be a primer and conversation starter. there are many more things to say, but wanted to get the ball rolling and get some basic ideas out there***

“Honest and earnest criticism from those whose interests are most nearly touched, -criticism of writers by readers, of government by those governed, of leaders by those led, – this is the soul of democracy and the safeguard of modern society.” -W.E.B. Du Bois

On Sunday night, Kanye West once again burst into the limelight with his interruption of Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at MTV’s video music awards. His interruption and hyperbolic declaration of Beyonce’s video as the best of the decade caused the twitterverse, facebook, and likely nights and weekends minutes to explode. The cries of  “he’s so”:  foul, without class, self-centered, ______ (fill in your blank) rang out. These cries are the same ones that we’ve all made about West in the past. Despite these cries, somehow he remains at the center of the music universe and Black America and almost universally recognized as spoiled. I began to think, “how can a man that is so disliked remain in that position?”  Well, I think the reason he remains is that he reflects a perfectly spoiled Black middle class identity. That’s right, you can’t disavow Kanye anymore than you can disavow yourself or the folks you went to school with or your fellow readers of this blog.

In a strange way, Kanye represents the dreams of many from the suburban and urban fringe who grew up listening to Hip-Hop but never spent a night in the South Bronx or stepped over crack viles on their daily path to the schoolhouse. Instead, West flaunts his emergent middle class style, penchant for the preppy, and his difference as a positive identity in a hyper-masculine performatively hood-centric rap industry. Whether it’s a glow in the dark or a shag, he uses his late bloomer status to demand all the attention that he thinks he deserves, but was not afforded earlier in his life. Whether he’s talking about his hard times when he moved North when he had to put his Ikea bed together “by himself” or repudiation of formal education/reading, his arrogance publicly displays the markings at a child who had enough, but not all he wanted. Now Kanye is out to have it all and on his own terms. Kanye’s roots capture the new Black middle class, his late mother Donda West, held a PhD and was a college professor and his father, who was non-custodial, is a photojournalist. I’m always amused and repulsed at watching West’s antics, much like watching teen angst … kind of with “contempt and pity”. West insists that he and comrades are being overlooked and rendered invisible within the music world, despite their contributions. Never mind that Kanye and his imagined damsel in distress Beyonce, are hyper-visible. His outbursts and conversations about his class, race, and sexuality could be pulled straight from a Beverly Tatum book. For so long, the Black middle class has been at the margins of our discourse of Blackness and America at large, Kanye wants to set the record straight (pun intended) though in classic fashion,  he’ll start with making himself known.

After his outburst, West apologized via his blog (mind you in all capitals, which was later revised) which resulted in so many hits his site was temporarily shut down. The blog, a arguably middle class tech tool, allowed him to reach out to his fans and foes who wanted to know what the outspoken artist had to say about his outspokenness. The blog, when not home to apologies, is the locale of conspicuous consumption and the flaunting of extravagant cars, shoes, design projects and other aesthetic porn. The blog itself has a huge following because we too understand West’s concern for the material and the exclusive but dually want some form of legitimacy among the larger Black population. Whether blogging, publicly guzzling Hennessey or battling paparazzi Kanye represents what many feel and desire, but simple don’t enact. His brash mockery of the traditional education route, which is a luxury of having highly educated parents, allows us “college kids” to get out of out angst of following the straight and narrow. His outbursts about his greatness, which are laden with overtones of self-doubt, remind us that we too are something special even if we aren’t the rose that grew from concrete. Kanye West is not a person, he is a verb and a metaphor for the lives of the clamoring Black middle class. I feel like the day that we’re ready to deal with our own issues around race, class, and identity will be the same day we’re ready to tell Kanye “ENOUGH!” and mean it. Until then, I’ll expect more tweets, more album sales, and more tragic outbursts that result from a life of living betwixt and between the color and class lines.

Today, Obama will address the nation’s children about the value of education. The speech has been met with a firestorm of controversy, particularly from the Right, calling it indoctrination.  While i think the Right’s panic peddling is wrong, I do think there are some dangerous things about today’s speech. Find out my full thoughts here on a piece I wrote for TheGrio.com.

Today, President Barack Obama will deliver an address to the children of the United States on the value of education. The speech has been met with a firestorm of reaction and disapproval by critics on the right, many of whom have called it a dangerous form of indoctrination.

There is a clamor about this type of speech being unprecedented – even though George H.W. Bush gave an address to U.S. school children in 1991 – and dangerous. But the real danger lies in the lack of emphasis education has received in Obama’s administration and what our young people may be learning about education’s value in our current economy.

The majority of Obama’s administration has been taken up with foreign affairs such as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Domestically, attention has been concentrated on the recession and health care reform. While these problems and resulting policies are important, what happens to the youth of America arguably sets the tone for the next half a century.

Read More

Times are tough but thankfully the iphone is providing some relief. Here’s a brotha who takes Falling Down to a new level.

(if you can’t see the video, click here)

*p.s. This also doubles on as a n***a moment (courtesy of Boondocks)
**p.p.s. The management doesn’t condone all this use of the n-word … or at least I think that’s what I’m supposed to say.

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?

The month of August has been the seat of many important events in the history of African people, particularly people of African descent in America. Black August was founded in memory of the late great George Jackson and the fallen in the rebellion at San Quentin prison. The month is one of reading, reflection, and revolution with an emphasis on understanding Black freedom fighters. I first learned of Black August through the Black August Hip Hop Project which is produced by the NYC chapter of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (more on that next week).  I started nodding my head to the Hip-Hop and moved to nodding my head to the political thought of our political prisoners and freedom fighters.

For me, Black August represents a time when Black folks can think deeply about our communities’ unsung heroes. Not too long ago I wrote about Black leaders and liberation and that post came in part because I feel that people of African descent in America are given too little information on folks born and bred in our neighborhoods and instead look solely outside of our communities for revolutionary guidance. While I find nothing wrong with reading the work and teaching of great revolutionaries across the globe (as our greatest have also done), there is value in knowing deeply that your people have been instrumental to revolutionary thought as others have. Years ago, I wrote a piece or spoke somewhere on Africans and revolution to which someone wrote me and basically said, “If Black people are so great, why do they not have their own theories? Why do they always have to steal from Europeans, Latinos, and Asians?” The question caught me off guard, but upon deeper reflection, I remembered our people didn’t simply parrot the theories of others but added nuance, complexity and even diverged from previous revolutionary thinkers. This is missed if you don’t study the works of folks Marcus Garvey, Assata Shakur, George Jackson, Fred Hampton, Elaine Brown, Angela Davis, to name but a few. The reality is all too often we skim these giants and miss the depth with which they each grappled with struggle. In fact, their grappling with struggle in theoretical and practical terms make them beautifully human and provide opportunities and openings for us to improve on this struggle. I have been taking the month to re-familiarize myself with Assata Shakur, George Jackson and Elaine Brown because I want to make sure we do not recreate the same egregious errors around gender and sexuality in our continuation of the Black freedom struggle.

I recognize that not all of us will take the remainder of the month to dig into texts and speeches, but there are still important ways to make Black August meaningful. One of the greatest contributions in the last 40 years to Black struggle and liberation has been the movement against the prison industrial complex. As Jackson wrote about those incarcerated,

“They have become aware that their only hope lies in resistance. They have learned that resistance is actually possible. The holds are beginning to slip away. Very few men imprisoned for economic crimes or even crimes of passion against the oppressor feel that they are really guilty. Most of today’s black convicts have come to understand that they are they most abused victims of an unrighteous order.”

You don’t have to be one outside protesting prison and fighting for prisoners rights to continue to contribute to the struggle of Black liberation. A smaller yet important step could be to reach out to someone behind bars with a kind or inspirational word. All too often I think the value of communication is forgotten. There are many locked up brothers and sisters who could use a word of support and love, it takes a few minutes, but can brighten a month. Whichever way you spend your Black August may it be in the spirit of our ancestors and fighting with love for the future of Black folks.

I was recently sent a clip from This American Life from 2007 that covers “The Weiner Circle” in Chicago, a local late night eatery on the north side. The story begins benignly discussing the “insult culture” of the late night destination for post-bar drunken attendees. The story of course gets interesting when the racial reality of the place is covered. The employees, almost exclusively all Black and the clientele, exclusively all White. And yes, the owners of the shop are White men. Chicago’s notorious hyper-segregation meets in the little diner and results in epithet slinging and even request for  a “chocolate milk shake.” I’ll let you watch the story to find out what this all means.

If it’s not embedded for you, click here.

I am undoubtedly late to this, but I am most interested in what happens when the “rules of engagement” are lifted and people “speak freely.” In a society where so much is corked and coded around race and gender, does it really help to uncork these sentiments?

Hat tip to  SW via FSL

Today marks the birthday of the one of the greatest African leaders of all time, the Honorable Marcus Garvey! While vilified by false charges and re-written narratives of failed mobilization, Garvey remains one of greatest and more stirring members in the history of the world. At its height, it has been argued that Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association was the largest organization of Africans in the history of the world. Garvey’s forward thinking on the African Diaspora continues to challenge us to rethink, rework, and re-envision “Africa for Africans, those at home and those abroad.” Garvey’s boldness should continue to motivate us in the face of continued oppression of African peoples globally. In my opinion, there would have been no Nation Of Islam, Civil Rights Movement, Black Power Movement or many of the other movements that we lay claim to that focused on the struggle for Black liberation without Garvey. We give thanks for your legacy and take the lessons forward.

Here is one of two known recordings of Garvey’s voice as he breaks down the call for UNIA.

So one of the problems with being a sociologist of race and offering public commentary is it sometimes creates the illusion that “anyone can do it.” I present to you, a failed analysis of the digital divide. Don’t try this at home kids!

Courtesy of failblog.org

I often spend time thinking and writing generically about the ancestors and the energy and guidance that they provide for us on our path but sometimes you realize how real and specific those ancestors are/were. Last night, as I was surfing the internet casually, I came across a blogpost/tribute to Charles Huntley Nelson. Nelson was my painting instructor at Spelman when I was attending Morehouse. Around the AUC the resident painting instructor was Arturo Lindsay, an artist who was revered throughout the African Diaspora, but he was on sabbatical when I was to take his class. I remember being disappointed that I wouldn’t study under Lindsay. Instead I was to be instructed by some guy named “Charles Nelson.” I remember feeling robbed, given that I had spent copious hours (I probably spent way more hours in undergrad doing art than studying sociology) darting through the painting studio where I often found Lindsay working and felt as if it was a rite of passage to take painting with him. Thankfully, I experienced a different rite of passage when I took the course with Charles. A time and a course that I would not trade.

Charles was a young guy, not much older than me having just finished up his MFA from Howard. When I walked in the first day it was clear he was soft-spoken, a bit reserved, and awkward in a way. But these features somehow drew me to him. Though he was the most junior on the faculty, I can say that I honestly took his critique more seriously than any other instructors I had during my artistic training. I took him seriously because I felt his love for producing art that was present, past, and future tense at once. He became my favorite professor in Art at Spelman because I felt “he got me.” Charles got me because he made art that was loosely yet well crafted, that was hip-hop/not hip-hop, that was political/non-political, that was racial/post-racial, that engaged the audience, that said fuck you to the audience, that critiqued the participants, that loved the participants. His work represented the reality of Black masculinity in this country: coherent contradiction. In sum, he produced the work that I had dreamed of producing since I was a teenager and continue to dream of today. Whenever I heard ruminations of artists that were on the cutting edge or emerging from the Atlanta scene I always would feel a bit pissed that his name was not mentioned (he was not only tied into the Atlanta Art scene but was also part of its life blood), but also I felt a bit of pride because he was the best kept secret, you know “the next big thing”. Those were my dreams, I’m not sure they were his.

The reality is that I wasn’t the closest to Charles, but he had a huge impact on my life. I never got a chance to see Charles again after I finished at Morehouse but we emailed me a couple of times after college to check in. His work was always dope to me and a couple of years ago I even worked extra hard  to steal an image of his site for a blog post (yeah, if you’re reading this from the ancestoral realm, you caught me, but I didn’t put in on a tee shirt of nothing like that, chill!). Each time I saw his updates on shows and installations I was “proud” of the work he was doing. To be honest, I’m not sure he would have accepted the “proud” thing, especially since he influenced me way more than I influenced him. Not to mention, in my experience, he was the kind of dude to shirk off praise and quietly throw a middle finger to affirmations that were half-earned. And if you know me, I appreciate that sincerely. He left a mark on me that I carry with me to this day in my own work in sociology and beyond. He really showed me you should take you work seriously and not seriously at the same time. He taught me if you can’t create it and destroy it, laugh and cry about it, then it probably ain’t worth doing. Thanks so much for walking with me briefly on this plain Charles and I look forward to you spreading your wisdom on all of us from that great beyond.

This is one the backdrops from his backdrops project, probably one of my favorite things he did (hopefully the links will get fixed so you can share his work).

Here are some links to reflections on Charles Huntley Nelson

Fahamu Pecou (where I learned of his passing)

AJC

Atlanta Examiner

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.

We here at Uptown Notes are very much in accord with the African belief of respecting one’s elders and are anti police terrorism … so in honor of that here’s some elders & non-police terrorism! Just be glad these aren’t your grandmothers!!!

Click here!!!!!

Sorry the video won’t embed right, but it’s worth the click… I promise.

Today, August 4th, marks the birthday of Barack Obama, the President of the United States. I can honestly say I’ve never paid attention to any president’s birthday as much as Obama’s because I’ve been inundated with emails, punditry and plain silliness about his place of birth. If you’re not familiar, “Birthers” are sets of “Americans” who claim that Barack Obama has not provided sufficient proof of birth in the United States, thus violating his ability to be president. If you don’t know why this is thoroughly wrong, click these links 1, 2, 3. Now what I’m more concerned with is the message that I’ve received from Black folks regarding the birth and legitimacy of Obama as president. Yes, Virginia, there are Black birthers. While I’m not suggesting they’re in the majority, they still constitute an overlooked demographic in this population.

Sign on Harlem's Atlah Ministries

I was recently explaining the position of birthers to a sister of mine and she said, “oh well, that’s logical.” I stopped, looked back at her and said, “it’s logical if you don’t do any research on the issue.” I realized the birther flames continue to be fanned by the power of bad information and a backdrop of doubt rooted in racial paranoia. This backdrop of racial paranoia has been at the center of discussions of the birther movement as a ‘panic peddling’ scheme which draws from racial xenophobia. While I find this accurate, I think it is understated and gets framed as simply conservative Whites who are birthers, I concede they’re the most active, but they’re not alone. I argue racism is a system, to which all of us are subject, and thus the reality is that questions of Obama’s legitimacy remain just beneath the level of conscience for many folks, including Black folks. In a way, I’ve been subject to this in “waiting for the other shoe to drop” and find out via a scandal that something is invalid about Obama who has has been elevated to prototype status within and outside of our community. While its easy to see how conservative White birthers would be coming from a position of doubt for Obama as the “other” and have a fear of a Black President, similar roots exist for people of color. I think Black birthers or non-challengers to birthers are rooted in our own doubts of legitimacy which result from living in a white supremacist racial order. While this doubt beneath the level of conscience did not stop folks from voting for Obama, in the face of questioning or challenge, the willingness to “go  to bat” for Obama or dig deeper for information becomes truncated. While I could say that this is just an isolated incident of “crazy folks” and we know not to deal with crazy (you know what they say about arguing with fools), I think it signals something deeper about information seeking, racism, and technology.

Throughout the election and at other times I’ve been dismayed by the way bad information gets passed along the internet like colds. You know, things like Black folks are due to lose our right to vote, or that the US Post office is destroying Black History stamps, the list goes on and on.  While most of us grew up throwing out chain letter that were mailed to the house, it appears when we get “chain emails” with tidbits of information we often pass them along as if they’re all important PSAs. My sister tends to call these emails “Drinking water will rape your baby” emails because they often have some seriously outlandish claims, but the outlandish claims stand in part due to our own lack of information seeking and willingness to challenge. When it comes to incidents of Black folks, Obama, Muslims, and other minority communities, I sadly see more misinformation passed along and remain unchallenged. The consequence to false perceptions of these communities is particularly dangerous given the segregation, prejudice, and paranoia of non-Whites in many parts of the US. To me, it is ironic and scary that the more access we have to information via the internet, the less we use this access to properly interrogate claims and be prepared for informed dissent. While I hope the birthers will soon die out, I wonder what will be next in the web of bad information, technology, and race … and more importantly, what we’re willing to do to stop its spread.

Finally a skit on Gates that made me laugh.

Hat tip to ZM

I can enjoy songs about summer… check the video by Dead Prez for Summertime and make sure to cop “Pulse of the People“.

Hope you’re all making the most of these days!

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.

So there are few things I find more ridiculous than Jeremih’s (where the hell did the “a” in his name go) Birthday Sex song, so this parody made my day. It’s of equal (low) quality, perfect!

Hattip to BB!

For the past few weeks, my inbox has been inundated with references to Whites Only swimming pools in Philadelphia, the arrest of Henry Louis Gates and things of the like. With each subsequent email, I’ve been reminded “this is post-racial America” 1, 2. The type of tongue-in-cheek commentary, I imagine, is meant to elucidate the continued significance of race in America. Unfortunately, I see three issues with this: 1) these emails and posts tend to go to the choir (this is not a new point so I won’t go into it), 2) these cases are extreme examples of racism and exclusion in contemporary United States, which makes them easy to dismiss for everyday people and 3) they don’t demonstrate the ways that race operates perniciously beneath the surface to include some and exclude many.  I do think these cases need to be highlighted so pool owners, police, and everyday people can be aware certain behaviors will not be tolerated, but they’re also all to easy to disassociate from for the majority of Americans who identify with the idea of “postraciality.” They’re rationalized away as the actions of “a few bad apples” rather than be seen as symptoms of the national disease of racism. These incidents become flash points in the media and even talking points in our commentary on race and reality, but the issue with a flash point is that it is the lowest level at which our sensibilities around race will flare brightly, but then they quickly dim. Unfortunately, inequalities of race have not dimmed, nor should our fire to expose and fight them.

Now this is not going to be a “complain and blame” post, instead, I’d like to offer some humble suggestions (or as humble as one can be if they’re writing on a blog which is kinda an egotistical thing to start with, but ya’ll know what I’m saying). It is critical that we begin to talk about race in ways that expose the subtle fabric of inequality. While it’s easy to explain why Skip Gates’ harassment and subsequent arrest were wrong and wrongheaded, it’s more difficult to explain how policies leave many innocent men and women sitting in jail or on death row due to false accusations and procedural bureaucracy. It’s easy to point on the wrongness of exclusion from the Valley Swim club but it’s more difficult to explain why suburban schools are almost as and sometimes more unequal than urban schools, in part due to their exclusion of Blacks from equal educational resources. It’s easy to suggest that race matters when Sotomayor is berated in her confirmation hearings, but it is more difficult to explain the significance of critical race theory to understanding and interpreting the law. As scholars, as activists, and as citizens we’ve give up the project of relaying the complex conditions to the masses who need to be reminded not that race still matters, but the various ways that it still matters and what role all can play in racial justice.

I think it is wholly possible to take the flash point moments and deepen dialogue, but its rare that it happens. Instead, we recycle old dialogues on race and its significance when more complex racism(s) exist. The reality is that we’ve got to get equally complex in our discussions of the intersections of race, class, gender and sexuality (to name a few). If we are serious about “justice for all” we must update our discourse and activism. Because as Brother Malcolm said, “The White power structure is just as much interested in maintaining slavery as it was 100 years ago. Only now they use modern methods of doing so.” Let’s expose the modern methods as well as the old!

*footnote if you’ve never seen the dialogue between Malcolm X, Wyatt Tee Walker James Farmer, and Alan Morrison do yourself a favor and watch it!

**Shout out to Native Notes for being on the same page with that quote!

One of my favorite portions of Assata are the verses interspersed. In honor of our great freedom fighter Assata Shakur I’m posting “Affirmation.” As the US re-articulates relations with Cuba remember, “Hands off Cuba, Hands off Assata” (sign here) and love to all the PPs.

I believe in living,

I believe in the spectrum

of Beta days and Gamma people.

I believe in sunshine.

In windmills and waterfalls,

tricycles and rocking chairs.

And i believe that seeds grow into sprouts.

And sprouts grow into trees.

I believe in the magic of the hands.

And in the wisdom of the eyes.

I beleive in race and tears.

And in the blood of infinity.

I believe in life.

And i have seen the death parade

march through the torso of the earth,

sculpting mud bodies in its path.

I have seen the destruction of the daylight,

and see bloodthirsty maggots

prayed to and saluted.

I have seen the kind become the blind

and the blind become the bind

in one easy lesson.

I have walked on cut glass.

I have eaten crow and blunder bread

and breathed the stench of indifference.

I have been locked by the lawless.

Handcuffed by the haters.

Gagged by the greedy.

And, if i know any thing at all,

it’s that a wall is just a wall

and nothing more at all.

It can be broken down.

I believe in living.

I believe in birth.

I believe in the sweat of love

and in the fire of truth.

And i believe that a lost ship,

steered by tired, seasick sailors,

can still be guided home

to port.

I love Hip-Hop, I love educational research. I love the piece my colleague Christopher Emdin, of Teacher’s College- Columbia University, has put together on why autotune and ‘acting white’ should be laid to rest. Here’s an excerpt, I encourage to read the WHOLE thing, yeah like it’s a class homie!

One key comparison to be made between autotune and “Acting White” is that both are brilliant inventions/ concepts that have emerged from sparse use in the past to become very popular in contemporary discourse. They have both brought their re-inventors much acclaim and have been so widely accepted that they have made people who use them untouchable icons in their respective fields. They have also done wonders for the artistic and academic careers of many people who “hop on the bandwagon” of each of them. In addition, they both create a solution for a problem (one with not having a good singing voice, and another with not having a justifiable cause of low achievement) that sound so close to perfect, that one may think that there was never a problem at all. A gruff voiced rapper can easily become a smooth crooner with autotune. Likewise, a child in an urban school can easily be justified for not being successful because he “doesn’t want to act white.”

Continue Reading (well you’ll be starting at the top but click anyway)

Sidenote: if you’d like to know more about the strange career the “fear of acting white” theory check out Signithia Fordham’s 2008 piece in the Anthropology and Education Quarterly (Vol 39) and “Beyond Acting White” by Erin McNamara Horvat and Carla O’Connor

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.

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!

This is a pretty good one that comes from the Root. It’s time we had a little fun with the super Black couple and how they relate to everyday folks.

Like just about everyone else last week, I read “What Single Women Can Learn From Michelle”—Jenée Desmond-Harris’ sista grrl power manifesto—with keen interest. After all, I’m just as concerned as the next guy with staying up on what “successful black women, with college degrees, ambitious careers and five-year plans” are really thinking.

I ought to be—for 10 years I’ve been married to a woman who fits that exact description.

You can’t argue with Jenée’s thesis: her coterie of pedigreed, upwardly mobile black women have to dig deeper for unseen potential if they’re looking for “Mr. Right.”

But if Barack Obama Part Deux is what it’s going to take to satisfy them, then her advice is going to leave a lot of women single as hell.

Personally, I blame Dwayne Wayne. Those endless reruns of your favorite episodes of A Different World get y’all completely twisted when it comes to evaluating a potential mate. But that’s beside the point. Here are a few tips to straighten things out:

Stop comparing regular guys to Barack Obama.

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hat tip to CW

Oh and to remind you that Barack is human… ugh he must be looking at a dime on the floor in this picture…

Here is a hilarious edition of This Week in Blackness by Elon James White. This week’s BET awards were … interesting… here’s his take

I was at conference when I received the news that Michael Jackson had transitioned to the ancestral realm and i immediately entered into denial. Telling my good friend, “No, you’re wrong, that’s just a rumor.” After I got over the denial and thought of all the jokes that were no longer appropriate I got to really thinking about Michael Jackson and what legacy his work had for me. It wasn’t just dancing hard and infectious tunes, his perspective on race and race relations was different from mine, but I learned a great deal from him.

I remember watching Michael Jackson’s skin tone lighten and nose narrow before my very eyes. As I came of age and was told, “The only two things you have to do are be Black and die” I watched MJ challenge on of those conditions … or did he? While many will point to Jackson as the prototypical case of self-hate and embodiment of lack of self awareness, I think Michael was painfully aware of who he was and made that message a continued part of his life’s work. Jackson was unequivocally a child of the Civil Rights movement and a humanist in his approach towards issues of inequality. While folks over look it, he was very much concerned with inequality and saw his stardom as a platform to infuse the political in the popular.

From his humanitarian work on “We are the World” to this treatise on personal and social responsibility “Man in the Mirror” Michael had a subtle way of asking his listeners to draw on commonality to increase human treatment and dignity. While I appreciate MJ’s public project now, I definitely appreciated it much less so in my younger days. When he released Black or White in 1991. While I thought the song was banging, I was becoming more politicized and felt that it did matter whether you were Black or White. The video presented race morphing which made many think about the commonality of humanity, but I saw it as an embracing of a post-racial worldview. This however was never the case for Michael. In my read of his work he desired that race would not carry meaning, but acknowledged it still did.

In his early and mid-career years, MJ remained publicly connected the Civil Rights establishment via his relationship with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. As a child of civil rights he advocated for a multicultural egalitarian world. In his later years, he developed a burgeoning relationship to Islam via his brother Jermaine Jackson and the Nation of Islam via legal support and management. I remember attending the Millions More March rumors floating that Michael was going to come out, perform and publicly announce his reversion to Islam, but this public day never came. MJ’s affiliations to Islam and the NOI undoubtedly lead to a more explicit racial lens which he later used to “call out” Tommy Mottola president of Sony. People wrote off his public outcry as a link in the media weaved “chain of insanity” and Jackson suddenly moved from “humanist” to “race baitor” in the public imagination. Unfortunately, Jackson’s career was already at a low point and his allegations were not taken seriously, but I’ve always wondered what would have happened if the world took MJ’s cry of unfair treatment seriously? What if the King of Pop was able to raise questions of equity within the industry that resulted in different representation, power, and access? Did his invocation of racial injustice invalidate him in the eyes of many who hung on his humanist messages of equality for all?

No matter whether old Michael or young Michael, he should also be remembered for his project of highlighting and challenging inequality of all forms. Even though to many he was considered “racially transcendent” he did not buy into this image. Instead, he used his popularity as platform to the political. Jackson was an amazing artist but his subtle genius around infusing a brand of social justice into his music should also not be forgotten. The media bonanza behind Jackson will soon die down, but I hope his legacy of social justice will not.

I’ve been traveling for work, but trust me, this could not wait until next Friday for a Friday Funny. I have one questions, 1) “where the hell were the ushers!?!”

question 2) “what the hell!?!”

Yes, you did just witness “Hurricane Chris” perform Halle Berry in the Louisiana house chamber in a suit.

hat tip to SUSG

“I was raised like a Muslim, praying to the east” -Guru of Gang Starr

My first real introduction to Islam came from Hip-Hop, as is the case for many of my peers. Coming of age on the east coast in the late 80s and 90s meant that Islam became part of the songs you listened to, the names children were given, and was part of “fighting the power.” As a teenager, my naive understanding of the deen of Islam was small, but Hip-Hop showed me that being Muslim and a rapper demanded a different set of standards for living, from not eating pork to dropping knowledge in rhymes. In short, I was in love, but from a far. Fast forward and I find myself in my 30s and have seen the influence of Islam come and go in Hip-Hop culture, but was I reminded of the power of spirituality and creativity merged when watching New Muslim Cool which premiers tonight on PBS POV. Check your local listing.

There are a number of reviews of New Muslim Cool already popping up so if you want a more traditional review check the the Times or for a piece with good context check the Root. The film traces the protagonist Hamza of the M-Team (Muhajideen Team) as he forms a family, builds a career in community transformation, and rocks as a Puerto Rican Muslim MC. Whether hopping on stage with flaming machetes, making dua in Al-Aqsa Islamic Center in Philadelphia, or speaking to Christians in prison, Hamza shows the power of being grounded in spirituality, yet not encumbered by culture. I was most impressed that the film showed indigenous Islam at its finest. (Indigenous Islam usually refers to people born and raised in the US who have practiced Islam outside of a predominantly Muslim cultural context … if you really want to learn more, in particular about the role of Black folks laying the foundation for Islam in America, check out Islam and the Blackamerican.) While the recent 15 years have put a face on Islam in America that is predominantly Arab and South Asian, there are large indigenous communities practicing various forms of Islam and continuing to challenge and refine the relationship between the religion and culture.

The film smoothly captures the contours of Hamza’s life ranging from the struggles of his newly open Masjid (Mosque) getting raided by the Feds, his own quest to grow as a father, and his entering into a cross-cultural marriage. Unfortunately, a capstone narrative on how Hip-Hop fully fit into his evolved life was missing. Filmed over the span of multiple years, I wanted to know, how did Hamza’s view on Hip-Hop as a site for resistance evolve? How had his embracing of Malcolm X evolved as he studied more? How did he see other Muslims in Hip-Hop, particularly non-Sunni Muslims? There is really rich territory to be unearthed on the marriage, divorce, and sometimes estranged relationship between Hip-Hop and Islam. But no film can cover all the bases. I thoroughly enjoyed New Muslim Cool for its careful treatment of Hamza who beautifully embodies two of the most powerful social forces of the past 30 years: Hip-Hop and Islam. As a child of Hip-Hop and an admirer of Islam, I was pleased to see that the “new muslim cool” may just be the maturation of the old muslim cool.

There are many things to be fearful in this world bears, H1N1, back taxes, but certainly not Black leaders. From the title of the post, you may be confused. We’ve elected Barack Obama, we have a Black RNC chair, so what could possibly be the fear of Black leaders? Well the catch is I’m not talking about Black elected officials, I’m talking about the now “passe” Black leaders of old and present. You know, Marcus Garvey, Fannie Lou Hamer, Khaled Muhammad, Assata Shakur, Louis Farrakhan, Winnie Mandela, Jeremiah Wright, and all the other folks you were taught weren’t worth listening to. Those who get washed out of Black History month, those who get forgotten and replaced in national memory with more convenient or palatable leaders. I’m talking about organic leaders, the ones whose names you may be familiar with, but mysteriously their work is downplayed and their legacies remain silenced and often hazy.

A couple of months ago, I got a chance to see Reverend Jeremiah Wright who became infamous during the 2008 presidential campaign. Wright is the Pastor emeritus of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago and a long time fixture in Black Chicago. Obama’s candidacy brought large amounts of attention to Trinity and Wright’s leadership while he was pastor. Despite the copious attempts to destroy Obama via Wright, Barack Obama was able to be elected, but Wright and many other contemporary Black leaders were thrown to the sidelines and even under the bus.

The lecture I attended by Wright was on a Saturday and was for multiple Brooklyn congregations. The subject was the African influence on “mainline Western religion.” Wright beautifully presented the significance and relevance of African culture not just historically but contemporarily. Bouncing between topics and disciplines, he really demonstrated his ability to see the struggle of Black people and the struggles of Bible as analogous if not synonmous. While this has been a long standing tradition of Black religion, he did this while highlighting the small and large ways that people of the African Diaspora sometimes run away from our culture in an attempt to assimilate into some Western ideal of culture and religious practice. His commitment to challenging “Western logic” and individual-centered philosophy with more African-oriented epsitomologies was inspiring. Watching Wright speak, I could not help but think of the energy, vitality and truth that Black leaders exhibit when they are free on confines.

We remain in a moment where people are beginning to realize that the election of Barack Obama does not mean a Black political agenda, one in which race is central, will continue to be pushed into the public sphere. So the question becomes, who advances the concerns of the faces at the bottom of the well? Most of the aforementioned leaders held little allegiance to mainstream insitutions and thus took serious the task of “bringing voice to the voiceless.” While this often left them at odds with groups, media conglomerates and activists, in reality, it may be what we need now more than ever before. While Black leaders not being attached to traditional institutions holds its harzards, it also further opens up dialogues in the black public sphere. The challenge of Black radical leaders is to go head up with “liberal” and “conservative” figures, but still remain true to a project of representing the interests of Black people, not simply their own interests. The double edged sword can often be the downfall of leaders, but its the thing that makes me most hopeful that a Black political agenda will continue to exist in the era of  Black president.

This week, I’ve got a nice set of deep and thorough posts on some things you may have seen recently, but not really thought about what was happening beneath the surface.

Up first, a really thought provoking analysis of Top Chef and the racial divide provided by Tamara Nopper of Temple. I love watching Reality TV, not just because I like to melt my mind, but also because there are so many raced and classed things occurring. This post marries sociology and bravo tv… I’m in heaven.

I love the show Top Chef. I watch it religiously and regularly chat about it with fellow fan and friend Kevin Eddington. Although more of a foodie than me—he actually knows what sous vide means—we share concerns about the show’s racial dynamics, some of which I want to discuss here. Specifically, I want to explore how Asian Americans and African Americans are represented on Top Chef and in the process, draw from approaches emphasizing the Black/non-Black divide.

Asian Americans are present as contestants, chefs, judges, and of course, hosts, and Hung Huynh won the title on season three. Yet Asian Americans face particular racial expectations: they’re encouraged to talk about their ethnicities or immigration histories, badmouthed for cooking too many Asian-influenced dishes, or expected to cook Asian food regardless of training. For example, Huynh was told that despite his skill and “technique,” his food lacked “soul.”

White head judge Tom Colicchio, reminding Huynh of Huynh’s Vietnamese background, said he didn’t “see” him in his food. Such comments reinforce the model minority myth, which celebrates “Asian” work ethic and mechanical productivity while denying us unconditional subjectivity, sociability, and authority automatically afforded whites.

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This past week, in my opinion, President Obama gave a really amazing speech at the University of Cairo. But more than just words are needed. Here is a very in depth and insightful post by Number 2 written before and after the speech from There is No Spoon. By the way, that blog is so dope that it’s banned in China … not to mention it’s one of my other blog homes, so bookmark it!!!!

This is a general problem with most US foreign policy types. They are interested in improving America’s image, without addressing the reasons that image has slipped with a less-than-acceptable level of honesty. They also are either completely ignorant, or disingenuous, about the Muslim world. I’ve spent time in some of these countries, and let me tell you, they know their politics. I’m not talking about the rich, well-to-do, professional class. I’m talking about the peasants, the street vendors, the cab drivers…the “people”, if you will. Unlike mainstream America, which knows less about history and current politics than it does about the previous round of American Idol (something I largely attribute to a poor education system and a press that I at times consider somewhere between Pravda and Hearst’s New York Journal), Muslims are much more aware of politics, even if they throw some conspiracies into the picture.

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Lastly, the death of David Carradine got some media attention but one thing that I expected to see, but didn’t hear much of was a commentary like this. Racialicious publishes a controversial analysis entitled, “David Carradine’s Legacy of Shame” by Atlasien, here’s a taste:

He was a famous and much-loved actor. Tributes to Carradine are pouring in. In discussion threads devoted to Carradine, you’ll find many nostalgic accounts of childhood evenings spent watching his TV show, Kung Fu.

Some Asian-Americans, such as myself, may find these tributes quite upsetting.

I remind myself that David Carradine was an actor. He was doing a job for money. It’s difficult to draw a work/life dividing line when it comes to celebrity actors, but the line does exist. And I cannot presume to judge the moral worth of David Carradine’s life. He was a human being whose life is just as worthy of respect, just as precious, as the life of any other human being.

But I can judge his career. Fuck David Carradine’s godawful racist career!

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Alright, you all should be full off of that. Leave some thoughts… and not just over on facebook, on the original blog post too… don’t worry you can use your facebook login

This morning on Good Morning America, I was greeted with a disturbing story on a “gang” murder in suburbia, but I was less disturbed by the details of the death, which are sad, but more disturbed by the way it was reported. GMA went through great lengths to paint a portrait of perfect suburbia being impinged upon by a deadly gang force. Without using the words, the story signaled and screamed race. The practice of not talking about race explicitly but talking about race is common, but particularly dangerous in this case. The loss of Chris Jones’ life is one matter, but the underhanded sentencing of the lives of the boys who are alleged to have committed the crime is another.

The segment opens trying to draw viewers in by introducing the silent danger in suburbs … gangs!

“We have an interesting story for you. Many of us believe that gang violence is old news, you know about it, it’s in the inner cities, it’s about drugs. That’s not true, that’s not accurate, there’s a whole world of violence out there that puts kids in suburbs at risk. We want to tell you of this one mother in Maryland who did everything she could to protect her child from bullies, turned out they were gang members. And just a block from their home her son met a fate that even his mother had never imagined …”

Voice overs to the story give you information like townhouses in the area cost “350,000 dollars” and that Chris was an  “all American boy” who loved things like baseball, hockey, and wanted to be a police officer. The way the story is framed and unpacks it is meant to scream whiteness, suburban safety, and crisis. Chris’ death is discussed and eventually the “suspects” are splashed across the screen, they are Black youth. While the story doesn’t discuss it, the boys alleged in the attack attended the same school and presumably lived in the same community as Chris. The reality is that suburban Crofton, Maryland is like many areas, it is not all White and likely has not dealt well with the incorporation of non-Whites (in this case Black) into its community. While suburbia is painted as perfect, the reality is that suburbs are engineered spaces that have been used to “escape” some urban hazards and buffer their residents from the social world around them. Regardless of Crofton’s public image and its besmirchment, I am most disturbed that the reporting of Chris Jones’ murder serves exacerbate racial tensions; rather than open for spaces of dialogue.

A couple months back, the Atlantic published an article entitled “American Murder Mystery” about Memphis, Tennessee that discussed the issue of crime. The piece, which features the research of Richard Janikowski and Phyllis Betts who “crack” the mystery of American murder by uncomfortably suggesting residents who relocated from public housing to scattered site and mixed-income housing travelled to new areas and carried their “old ways” of violence and gangs. Recently, I sat in a GIS mapping workshop where approximately 1/3 of the participants were law enforcement agents from suburban areas who were interested in using mapping to find “crime hot spots” so they could more “effectively” patrol neighborhoods and groups. It reminded me of the sad reality that a little bit of social science knowledge can be a dangerous thing, particularly for those who are unjustly and unnecessarily targeted.

The overtone in GMA piece and the Atlantic piece suggest that neighborhoods that are “well off” will soon be over-run by dark violent, inner-city forces. Rather than open a dialogue about communities and responsibly dealing with difference, they feed into racial paranoia. Rather than explore the ways that policy can mitigate some of the tensions between communities, we receive more fodder for race conflict carried out using non-racial language but overt racial signals. Rather than look seriously at the lives of all people in suburban communities, both Black and White, right and poor, we get conviction on young Black boys in the public eye. Don’t believe me, read the comments on the piece.

I am no journalist, but I think I that the implications of pieces like these are huge. America is arguably more on “racial alert” now than it has been in the past. The arrival of an African American president has not been without impact in both positive and negative ways. We need to be informed about what is happening in the nation, but we also must be critical consumers. Having lived through the Central Park Five case and recognizing the railroading that young Black men have historically received in the American Judicial system, I cannot help but wonder, what was the goal of the piece: information or inflammation?

Look, I’m sorry these three web items have me rolling.

First, I thought the LeBron and Kobe commercials were pretty funny, but this is damn funny.

Second, I told ya’ll that swagger needed to stop, but Cracked has the list of the other 6 most over-used terms in Hip-Hop that were around before Hip-Hop and need to die. Adjust your slang tongue accordingly!

#5 Shiznit:

You know who still says “shiznit”? Fucking nobody. If you still find yourself using this or any other word with “iz” inserted in the middle in a non-ironic fashion, please stizop izmmiznediatelizz. You aren’t doing yourself any favors by clinging to this one. You’d be better off adding “iggedy” to every other word like Das EFX or some shit.

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Lastly, this one literally had me crying. It comes from Danish TV when a martial artists “expert” decides to break dozens of coconuts in a minute … my favorite!!!!

I haven’t commented on the nomination of Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. For the most part, I’m pretty excited, pending finding out her opinions on abortion, but here are two interesting pieces on Sotomayor and race. The first is from Newsweeek by Raina Kelley, my favorite quote is, “if there is an affirmative action fairy, she sucks at her job.”

I can’t imagine what it must be like to be a white man nowadays. Spending years of your life preparing to be a Supreme Court justice—attending the right schools, slogging your way through state supreme courts, appeals courts and circuit courts, writing opinions, writing dissents and finally when an opening appears, the choice goes to another equally qualified candidate based on her race and gender.

Oh, wait! I can imagine it. As a black woman in the professional world, I’m very familiar with the concept, and not just because I’ve studied it in school CONTINUE READING

The second piece, by Sherrilyn Ifill, discusses Sotomayor, race, and the Ricci case in New Haven (my hometown). The perpetual labeling of consideration of race as racism frames the suggestion Sotomayor is racist.

The vitriolic and unwarranted charges of racism lodged against Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor this past week constitute a new low in confirmation character assassination. CONTINUE READING

Lastly, Media Matters, rightly places context around the quote, “”I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life” that has been exploited by the Right to bolster racial paranoia around Sotomayor’s nomination.

Alright kids, that’s what I have for you today on the Sotomayor round-up. There are a lot of things happening locally that I’d love to comment on, but just haven’t had the time. I’ll be back!

On Sunday, Harlem will play host to an important conversation and dialogue about the Black Left and its direction. It features a great set of panelists, including my presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney. Well I told ya’ll I wasn’t voting for Obama. The event is sponsored, in part by, the Harlem Tenants Council, check out and support their work. There are a lot of great things brewing uptown, don’t miss out! (Hat tip to AH!)

Please note time change: Forum starts at 4 PM

Harlem Political Forum

In Commemoration of Hubert Harrison:

The Voice of Early 20th Century Harlem Radicalism: 1883 to 1918

Which Way Forward for the Black Left?

A Critical Analysis of Obama’s Presidency & the State of Black Politics

Sunday, May 31, 2009 at 4 pm

St. Mary’s Church, 521 West 126th St.

(Between Amsterdam Avenue and Old Broadway)

Reception: 2 to 3:30 PM:

Food & Drink: Admission $10

Forum Admission: $5 Suggested Donation

(To help defray cost of event)

Panelists: Cynthia McKinney, Presidential candidate 2008 and former US Congresswoman; Glen Ford, Executive Editor, Black Agenda Report; Professor Anthony Monteiro, African American Studies Department, Temple University; Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report Editor & Senior Columnist; Mae Jackson, Writer & Activist; Nellie Bailey, Harlem Tenants Council;

• New York City Council Proclamation Presented Posthumous to Hubert Harrison. Accepted by Harrison’s Family: Charles Richardson (Grandson); Ilva Harrison (Grand-daughter); & Yvette Richardson (Great Grand-daughter). Remarks by Jeffrey B. Perry, Author of “A Harrison Reader”& “Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism 1883 to 1918”.

• Tribute to the Lore & Legacy of Mamadou Chenyelu, Journalist, Publisher and Author of “Harlem Ain’t Nothing But a Third World Country: The Global Economy, Empowerment Zones and the Colonial Status of Africans in America” who made his transition on April 4, 2009 in Silver Spring, Maryland after a long bout of illness. Statement by Author/Journalist Herb Boyd. (Mamadou’s family including his brother James McCall will participate in the tribute).

Brief Highlights: Connecting the Political Analysis to Local Struggles

Bernard White on WBAI Political Battle; Stella D‘Oro Striker; & Columbia University Expansion into Harlem.

“The test of vision in a leader is the ability to foresee the immediate future, the necessary consequences of a course of conduct and the dependable sentiments of those whom he assumes to lead. . . . The Negro leaders of the future will be expected . . . not to blow hot and cold with the same mouth, but “to stand four-square to all the winds that blow.”

Hubert Harrison, 1920.

harlemtenants@gmail.com or nelliehester@yahoo.com. Visit websites:www.harlemtenantscouncil.org

Yeah, I know it’s now Saturday … well not if you’re in Cali. So with little further review I present to you the most ignant thing I’ve seen this week on youtube… this is so wrong, but be honest, you laughed? Didn’t you?

hat tip to C.Dot for this foolishness

So this past week I’ve been really getting back into True Magic by Mos Def and I was reminded of two great things. First, the video for Casa Bey is online and is dope. I’m hoping this will represent a return to def music for Mos, should I be holding my breathe. His new album Ecstatic drops June 6th … and if you didn’t hear about Mos’ rumored wedding, here is the scoop. Yeah, it’s gossip, but who said I was above gossip?

Item 2, this Saturday, Mos Def and Talib Kweli are Black Star again! That’s right kids, Black Star reunion at Times Square. I’ll be there, because I missed the Reflection Eternal reunion and would much rather see Black Star come together again. Here’s a reminder of the dopeness!!

Alright, back to grading and writing. And don’t worry, I still have some in-depth posts on deck, but two of them may turn into more than just blog pieces, so I gotta see who those shake out. So check back soon.

This post will not be a lofty tribute to Brother Malcolm, if you would like to see one like that, check it out here. This will be a call to action, because that is one of the things El Hajj Malik El Shabazz was about. Today is a National Day of Action to Stop the Execution of Troy Davis and today I saw a heinous video of a young teenager brutalized by the Police of Toledo. I do not doubt that Malcolm would have been disturbed to action by both. Let’s honor him by doing the work!

Today is  global day of action for Troy Davis who is set to be executed if we, that includes you, do not demand a retrial. You have probably seen Davis’ name and maybe even read up on the case. Well there is plenty of material online but I’ll summarize. Davis was convicted of shooting an off-duty police officer in 1989 in Savannah, Georgia at Burger King (there was also a shooting at a party earlier that evening). The scene of the shooting was a Burger King where Sylvester Coles got in an altercation with a homeless man. Coles and Davis are physically similar in size and the overlap in Davis and Coles’ night is eerie. The State of Georgia put its resources into investigating Davis and little into properly investigating Coles. As a result they arrested Davis and convicted him on 9 eye-witness testimonies. Since conviction, Davis has maintained innocence. In 2001, 7 out of 9 “witnesses” re-canted their statements saying they were coerced into saying Davis was the shooter via improper police and legal procedures. Through a railroading and denial of a re-trial Troy Davis is scheduled to be executed in the near future. If you’re in NYC, join us at Union Square from 6-8 for a National Day of Action for Troy Davis or find a local event or activity here. Davis’ stays of execution and case have only gotten this far because everyday people are putting pressure on the State of Georgia, to be “fair” and not “final”. Let’s keep up the pressure and stop the loss of another innocent Black man’s life.

As I was typing this post, I came across a video of police brutalizing a 14 year old boy, Trevor Casey, in Toledo, Ohio. The video footage (which is graphic) is here. While I do not know the circumstances leading up to his arrest, choke and bloodying, I do know that the young man’s life would likely have been in even greater danger if this was not caught on tape. Police brutality is common in our communities, but seldom gets taken seriously, let’s not let this be the case.

The reality is that our young Black youth everyday come in contact with a police force that fears them more than protects and serves them. It’s all too often that I walk down the street in Harlem and see “undercovers” jump out, harrass youth, and then continue on with their patrol. Even more disturbing then these “stop and frisks” is the way that many of the young brothas and sistahs I see harrassed respond. They get searched, often illegally, and continue on with their day as if it has been or should be a routine occurence.

If we truly want to honor Malcolm, then we cannot let the State (of Georgia and Toledo) in these cases go unchecked. Troy Davis, like many on death row and those killed on death row, was railroaded and we cannot let his case go quietly. While we celebrate the arrival of a Black Attornery General, the real power to respond to judicial injustice must come from the people. Stand up, speak out! Trevor Casey was brutalized in front of his home and the community is crying out for help. The disease of racism and fear of young Black men runs deep, don’t let his case be “investigated” (the Oscar Grant trial from Oakland is now happening) and dismissed as so many cases of brutality are. Stand up, speak out! Don’t read about this stories and get sad, in fact, get angry. Because if Brother Malcolm taught us, “Usually when people are sad, they don’t do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.”

I spend most days in the classroom teaching on issues of race, social class, mobility and opportunity. The discussions I have always intrigue me, particularly because most of my students are people of color from working class backgrounds. After listening and reading, I’m beginning to think the belief that anything is possible, clouds us from seeing what is probable. I say this not to be a pessimist, rather because I wonder what the line between naivete and willful denial of reality is. And if there are or what are the consequences for this thinning line for our people.

Over the past few days, I’ve seen some rather public discussions of the possible (what could happen) and the probable (what will likely happen). There are 2 recent occurrences that made me write this: 1) the Cassie nude photo(s) leak and 2) the Brooks Op-Ed on the Promise Academy. Well, given the folks who read my blog, I’m pretty sure you’ll be expecting a deep discussion of the Promise Academy and schooling, but for now you’ll have to sit through my discussion of Cassie   (Promise Academy discussion and high poverty schooling discussion coming in The Possible and the Probable Part Two).

When the pictures of Cassie were “leaked” onto the internet and she offered a public response via twitter and her blog de-emphasizing them. Many on the internet and radio began to chorus like Jay-Z and say, “We don’t believe you, you need more people.” Behind this incredulous response to Cassie was another discussion that I heard stated squarely by Phonte from Little Brother (while Phonte said it, I know a number of brothas have expressed the same sentiment to me many times over). Phonte tweeted, “So next time you hear someone talk about how unfair the industry is for women, look em in the eyes and say THE DEVIL IS A MUTHAFUCKIN LIAR.” He continued on to tweet, “Female singers play the ho role because they want to, not cause they HAVE to. Minnie Riperton aint neva had 2 show a titty for me 2 buy a CD” and “Neither has Chrisette Michele for that matter (for all you “BUT MINNIE’S HEYDAY WAS 30 YEARS AGO” ass niggas).”

So the argument goes, that women “in the industry” don’t have to  “ho themselves out” they make a choice to do it. Now I want to distinguish between a sistah engaging her sexuality on her own terms (or as much of her own terms are possible) and an A&R or label engineering her image to something hyper sexualized and fetishized. The line can be thin, but 9 time out of 10, the industry (in this case music) actively pushes women into the latter.

I know, many are saying, “But wait, they have a choice! It’s not the industry, it’s them.” Duly noted, but all choices are subject to available options.  Phonte points out Minnie Riperton and Chrisette Michelle, whom I both love, are successful (well relatively successful) and that they made it or are making in the industry without exposing themselves. While this is true, the reality is that they are the exception to the rules or norms of the music industry. If you are participating in the mainstream music industry companies want units moved and profits more than they desire “quality” music. As a result, creativity is compromised, images are engineered, and people are shoved into niches for marketing purposes. You can easily see the same tired archetypes and tropes being repeated in Hip-Hop, R&B, and in most genres of music. The idea is “people buy what they know” and essentially if they know these hyper feminine and hyper masculine images, profits will be made so they keep feeding and forcing people into those categories to “make it” in the music industry.

But what about the exceptions? What about the folks who are themselves? The ones who don’t buy-in or sell-out? You know, Minnie Riperton, Chrisette Michelle, Erykah Badu, etc. Yes, there are always exceptions but those exceptions do little to disprove the rule. Remember for every Riperton, Michelle or Badu there are hundreds of women who equally have fought of these hyper-stereotyped images and go double wood (the opposite of double platinum).  Pointing to the exception does not negate the rule. Throughout history of Black America we could point to the exception or  “exceptional negro” and say their advancement indicated the openness of opportunity, but that would be short-sighted.

As others have said, it’s like saying, “Madame CJ Walker was a millionaire in the early 1900s. Which shows Black women can make it in business if they work hard and have their stuff together.” Yes, a Black woman was a millionaire then, but that can tell us little about the lives and experiences that most Black women had. In fact, I doubt that most Black women in the 1900s didn’t have drive, perseverance, and all the other things attributed to Walker as exceptional qualities. Ultimately Walker’s achievements didn’t mean that most Black women wouldn’t be circumscribed to domestic labor where they would accrue pennies in comparision to her millions. It’s like pointing to Barack Obama and saying, “See the Black man can make it out of poverty in America to be President of the United States of America.” Yes, Barack Obama is a phenomenal example and case, but highlighting his life ignores the fact that 50% of Black men in New York City are unemployed. If you keep pointing to the possible, then you will miss the probable and the reality is that most of us live in the probable and are seeking the possible, not the other way around.

Our community is much like a rose garden with millions of roses. When people ask about our garden we pick the most beautiful rose from the healthiest bush and we show it to everyone. We highlight that rose as indicative of our gardening ability and smile to collect accolades. But the sad reality is that the prize rose is only so beautiful because there were so many that grew with it, but did not make it.

We concentrate on the exceptional because it can be too hard acknowledge the probable and the majority of roses that aren’t award winning, aren’t beautiful, and are subject to the harsh conditions of the world. We must be cautious in pointing to the possible and mistaking it for the probable. In the past, many from outside our community did that and we served as a corrective to this faulty logic, today, I hear all too many within our community endorse this same fallacy.

This week has been very busy and I have not been able to post, the end of the semester is a beast. Even still, I thought I’d get a Friday Funny up for you. This week Byron York wrote an Op-Ed in the Washington Examiner that got some attention because of it’s discussion of Black public opinion and it’s “undue” influence on public onion. Colbert hits it on the head in his response. Hat tip JF.

Last weekend, at the Malcolm X Grassroots Unity Brunch one of the topics covered was violence against LGBTQ people of color. I think it was Kenyon Farrow who mentioned the suicides of Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover and Jaheem Herrera who are both Black boys who recently committed suicide because of peer bullying and hatred. Jewel Woods, of the Renaissance Male Project, writes a clear indictment of the ways that our schools allow torture and why boys of color are particularly at risk. What can we do to prevent torture in our schools and ensure a safe and whole development for all our children. PLEASE READ THIS ARTICLE

Imagine the terror of a mother frantically trying to cut down her child seconds after finding him hanging from an extension cord in his bedroom. Picture the trauma of a 10-year-old girl desperately trying to hold up her older brother after finding him hanging from a noose in an upstairs closet.

These tragic scenes unfolded in the past several weeks as two beautiful 11-year-old black boys, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover of Springfield, Massachusetts and Jaheem Herrera of DeKalb, Georgia, chose to end their lives rather than endure another day of being bullied in their schools.

According to reports, the parents of both children had repeatedly warned school officials about the daily torment and torture that their children were subjected to during school. However, neither parents nor educators were able to intervene in time.

While most acts of bullying do not lead to traumatic acts of suicide, bullying happens to young people all the time. Studies indicate that 65% of teens have been verbally or physically harassed or assaulted during the past year. 39% of teens report that students in their school are frequently harassed because of their physical appearance and another 33% report that students in their school are frequently harassed because of their perceived or actual sexual orientation.

But why are our kids killing themselves? Is there something different about bullying today that makes facing the daily onslaught more painful than life itself for some of our youth? Questions like these beckon to adults reeling from the shock of these events, in part because many think that that bullying is just a part of life–something that everyone has to deal with when they are growing up. Many adults are also puzzled by the impact of bullying on children who are targeted as “gay” because they assume that being gay, lesbian, and or bi-sexual is more acceptable today than in the past.

Click here to read full article

We here at Uptownnotes have been carefully watching the first hundred days and wanted to let you know our perspective. First, we’d like to report, the first 100 days are done. Second, sometimes we get accused of being pessimistic about race relations because of highlighting signs of passe racial attitudes or mentioning the rise in hate crimes. Well, there was an article on the cover of the NYTimes yesterday that proved us wrong, people do seem to think race relations are getting better (never mind the article points out what people think and what is happening may be two different things) but now we’re optimistic that things are getting better. Don’t believe me, this commercial out of North Carolina proves it!

Today, Obama will deliver his 100 day address at noon. I am sure he will do well at addressing “change” but I doubt it will be as thorough and far reaching as the address by the 40th and first African-American President of the United States, Richard Pryor.

Okay, clearly I’m clowning this morning ya’ll. Happy 100 hundred days under a Black president. Now that we have an elected official who looks more like us, let’s make sure that we press the work harder and further. No need to really throw my blog into the fray over 100 days. Maybe I’ll link to some good analyses later.

Hat tip to RJK, KAF sorry been slacking on my hat tips of late.

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.

Okay, so I managed to not succumb to the foolishness known as Popeye’s Pay Day (yeah, you know the special they were advertising) but leave it up to Fox in Minnesota and my people to make it into a news story. Okay, I guess this is funny, but I think I really want to cry! It’s stuff like this that makes me wonder if we gonna make it!?!

So I got an email yesterday with a link to this sign and I was wondering what your thoughts are on this? I imagine there are two basic reactions: 1) Outrage  or 2) Shaking your head and laughing it off. Which camp are you in? Do you have a different reaction? Why do you think you had the reaction you did?

CLICK TO ENLARGE AND READ THE TEXT

So by now, I’m sure you’ve heard that Disney has been working extensively on the “The Princess and The Frog” their first foray into a Black Princess. I for one, am very, very excited… particularly for my niece. She can pretty much be assured that between her mother, my parents, and me she will be outfitted as Princess Maddy Tiana until Disney makes another princess (and trust me my family has an unhealthy obsession with Disney, so give up on convincing us it’s a bad idea). Well, some of you reading this will be saying, “But Dumi, didn’t you hear? The Prince isn’t Black?” Why yes, I did hear that, but I’m not sure it really moves me. I’ve got questions for Disney and You!

There is an ongoing outcry about the Princess not being Black and the Prince, who is named Naveen, being voiced by a Brazilian actor Bruno Campos and being olive complexioned. This has raised a number of questions/issues for Disney to deal with. To many, this is one more signal that Disney is not invested in portraying Black people positively or even worse an attempt to devalue the Black family. While these things are plausible, I wonder most how the decision to name the Prince and draw the Prince came along. I know that the movie has been mired in controversy and some of that controversy/buzz lead the filmmakers to change the Princess’ name from Maddy to Tiana. I wonder if this was intentionally kept beneath the radar or by happenstance, probably the former.

But I’m also interested in asking the public some questions. If the Prince was named Prince Carlos and was voiced by the same actor, would it be so controversial? Or even more so, if he was a bit darker was “noticably” Afro-Brazilian in appearance would it still be considered interracial or controversial?  I imagine so, but that is probably because of how narrowly we define ethnicity within the African Diaspora. With racial and ethnic identity being such a complex subject in Brazil, the questions of who is seen as Black, who identifies as Black, and who is identified as non-Black are oh so critical. Paired with US based definitions of Blackness, that commonly derive into meaning African-American, the pairing would likely raise more than a few eyebrows … but maybe not as many. What if Tiana was noticably lighter-skinned or “Creole”? What if this Prince and Princess controversy was a chance to open conversations within the Diaspora about boundaries and racial meaning … now that sounds like a fairy tale to me!

b.t.w. – I’m really not feeling the lightening bug Ray voiced by Jim Cummings…

So what should be really funny is by the time this posts I should be in the air en route to San Diego … but with my luck cold weather will follow me! But regardless, this is really how it’s been of late in NYC and around the nation I guess.

CLICK HERE

Day ‘n’ Nite – Kid Cudi from DP on Vimeo.

So you know you’re getting old when folks tell you that the “future” is coming and when you look to see what they’re talking about you don’t get excited. That’s been my feeling for the past couple of months when people ad nauseam tell me about Wale, Drake, Charles Hamilton, and the list goes on. People keep telling me they’re the future of Hip-Hop. Unfortunately, I just don’t feel these cats … maybe they’ll grow or someone will tell me why I shouldn’t clown someone who is on the Canadian Saved By the Bell/21 Jump Street. When did doing hooks become the marker of Hip-Hop to come? I just feel like this is middle classification of Hip-Hop, alright enough of my old man ranting. But there is some good in this new “class”, I have to give props where they are due … I messes with Kid Cudi.

Normally I really don’t listen to cats who complain before they blow, but Kid Cudi is getting a pass. The above video for Day and Night, which way hotter than the official video got me hooked a while back(hattip to QaidJ). His work on 808s and the Death of Adam made me think this kid could really make a nice addition to the rotation. Earlier this week, I got forwarded I Poke Her Face by Kudi which features Kanye West and Common. Thankfully Common resurrects on this track, if you recall I think he attempted to kill his career by releasing Universal Mind Control.

I Poke Her Face

I’m not sure if any of the aforementioned cats are the future of Hip-Hop but just had to get that off my chest.

I really consider myself lucky to have such a loving circle of friends and family. I often want the love that I experience from them to be transmittable to all that I come in contact with, but for so many reasons that is impossible. Many of my greatest friends have unbelievable stories and talents that they’d rather use humbly to better society than plaster themselves over the planet. Well, I must break this quiet greatness for some of them! Last Friday, I had a glimpse into how the love, struggle, and growth that one of my friends has experienced can be transmitted to hundreds quickly, powerfully, yet intimately. At the close of the week, I darted from my campus to board a bus to go to Philadelphia to see SOARS (Story of a Rape Survivor) presented by A Long Walk Home at the University of Pennsylvania. My dear friend, sister, and scholar Salamishah Tillet is a co-founder of A Long Walk Home and the production chronicles her journey through sexual assault and the ongoing healing process. The performance, which runs two hours, features poetry, dance, visual documentary, and song. It is not just an expression of one woman’s story, but the story of many women and men.

Sexual assault remains one of the most taboo and silenced experiences globally and particularly in the Black community. Through SOARS, A Long Walk Home is not only raising awareness but also creating spaces for solutions and healing. The final portion of the 2 hour production is a “speak out” (in the tradition of Take Back the Night) where audience members can ask questions of the cast and speak out about their experiences. At first, questions were sparse and audience members sat quietly waiting for someone to break the silence, then finally it was broken. From the audience came a flood of experiences with sexual assault from childhood to adulthood. More than just a question and answer the session, it was one of mutual sharing and support. In a group so large, one shouldn’t expect such a sacred space for sharing, but it makes perfect sense once you realize the audience is taken on an painfully intimate, triumphant and bonding journey of a survivor in the production. Multiple audience members said the story on the stage was their own story. The fourth wall was shattered! The spirit that SOARS created in the audience reminded me of a proverb that one of my baba’s once gave me. He said, “Live your life as if it is an open book, for you never know from which page someone will have to learn.” I was glad to learn from the page of Salamishah, SOARS, and the audience.

In a society defined by so much difficulty and silence around crimes such as rape, the process of not only surviving but healing is opened in a powerful way. This week, a number of my friends and those who I admire were at the Men Can Stop Rape conference. I am glad that venues that conference and SOARS exist to open dialogue and continue the work of fighting sexual violence, surviving and healing.

A Long Walk Home is beginning a preventative and healing peer-centered approach to sexual assault named Girl/Friends which will equip young women with the tools to help themselves and their community. The SOARS season for the year has closed, but when they go on tour again, I’ll make sure to post dates and tour location. In the meantime, visit their website and get a “Got Consent” tee-shirt to support their work (available in both men and women’s)!

Over the weekend I reluctantly listened to the news as they discussed Somali Pirates and the container ship Maersk Alabama. Yesterday’s decision by the US Navy seals to kill three Pirates further saddened me. While I’ve heard people quickly jump behind the American crew and ship,  most of this has occurred without context. This isn’t to suggest that if you read these links, watch these videos, etc. that you will or should support the Pirates, but I am pretty sure it will help you better generally understand some of the dynamics that the Somali people live under. It will help you better understand who is involved and why this is not just a traditional “stand off.” Like most current events, when you scratch the surface, history bleeds through. I encourage you to check them all out.

First up, video interviews with K’Naan by Davey D. K’Naan is a phenomenal voice for Somalian struggle with his first two albums: The Dust Foot Philosopher and Troubadour. Remember when Chuck D said rap was Black America’s CNN, K’Naan has taken that to heart in his discussion of his life and his people’s lives.

Second up, an article that recently appeared in GQ magazine (yeah, Gentleman’s Quarterly) by Jeffrey Gettlemen of the NY Times. The article is one of most context sensitive mainstream press article on the situation, though it has its limitations.

Third up, Black Agenda Report was one of the first analyses of the Pirates that went beyond “Pirates after booty”/”maritime terrorist” approach of mainstream media. The deeper you dig, the more you see the manipulation of political powers for the good of few and the pain of the majority. Here is a piece from December on Sadia Ali Aden on some of the US involvement in the struggles happening there.

Keep informing yourself and keep on believing in the value of human life. As K’Naan said T.I.A.

Shout out to K’Naan and Davey  D’s twitter feeds where I got a lot of this and you can find much more… see people twitter can be useful for more than telling us what you ate today or your complaints about the weather

I’ve been doing deep thinking and writing of late and one of my favorite ways to decompress is watch television. Not just any television, bad television. And thus I present “the questions.”

1. Why did Ray J cut Chardonnay (aka the only sane one) didn’t he know “shawty got gifts“?

2. Why am I kinda hyped that the Hills is coming back on and it’s looking like old times?

3. I’m excited about the new Mets Stadium Citifield but why does it look like a Giants (baseball) stadium?

4. Who the hell thought it was appropriate to use Sir Mix-A-Lot’s  Baby’s got back for a Bk Kid’s meal commercial?

5. How come every time I’m ready to say, “Yes We Can” someone makes me wonder, can we?

6. Why is Steve Harvey on every talk show and why are people reading his book? (If you’re reading his book, listening to him, and his advice makes sense, you’re dating the wrong men.)

7. Did UConn just roll over and die because they knew if they won a title they’d get it stripped for “irregularities“?

8. Why did having the Final Four in Detroit seem like a great thing until I realized Ford Field was going to be turned into the greatest mass depression ever? (And all you U of M folks who hopped on the MSU bandwagon, shame on you!!!!)

9. Why is the best thing about Harlem Heights that it’s 30 minutes?

10. Were they serious with that series finale for ER?

The conservative bible news magazine National Review has been really consistent with their critique of Barack Obama, as you can see from the March and April covers below. Which one is it?

hattip to JF

One of the great hopes for the Obama administration is a revised relationship to Cuba and her people. While for many this is about the advance of political ideologies or commerce, in reality it is as much if not more about people’s lives. When discussing Cuba and the United States questions of politics can loom large, but seldom are the voices of people the priority. Today, Pintando Postales opens at the Brooklyn College library and it is a rare opportunity to hear and see the world through children’s eyes in New York City and Santiago de Cuba! The work is a multi-year project executed by Katie Yamasaki, but more importantly it lifts the voices and worlds of school-aged children between New York City and Santiago de Cuba in correspondence. Ms. Yamasaki had children in New York City illustrate their worlds on postcards and then painted them holding their postcards. She then took these paintings to Santiago de Cuba and asked the children in attendance at the gallery to chose the child they felt most connected with and write a postcard in return and painted them as well. I got a chance to see a number of the paintings before the show opened and I was moved by their simplicity, beauty, power. The result is a moving dialogue between children across the Americas that really highlights the differences and similarities between cultures, religions, politics, and people. It’s truly a beautifully human exhibit, the show has an opening tonight from 5-7pm at the Brooklyn College Library, but will run through May 15th. It’s well worth the train ride, no matter where you’re coming from!

(click to enlarge image with details)

Slavery did not end, it’s just been updated in the form of human trafficking! Beneath you will find a video that I was recently emailed that features a song by Peter Buffet and Akon. The song is entitled, “Blood into Gold (Remix)” and was commissioned to heighten awareness of modern day slavery in the form of human trafficking. Human trafficking is a major problem throughout the globe, but flourishes in many places throughout the African Diaspora. Yesterday Buffet and Akon performed the song as a part of concert in observance of the 2009 Commemoration of the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Also yesterday, during my Black Studies class exam review, students asked me to talk about human trafficking/modern day slavery. I explained the process and then asked them, “if we re-read history and ask ‘why did people tolerate or turn a blind eye to the transatlantic slave trade?’ then we must also ask ourselves, ‘was it not for the same reasons that we ignore the trafficking of humans today globally?” I am really glad this collaboration occured. The song and video (which features a great live footage compilation) and web resources provide great seeds for action. Please spread the word and also visit www.istheresomethingicando.com to find out how to move from awareness to action!

hattip to Drew Citron

Yesterday, at the age of 94, the unparalleled historian of the African-American experience John Hope Franklin passed away into the ancestral realm. While many may not be familiar with his name, if you took a Black Studies or African-American Studies course you likely came across his seminal textbook “From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans.” One of my favorite posters hung in my graduate school advisor’s office with the words, “Which one did you learn from?” And it featured the then probably 6 editions of book neatly lined up. The image struck me because I could visually see the legacy that Dr. Franklin had passed down to generations of students of African and non-African descent. In addition to From Slavery to Freedom, Dr. Franklin authored over 15 books and ushered in great generations of historians and biographers, such as David Levering Lewis. One of the greatest marks of a person is not what they do when they are here, but what they leave behind and build for those behind them. I am glad to see that the fruit of John Hope Franklin’s work is already visible and we will continue to grow from his sage insights for generations to come. Rest in Power.

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.

First, let me say that I pay little attention to the Pope or his statements. I spent eight years of my life in catholic school ignoring Pope John Paul II and now Pope Benedict XVI has joined that club. In a recent visit to Africa, Pope Benedict exclaimed, “You can’t resolve it with the distribution of condoms,” the pope told reporters aboard the plane heading to Yaoundé. “On the contrary, it increases the problem.”

Okay, let’s do a little basic statistics/ research methods. I know, I’m doing the “professor thing” but trust me it’s important. We have a public health crisis and you suggest condom distribution increases the problem. To figure out if this is true, we need to look at the relationship between passing out condoms and cases of HIV/AIDS. Benedict is claiming that passing out condoms actually increases the epidemic.

Key term: correlation. Correlation essentially tells you how related two things are. In basic statistics you learn that things can be correlated with each other, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that one thing cause another.

Okay, now that we’ve got correlation down, let’s look at a classic example of why correlation doesn’t mean causation (the fancy way of saying one thing causes another).

Fact: As the number of ice cream cones sold increases, the number of homicides increases.

Not a fact: Folks who buy ice cream cones are homicidal maniacs and their lactose intolerance drives them to murder.

Reality: There are are more ice cream cones sold in the summer, homicides tend to happen in the summer. Just because they are related doesn’t mean one causes the other to occur.

See, now you see why Pope Benedicts statement is asinine and dangerous. Pope Benedict, saying that distributing condoms increases the problem would mean that condom distribution increased the epidemic. Ridiculous! Particularly on the continent, with many countries suffering from astronomical rates of HIV/AIDS, not distributing profilatics would likely increase the transmission of the disease. While Benedict is sticking with his sect’s insistence upon the non-use of contraception, following their doctrine could lead us further down the rabbit hole. Additionally, large numbers of married and unmarried people have HIV/AIDS, which essentially means advocating against contraception within relationships will likely increase the transmission of HIV/AIDS by exposing more people to additional hazard. You know, I can’t really figure out a way that the approach he’s advocating would be good for these countries ravaged by the most devastating disease of our time.

It worries me that people will follow the Pope’s statement and align themselves without seriously interrogating the “real world” implications of his doctrine. Okay, I’m getting off my soapbox… for right now.

On April 11th, V Day will be celebrated in Harlem with performances of the Vagina Monologues at 6 and 8pm at the Maysles Institute. The recent headlines have put domestic violence, sex and race on the national radar, though most of the conversations have been too shallow and misdirected for my liking (that’s for a different post). The Vagina Monologues is a uniquely powerful performance and movement to not only stop violence against women but also resurrect love for womanhood in a world where misogyny is the norm. Recently, I got a chance to see an all Filipina production of the Vagina Monologues put on by F.I.R.E. and was moved by the performance and discussions that ensued. While the Vagina Monologues is centered on women’s experiences, there is much to be learned as a man from it, if nothing else how our behavior influences women. I encourage you to visit the site for Harlem, get a ticket, donate and proudly celebrate V Day.

So for the past few weeks I’ve been working extra hard and haven’t had a chance to really blog or be caught up on the happenings. I’ve been hearing a lot of chatter about Jon Stewart going off about Jim Cramer of Mad Money. Well, I’ve finally crawled from under the rock of my work and watched the interview with Cramer on the Daily Show from the 12th. Judging from the way it went, I’m pretty sure Jim Cramer wants to crawl under a rock now! It’s amazing that the faux news still does better coverage and investigation of the news than the real news does. Check the interview out below.

And yes, I do appreciate the irony that Bank of America commercials air before each online segment.

The Root has an interesting piece on the reclaimation or redefinition of Arab by Saaret Yoseph. What do you think about it?

The word “Arab” is used way too liberally in the American vernacular. Since 9/11 and the advent of our six-year war, the term has become a mutilated mainstay in public debate—a common appropriation, the de facto cultural label for all things Islamic, terrorist-related or alien.

During the last presidential election John McCain supporters used the A-word as an epithet against Barack Obama. And recently, Busta Rhymes put stereotypes to song—and dance—with his shameful single, “Arab Money.”

Thankfully, a culture coup is underway.

read the rest 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!

Today is Biggie day, so I let the Black Frank White speak for himself.

Rest in Peace.

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!!!!

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.

You know that there is a lot of great art happening these days, but you should move something to check out the short entitled “G-trification” by Karra Duncan screening today at the Harlem International Film Festival. G-Trification takes on the issue of gentrification,  something all too common to those uptown, but takes it to another level by involving issues of race, morality and age to pull viewers into the complicated choices our community often has to make.

The short recently screened to rave reviews at the Pan African Film Festival, San Diego Black Film Festival and continues to make waves and ripples on its tour around the country. Let’s welcome Karra and G-Trification back uptown with some love. Check out the trailer here. It screens for free at 5:30pm at the Harlem School of the Arts (645 St. Nicholas @ 141st)

Tomorrow, Wednesday evening, the City College of New York will host an important panel discussion on the No Child Left Behind Act. The panel is entitled, “Has No Child Left Behind Failed High Poverty Urban Schools?” was organized by Tiffany O’Neal a CCNY student and New York Life Fellow. I will be moderating the panel which features Christopher Edmin of Teacher’s College, Winthrop Holder teacher and author of Classroom Calypso, and Marcus Winters of the Manhattan Institute. More information on panelist is available here.
The panel will occur from 5 to 7pm in Shepard Hall Room 250.

The conversation promises to be lively and insightful.

I just penned a libation for Brother Malcolm X, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, Omowale at There Is No Spoon.  Here is an excerpt, it’s a short one, so please read, reflect and comment.

A libation for Brother Malcolm

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44 years ago to the day, Malcolm X also known as El Hajj Malik El Shabazz and Omowale, was ushered into the ancestors by assassins bullets. There are many ways to honor an ancestor but I thought it important that I honor the legacy of Brother Malcolm by calling on some of his most important lessons in the names of three recent ancestors lost: Oscar Grant, Adolph Grimes, and Robbie Tolan who were all recently assassinated.

Self-Determination
Spiritual Exploration
Voice

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

Yesterday, the NY Post ran an incendiary political cartoon by Delonas. In response NY City Council Rep Charles Baron and others have called for an in-person action against the Post. The action will take place today at noon, details below:

Thursday, February 19, 2008 at 12 Noon
New York Post Offices
1211 Avenue of the Americas (between 47th & 48th Sts)
New York, NY

Second, I am absolutely impressed and empowered by the amount of student activism I’ve seen bubbling up nationally and in New York in particular over the past few months. While contemporary college students are often discussed as “disconnected” from social struggles or suffering from “apathy”, at a least a cadre of students have been pushing for greater social justice. A few months ago students at the New School took-over a building and received their demands, last night at about 10pm a coalition of students at New York University, occupied the marketplace of the Kimmel Center. Find out more about their demands, principled take-over, and recent details go here.

This is the point where you use your super politically savvy mind to explain to me why this political cartoon from the NY Post is not racially motivated or racist in the least bit … please begin! I think I need alternative explanations.

Jewel Woods, in a piece on Alternet offers an insightful and challenging analysis of why Sarah Palin was such a hit among men … and it’s not what you’re thinking!!!

What is the enduring legacy of Sarah Palin for men after the 2008 presidential elections? It seems like a reasonable question to ask, given how important men were to the success of Palin.

According to CNN, more men than women believed that the Alaska governor was qualified to be president, and more men than women felt like questions raised about the governor’s experiences were unfair. In fact, contrary to the enormous media attention directed at Palin’s likely impact on women voters — what became commonly referred to as the “Palin Effect” — we now know that it was the positive reaction among men within the electorate that drove the governor’s initial popularity and propelled her to the superstar status that she enjoys today!

The truth is that Palin owes a lot to men. Men influenced her message, her method and certainly how she was marketed to the American public.

However, if you follow the media’s continuing coverage of Palin — which it is almost impossible not to, considering the legions of articles that are still being written about her — you probably would not know anything about how men’s reactions to her signal important demographic and cultural changes occurring in men’s lives.

Read the whole article here.

Re-post from south side scholar

I have to be honest…

Over the last couple of days I have been deeply disturbed…

On Sunday night we all learned that Chris Brown and Rihanna would be absent from the Grammy’s due to an alleged episode of domestic violence.

As the days followed, those rumors have been confirmed, with details that described Rihanna’s injuries as horrific.

So what followed? An outcry from the community against the devastation that domestic violence causes in all of our lives? A denunciation of Brown’s heinous acts and calls to boycott his music? Or even… a small expression of concern for the health and safety of this young woman?

Not at all…

Read the rest here!!!!

I know folks are offended but this one is funny to me!!! Reason number 102 to change their name!

This past week, renowned Psychologist Richard Nisbett published an opinion piece in the New York Times entitled, “Education Is All in the Mind.” While I’ve come to respect Nisbett for his research and advocacy against polemics such as The Bell Curve, his recent piece misses the mark. The central issue is that Nisbett privileges psychological factors over other factors and leaves the reader to think what it takes to repair schools essentially are “mind games.” This is not to suggest that there is not validity to some of the claims that he makes. However, I argue that the work he cites speaks to improving psychological processes which can have an impact on test performance, but these tell us little about what is necessary for educational reform. Nisbett’s argument and logic is one that is shared by a number of people advocating change in policy towards education that concentrates on “the mind”, but overlooks the schools, neighborhoods, and families that kids are nested in. Transforming educational opportunity takes both psychological effort but also in-depth systematic reform in schools and communities.

The reality is that the bulk of educational reforms have done little to affect the achievement gaps between students along lines of race, language, poverty, etc. Some argue this is because schools do little to affect the unequal lives that children walk into schools with. While I understand this and has been substantiated by some key research (namely the Coleman Report), I come from a different perspective. While the unequal social worlds that children live in affect their school performance, schools remain some of the most important institutions in our society. Not because they provide “rags to riches” opportunity, which they usually do not, but because they are the one location that we have the ability to tinker with to produce social change. Legally, all children under 16 must go to school and US public schools must education everyone who walks through their doors, which makes it probably the most difficult institution to ensure high performance in. Tinkering and reforming to produce sustainable results in education, in my estimation, is probably one of THE MOST difficult of social engineering tasks.

So what’s the big deal? To some, Nisbett has pointed out that there are programs that “eliminate the gap” or “reduce the gap” quickly. That’s the catch, the quick elimination of a gap does not necessarily mean the effective elimination of a gap. The programs that he cites do deal with improving or manipulating psychological variables to increase performance. This is basic educational psychology where the better or more efficacious one feels about one’s self, the more likely they are to perform well. But this does not mean that gaps in education can be reduced by this manner for three main reasons:

1) Single tests of achievement may be unrelated or weakly related to overall school performance

2) There are multiple forms of achievement gaps

3) There is not just an achievement gap but also a skills gap

On point one, it is totally possible for someone to perform well on a laboratory administered test, not pass math, and perform below grade level on a state-standards test. Psychometricians and education evaluators have a long tradition of finding differing performance between metrics for the same people. Even finding differences in performance in laboratory setting and in non-laboratory settings. To assume high performance on one evaluation in one setting will be closely correlated to the next is actually fallacious.

On the second point, while the No Child Left Behind Act has placed the idea of “the achievement gap” front in center, in reality there are many different forms of achievement gaps. There are those that happen, between schools, within schools and they can fall along race, ethnicity, gender, poverty, language or a host of other lines. While psychological interventions can improve the performance of small groups at a time, there is little to no evidence that “large scaled” psychological interventions will provide similar results. Additionally, Tom Cook’s work from long ago (Sesame Street Revisited) suggested that when all students receive an equal treatment/intervention, gaps in performance can still widen because “all boats rise with the tide” and there is really no such thing as an  “equal treatment.”

On the third point, to suggest that performance can be “gamed” by mental exercises is a dangerous idea. Having spent copious time in schools by way of researching and speaking, I can assure you that not all observed gaps are simply artifacts of tests. There are variable skill levels that students posses. While some students may have the skills that they do not fully engage, I have not seen full evidence that gaps are simply “effort” or “culturally” based. While I do this with much caution and caveat, I take a page from Abigail and Stephen Thernstrom who argue that observed gaps have a basis in differing levels of skills that students bring to the table such as reading ability, computational ability, etc. While I disagree at the magnitude of the skills gap they suggest, it is unequivocal to the me that, on average, students’ from disadvantaged backgrounds carry fewer skills into and out of school. The assumption that simple psychological intervention or, to be trite, “mind games” will substantially impact the gap is both dangerous and rather unfounded.

But alas, this is an editorial right, it’s not necessariliy connected to real world policy. Not true at all! I find a conspicious link between Nisbett’s argument about psychological interventions netting positive and real gains to the work of Roland Fryer, economist and Cheif Equity Officer of the New York Public Schools. The Incentive program that is being run in NYC presumes that students already have the skills necessary or that an incentive will make them “work harder” to gain the skills necessary to succeed. These types of programs worry me because they assume a baseline of non-effort for youngsters. While my teacher colleagues and I disagree on this often, I find that children do work hard and it appears programs like the incentive one are drawn from a deficit model where we presuppose children lack effort and will to succeed.

As the nation’s political landscape changes we must also be vigilant at documenting what does not change among the most vulnerable. I applaud Nisbett for re-surfacing this issue despite my disagreements.  In the end, it takes more than simply “incentives”, “mind games” or “tinkering” to transform the schooling of children, particularly Black children. What do you think it will take?

This week, on Thursday the 12th, I will be a featured panelist at New York University’s Gallatin School. I will be on a panel discussing Black and Jewish Relations as part of their Black History Month Programming. From the look of the panelist it’s going to be a lively and engaging discussion. More information is provided beneath. Also, they are asking people to RSVP, which I believe is so they have an approximate head count. Details below:

“I’m writing for my life because I’m scared of a day job.” -Common

The arrival of the recession didn’t really hit me that much. I remember the basic economic principal that I was taught when I was younger, “As the supply of jobs goes down, demand for education goes up.” While this is still probably true, this past week’s events really made me take a deeper stock of my position as an academic and the ways that the University system is insulated, but not impervious. This past Friday, Clark Atlanta University dismissed 100 staff members, including 70 faculty citing financial difficulties. I was quickly humbled by this, because as an undergraduate I attended Morehouse College, spent large amounts of time at CAU, and now have colleagues who are faculty in the Atlanta University Center.

As teachers and researchers, professors have often held a privileged position in comparison to most Americans, but when an entire financial system is in disrepair, all will have to deal with the consequences. In fact, the number of staff on campuses are also vulnerable because institutions of higher education tend to cut support staff before faculty. It appears the bleeding has just begun.

While some will say that CAU’s problems are indicative of poor management that predates the financial crisis, which is not entirely untrue, we should be aware that this is a “canary in the mine.” Institutions like Clark Atlanta University and smaller schools, particularly HBCUs will be particularly vulnerable. I am told that Morehouse and Spelman also terminated all of their adjunct professors. Over a year ago I wrote about the histories and potentialities of these schools which are under distress. A year later, I fear that it has become more clear than ever that many of the schools that opened the doors of opportunity will likely be shutting their doors.

Sadly the irony of the timing in this is not missed on me. During Black History Month, with a stimilus plan (hopefully) on the brink of approval, we’ll wait with bated breath wondering if we can keep these bedrocks of Black History open.

I’ve been crazy busy, so here’s a quick questions post… I’ll be back!

1) How is it that a Village bakery can sell “Drunken Negro Heads” and “Obama Face” cookies and not get shut down?

2) Shouldn’t Mikey B chill out for the week since when he shows up, folks show out? Shout out the Hyatt 7, hold your heads!!!! Thanks for giving voice to the voiceless!!! And I think I heard Staten Island Chuck say, “This is for Gaza” before he bit him.

3) I wonder what they would have come with in Legos if they’d done uptown?

4) I excited for Cam’Ron to come back, but why does his video look so budget?

5) I’m glad to see Poster Boy may be like Kaiser Soze, but wonder what would have happened if he was Black or Latino?

Other blogs have moving photo tributes to inauguration … but I have this. More shots to come next week from my own camera … whenever I upload them!

Okay, confession, I’m not that big of a Sasha fan (Go Malia!), but this side-eye to W. makes me her number 1 supporter!

(Side-eye courtesy of Crunk +Disorderly, if you don’t know what side-eye is get ye to C+D right away!)

So Obama really does have a fixation with Lincoln. I have a 1000 words for this, but I think Lerone Bennett already used all the ones I wanted to.

As the clock struck midnight and November 20th rolled in I thought about how 1.20.09 was emblazoned in my memory. I recall seeing bumper stickers years ago that had the date and “Bush’s Last Day” proudly marked. I waited for the date and was glad to see it arrive. I was in DC for inauguration weekend, so like many others, I was out partying. I knew that I had to get up at the crack of dawn, so I left my celebration and attempted to hail a cab to my residence. The weather in DC was a bitter, bitter cold, but I didn’t worry because as I approached a major thoroughfare I saw an ample number of cabs. I saw people hopping in and out of cabs and raised my hand to hail one. As I stood with my hand out, buzzing from the revelry of the weekend, taxis buzzed past me.

I then, being strategic decided to switch my location because maybe I was not in an ideal place for them to stop. I tried the corner, then the middle of the block, then another intersection. Finally, I ran up to a cab that was dropping off a fare and the driver informed me that he was a Virginia cab and he could not make DC stops. At that moment I thought, “Oh, cab culture and rules are different here” and he informed me which cabs could make DC stops. I then returned to my mission, newly informed and with renewed hopes of getting out of the cold. Unfortunately this hope was dashed as cab driver after cab driver, White and Black, buzzed past my outstretched arm and picked up the other fares on the block, who were White. As I watched another fare get out, I rushed to a DC cab and he locked the door as they exited. I tried the handle, he cracked the window. I told him my destination, he paused looked at me and said, “I’m not going that way” and sped off. At that moment I nearly lost it.

I began calling my friends from DC frantically, because I was sure I didn’t understand how to get a taxi in the city. To my chagrin when they answered my queries that told me, “No, you’re doing it right.” After another few minutes in the cold, I walked up to a cab stopped at a light and motioned and requested he roll down his window. Initially, the driver, an Ethiopian man, wasn’t making eye contact with me but then looked at me and cracked his window. I told him my destination, he looked me up and down and then unlocked the door.

As I sat in the back of the cab I fumed. I texted friends, updated my statuses on twitter and facebook, and prayed for serenity. One of my friends called and I quietly explained my frustration with hailing a taxi. I didn’t want to offend the driver who picked me up, so I didn’t discuss it in much detail. I really didn’t want my inability to get a taxi to weigh me down, though it was. As I paid the driver and thanked him, he said, “You know, I heard you on the phone and I know you’re mad.” I prepared myself for the, “It’s not because you’re Black, it’s because ________.” However, I was shocked, he said, “I know exactly what you’re feeling.” I listened, “I’ve been driving a cab for years and it’s really unfair. People see a Black person and just don’t stop, like there are only Black criminals. I’ve been driving long enough to know there are Black and White criminals and people know that but they’ll let one bad incident or idea spoil them.” He continued on, “I even get it. When my taxi was in the shop and I needed to get a cab and drivers passed me by and I watched other people get picked up.” He confessed, “I only got picked up because my friend was driving by in a taxi and saw me.” At that moment, my eyes began to well with tears.The driver’s honesty and courtesy resonated with me. He said, “It’s a shame we have this beautiful celebration and a Black president, but still this happens.”

The incident didn’t end up souring the 20th of January, but it really demonstrated to me the frailty of being Black in America. While we celebrated the arrival of our highest ranked political official ever, the way that race is lived in everyday may not shift much. I am overjoyed that the Obamas challenge stereotypes and have seeped through the pores of seemingly non-porous barriers, but that doesn’t often mean much for how we get along each day. Seeing race is not the issue, the system of racism is. Racism will continue to impair our interaction and ability to trust each other until we really begin to grapple with its pernicious nature. While the world turns it attention to the its new Commander-in-Chief, I wonder when it will turn its attention to challenging our own prejudices and stereotypes.

Today I’ll on NPR‘s New and Notes on their bloggers roundtable discussion inauguration and coming challenges for Barack Obama. You can find out where it airs in your area here.

Update: Here is the link so you can take a listen. I was featured with Faye Anderson of Anderson@Large and the soon to launch Tracking Change wiki. It was a fun great discussion.

“I have been dismayed at the degree to which abysmal ignorance seems to prevail among state, city and even Federal officals on the whole question of racial justice and injustice… But this white failure to comprehend the depth and dimension of the Negro Problem is far from being peculiar to Government officials…. It seems to be a malady even among those whites who like to regard themselves as “enlightened.” … I wonder at [persons] who dare to feel that they have some paternalistic right to set the timetable for another [person's] liberation. Over the past several years, I must say, I have been gravely disappointed with such white “moderates.” I am inclined to think that they are more of a stumbling block to Negro’s progress than the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner.”

-Martin Luther King Jr.

July 1965

The event is finally arriving, the inauguration of Barack Obama. And while I am a strong critic of Barack Obama I can appreciate a good celebration, so I’ve decided to go on a hate moratorium and attend. As a result a bunch of folks have been asking me where I’m going to be at. Well I’ll only tell you dependent on how you do on this quiz, much like a NCLB test, your answers are gonna be of consequence. Don’t “study long and study wrong” and I’ll see you in D.C.

Please choose the best answer

1) Inauguration is not _________________.

a) Freaknik

b) Juneteenth

c) All Star Weekend

d) All of the above

Answer: D – Look folks, the inauguration is going to be live. Many folks, especially young black folks, will be coming from all over. This, however, does not mean that we gotta “show out.” Before you think I’m just hating, let me suggest I have attended more than one of the aforementioned events (for research purposes of course) and know what it’s all about. A note to clubs: Please stop trying to charge people 100 dollars to stand around inside staring at the same people they saw standing in line earlier that evening or in the cold at the Mall. No really, your party is not a ball (which I can’t figure out why they cost so damn much anyway) and you and I both know that the promoter didn’t vote anyway. Let’s be collectively minded and save some dough. Well everyone except all the fake ballers with sunglasses on in the club who are trying to “pop champagne” they can go into bankruptcy for all that I care.

2) At inauguration it is appropriate to purchase these types of Obama emblazoned memorabilia:

a) tee shirts

b) buttons

c) under garments

d) a lap dance

Answer: A and/or B … So I’m pretty sure part of the Obama stimulus package and Ujaama contribution has been the printing of the Obama’s family likeness on all manner of things speakable and unspeakable. Recall a few things people, if you buy something, make it good. Don’t get that tee shirt of Obama, Tupac, Biggie and Barry White. While it may appear to be the soul Version of Mount Rushmore, I assure you when you take it home and look at it when you’re not “under the influence” you’ll regret it. And for those thinking about C – you know it’s not right to have any of their faces on your private parts… you’re not an Lewinsky and this isn’t a Clinton Inauguration, Aaaayyyyooooo!!!! And for ya’ll who selected D… dude a lap dance is not even memorabilia, but you were already gonna buy some of those, so could you please keep the Pacman’ing to a minimum, this is going to reflect on all of us.

3) The best way to locate people is to:

a) call them from The Mall, yell loudly “you see me?”, and wave your hand

b) tell them you’re near a port-a-potty

c) text them you’re near the family with the rhinestone Obama shirts

d) use your iphone to tweet your current location or dodgeball and let your friends find you

Answer: B, yeah, I know you’re surprised. But on the real there will only be 5000 of those puppies, so you’ve got as good of chance as locating someone or being located there as anywhere else. Lawdhuvmercy if you really gotta go. I’m thinking I need to order one of those portable urinals I see in the SkyMall cause it’s gonna be ridiculous. For those thinking A, really you can call, but it’s gonna look like the middle passage part 2 out there, good luck. For those who picked C, you should immediately tell them being bedazzled is inappropriate and offer them another clothing option. And for D lovers … you’re a tech nerd and only you and your 8 twitter followers will be able to find you.

Well, if you scored 0 out of 3, you should stay your ass home, you’re a liability to us all.

If you scored 1 out of 3, you could probably go, but I’m thinking watching it at your local watering hole between wings is your best bet.

If you scored 2 out of 3, well done, you can roll, but don’t call me, cause my cell battery will probably be drained from all my friends who scored 0 and 1 out of 3 trying to locate me!

If you scored 3 out of 3, you can roll with me, well done. See you in the District.

So I had no intention of writing a review of the new movie on Biggie, Notorious, but the reviews that I’ve been reading have left me with no choice. I will keep my comments brief and give you the punchline upfront. The movie sucks, if you have ten dollars I can think of plenty of other things to spend it on. In fact, if you were going to take someone else, you two can put your money together and get two snuggies … they even come with a free reading light. Alright, to my review/thoughts.

I got a chance to see the movie at screening in Chicago, which means I spent no money on it, meaning I’m as objective as they come… well as objective as I can be. I’m a Hip-Hop head, I consider Biggie one of the all time greats. I love Hip-Hop. I am a tough critic of movies, so going in I decided to take it easy on the film. Coming in, it was my hope that Notorious was not another Too Legit. I hoped that it would capture the complexity of cat who could drop Suicidal Thoughts and Dreams. I wanted the movie to really get at the changes that Biggie underwent that led him to end up ensnared in a tumultuous battle with a man who he felt taught him the game. I wanted to see how the cat who called himself “Black and ugly as ever” was able to become a sex symbol and the poet laureate for the hood. Instead, I encountered a movie that is destined to be a BET Blackbuster hit that will certainly be on Saturday day afternoon rotation soon enough. Now if you’re reading this and saying “what’s wrong with BET Blackbuster movies?” Stop reading, really dog? How did you even get to this blog? 

Back to the task at hand. There are a few MAJOR issues with the movie. First, the script must have been inspired by MC Lyte’s early work, cause it was paper thin (not a diss to MC Lyte, really a diss to the writers). It was like a long ass Vibe article that was uncomplicated, trite and lop-sided. Obviously it was supposed to tell Biggie’s side, but when we got to the East v. West beef part of the story and Biggie was shown to be  “above the fray” I had already grown tired of yelling to myself, “this is some bull****.”

The second issue is that there was very little acting in the movie, but there were a whole lot of impersonations. I, nor the folks sitting with me, could control our laughter every time Derek Luke did his Diddy impression. It was like watching an Aries Spears skit, spot on, but it was so ridiculous that it could only be parody. Don’t believe me, watch it yourself. Then can someone explain to me why every time Puffy was on screen his lips looked like he had just finished off a 2 piece from Popeye’s? Can someone tell me why Lil’ Cease looked pre-pubescent the whole movie? Can someone tell me why Lil’ Kim couldn’t keep her clothes on in more than two scenes? Come someone tell me where and what kind of accent did Voletta Wallace have? And will someone please tell me explain to me how Puffy was the Dalai Lama with all his “wise counsel”? All of it was like a Vanilla Ice album (get it? to the extreme).

A third issue was that none of the characters had depth. During the course of the movie I managed to not become connected to anyone! Not Biggie when he was locked up. Not Kim when she was “the other woman.” Not Faith when she was cheated on. Not the White girl when Faith whooped her butt. I swear I was reading characters written by a high schooler they were so flat.

I could document the many issues with this movie, like the way Biggie’s cadence was off, how lyrics were flubbed, but that ain’t even the point. I’d rather just tell you what I never felt. I really, really, really wanted to get pulled back to that golden age in my mind of Hip-Hop. I wanted to hear a beat drop and have my head compulsively nod and remember what it felt like to lug around timbs in the cold, to floss in sun, or to consider the value of my life. These were the things Biggie meant to me and the movie captured NONE of that. As a fan of the man and the music, this movie fell short from start to finish. When the movie ended I wanted to leave and put on a Mister Cee Mixtape like the “Best of Biggie” to cleanse my eyes and ears of the visual catastrophe that should be called “The Worst of Biggie.”

There are a million things to love about New York (for that matter a million to hate as well) but one of my favorite has to be how vibrant the Arts are here. Recently, I had the chance to check out one of my brothers weave his craft in the city. Marc Bamuthi Joseph is the truth. Read that again, the man is the truth! I have been familiar with Bamuthi’s musings and deeds since the mid-90s but his recent show The Break/s: A dream journal presented as a mixtape for stage, which headlined the Hip Hop Theater Festival demonstrates not only that he’s a great performer but that he is beautifully human.

Lately I’ve been reading Black scholar’s takes on the Black experience and one theme that continues to come up over and over again is the difficulty of displaying humanness and complexity with the Black experience. How does one write about a people who are de-identified yet identified, homeless yet at home, the contradictions are multitudes. Well, if Cornel West is right in saying that Du Bois failed to capture the humanity and love of Black people in the Souls of Black Folks. I hope West takes the time to see Bamuthi’s performance of double consciousness and beyond.

The Breaks is a performance piece that takes the viewer on a journey with Bamuthi as he travels from NYC to Africa to Europe and all stops in between. As you watch Bamu wind through his history and experiences, you begin to understand why his tales are the Break/s. Initially I wasn’t sure what to expect, of course, the break beat is a blessed moment in Hip-Hop, that moment when reality and fantasy meet in a fury, the moment when B-Boys and B-Girls would go into a frenzy to create something dangerous, alluring, and sacred by those who knew what it meant to uprock, freeze, and get off. On the other side, the title reminds me of Kurtis Blow’s classic song about the ways that life deals us obstacles and the dynamic responses we answer with. Well from the opening when you watch Bamuthi spin slowly on the floor, you’re taken into the turntable of not just Hip-Hop but life as lived through Hip-Hop.

There are too many themes covered to really expound on any one, but let me say, that I was touched. For me, there is art that moves and there is art that moves you to be better. The Break/s challenged me personally and socially to think about how I understand myself, the actions of my past, and what is to happen as I experience the Breaks. Years ago, I had a discussion with Bamuthi when he opined that Hip-Hop is young people’s. He said to me “bruh, it ain’t my and your music anymore.” The throw back to the “golden age” is just an idealized past, but most importantly past. I painfully chewed on his reflection but still felt that I was Hip-Hop, just a different Hip-Hop than the one that I would hear commonly.

In watching Bamuthi work through his performance, I saw, heard, and felt the twoness of past and present. The warring souls, that were represented by my aging body, my love for the people, and Hip-Hop. He tugged at my psyche to he discussed acceptance, rejection, imperfection, broken promises, all while telling his life (possibly both real and imagined).His performance challenged me to think about how distant am I from who I was and who I will be.  I kept searching for the break beat to bring me back to my groove, only to realize that my groove is not a singular break, it’s a compilation of the breaks of my life and those that surround me. For most of my life I have attempted to find solace from the breaks of life in hip-hop, sometimes successfully and other times unsuccessfully. The battle for balance and transformation are beautifully captured in Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s piece The Break/s, more so than any other performance piece I’ve seen in years. Check it out at until Saturday (1/18) in NYC at the New York Public Theater with Under the Radar or catch him on the road as he brings The Break/s to the nation.

The term revolutionary is often batted about and is bestowed upon most anyone who finds their ideas falling to the left of the political mainstream. For that reason we have more coffee shop revolutionaries than I can shake a vegan biscotti at! Now I don’t mean that as pot-shot against coffee shop poets (okay, well maybe I did a mean it a little) but really its about the question, “What does it take to be revolutionary?” I was left deeply reflecting on that after watching Che. I’ve been anticipating the film for over a year now and I was lucky enough to see it in its intended four hour format. For all you who are wondering, “Should I really go see a four hour movie?” The answer from me is emphatically, “Yes!” I’ll openly admit that I’m biased, but that is because I am constantly wondering about what it has taken and will take to transform the world.

Now I’m sure many people will be moved by the first half of the film and discuss it a lot, but the second half is what moved me. The first half covers the 26th of July Movement/Cuban Revolution while the second half covers Che’s time in Bolivia organizing the Bolivian Liberation Army. I was struck because the second half displayed Che’s spirit and drive for revolution. While he was immortalized as a figure in the Cuban Revolution, in reality, his vision was far greater than Cuba and even the Americas. When I was a bit younger I tried to read Che in Africa but couldn’t finish it, because I wanted to read about the “victorious” Che. My own naivity kept me from understanding how “victorious” Che and “failing” Che were one in the same. Guevara had a deep belief in the ability of people to transform their realities into something better than what they lived in. This belief and purpose allowed him to continue to fight until the end of his and his comrades lives. As he said, “At the risk of sounding ridiculous, a true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love.” This impulse caused Che to travel the globe with the goal of revolution backed and carried out by the people.

In conversations when I discuss change, not even revolution, the two greatest issues tend to be: conceptualizing a different world and beliefs about human nature. We remain in a world where what is in front of us, becomes real. This reality, in turn, becomes a psychological prison where the status quo is the only modus operandi. In the second half of the film, we see Guevara and his troops “fail” at their attempted revolution, in large part due to their inability to convince the people of Bolivia that armed struggle is relevant and another way of life is possible. The social order that we observe, particularly the inequities that we burdened with, do not have to be the way we live. Whenever this point comes up, people quickly ask me, “Well what’s the alternative?” And nearly any alternative that I present seems to “sound good” but is dismissed as impossible. Recently, in one of my courses, students assured me that capitalism could not fail and that the United States would remain the superpower of the world. I was most shocked by these propositions because the majority of my students are of color and come from working class or low income backgrounds. By traditional Marxist theory, they should be the harbingers of class consciousness and potentially even revolution, but they were far from it! In my eyes, they’d resolved themselves to the scraps, trials, and tribulations that the country had doled out to them. Sadly, this is a view that I’ve heard echoed many times by the most oppressed. I wonder, what does it take to break down this allegiance to the present for a vision for the future?

The second barrier goes beyond simple social possibilities and rests at the core beliefs. What is human nature? In everyday conversation I hear people say “well you know it’s human nature.” Well to be honest, I don’t know what human nature is, in fact I’m pretty sure no one does. In this world, the second we enter the earth we are barraged with images and ideas, so what we would “naturally” do is virtually unknown. Couldn’t it be that human nature is not about accumulation of physical goods (meaning greed)? Isn’t it just a possible that human nature is about the accumulation of well being for self and others (meaning valuing life)? Sure, it’s much more difficult to observe the latter, but it seems that there is little reward for valuing someone else’s well-being in contemporary society so I’d expect to witness the former. Is it even possible to see a different world if you believe humans to be corrupt and self-serving? Unfortunately, I’m not even sure that’s rhetorical question to me anymore.

The Che film left me with so many thoughts about what a true revoluationary is. For those wondering, yes the film did sanitize revolution in many ways by curtailing a lot of the blood and guts, but it showed a much different side of struggle. I know towering revolutionaries like Che Guevara and Kwame Ture took their vision beyond borders and gave their lives for potential and actual revolutions, but what does revolution look like for the everyday man? I mean the everyday people who do not become a guerilla, who do not dedicate their life to the struggle? I guess, in the end, that is up to use to decide and demand.

Here is Skillz’s 2008 rap up … why are there so many versions of this on Youtube? And why did he hit it on the head with Nas, R. Kelly and the Inauguration?

If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.  ~Malcolm X

“Support Black Business” this was my approach to the principle of Ujamaa for years, but I realized that supporting a business by someone who looks like me will likely get our people no closer to liberation. Okay, so maybe everyone isn’t going for liberation, but hear me out. The issue with simply thinking of Ujamaa as supporting Black business is that it 1) assumes Black people who own businesses are going to take their profits and reinvest in our community and 2) that capitalism is the only system for us to participate in. The first one is faulty for obvious reasons, if you need an example please see BET. The second point is one that folks tend to think I’m crazy for suggesting. We can have a system of trade that does not put financial capital at the center, but instead re-establishes the importance of exchange of goods that aren’t simply monetary and builds community.

What would our communities look like if we concentrated on contributing positively to each other lives, rather than concentrating on accruing financial capital? Basically, the desire to make money often takes precedent over our ability to contribute to each others well being. One of the consistent themes that I hear these days is “when I was growing up, we didn’t have much but we made due….” These types of narratives hinge on the idea that community has existed in the presence of few financial resources and may even be strengthened if we play our cards right. When we had little, we gave a lot to keep all our boats afloat. One of my favorite anthro books (don’t tell anyone) is All Our Kin by Carol Stack. It really outlines how cooperative economics need not hinge upon how much money you have or how much your neighbor has. As the financial crunch hits Black folks the hardest, we’d do well to think of economics beyond financial capital and work on social capital and cultural capital for the uplift of our community. After all, I know that kwanzaa credit card looked hot, but I doubt it will contribute to our collective transformation.

*Yes, I feel off the daily post wagon, but I’m going to finish out the principles of Kwanzaa because this is a year round thing, not seven days!

When it comes to discussing collective work and responsibility, I usually end up on the other side of most conversations which seem to start with, “The reason Black folks can’t get ahead is…” or “We’re just like crabs in a barrel…” While these conversations have their place, I think we have been conditioned to overlook the collective work that we take part in daily. While there are many issues that face our community, many of use continue to struggle and fight but don’t receive the acknowledgment that is deserved.

In my Black Studies class I often ask if Black folks are working to change their situation. I usually get an overwhelming chorus of “no’s” and “Not the people I know.” This is usually followed up by a discussion of how many folks from their neighborhoods “aren’t trying to do anything with their lives” and “stay on the block all day.”* After I let students air out these concerns, which have some legitimacy, I begin to ask them if they’ve volunteered, helped out another local community member, or participated in any actions that have helped uplift Black people. Within a few moments most of them identify that they have. I then point out, in our communities there are always more people working for uplift of our people than we acknowledge.

This year I’m thinking of Ujima in a different way. The big issue for me this year is that that we affirm those that “do the work” too little. I know many warriors who have tirelessly been working for our community with little affirmation. An elder once told me, “You should affirm someone three times as much as you correct them.” I want to help begin to break that cycle. There are countless conversations that I’ve been a part of where people downplay or diss the work of others in the community because they do not like the people or the organizations behind it. I don’t have to agree with every approach to recognize that it has its benefits for the community. When it comes to our communities collective work and responsibility I’m making a commitment to affirm our foot soldiers for their work. Though our community does not look like we wish it would, without their efforts I can only imagine the chaos our communities would truly be in!

To the community warriors, families, and individuals I thank you!

Sorry this picture of Eddie Murphy clapping is hilarious to me!

*I could break down this whole argument about not acknowledging the work of everyday Blackfolks, regardless of what one thinks they observe, but that is a whole other post, well book really. In fact, if you want to start to think outside of the box, check out my advisor Alford Young’s book ‘The Minds of Marginalized Black Men.’

Last year on Dumi Says, I began a series called “Black History- Contemporary” in which I would highlight the words of elders and ancestors in our past that rang true when they were said and hold even more relevance today. In reality, Black History becomes distilled away as factoids and thus its relevance decreases for everyday people.

Yesterday and today, some of the most violent attacks on the Palestinian people in decades were launched by the Israeli military. As I write this, the death toll is approximately 280, and the number of innocent lives that will continue to be lost are unknown. I value human life and really have dreamed about a peaceful middle east, but now, more than ever, I’m concerned that my wishes may be nothing more than a dream. The question of Zionism remains one of the most politically contentious among global citizens today, but for me it’s not a question of politics, it’s a question of human life and rights. Beneath you will find two videos from the great Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), who left the earth in 1998, speaking on the distinction between Judaism and Zionism and his position on imperialism. Please listen, I’m sure you won’t agree with all, but there is much to be learned from here. I am amazed at the freedom with which Kwame Ture spoke, you’ll likely never see another Black leader be this unfettered on these matters.

Hattip to Rosa Clemente on the speeches and to Mombe Banga for cajoling me to bring BHC back

“To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.”

Naming: What’s in a name. If you’ve been visiting my blog, you’ll see that I post under the name Dumi. Dumi is not a nickname, it’s my name. Sometimes people ask me, “What’s your real name?” To which I will respond, “Dumi Eyi di yiye.” As they look on with bewilderment I remind them that I am called by many names, but all serve the same purpose. Dumi was given to me by a council of elders in an African rites of passage and means, “I am the Northeast wind, pushing, cajoling, and inspiring greatness in myself and others.” My surname is Eyi di yiye, which means, “We set the standard this time.” I often go by Dumi, because it calls unto me to live up to the meaning of my name as well as affirms to me that I am on the path to doing the work that is necessary for myself and my people.

Creating: I’m old school in my belief that we, people of African descent, are some of the greatest creators on the planet both historically and contemporarily. And I don’t just mean, we created the Nile civilization, so we’re great, I’m talking about things as recent as Afrofuturism, we are truly amazing. But beyond the artistic, I often wonder what will we need to create to transform our reality? I stress our creation, because the revolution will not organically occur, all revolutions and revolution inspired changes come from hard work which, for our people, usually come from mental and spiritual work. This is difficult to conceive when the worlds’ financial markets are in crisis, the world is war-torn, and people’s spiritual work consists more of proselytizing than loving reflection. This year I will be pushing to create things, both material and immaterial, for the transformation of my community in the area of education.

Speaking: In the past year, I’ve been blessed to get into multiple spaces: universities, tv, radio, etc. to share my perspective. From a number of folks I’ve been asked, “aren’t you scared what you say, will get you in trouble?” Well, no. In reality, what I say 9 times out of 10 is what most of my people are thinking and feeling, so I feel comforted knowing that I can contribute to the process of adding to the stew of Black voices in the public sphere. Does that mean I’ll be perfect in my commentary, scholarship, or blog rantings? Absolutely not, it is my goal to stimulate thought and thoughtfully respond to critique. All our our voices and thoughts contribute to fabric of the social world, so I look forward to my words and perspectives to be sharpened by my allies and enemies in the struggle.

Those are just some thoughts I’ve been having on self-determination. I know it could mean so many things to different people, what are you thinking?

Umoja- Unity
One of my boy’s who said the other day, “Having a Black family without drama is like having China without rice.” First off, it made be laugh, but it made realize how every year I get a rash of calls from friends and mentees who loath the trip home for the holidays because the last thing practiced is unity. See, as adults, returning home means we see how we have grown and tragically sometimes how that growth becomes increasing incompatible with the folks we grew up loving and continue to love. This is not to suggest that our families are unchanging, but being away, regardless of age, often means returning homes presents new challenges to family unity. 

Unity can be thought of in grand terms, but of late I’ve been thinking about what it takes to keep a family together.  The reality is that as times become more challenging, financially in particular, the fabric of families are challenged. How can I, as a returning family member, respect the differences of those at home and the new ways that I’ve adapted to living under? How can I honor the traditions and norms that have been established in home that sometimes challenge me?(And no, it ain’t about completely compromising your practices. I certainly don’t have to eat pork, but it certainly don’t have to turn my nose up at my great aunt who has been using hogma’s for decades.) For me, the greatest solution to dilemmas of unity in the family are humility and forgiveness.

Humility, loosely, being about recognizing when you are out of line or when others are out of line but making sure to offer them correction without attitude or with ill intention. Too often, the issues that we face when we get home get compounded when someone “checks” someone else and people’s positions and statuses get challenged. For me, when I’m home, I will always be a child, but an adult child who loves his family enough to offer correction in a loving way. Secondly, forgiveness can help you find some form of healthy balance when, inevitably, offense occurs.

These are a couple of ways that I’ve been trying to build unity in my family, but making sure there is mutual honor and respect. What about you?

“Pro-Black like Craig Hodges but my dashiki’s in the cleaners.” – Common

Being Pan-African is a weird thing. To many folks it means wearing dashikis, avoiding swine, and shouting ase at every opportunity. I, however, realize that you aren’t going to do that. For most Black folks, the holiday of Kwanzaa is one tied to Pan-Africanism and thus gets mentioned more in their living rooms on TV commercials than at family gatherings. I’ve decided we’ve been frontin’ on Kwanzaa for no real good reason.  So here are some pre-emptive responses to questions and concerns.

Yo, did you know Kwanzaa isn’t even real?

Okay, unicorns, not real.

Leprechauns, not real.

Kwanzaa = real. Kwanzaa, like all holidays was created and is celebrated for a reason. Dr. Maulana Karenga created it in 1966 and it’s not a secret. In fact, it is supposed to reaffirm the ability of African peoples to create meaningful cultural celebrations.

I can’t remember the words?

Dude, this is not a recitation competition, if you can’t remember the Kiswahili words you have a friend called the internet or books. Look them up! No one is challenging your Blackness, just trying to honor the spirit of the celebration.

But why should I even remember the words?

Doing extra work to think about the words in Kiswahili tends to make me actively think about the principle. We use words everyday and seldom think about their meaning. Using the Kiswahili words and the English words creates an opportunity to start to actively think about what they mean. For example: Umoja- Unity … what does unity mean? What is community? Who is in? who is out? How do we bond it or break it? See, that was easy right.

But I’m Christian, so I celebrate Christmas.

Glad to hear it, what’s that got to do with celebrating Kwanzaa. Kwanzaa isn’t “the Black Christmas”, nor is it anti-Jesus. In fact, you know all that commercialism that you complain about surrounding baby Jesus’ birth, yeah Kwanzaa is trying to fight it. Look you have an ally! Oh and fyi, you do realize Jesus wasn’t really born in December, right?

But I don’t have a dashiki, I only have a kente cloth bow tie that I got in the 90s.

Please don’t dust off that Kente cloth bow tie or that dashiki. The point is not about what you wear, but what you reflect on. People have asked me, “You’re all Pro-Black and Afrikan, why don’t you wear African clothes?” To which I respond, “Anything I put on is African clothing.” See there, I’ve given you permission, tell them Dumi said you don’t need to get your Baduizm on to participate.

Kwanzaa is a holiday that is designed to get Black folks, African-Americans, Colored, Negro, New Afrikans, etc (pick your favorite or least favorite monikers) to reflect on who we are as a community, a family and a global nation. Kwanzaa is about taking explicit steps to live by principles, not just for 7 days, but for 365 of them. For those who look at Kwanzaa as a fad or trite, that is because they’ve forgotten this important part. If you just reflect on these principles once a year, you will never see the fruit of your labor.

So the greeting for the celebration is “habari gani” which means, “what’s the news?”. Man, that’s so 60s/70s I love it! But you respond with the name of the principle to keep it on your lips and in your mind.

The seven principles, known as the Nguzo Saba, are:

Day 1: Umoja- Unity

Day 2: Kujichagulia – Self-Determination

Day 3: Ujima – Collective work and Responsibility

Day 4: Ujamaa- Cooperative Economics

Day 5: Nia- Purpose

Day 6- Kuumba- Creativity

Day 7: Imani- Faith

I think now, more than ever, we run the risk of being allured by an Obama presidency into thinking we have arrived at the promised land. Look around your family, your neighborhood, your nation, and tell me if we can afford to continue to not be self-reflective and work towards a better community? If you cannot take seven days to redefine you relationship to the people who live with you, love you, and look like you, what kind of change are you really invested in?

p.s. I hope you noticed Kwanzaa was spelled with one “a” in the picture. I’m pretty sure it’s from Futurama.

p.p.s I do recognize Dr. Karenga’s heinous actions towards sisters Deborah Jones and Gail Davis, which I do not ignore nor endorse! However, I do think holiday is important form of healing and re-centering in our community. This is an endorsement of the larger African spirit than an individuals actions.

I don’t think I was really prepared for those four words, but as the clock struck midnight and November 5th rolled in I started hearing and reading the words “I am an American,” from many of my friends and family. Well, much like my man Ice Cube said, “I’m here to deprogram you, don’t forget what they made your great grandmama do, your great granddaddy do without a dollar or a penny or a thank you…”. I am very thankful for an electoral victory, but an election can’t erase the reality that we came from or live in.

The question of Americaness is one that I’ve been in several debates about recently and I was surprised by people’s conceptions of their identity. As someone who considers himself Black, radical, and critical, when asked if I’m American, I seldom hesitate in my answer. While I acknowledge my citizenship is American, my state defined membership does not necessarily mean that I consider myself American. On days when I’m filling more accommodating I’ll identify as African-American or Black, but never American. In moments when I want to demonstrate my diasporic identity I will identity as of African descent or channel Brother Malcolm.

But I realize my orientation towards America and Americaness are probably more radical than many of the folks I know, work with, and care for. So when I hear them say, “I’m now American” and “We are finally free.” I wonder how we have come to define freedom. Is freedom defined by what someone else gives you or by what you demand? In many ways, for most of the folks that I cavort with consistently, it seems the election of Obama was the provision of Americaness. I shutter at that thought, because I feel if someone “gave it to you” they may just as easily “take it away from you.” While some will read this as pessimistic, I read it as historic. Whether it was the 13th, 14th, or 15th Amendment, Brown V. Board of Education, the Voting Rights Act, or the Civil Rights Act, if you are given a right by man, then that thing can be removed from you.

I went on a criticism diet immediately following the election of Barack Obama because I wanted to feel what “victory” felt like. It was amazing, it was refreshing, it was euphoric, but to me it was too much like a drug. I recently had a conversation with a friend who is an Anesthesiologist and she explained to me the difference between anesthesia and analgesia. Anesthesia, in my best recollection, takes you under, removes sensation and awareness and essentially blocks all sensations. Analgesia, on the other hand, blocks pain, but not all sensations. In fact when under analgesia you can often experience euphoria. We as a people on November 7th were filled with analgesia and the euphoria overtook the historical pain. While I was cool being in that state temporarily, I’m afraid too many of us remain now under anesthesia.

The elevation of the Obama family is amazing, but I want to see the elevation of the nation of 39 million. I celebrated Obama’s victory until the wee hours of the morning and stopped at the ATM as I was coming home. I popped in my card, withdrew money and looked at my receipt and laughed. I laughed because my account balance was the same, but from the looks of elation on the faces of my folks, you couldn’t tell. At that moment, I was glad to know that my people were not concerned that our incomes and wealth barely overlap with our White counterparts. That we’re expected to die sooner. That we’re born with lower birth weights. In the euphoria of that night it didn’t matter. As I have watched Obama select his cabinet I still saw my people beaming with pride, but I wonder how long that pride can hide reality. In a matter of moments, the realities of race in America will once again surface to challenge and cripple many of our folks. Already, reality has been creeping in and resulted in racial incidents and elevated tensions. I point this out not to say we should be governed by fear, but that we should be aware of the situation that we are in.

When the dust clears and we have inaugurated our first Black president, what will it mean to the average Black person? Can inspiration, the main thing that Obama’s victory brings, stand for a people who lack material resources? When Obama stands against a Civil Rights issue, don’t worry it will happen so enough, will you still feel American? And if you don’t, will it be because they took it back or because you never were in the first place?

Today I’ll be doing the bloggers roundtable on NPR News and Notes. Check your local NPR listings or look for it on the webpage and podcast later today. I know, I know, it’s Christmas eve, but while you’re wrapping gifts, working, or laying on the couch check us out. After all, what would it mean if Black critical thought took a break during this season of spending? We’ve got some great topics lined up so I look forward to the discussion.

I’m scheduled to be on with some very interesting folks:

Felicia Harvey from BlackPoliticsonttheWeb.com

Lenny McAllister from Lennymcallister.com

This past week, I had a chance to appear on NPR’s News and Notes with Farai Chideya and discuss racial identity and the workplace. The segment was two parts, the first with my discussion of how racial identity and intersecting identities can affect the work environment. Second, there is a discussion with Clovijean Good who was the first Black female Longshoreman (her term) in her area of California. I can only imagine the challenges that Clovijean faced in desegregating a historically male and White workspace. It is amazing and disturbing that it is still commonplace for people of color to “be the first” in their workplace. In the segment, I discuss some ways to negotiate these dynamics before you become a victim of “When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong.”

When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong… – For more of the funniest videos, click here

Over a year ago, controversy over the Kahlil Gibran International Academy unfolded, if you don’t know who Kahlil Gibran was stop reading and click here – yeah, he’s that important, in Brooklyn. The visible battle over the mission of the school, its practices, and its leadership put the academy in the national spotlight fonr discussions of ethnicity, language, religion and identity. But soon, this spotlight faded and many have forgotten that the school still is in operation. Colorlines runs a great web article by Seth Wessler entitled, “Silenced in the classroom” on what is happening with the school now. Spoiler alert, its a far cry from its original intentions. The article does a great job of discussing how education can be informed or deformed by our political conditions. I excerpt below.

The Khalil Gibran school was to have been a refuge in the midst of post-Sept. 11 New York City, a place where a mixed group of Arabic speakers and non-Arabic speakers would learn together. The school, which opened in 2007 with a sixth-grade class, was designed to grow into a middle and high school in the spirit of the more than 65 dual-language schools in New York City, which teach in Spanish, Creole, Russian and other languages. By graduation, it was expected that Khalil Gibran students would have a command of Arabic and an understanding of the cultural context in which the language exists.

According to some of the school’s original students, parents and teachers, the Khalil Gibran school retains little more than its name as it enters its second year. It is no longer a place where tolerance and respect are fostered. Hassan Omar, the humanities and Arabic teacher who felt so intimidated that he cut images of mosques from textbooks, remembered, “When I first heard about the school, I thought it was a dream, with a rigorous curriculum and intensive language program. The dream collapsed and became a nightmare.”

Recently, Roland Fryer – economist, NYC Public Schools’ Chief Equity Officer, and the public’s latest cat’s meow, was on the Colbert Report (video below) discussing his incentives program. The program has been the subject of much debate, acclaim and most importantly visibility. The interview is brief, a little funny, but reminded me that our discussion of education remains far too short sighted. Not only does Fryer still make troubling statements in jest like, “It’s not racism, it’s reality”, which reminds me of something I would expect Herrnstein and Murray respond to discussions of the Bell Curve as racist. He openly admits that the effects for his incentive program are unknown. While the program narrowly focuses on improvement in achievement through incentives such as cash, I wonder what are the “spill over” effects on children and families psychologically and socially. Considering Claude Steele’s body of work on stereotype threat, there are a myriad of potential negative outcomes, but also what happens when we reinforce the model of child “as breadwinner” in homes with meager resources. I guess we’ll have to see the experiments results and I hope Fryer and NYCPS have made accommodations to test the “spill-over” issues among families … though I have a sneaking suspicion they have not. More commentary under the video.

Yesterday the NYTimes published a piece entitled “Uncertainty on Obama Education Plans” about Barack Obama’s upcoming cabinet choice for Secretary of Education. While people have been foaming at the mouth about appointments in defense, treasury, etc. education once again has been floating well beneath the radar. As I’ve discussed before, education, in my opinion, received far too little attention in the presidential campaign and is one of the most consequential policy issues because it deals literally with the future leaders of the USA. The article mentions names like Linda Darling-Hammond (professor at Stanford), Joel Klein (chancellor of nycps), Michelle Rhee (chancellor of dcps), and Wendy Kopp (founder of Teach for America) have been batted around as potential Secretary of Education choices. Discussing these folks would warrant an entire post, so I won’t right now. Maybe I’ll spin something off for TheRoot.com. At the least,  I will be following up this week with issues that are going to remain crucial in the ed field regardless of who the appointee is. Check back soon.

Hattip to Blacksmtyhe for putting me up on the Fryer video

People have been tripping over the corruption of the governor of Illinois and his hair. But for some strange reason his hair didn’t trip me out. I was strangely comforted by it, now I realize why.

Wonder who told him getting his hair styled by the lego people was a good idea?

The Automaker “bailout” remains a hot topic and the conversation about it on the web and in the mainstream press are interesting. I’ve tweeted about my frustrations with Big business’ insistence that worker wages were the reasons for the Big Three’s failures. I’ve seen some good conversations and writing in the blogosphere about it, but these haven’t trickled through the media monopolies to mainstream sources. The NY Time finally broke down the “cooked” 73 dollars an hour figure toted out by anti-labor advocates. It’s nice to have some reality injected into this political and polemical debate!

Here are some excerpts:

So what is the reality behind the number? Detroit’s defenders are right that the number is basically wrong. Big Three workers aren’t making anything close to $73 an hour (which would translate to about $150,000 a year).

And yet the main problem facing Detroit, overwhelmingly, is not the pay gap. That’s unfortunate because fixing the pay gap would be fairly straightforward.

The real problem is that many people don’t want to buy the cars that Detroit makes. Fixing this problem won’t be nearly so easy.

I was watching Soul Food the other day and remembered the Boondocks summary and died laughing out loud. The episode entitled “The Itis” also featured “The Luther“, allegedly named after the last thing Luther Vandross ate. I ran across this laughable and cryable moment on a friends page today by Paula Deen. And Paula, yes you are nasty for licking your fingers and then passing that death on wheels to that woman!

hattip to Youssef