Learning while Black

To be young and Black and male...even in East Africa

2010-03-21T02:23:00.005-05:00

Invisible Man: A Memorial to Ralph Ellison
Sculptor Elizabeth Catlett, 2003
Riverside Park @ 150th Street, Manhattan
Bronze, granite

3:00am and I just had one of the most thought-provoking conversations with a frustrated young Black man about his experiences today. We concluded that although we want to experience sunny days, the clouds that shape our existence in a world that is myopic by nature, tend to overshadow the sun. It isn't until we pummel through the so-called limitations, avoid stereotype threat, and overcome obstacles that we finally get a voice and the strength to ignore and perservere in spite of. This is why we need to all be on our A-game and rise to the top of whatever career path we choose. There are too few of us creating knowledge and making power decisions.

He had gone to a concert in Kenya and was treated as if he were a second-class citizen. The white people were escorted through the line (at a Bob Marley concert, no less) and he was pushed into place. It made him angry and as he recounted the story to me, it made me think about Invisible Man. He was in Manhattan tonight and three times he was disregarded and disrespected...and it frustrated him. He was in a catch-22 and he couldn't catch a cab to get out of the hell in which he found himself. He mentioned that in Kenya, in a position of power, he finally felt "the breeze on his back" and he finally understood what white privilege must be like.

He's a brilliant writer with a keen sense of reality. I knew this the first day he challenged me in his 10th grade class. He didn't want to read the "simple" books that we were using. He wanted to read "real" experiences. He hated fiction! He wanted more and even more now. I certainly hope that he channels this frustration into something that will not only be lucrative for him and his future generations but also something that contributes to the consciousness of a world that resides in its own subconscious state of mind. .02

All kids left behind if we don't get behind them and push harder!

2009-08-06T13:02:00.005-05:00

I spent the best days of my summer teaching young people in a federal TRIO program this year. The daily burden was mine to impress upon these children the importance of accountability and personal responsibility. I've learned many lessons from them. I've come to the realization that our school system, in this democratic capitalist country, continues to fail some children miserably. See, if you're poor, you tend to get sub-standard treatment. If you're black, you tend to get sub-sub-standard treatment and forget about it if you're black AND poor! I've witnessed children asking questions that I thought were elementary, at the 10th and 11th grade level and these are children who attend school every day (ok so some of them cut a class or two but they still enter the buildings).

Let's take for example, the young man who was proud to tell me, when asked, that Haiti is in Asia. He followed up some weeks later with a question about Nigeria being a continent. Now, this is the same child who proudly announced to me that he doesn't read and his mother assured him that this problem was "normal" because she had the same issue in school, she never remembered much of what she read. He also informed me that "If this WAS regular school, you'd hate me, Miss because I'd never come to class" as if he were doing me a favor by showing up everyday without a pen, without his homework, and with his "clever" questions. He constantly reminded me that he can't spell, and he said this repeatedly without regret and announced it as a medal even. He wanted to be "excused" for everything. He blamed the system for all of his shortcomings: "I can't read my own handwriting. It's not my fault! That's the fault of the people who taught me how to write! Why didn't they make sure that I knew how to write?" or how about "I didn't bring a pencil, Miss. It's not my fault, that's my TC's fault for waking me up so early for class and rushing me out of my room for breakfast." When told that this program was preparation for college he retorted "this program don't prepare us for college! They make us go to bed by 10 and we can't even use our cell phones." What is wrong with this picture? This is the same kid who informed me on the first day of classes that he is NOT Black (despite his shoulder length dreadlocks and his dark skin complexion and very ethnic name--with even an apostrophe in it). He is not interested in associating with Black people because as far as he knows, they are ignorant and embarrassing (it could very well be that this is his experience. He has, after all, lived most of his life watching both his father and step-father go in and out of prison). Well, that was my life in my first period class every day for the last six weeks. And it made me pause to reflect on what is happening in our schools to our children and what the possibilities are for my own children and yours.

In the age of 'accountability' and laws about leaving children behind, it is surprising to see how many of our children have begun to rise to low expectations. As contradicting as my last statement are the results of NCLB. If we are fighting to close the achievement gap, then who explains why in the age of technology, so many black, brown, and poor white children are losing their motivation to rise above the fray and accomplish more than their families have accomplished? Why is it that children's writing skills and computation skills are far below grade level and why has it become increasingly difficult to convince them to work harder? I can't recall how many times I had to hear the words "This is too much work!" from my 9th and 10th grade students this summer. It would appear as if I were administering some poisonous potion to their bodies every day by insisting that they read or THINK a little deeper into the texts they examined.

Is it not criminal to fail our children as educators, when all society asks of us is to inspire, motivate, and encourage them to be at their very best? Is it not criminal of our system to allow such inequities in educational achievement between rich, poor, black, and white on a daily basis, while pretending that the USA is a beacon of hope for all? Why isn't the achievement gap a national crisis, just as an act of terrorism would be? Are we not terrorising an entire group of future tax-paying Americans when we fail to give them their fair shot at the pursuit of happiness? Why isn't there a war on unequal education, just as there is a war on drugs and a war on terror? If we don't put our collective strength behind these children, who sit in front of us everyday, we will fail our own selves and our own children for these are the very people who represent the future of our nation.

Presently, our future cannot identify their history, their current surroundings, or what the difference is between a continent and a country... If this is what we have to look forward to for years to come, then God save us all. .02

A Story of Small-Town USA

2009-05-15T09:28:00.004-05:00

Boy meets girl in school. Boy says he's going to ask girl to the prom. Boy asks girl and goes home and tells Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad say "cancel, she's black. You can't go to the prom with a Black girl!". How could it be? It's 2009! Are we still in that frame of mind? Welcome to small-town Amerikka.

The story is sad and it's even sadder that it's happening to a child. The first time the father of this bicultural family moved into the area, he was recruited by the KKK. He was surprised but even more afraid but did not fail to let them know that they probably wouldn't want him in their group once they saw his family. In this day and age, young women still experience the harsh sting of racism, at the hands of young white boys and girls and it's just simply disheartening to watch.

We have a biracial president, and yet a black girl can be told that she is 'not good enough' to go to the prom with another child because of her race. This young lady boasts a 92 GPA and is heading off to a very prestigious university on a Presidential scholarship in the fall. She is mannerly and quite beautiful, with the most caring upbringing that one can imagine. Her mothers tears pierced my heart as she told me the story and I wondered how we will ever mend these holes as time progresses.

We live in an area where Black faces are rarely seen in places of importance/power. White faces are dominant in the town and despite their destitute standing in the community, some of them still consider themselves more significant than Black people. The lessons I've learned in this town are priceless but I hate the fact that a child, a beautiful, brilliant, innocent child, also has to learn the same hard lessons in the same cold way.

She WILL have a date. Maybe even two. But the sad reality is that which the white family will have to live with for the rest of their lives. .02

experience at Geno's steaks in Philadelphia. One can learn much by simply reading a sign or 3...

2009-04-26T00:30:00.005-05:00

So if you live in Philly, apparently the "big" thing to do is to eat at Geno's Steaks on South Street (I think). Yeah the big cheesesteak place with the bright lights, that's it. My brother and I walked up to their establishment a couple weeks ago and the first thing I noticed was a memorial plaque dedicated to a cop, who, according to Geno's listing, was murdered by Mumia Abu Jamal. Then I saw a sign by the window that said "Speak English when you order. The owner has the right to not serve you. This is America." or something to that effect.

So there we were, my brother, decked out in our letters from our great, longstanding BGLOs, wondering if we were truly representing our founders by spending our money at that establishment. On the one hand, I was desperate to taste a philly cheesesteak, since everybody talks about them so darn much. On the other, I was giving my money to a visibly racist establishment, and they were glad to take it. We bought the cheesesteak and I resentfully bit my tongue as my brother whipped out his $15 to pay for cheesesteaks. Mind you, Geno and his staff are all Italian immigrants, so how dare he make a statement like "speak English" as if speaking English is a marker of anything. What if a tourist had heard about his establishment and wanted to roll on by to support his business? Geno is a jerk, simple. I was pissed and I vowed to never return and I will certainly urge others to never return to this racist establishment.I wanted to say something to them, I really wanted to scream and tell others on the line to pay close attention to the signs (people were just either drunk or simply walking past the signs. My brother had gone there a couple times before even realizing they were there).

In America, people say whatever they want at the expense of others and nobody can stop them. In that moment, I wanted to do like Etana and give them back their freedom of speech, for crying out loud (crying, we want to be free!). We have the right to say what we want at anyone's expense. I'm not criticizing the great Constitution of the U.S.A. but I'm wondering if that license to hurt with the two-edged sword, coupled with the license to kill (bearing arms) was really what the forefathers envisioned for Americans. .02

Pejorative

2009-03-20T00:20:00.010-05:00

It has taken me quite a while to finish this entry because, somehow, I was at a loss for words on this subject so I'm just going to write as much as I can feel right now and save the rest for later. So I've written about this student--this white male student--who had stepped INTO (not out of) his element to direct a derogatory statement at me. It was inevitable that somehow, considering his blatant lack of self-restraint and the clear absence of common sense that this flaw of humanity (God didn't create the monster that lies within this error of human judgement) demonstrated. The story is simple, He wanted my help, I ignored him, he lashed out and called me a NIGGER. Now I've had many encounters with derivatives of the word (which, arguably, have the same root no matter how you say it) but never before in my life had I been called that in a pejorative way from the mouth of a white man (a retarded one at that). The experience made me think of several things: 1) It took my achieving the highest level of education to hear the word; 2) Even the most retarded white person still thinks he can call me a Nigger; 3) Although we obtain economic and social "capital", we still have to be wary/prepared for the moment when a white person loses his/her senses and mentions this word around us.

Nigger. I say the word in this text simply to ensure that you are hearing it loudly and clearly. It meant something different coming from that spilled waste of semen (and yes, I refuse to call him anything human-worthy because his behavior was asinine and thus, in my opinion, he has surrendered his human qualities in my eyes...call it what you will). He looked me in the eyes and said "OK, NIGGER!" but not before he threatened to call his sperm donor to put me in my rightful place (probably back on their plantation, I'm guessing). I was the professor, he was the student and yet, and yet...AND YET...

A nation of cowards? That description is far too mild. One day I will finish this series of discussions about the many themes that emerged from my first encounter with a white carcass calling me an insulting name but for now, I'll leave with you my immediate response (in my head, of course), and pay homage to the greatest work of literature ever written by a human being without divine inspiration:

"One night I accidentally bumped into a man, and perhaps because of the near darkness he saw me and called me an insulting name. I sprang at him, siezed his coat lapels and demanded that he apologize. He was a tall blonde man, and as my face came close to his, he looked insolently out of his blue eyes and cursed me, his breath hot in my face as he struggled. I pulled his chin down sharp upon the crown of my head, butting him as I had seen the West Indians do, and I felt his flesh tear and the blood gush out, and I yelled, "Apologize! Apologize!" But he continued to curse and struggle, and I butted him again and again until he went down heavily on his knees, profusely bleeding. I kicked him repeatedly, in a frenzy because he still uttered insults though his lips were frothy with blood. Oh yes, I kicked him! And in my outrage, I got out my knife and prepared to slit his throat, right there beneath the lamplight in the deserted street, holding him in the collar with one hand, and opening the knife with my teeth--when it occurred to me that the man had not seen me, actually; that he, as far as he knew, was in the midst of a walking nightmare! And I stopped the blade, slicing the air as I pushed him away, letting him fall back into the street. I stared at him hard as the lights of a car stabbed through the darkness. He lay there, moaning on the asphalt; a man almost killed by a phantom. It unnerved me. I was both disgusted and ashamed...then I was amused. Something in this man's thick head had sprung out and beaten him within an inch of his life...Poor fool, poor blind fool, I thought with sincere compassion, mugged by an invisible man!"(p. 5)

The story that continues from that excerpt in Invisible Man is deeply moving and enlightening. I encourage you to read it further. My story, too, has yet to be completed but I will update as my thoughts become clearer. Consider this the second installment of several to come. There are so many thoughts to share about the madness surrounding the incident, that I will have to beg your patience in dealing with these short "teaser" entries. There's more, much more but "the end is in the beginning and lies far ahead." So please, "Bear with me".

.02

Nigger

2009-03-02T13:37:00.002-05:00

Just when I thought I was going to take a break from this whole discussion about race, I had to face racism head on and begin a whole new discussion about it. A few posts ago, I mentioned the young man who demonstrated both slight mental retardation and a propensity towards racism. Well, this was all confirmed on Friday when I refused to accept his behavior anymore.

The Burden

2009-02-25T12:57:00.007-05:00

I left my class today, after dealing with this kid who demands way too much of my time (yes, he's still there), really burdened by the thought of "hopelessness". As class ended, my only black, male student walked in and sat in front of me. I have known for a while that he's dealing with some issues (cases, bad influences, etc) and my heart goes out to him every time. Today was different though; he sat down although he had missed the class. He wanted an ear and so I listened. He hasn't turned in any of his work although he's done the work. The thing is, this particular assignment that's due is a personal essay and he told me he hates to write about his life. He isn't proud of himself and he hates to have to look back. "We were evicted," he said today "and I have nowhere to go. But I'm trying." He's trying...he really is. He shows up and although I see he has a strong defense system going on, it's easy to see that he's hiding something. He's hurting. Today, it was clear; he spoke little but said much. I asked him to tell me what I could help with and his eyes welled up with tears:

"Miss, I don't know. They say they need some financial aid papers that I can't produce. They want it from my father but my father is in Trinidad. And it doesn't help that my mother is always asking me for money. And yesterday, I missed your class because my sister ain't have no babysitter so I stayed with her kid. I'm tryin', Miss, I really am but they don't make it easy either. I talked to the lady in financial aid and she gave me a silly face saying she can't help me. I want to do better but if my life depends on it, I'm going back to sellin' and I know you gonna tell me about the consequences and all dat but my life depends on it, Miss. I'm tryin' and I wanna stay out of jail. Right now I got a felony on my back that I'm fightin' but if I gotta do it, I'ma sell again. Either that, or I'ma go to the army and take my anger out on some people in that war. I gotta do somethin' but this school thing seems like it's so hard. I'm tryin to stay out of trouble and away from these kids who are a bad influence but it's not workin', Miss. Not when my family gettin' evicted and I can't buy my books for school and it ain't like my sisters went to college so they not helpin'."

My heart was completely shattered as I watched him fight the tears. This kid is really trying and there was very little I could say to him to give him encouragement. Nobody at the school really understands the plight of this kid. See, he was charged with assault (he beat some kid with a bat) and he was sent to jail for 2 years. The contrast to that is that another kid in the same class (white) and his friends gave a guy a heavy beat down and he got 29 days and probation. Justice seems to have a heavy hand when it comes to certain children, but I digress. This young man is trying and he wants to stay out of trouble. It's just sad that with all that he has poured out to me, I still can't figure out where to begin to help him. I can't pay his tuition, I can't talk to his counselors because they won't talk about specific students, and I can't keep his family from being evicted. But when I look at him, I see a brother, a nephew, a cousin, and I can't help but feel responsible to at least do something to help keep him out of the hands of the justice system. After all, he's only 18! Look at what life we can hand him if we give him a college education, as opposed to letting him go and allowing the system to take his life and liberty!

This is the burden we all should share. We should be considering ways to help young people, such as this kid to get on the straight and narrow. Now we know he made choices before and his choices were not the wisest but is there any among us who will take a stand to help put this kid and those like him back on the straight and narrow and take them off the streets? He only sees two options outside of college: Jail and Jail because to me, the army is just another institution that is set up to "protect" us by putting our youngest, most talented men and women under a sentence that they can't seem to get out of. These shouldn't be his only options but they are. And the burden is mine to figure out if there is just one or two things I can do to help ensure that he stays the course because he is, afterall, really really trying. These are the situations that make me angry and sad and frustrated with our "system" of education and government. There is no rehabilitation: If you were always a miscreant, then you rarely have a chance at changing your life and doing what's right. The streets are calling our kids. In fact, I fight against the streets everyday! I remember when I was about to become a teacher in New York City and I did a small scale study of the area in which I would teach. I interviewed a drug dealer on the corner, who happened to be a fellow high school classmate of mine. He looked me squarely in the face and said "Keep your foot up their asses because I got my hand in their pockets. Your greatest enemy everyday is ME and I ain't gonna quit so you better not either." And I have NEVER forgotten that lesson. It was the most honest lesson I learned as a teacher. No seminar or book by any prominent professor could have broken down education theory and philosophy to me so simply as Face, the drugdealer in Brooklyn. "Keep your foot in their asses...I'm your greatest enemy...I ain't gonna quit so you better not..." I'm still fighting and will continue to do so; I just wish I had more ammunition.
$.02.

When White Attacks Black and White Is the Only Defense

2009-02-23T22:26:00.006-05:00

This issue has been bugging me all day, along with several other issues but I figured if I write about it, I can channel the energy in the right direction. I'm tired of whiteness...Seriously...I've had enough of white power, white supremacy, white ignorance, white walls, white anything. I'm officially asking white people to give me a day off from the foolishness!

Lately, there has been much talk about race and racism in our 'u'ni'topian' society. From chimps and shots to a nation of cowards, we've somehow begun to see that our society is not all that brave when ti comes to tackling issues of race. I have a feeling that very soon, these discussions will inevitably become so prominent that we will have no choice BUT to address what has been swept under a rug for so long (if you're white, that is). I say if you're white because for black people, race stares us in the face every morning before we leave our homes. Each day, we are reminded of our position in society, whether we're at the top or at the very bottom. Everyday that I stand before a class filled with white students, I remember that I'm black. Every time someone puts my change on the counter, I am reminded that I'm black. In fact, last week a student thought it wasn't enough that I see my beautiful black skin in the mirror every morning before heading to work, so he felt the need to remind me that I'm black. He received a grade that he didn't like on a paper and he retorted with a racial remark. Now, the result of this episode is what led me to write this post after almost 6 months of silence.

Let's recap the episode. I walk into a college classroom, stand at the podium, give my morning greeting and then walk towards the computer to start projecting the day's lesson. I begin the workshop and students are engaged in a discussion about their work. It is then that I realize that I need to return papers to them so they can critique and mend more of their work (this is an English class). I begin to return work and when said student receives his paper, his immediate response is to be on the defensive. Why? He earned a 4% on a quiz. I return his other paper (which he failed to actually revise after I made several suggestions for revision. So I just graded it as a draft, since I have nothing to do with people's ability to follow directions) and then the volcano erupted:
"Why would you give me a D?"
I looked around to make sure I had heard what I thought I heard.
"And why would you write to me in gel pen?"
Again, I wondered who the hell he thought he was talking to. I paused before responding and so happy I am that I paused.
"I know what you gave me a D...It's because you're bbb bbbb bbbbbbbbb"
At this point, I was ready to hear it. I've been called that before, here we go again! I figured, hmm, it's early in the semester but here we go! B____, yes yes, get it out, B____! And then...
"It's because you're BLACK and you think that you're the greatest force on the face of the earth!"
Pause...WHAT? What did he say? Triple pause again "HUH?"
Now clearly, if you have the talent of deductive reasoning, you can figure out the problem here.
My response was simple "I was born black, have been black all my life, and will continue to be black for as long as I live so deal with it!"
He got even angrier and began to flip out in his own little head and his own little world. The other students were aghast. I was rather calm and even that is something to think about. Why was I so calm? It's because this isn't the worst thing I've been called and it's because moments like these are what Ralph Ellison and Toni Morrison and Marcus Garvey have been preparing me for all my life. I was ready for that. What I wasn't ready for was what followed.
"I'm getting out of here! I'm not staying here!" and he stormed out in ire.
Now some minor details took place in between and editorial power gives me the right to write around them but his behavior left me wondering what the hell I would possibly do if that seemingly unstable individual should ever storm back into the room with the intent to do harm. What would I do? The students began to comment with disgust and fear at his behavior. They were surprised at how calmly I handled the situation. The expressed fear and as a seasoned educator, I have wolfwoman syndrome and felt the need to protect my flock. So on I went to detail the event to my department chair.

Herein lies the problem. Those with whom I work are very sensitive individuals. They are liberals who all informed me that they "voted for Barack". They are the ones who pat me on the shoulder on November 5: "Congratulations! How do you feel? Did you ever think this would happen?"...yes, THOSE liberal folks are my coworkers. You know, the ones who talk about Barack Obama in the office really loudly, very close to my cubicle, so that I know they're "down" with the Obamalution. So I stopped to consider every word that I put on paper. I paused to consider every person that may/may not see what I wrote. I had to think of ways to sound as objective as possible, while showing concern for the student (this, afterall, is my job). But reality hit just as I was about to hit "send." There is no person of color in any power position that will have anything to do with this issue. So what am I really expecting them to do? I kept HOPE alive (afterall, they all seem to love that word these days). I hit send and waited. I read, and re-read the email to ensure that I had used words that conveyed enough urgency and disgust for the matter to be treated with urgency.

I will fast forward to why I'm troubled. I walked into class today, and this kid was sitting in the front of my room, waiting on me to enter.
"I'm sorry for what happened," he yelled, as I walked through the door.
And without responding, I paused to imagine that I were a petite white woman and that he were a black man (of any shade, height, and build) and I imagined what would have happened had he then exploded the way he did in my last class. HE WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN THERE! SO WHY THE HELL IS HE HERE? WHY? Really? WHY! I stood for 50 minutes before a class wondering just that. HOW is it possible that nobody considered that he was a danger to me and to his fellow classmates because he exploded and has demonstrated signs of instability. Why the lack of concern? If he were black and had hurled any insult at his innocent white professor who was simply trying to do her job, he'd be gone 15 mins before he even THOUGHT of exploding. Somehow, the white protectors would've been there to rescue the princess from the potential attack of a rabid human being who speaks in loud tones. SO WHY WAS THIS KID STILL SITTING IN FRONT OF ME and WHY wasn't there anyone from the administratio present to ensure that there would be no incidents? Is it because I'm too professional to tell him a few choice words or to insist that he realize his inferiority to me, the power player in the lecture room, who could make or break his immediate future? Should I have stormed out of my class bursting in tears, crying like a damsel in distress who was traumatized by the big bad bear? I don't get it. Where did I go wrong? WHY WAS HE THERE after clearly violating the college's code of conduct and after all necessary parties were notified?

Needless to say, he was a distraction to his fellow classmates for the entire session and I had to question those in charge after class was over. Now, the disciplinarians are still asking me to answer more questions about whether I deem him a threat EVEN AFTER at least 4 detailed reports being sent from me to them regarding this case. EVEN AFTER they have asked me what I would like to see happen to this kid and I said GET HIM OUT OF MY CLASS. They still want to know HOW dangerous I think he is. So, what I'm wondering is if he's only mildly dangerous, does this mean he stays? I don't get it!

Simply put, had the race cards been reversed and the situtation the same, that young man would have had a paper trail so long following his ass out of the college FOR GOOD, that he wouldn't even want to step on campus to enjoy the free ice-skating or to use the library. In fact, they might find some restraining order that would hold him at least one town away from the entrance of the college. THIS, my people, is the post-racial U.S.A, where our President rocks a fade and his wife gets a touch-up every 6 weeks. THIS is what happens when whitey attacks blackie and the power players look more like the attacker than the victim. $.02

She strikes again

2008-10-22T16:58:00.003-05:00

So on Friday I attended a colloquium on transitioning from being a doctoral student into the work world. I learned quite a few bits of information, the most important of which was where to search for jobs in higher education. I posed several questions relating to age and race but the one which seemed to hit home for my very racist professor of whom I spoke before (see first entry) was my inquiry about searching for jobs as a young person. Her response was "oh you should be searching the Chronicles of Higher Education and that other one that they have out there...what's it called? Oh yeah they used to call it the Black Chronicle but now I don't know the name but I'll forward it to you and you can find information on how to apply to HBCUs like Howard and such" Now there were two things to consider there. First, I hadn't ever mentioned, in my 3 years here, that I was remotely interested in applying to Black schools. In fact, had she ever listened to me, she would've known that I'm more interested in going on the international market than working at any U.S. school.

I mean, what does one say to something like that? This is reminiscent of so many unsavory things she's said to me over the past 3 years. Prior to this incident, I told her I had been volunteering at a golf tournament. I was giving some commentary on the nature of the tournament and how I found it deplorable that ANYONE would have time to play golf from 9am-5pm on a work day when their subordinates are busy slaving away at work to send their children to an affordable liberal arts school. My statement was made to point out the inequity in American society, where the rich exploits the poor and plays golf without reservation or concern for the little man. Her response? "Well it's kind of a great thing if you think about it. Years ago those guys who you saw playing today would've probably never been able to stand on the golf course except to work as caddies or to fetch water and balls for their bosses." I asked her to clarify and she said "well weren't there Black All-Stars playing?" I mentioned that the majority of individuals on my side of the course were white but there were some Black men playing. Now this struck me again as something strange...I hadn't mentioned a word about black men playing or anything related to black people and here she was, racializing the incident. Granted, the event is named after a Black baseball all-star but really, why must it be about race every time she opens her mouth? And it's always something ignorant!

Then there was the ignorant classmate yesterday who wanted to talk as an expert on reproduction theory in schools. She talked about minorities having similar experiences as working class children. So I couldn't resist the urge to ask for clarification on the difference between minorities and working class children. She had assumed that once she didn't use any other clarifying statement, that everyone assumed that those working class children to whom she referred were "naturally" WHITE. So she stumbled and gagged and all but threw up at my demands that she clarifies and defines what "minority" refers to in that context she was using. The professor intervened to "put us back on task"...You see, a discussion that puts a White woman on the spot for using prejudiced terms is not accepted in my program.

This all led me to think today about the possibility of Barack Obama being President and what it means to white people in the U.S. I've grown so weary of hearing white people qualify their "tolerance" by the fact that they're voting for Obama. I cannot tell you how many times white people have asked me what I think about Obama (as if their telling me that they're voting for him will make me see them as less inherently RACIST). I often say something egregious about Obama, just to watch their faces. So let's hypothetically say that Barack Obdama were hmm, Rashid Jackson with the same qualifications but raised by a Black grandmother in Harlem or Atlanta. Would White America be so gungho Democrat if Rashid were running against John McCain? I do wonder if it's really the politics of Obama that they like or it's the fact that he makes them comfortable that he's kind of black but kind of white and kind of "safe"? I don't know, these are just a few of the things that have been in my thoughts over the past few days.$.02

In a hotel lobby in Accra

2008-08-13T17:07:00.004-05:00

So on my recent journey to Ghana, I visited La Palm Royal hotel (hands down, the worst managed hotel I've visited) and as I was only there for one night, I decided to spend some time in the lobby of our bungalow just taking in the experience I had had over the previous 3 days and also to enjoy the fresh Ghanaian air. Then along came a spider....And here's my reaction to his major faux paux

Why is it that if you see me, a Black woman, sitting around in the lobby of a 5-star hotel in Ghana, you automatically assume that I work here?

This white devil, anglofied racist beast looked me in the face and dared to insult my intelligence with his Napoleon-syndrome-having pompous attitude...'Do you work here?" "No, do you?" "No" " so why would I work here?" "I dunno, I'm just asking".

And then reality set in! Is it really that no matter how far I go in life; no matter my level of education or status, earnings, grother, savings potential, no matter what, I will still be a negro woman who will forever be mistaken for a Ghanaian hotel worker who without her uniform is simply an off-duty hotel maid?

Well, I'll be damned if I allow the world to define Black identity as something less-than or unequal to power, prestige, persistence, perseverance, pride, and potential. I am not your Jemima! I am not giving your seedlings my soul to suck on for what feels like eternity and I refuse to let my children feel inferior or be made to feel inferior because they choose to embrace their identity. I refuse to be marginalized, exoticized, demonized, and criticized by your standards that reduce my resilient sisters to nothin gmore than a colonizer's concubine who cleans the slop from the tables of men who sold their souls for coffee and sugar cane! $.02

What About Our Children?

2008-06-27T14:02:00.002-05:00

I wrote this essay in 2002 so it is a bit dated but it's still relevant today.

Living in the City--- What about our youth?

When was the last time you visited Crown Heights or any of the once predominantly black communities of New York City? Have you seen our new neighbors? Maybe you’re wondering what happened to the old ones. What happened to those happy little girls who played double-dutch on the street and the little boys who always opened the fire hydrant on a hot summer day? What about the old man with the pipe who sat puffing tobacco all day on the stoop with his buddies, or the women who used to bring their lawn chairs out in front of the building to deliberate over the latest news in the community? Who are these strange people taking over Harlem and Crown Heights and Bedford Stuyvesant? Last time I checked, white folks didn’t go past Eastern Parkway/Brooklyn Museum on the Brooklyn bound #1 and #2 trains or 96th street on the Manhattan side. Now why have they decided to sit all the way to the end of the train line?

We wonder why our youth are so angry and so defensive nowadays. We wonder why their faces are so grim and why they all seem to have attitudes. Some blame it on the rap lyrics, but that’s for the ignorant, uninformed bunch, who write books and novels that define a race they have no part in. Our youth are angry because they are tired of fighting. They fight for territory, they fight to eat, and they fight for mental and physical survival. Look at the environment in which we are living. Some of our youths have never inhaled a breath of fresh country air. But who will take them to the great outdoors if we are all stuck in our offices in our sophisticated suits? Why is it that our inner city schools have no technology when you, my friend, sit and mingle with IBM and Microsoft all day long surfing the internet that schools are too poor to offer to our own children. There’s a wealth of information out there and they can’t get it, simply because they’re poor. Yet we live in the city with one of the greatest skylines of all time, boasting the statue of liberty as its backdrop. Our city is one of the most segregated in the country we just don’t acknowledge it. If you ride the subways long enough, I’m sure you’ll see segregation at its worst. At least in the south you know they don’t like us, and vice versa. Here, they are in power and they suppress us, subtly. A professor of mine once posed the question “why would the colonizer educate the children of the colonized the same way he does his own children?” I ask of you, what are you doing to educate our children?

We think that children don’t notice when things happen around them. “Why isn’t so and so living next door anymore?” “Why can’t I go to such and such a school like those other kids?” These are their thoughts, but who gets to hear them when everyone is so busy trying to earn enough for a condo or a new Range Rover? Where are those young Black men and women who have climbed out of these communities into institutions of higher learning? What have they come back to do? We criticize white America for taking over our homes and our culture, yet we as young educated adults, sit back and allow them to do so. What have you done for a teenager in your community lately? When did you take time out to speak to one of the young men or women on the corner? Do you judge them as you walked by, or do you stop to change a life by inspiring them with some positive words? You went to college, got a fly degree, but what have you done to change the future of our race? How are you helping?

I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of hearing Martin Luther King’s name every Black History Month. Dr. King didn’t dream that one day our youth would outnumber white boys in jail. Dr. King didn’t dream that one day we would educate ourselves and leave the future to perish because we’re too busy making a dime. Dr. King didn’t dream that Black girls would be getting pregnant at age 13 with no baby fathers. That wasn’t Dr. King’s dream. We pass our children on the streets everyday on our way to work in the white man’s world. Again, I ask you, what have you done for a child lately? Our children are fighting daily for survival in a world that doesn’t belong to them. “That rap music is poisonous to the mind,” they say, but what other role models are we giving our children? How easy it is for little boys all across America to wear bandaids on their faces because Nelly is wearing them, or to sport Jerseys all summer long because it’s that rehab they call ‘Fabolous’ style. How about the good old Alicia Keys braids that guys and girls are rocking nowadays. Why has everything become such an easy trend to follow? They have nothing else to look at. They have teachers who couldn’t care less about their education, people moving into their communities and causing them to become displaced, and a society of educated young Black adults who don’t give a damn about them. What, I ask you, is the future of our children, and when will you stop in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the city to hear what stories they have to tell? In the words of the great Mahatma Ghandi, “the future depends on what we do in the present.” $.02

The Biggest Taboo

2008-06-18T16:49:00.004-05:00

The Biggest Taboo: Absentee Mothers

There is a new epidemic facing our community. No one sees this
epidemic, no one talks about this epidemic, and nobody seems to want
a cure for this epidemic. There is an unfair stigma that latches
itself to Black fathers and I'm about to help you put a stop to it.
There is a new generation of mothers who are walking away from their
responsibilities, leaving young fathers to tend, mend, and defend
their children alone, and for this, men have gotten no credit.

Mama! Mama! Where are you, Mama? What the hell is up with women walking out
on their kids nowadays? I see you over there reading this all
perturbed because you think I made a typo and should've said "Daddy"
where I said Mama but I guess you, like half of the population, have
not gotten the memo either. Mothers, yes, MOTHERS are walking out on
their kids nowadays, leaving fathers all by themselves. Yeah, I know
some of you are saying "good, it's about time" but what's up with
that? I mean, really, why is it that 15% of the 11 million single
family households are headed by single fathers? I know that a good
number of that percentage are those men who have lost their wives or
partners to death's sting. I'm not talking about those. I'm talking
about the new epidemic: Dead Beat Mothers. You know the type. The
ones who get with a man, fall in love, think he's everything to her
so she puts on this front to get the ring. She gets the ring, she
stops doing her thing, and he picks up the slack where she falls
short. Things are going well, they're happy as hell, then comes the
bad news: she's pregnant before she can get what she thinks she
really wants out of life. Then he's no good anymore. Then all of a
sudden chaos reigns. Then she makes his life a living hell and when
the baby comes she says "the bastard is yours" and walks the hell
out. You think I'm joking? You think this is a farce? Well pause for
a moment while I give you a dose of reality.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are an estimated 2.3
billion single fathers in the United States of America today. Gone
are the days when men who raised children alone were widowers. Today,
only 5% of single fathers are widowers, 42% of which have been
divorced, while 38% have never been married. So where the hell are
the mothers? Why have mothers decided to walk out cold on their sons
and daughters, leaving little or no support for the fathers who are
left in this situation? Then let's talk about the justice system that
is more willing to give the children to their dead beat mothers than
to a hard-working man who wants to do what's right by his child?
I've seen it over and over again; women having children just
to "please" their men then as soon as something goes wrong, they
bail, forgetting the importance of their roles in the lives of their
young soldiers. What is up with that?

Then let me not fail to attack those who dump their children on the
grandmothers of today. I know ya'll saw that pathetic episode of 60
minutes where those poor grandmothers were raising the children of
their irresponsible children while their backs and knees buckled for
lack of relaxation in their old age. Why has parenting become a
burden that everyone wants someone else to bear? But I digress so let
me refocus.

Women, our role is to uphold, instill, teach, nurture, and educate
our children. So what is this new trend proving? I know fathers have
been doing it for years, leaving mothers to tend to the future but
what is the future if there are no mothers? Don't get me wrong, this
article is meant to commend and support and congratulate those young
men who have declared that they won't be another statistic. I commend
you and I respect you for taking on the responsibility for which
society gives you no credit. But I also have to call out women who
walk away and forget that they have a huge role to play in the lives
of their sons and daughters. Ideally, a family is supposed to consist
of mother, father, and child. That idealism has died since the
beginning of the last century but is it necessary that we continue to
build negative trends and ideas for future generations?

Absentee mothers leave their children feeling unloved and uncared
for. A mother's touch, kiss, embrace are essential elements in a
growing child's life. Think about it…when you cried, your mother was
more likely to comfort you than your father. Who knew better how to
solve some of life's hardest problems than your mother? While your
father was busy providing, wasn't it your mother that you were able
to sit and converse with about the silly little things you did at
school? And when you needed to write something, wasn't it your mother
that held your hand to form those letters? So why have mothers
decided to walk away from the glorious task of raising better men and
women for tomorrow? A father's heart is warm but a mother's chest is
soft and soothing for a crying baby. So why have mothers begun to
turn away and who will pick up the slack for them?

Maybe you're one of those women that snubs men who have children even
before you know the situation. We all have done it because we have
no time for the "baby mama drama". I was one too until I sat and
reflected on my own ignorance. It was not until I heard the cry of a
baby boy whose father picked him up and hushed him with the soothing
sound of a song, that I realized how stupid I was for not
acknowledging and applauding young men with children. It is not
often that you hear fathers standing up and doing what's right by
their children. Fathers, even mine, have often been dead beats and
missing and don't get me wrong those fathers get no love or credit.
But who rides for the fathers who have stepped up to the plate when
the mothers have walked away from the most beautiful gift life can
offer?

Women, let's celebrate and support those men who have the task of
raising their children all alone. Dating them doesn't mean you
automatically become a mother; however, it makes you a mentor that
this child can lean on or look up to as a mother-figure. Remember, a
mother is not necessarily one whose womb has been occupied. If we
don't support them, then the trend will worsen. Walking away from a
man because he has a child is as bad as walking away from your own
child. Remember the old axiom, "it takes a village to raise a
child"? Well, what role are you playing in the village?

If we must stop the trend of children growing up with low self-esteem
and no values then we must join in and support the single fathers
that we know by encouraging them to continue to do their best to be
the best "daddy" in the world. We must also teach and encourage
mothers to stick by their children as we build a better future in our
communities. Children with strict, caring mothers grow up with
values and standards. Boys who are raised by good mothers grow up to
respect women as they would their own mothers. Girls with good
mothers grow up to be strong women who respect themselves and
others. The foundation of the future is melting away. Mothers are
going astray, leaving others to raise their children. If the trend
doesn't stop here, there will be no future and the vicious cycle will
continue like a plague throughout our community.
For those who are interested, here are some resources that help to
support single fathers:
National Center for Fathering http://www.fathers.com
Parents Place.com Fathering Reading Room
http://www.parentsplace.com/readroom/
Fathering Magazine http://www.fathermag.com
Single & Custodial Father's Network http://single-fathers.org/
The Single Fathers Lighthouse
http://www.av.qnet.com/~rlewis3/index.html
Eggebeen, D, Snyder, A, & Manning, W. (1996). Children in single
father families in demographic perspective. Journal of Family Issues,
17(4), 441-465.
Greif, G. (1995). Single fathers with custody following separation
and divorce. Marriage & Family Review, 20, 213-231.
Parke, R., (1996). Fatherhood. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press.
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/cb96-195.html
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/cb96-200.html

Statistics and resources provided by
The Population Resource Center,
http://www.prcdc.org/holiday/fathersday.html
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/06/18/single.dads/
The Ohio State University Extension FactSheet:
http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/5000/5310.html

$.02

Motivation

2008-06-06T15:13:00.000-05:00

Einstein marveled in the mysteries that others found mundane. -- Isaacson

Einstein loved and encouraged individuality. He found the most pleasure in thinking differently. We should never reduce what we know or want to know to all others want us to know. If we do so, we lock ourselves away in a box for which nobody has a key! We are everything our minds allow us to be and more. Our minds guide us to reason about the unreasonable and marvel in the mundane, as Einstein did. So when people doubt us, we should take it as a compliment about our willingness to appreciate the things they cannot see. I am, you are, we are the developers of the mundane impossibilities of life

Post from Tim Wise on Anderson Cooper's blog

2008-04-30T00:02:00.001-05:00

Race in the Race for the Presidency: How Media Pundits Gloss Over Race and Feed Racism
Posted: 02:13 PM ET

Tim Wise
Friend of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright
Author of ‘White Like Me: Reflections on Race From a Privileged Son’
www.timwise.org

Much has been said about the role that racism may play in the outcome of the 2008 Presidential election.

But what has been largely ignored is the way that media pundits, by virtue of the language they use, the questions they ask, and the way they frame issues, often reinforce racial division, and make it harder for us to examine race issues honestly.

So consider the way the media has been pushing the question, “Can Obama win working class voters?” Or, “Why is Obama having trouble connecting with working class voters?” Both questions ignore that Obama doesn’t have a working class problem—large percentages of the black folks who are turning out to support him at rates of 90% are indeed working class—but rather, a white working class problem.

By implicitly equating “working class” with white, the media reinforces the notion of “hard-working,” average (i.e. normal) folks as white. This then leaves blacks to be viewed either as the decidedly non-working and dreaded “underclass,” or the elitist types that Hillary Clinton wants people to envision when they think of Senator Obama. Either of these images can reinforce racism, either by stoking white fear of the former or resentment toward the latter.

Or consider the way the media has responded to the Jeremiah Wright controversy.
Although much attention has been paid to black anger in the wake of Rev. Wright’s largely-taken-out-of-context comments, and although some have tried to explain the place of such righteous indignation within the black church and community, the framing of the issue has reinforced the white perspective as normal, and thus, valid. So we are asked to wonder, “Why are some black people so angry?” rather than, “Why are some white people so complacent?” about racial injustice.

White complacency is seen as normal, while black anger is taken as the pathology to be understood, ultimately making them the problem. Their perspectives are the ones that are strange and in need of explanation, but ours (if we’re white) are perfectly fine and need not be explained or defended to anyone. Such a normalizing of the white perspective only makes it more likely that whites will be hostile to those who think and view the world differently.

Of course, it’s not only this election where the media has normalized whiteness, or made it altogether invisible, so that its consequences can’t even be seen, let alone understood.

Consider the 2004 Presidential race, after which most every talking head noted that President Bush had won the “evangelical vote,” and claimed that the nation was divided between “blue states” and “red states.”

In the first instance, commentators failed to notice that the President most certainly did not win the black evangelical vote, but only the white evangelical vote. Black evangelicals voted against him by at least four to one. Saying that “evangelicals” supported the President, as the media did, marginalized Christians of color, whose sense of religious duty compelled them to vote differently from their white brothers and sisters. Why? Who knows? No one thought to ask.

As for blue states and red states, the notion of a geographic divide in this country is largely mythical. Most whites in the blue states—including New York, California, Illinois, Michigan and Maryland—either voted for Bush, or split 50-50 between Bush and Kerry. Meanwhile, in the red states, people of color voted overwhelmingly against the President. In other words, the real divide was racial, not regional.

By ignoring this truth, the media ducked the hard questions about why whites and folks of color often view our country so differently, and come to such different conclusions about what would be best for the nation politically.

But it is this kind of question we need to confront in order to have a truly productive conversation about race in America. That our respective racial identities often shape the way we view our national past, present and desired future—and therefore, often cause tension because we can’t fathom where “the other guy” is coming from—is the truth that won’t go away.

Only if media helps to uncover that reality, and encourage a real discussion about what it means, for all of us, will we likely make progress on the road to racial equity.

Response to Tim Wise's post on 360 blog

2008-04-30T00:01:00.004-05:00

I have had enough of Dr. Wright. Let me explain. I believe that everything that he has said is ABSOLUTELY true. Walk in the shoes of any black man in America today and you will feel the sting of racism all over your body. It is no mistake that there is a rise in sensationalism over the words spoken by Dr. Wright right when Obama is gaining momentum in what will be an historic event in American history. At the same time, New Yorkers are up in arms over the unjust murder of yet another Black man, shot 51 times by the police. I feel a bit of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man coming out here. You see, these events are all connected to America's refusal to face the insidiousness of the racial divide. In the midst of the struggle to validate the seemingly invisible body of Black American men, Barack Obama is made to denounce (angrily) his (angry) pastor of 20 years. He is made to denounce all things "too black" about him in order to obtain the vote of Americans. i.e. He needs to lie in order to win. If he has to deny the very thing that has shaped his life, what is it worth? This entire situation has been so painful for me to watch. Obama wants to bring about change but how can he successfully do so when America is blind to change, to justice, and to her own faults? America is not a spotless lamb. America has issues just like any other country and it is time that we face those issues, publicly, and seek ways of reconciliation. Until the philosophy that holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, That until there are no longer first class and second class citizens of any nation until the colour of a man's skin is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes(Haile Selassie), then we will have division, separation, and the whole "YES WE CAN" will never make sense to people in America. It is time to wake up and smell the coffee--dark coffee, that is--our dark past is haunting us and history certainly repeats itself in so many ways. A black man is running for office and has to denounce AND reject everything black about him...There is something absolutely wrong with this picture. Thank you, Tim Wise and others for weighing in, honestly, on this subject. Let's face it, racism exists and it's not going anywhere until we all become honest with ourselves and each other.

Sean Bell case--a letter from Al-Lateef D. Farmer

2008-04-29T01:06:00.004-05:00

“Only in Cali/Where we riot, not rally…”
2Pac
I write this with the heaviest heart ever. I write this knowing that my human value as a Black Man means nothing in the eyes of the law, the government and the media. I write this with my veins full of anger and outrage that a judge can rule that there was no wrongdoing in a case where police officers Pigs kill a Black Man who was unarmed. I write this in a ball of confusion knowing that eyewitness testimony is hollow if the witness has had previous convictions. I write this perplexed at that blind bitch justice, who obviously is peeking through her blindfold. I write this dumbfounded that 50 shots at any target can be justified in anyone’s eyes.
The three police officers Pigs who killed Sean Bell after his bachelor party and hours before his wedding were just acquitted of the manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment charges they faced. Nicole Paultre Bell left the courtroom as the verdict was being read, saying “I’ve got to get out of here,” as she left. People scrambled in and outside of the courtroom, scuffled outside, the media stoked the burning anger and people everywhere had to hang their heads as justice again prevailed against a person of color.
A strange irony in my receiving this news is that I was notified of the verdict while attending a conference aimed at giving young, Black Men employable skills and providing them with the tools to navigate this world. I was next to Baruti Kafele when he received a text message and looked over to me and said that cops were acquitted. I quickly went to CNN.com on my cell phone and confirmed the news; we looked at each other, nodded and shrugged. That kind of defeated shrug that says, “They did it again.”
My eyes swelled with tears as I thought that we are still three-fifths of a man by de facto law. I hurt for the unwed bride who changed her name days after her love’s death, who will go to bed tonight with the pain so fresh in her heart. I wanted to weep for their two children who will never see their father again and how it will be years before they understand what happened today. I’m still trying to wrap my head around how one person can fire 31 shots at a target whose only crime to that point had been trying to escape the guys who may or may not have identified themselves as cops. That means he emptied his clip, reloaded and then nearly emptied it again! I was shocked and dismayed that Al Sharpton called for calm at a time when there needs to be an uprising.
All of these emotions ran through my body as I listened to a group of young men aged 11-14 sing a South African song with the lyrics, “…please remember me”. I wiped a few tears away as I realized that these youngsters with God’s gift of an angelic voice will one day be subjected to police Pigs saying they fit the description, plunging their rectal cavity, firing 41 shots as they retrieve their wallet or 50 shots as they attempt to drive in fear.
I am in no way an advocate of violence…yet rebellion in the face of injustice; I will ride and die with. The boiling over of years of frustration and anger of those on the lower rung of society needs to manifest itself in a cataclysmic demonstration that cannot be denied. The revolution must be televised! And podcasted, e-mailed, covered by the major newspapers and on your FM dial!
The fire this time should burn in Queens, Harlem, Brooklyn, on Long Island and Staten Island! The fire this time should burn in Newark, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Memphis, Houston, Trenton, Miami, Atlanta, Washington D.C., Plainfield, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Oakland, New Orleans, Houston, Richmond, Baltimore, Charlotte, Birmingham, Little Rock, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Newport News, St. Louis, and Cincinnati. Hell, the fire this time should burn in Manhattan! It should burn where they shop, where they work, where the money is made, where the laws are passed!
The fire this time should burn in your favorite rapper! The fire this time should burn in actors, athletes, and singers! The fire this time should burn on college campuses! The fire this time should burn in Presidential hopefuls! The fire this time should burn in your church! The fire this time should burn on the front page of your favorite newspaper! The fire this time should burn in Spike Lee, Chuck D. and Danny Glover! The fire this time should burn in H. Rap Brown, Geronimo Pratt, Bobby Seale and Angela Davis! The fire this time should burn in you, because it damn sure burns in me!
---Al-Lateef D. Farmer

Politics and Education

2008-04-09T17:10:00.005-05:00

I submitted the following piece to a newsletter that is supposed to be a sounding board for members of the community of scholars to which I have been assigned. Upon review, however, the Dean of the graduate school rejected the newsletter and also requested that the whole focus of the newsletter be revamped. I wasn't the only victim but her actions proved my equation to be absolutely correct.

G=P+k where P=.75 and k=.25

The equation is complicated, yet quite simple. If the marketing tools for graduate school promoted the equation, however, less people (I presume) would come. Or at least those who come would be more prepared for the truth about the graduate experience.

Graduate school! Nobody gets there without some degree of resilience, determination, and high scholastic achievement. Therefore, one would assume that graduate school—for those who choose to accept the mission—is manageable. Graduate school is the place where scholars can share ideas, debate topics of interest, and validate their theories/hypotheses. Therefore, as far as we are concerned when entering, G=K, where K=100%. Why then, is it that so many of my colleagues have faced such adversity and borderline depression when it comes to their fields of study? We have the equation to blame.

Graduate school, somehow, is the place where the most brilliant people play the most defensive roles. One’s work is constantly questioned. Your main task, while here, is to prove yourself. There is coursework for which you have to be on the defensive by showing that you have read, digested, understood, and can articulate material that you have probably seen many times before (and which probably has very little to do with your own research). Then there are comprehensive exams, where you have to defend your competence (with the material you have spent two years laboring over) to a few professors and hope that they are kind enough to allow you the honor of being called a “candidate”, rather than just a “student”. Further up the chain, you have to spend years laboring over data and other information and then pray hard that a committee of four agrees that it is safe for you to be granted the three beautiful letters of their co-ed fraternity.

We’ve all experienced meltdowns of some kind, where someone who doesn’t quite understand our experiences as mothers, fathers, children of ailing parents, aunts, uncles, immigrants, underrepresented groups of people, human beings with problems, seems to judge us unfairly. It is at that point that we all question our purpose for giving up a life of freedom to commit to the academy. It is at that point that we reconsider why we have elected to study in a town that is the “seventh cloudiest city in the United States with cold, snowy winters and warmer, wet summers.” Binghamton is not exactly the most felicitous place for young, underrepresented academics. Dubois’ double consciousness is always in full effect as we navigate the equation that is the antithesis of every true bookworm’s existence: We are used to having our work speak for itself. We have gotten this far by way of our academic achievement, not merely by who we know.

So how do we keep smiling and stay above water when professors question our abilities, when colleagues do not respect our perspectives and just label us as “other”, when people dismiss our contributions to the academy as “radical” or fail us for presenting ideas that challenge the status quo? How do we maintain healthy relationships with spouses and family in the face of such adversity and continue to focus on working ten times as hard to get five times as far as our counterparts? How do we truly get through this graduate experience? Well, a friend of mine recently met with her advisor to discuss why she had received low grades on a particular part of her comprehensive exam. His response was simple: He gave her the equation. This woman of incredible intellectual ability, who works on average, twelve hours per day on her academics was told that she needed to “make nice” with the faculty. “You don’t smile with them enough,” he said, “so they don’t know you.”

So, based on what I have deduced from this experience thus far, I realize that we come in with the expression in mind: G=k, where k=100%. However, after the first year or two, we come to the realization that g≠k but rather G-P=k. Graduate school is not a test of all you know. In fact, your knowledge is trumped by your ability to network with a few individuals with whom the power to determine your future lies. The graduate school experience at Binghamton, for some of us, indicates that knowledge is significant but more critical is one’s understanding of how to navigate “P” in order to earn Superdelegate votes into the co-ed fraternity. However, make no mistake about it; this kind of “P” is far from democratic.

Fear

2008-01-08T19:14:00.001-05:00

Fear is a mind killer—Henry Ford

What are you so afraid of? What scares you more than a dark alley on a tranquil night, where black cats and mice roam? What scares you more than death staring you in the face? Life, that’s what!

Life scares you because you have to be strong every day that you live. You have to constantly figure out new ways to maneuver this place called earth, this thing called life.

We fear our own existence because people expect things of us; we expect things of ourselves that we aren’t sure we can truly accomplish.

So what are the consequences of this fear? We fight back at life!

We fight the people who love us, by telling them that they will never love us enough. We fight against those that don’t love us, by proving to them that we never needed them in the first place. We fight the nay-sayers, the haters, and the oppressors, showing them that schadenfreude is only an ungranted wish.

And then we fight our worst adversary: Our conscience.

That’s the fight that is the most intense, most heart-wrenching, and most painful. We fight our minds for telling us when to give up, when to start; for telling us that we can do something when physical willpower says “no”.

We fight ourselves when goals are not quite accomplished the way we expect them to be. We fight ourselves when we look into the mirror and realize that the innocence of childhood has been replaced.

We then wage a war between self and inner-self, the deadliest of battles known to man.

And when we’ve managed to annihilate our own selves, we get up, pinch ourselves, and then realize that we are still alive and that the battle of life is just a vicious cycle that we must be courageous enough to face, as long as heartbeats race and blood flows, because the only victory sweeter than beating our enemies, is that of self-realization.

No Child Left Behind--Lamont Carey

2007-10-22T01:03:00.001-05:00

WHEN THE BULLETS FLY IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION

2007-09-19T11:09:00.001-05:00

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/nj/20070918_Willingboro_school_locked_down_after_gunfire.html
So why wasn't this on CNN? Why didn't the country freeze at the sound of this incident? I mean, we all know that Kanye West wasn't lying when he stunned the nation a few years ago on television when he said "George Bush does not care about Black people." But it's not just the President. 200+ kids would have lost their lives in an elementary school and nobody is fired up about it. All these innocent LITTLE children would have lost their opportunity to succeed and nobody is reporting it. The fact that school was open the next day is further heightens my level of anger and disdain at the Willingboro schools system. Surely, they can't assume that these children are used to the sound of gunshots and don't value their own lives. Had this happened in the white burbs then the children would have a week of on-going trauma therapy and myriad procedural safety drills. But it's as if they're assuming that black kids are immune to trauma. Imagine how they feel about going to school and hearing gunshots? Surely, some of them MUST be scared out of their wits. But nobody cares...If a tree falls in the woods kinda thing u know? Yeah well that's my two cents for today.

Blacks given the Emmitt Till treatment in 2007...

2007-09-12T11:19:00.001-05:00

http://news.aol.com/story/nc/_a/details-emerge-in-horrific-torture-case/20070911152309990001

Racism is becoming more and more rampant in the United States. We cannot pretend that it no longer exists. We must fight against injustice and stand up for human rights. The Jena 6 case isn't unique. There are many such cases which are not publicized. We cannot allow history to repeat itself.

Globalization in Jamaica

2007-09-08T22:37:00.000-05:00

America sneezes, Jamaica catches a cold. Sad.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5277094596195828118

With a new purpose

2007-08-29T00:07:00.000-05:00

This is the beginning, the dawn of a new year. I have a new outlook. Those who have tried will no longer win, those who haven't will have no opportunity to do so. This is the beginning of the end of the dawning of a new day. 2nd year...if I made it through the first, I can make it through this. I will sell my soul for this dreaded sheet of paper that validates my words and makes me relevant to academia. That's the nature of this beast that is controlled by the beasts that refuse to see me and you for who we are. Cheers to a new dawning

Supreme Court revists Integration in Schools

2007-06-30T18:31:00.002-05:00

http://www.naacpldf.org/VOLINT/add_docs/volint_home.html

Check out the opinions that each judge expresses, particularly Justice Roberts, George Bush's last appointed judge. Racism is real and so are segregated schools.

To fulfill your life-purpose you've got to answer

2007-06-23T20:02:00.000-05:00

Visions that can change the world trapped inside an ordinary girl
She looks just like me too afraid to dream out loud
And though it’s simple your idea, it won’t make sense to everybody
You need courage now If you're gonna persevere

To fulfill divine purpose, you gotta answer when you're called
So don't be afraid to face the world against all odds

CHORUS
Keep the dream alive don't let it die
If something deep inside keeps inspiring you to try, don't stop
And never give up, don't ever give up on you
Don't give up

Every victory comes in time, work today to change tomorrow
It gets easier, who’s to say that you can’t fly
Every step you take you get, closer to your destination
You can feel it now, don’t you know you're almost there?

To fulfill divine purpose, you gotta answer when you're called
So don't be afraid to face the world against all odds

Keep the dream alive don't let it die
If something deep inside keeps inspiring you to try, don't stop
And never give up, don't ever give up on you

Sometimes life can place a stumbling block in your way
But you're gotta keep the faith, bring what's deep inside your heart
to the light
And never give up Don't ever give up on you

Who holds the pieces to complete the puzzle?
The answer that can solve a mystery
The key that can unlock your understanding
It's all inside of you, you have everything you need yeahhhh

So, keep the dream alive don't let it die
If something deep inside, keeps inspiring you to try don't stop
And never give up, don't ever give up on you

Sometimes life can place a stumbling block in your way
But you're gotta keep the faith, bring what's deep inside your heart yeah your
heart to the light
And never give up Don't ever give up on you

* I think this is what George Bush was thinking when he invaded Iraq. He CLEARLY misunderstood the song. IF you think about it, each line does somewhat sound like what he says. Only, Yolanda meant this in a positive way. He totally thinks "divine purpose" is to get the whole world to hate us. He clearly doesn't want to "bring what's deep inside" his heart "to the light" though. What about the truth, Mr. President? Who really holds the pieces to complete the puzzle of the war in Iraq? The key that can unlock OUR understanding...? WHERE IS IT?

Co-Dead Language--Saul Williams

2007-06-22T22:38:00.000-05:00

This moves me in inexplicable ways:

Title: Co-dead Language

Whereas, breakbeats have been the missing link connecting the diasporic
community to its drum woven past
Whereas the quantised drum has allowed the whirling mathematicians to
calculate the ever changing distance between rock and stardom.
Whereas the velocity of the spinning vinyl, cross-faded, spun backwards, and
re-released at the same given moment of recorded history , yet at a
different moment in time's continuum has allowed history to catch up with
the present.

We do hereby declare reality unkempt by the changing standards of dialogue.
Statements, such as, "keep it real", especially when punctuating or
anticipating modes of ultra-violence inflicted psychologically or physically
or depicting an unchanging rule of events will hence forth be seen as
retro-active and not representative of the individually determined is.

Furthermore, as determined by the collective consciousness of this state of
being and the lessened distance between thought patterns and their secular
manifestations, the role of men as listening receptacles is to be increased
by a number no less than 70 percent of the current enlisted as vocal
aggressors.

Motherfuckers better realize, now is the time to self-actualize
We have found evidence that hip hop’s standard 85 rpm when increased by a
number as least half the rate of it's standard or decreased at ¾ of it's
speed may be a determining factor in heightening consciousness.

Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the
unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Equate rhyme with reason, Sun with season

Our cyclical relationship to phenomenon has encouraged scholars to erase the
centers of periods, thus symbolizing the non-linear character of cause and
effect
Reject mediocrity!

Your current frequencies of understanding outweigh that which as been given
for you to understand.
The current standard is the equivalent of an adolescent restricted to the
diet of an infant.
The rapidly changing body would acquire dysfunctional and deformative
symptoms and could not properly mature on a diet of apple sauce and crushed
pears
Light years are interchangeable with years of living in darkness.
The role of darkness is not to be seen as, or equated with, Ignorance, but
with the unknown, and the mysteries of the unseen.

Thus, in the name of:
ROBESON, GOD'S SON, HURSTON, AHKENATON, HATHSHEPUT, BLACKFOOT, HELEN,
LENNON, KHALO, KALI, THE THREE MARIAS, TARA, LILITHE, LOURDE, WHITMAN,
BALDWIN, GINSBERG, KAUFMAN, LUMUMBA, GHANDI, GIBRAN, SHABAZZ, SIDDHARTHA,
MEDUSA, GUEVARA, GUARDSIEFF, RAND, WRIGHT, BANNEKER, TUBMAN, HAMER, HOLIDAY,
DAVIS, COLTRANE, MORRISON, JOPLIN, DUBOIS, CLARKE, SHAKESPEARE, RACHMNINOV,
ELLINGTON, CARTER, GAYE, HATHAWAY, HENDRIX, KUTL, DICKERSON, RIPPERTON,
MARY, ISIS, THERESA, PLATH, RUMI, FELLINI, MICHAUX, NOSTRADAMUS, NEFERTITI,
LA ROCK, SHIVA, GANESHA, YEMAJA, OSHUN, OBATALA, OGUN, KENNEDY, KING, FOUR
LITTLE GIRLS, HIROSHIMA, NAGASAKI, KELLER, BIKO, PERONE, MARLEY, COSBY,
SHAKUR, THOSE WHO BURN, THOSE STILL AFLAMED, AND THE COUNTLESS UNNAMED

We claim the present as the pre-sent, as the hereafter.
We are unraveling our navels so that we may ingest the sun.
We are not afraid of the darkness, we trust that the moon shall guide us.
We are determining the future at this very moment.
We now know that the heart is the philosophers' stone
Our music is our alchemy
We stand as the manifested equivalent of 3 buckets of water and a hand full
of minerals, thus realizing that those very buckets turned upside down
supply the percussion factor of forever.
If you must count to keep the beat then count.
Find your mantra and awaken your subconscious.
Curve you circles counterclockwise
Use your cipher to decipher, Coded Language, man made laws.
Climb waterfalls and trees, commune with nature, snakes and bees.
Let your children name themselves and claim themselves as the new day for
today we are determined to be the channelers of these changing frequencies
into songs, paintings, writings, dance, drama, photography, carpentry,
crafts, love, and love.
We enlist every instrument: Acoustic, electronic.
Every so-called race, gender, and sexual orientation.
Every per-son as beings of sound to acknowledge their responsibility to
uplift the consciousness of the entire fucking World.
Any utterance will be un-aimed, will be disclaimed, will be named- two rappers slain

* parts of this text might not correspond with the actual performance. The exact words of the original poem is published in Saul Williams' book, The Dead Emcee Scrolls.

Dr. Julia Hare

2007-06-22T10:15:00.000-05:00

I got an email with a link to youtube this morning that angered me. Why? Well it was a video of Dr. Hare giving a talk at Tavis Smiley's The State of the Black Union Conference this year. I was livid. I had never even heard of such an event, let alone hear of the things that were said. Dr. Julia WHO? Never heard of her. And when I did my research to find out who this woman, who spoke so profoundly on the issues concerning Black children in today's society, I learned that this woman is an educator. WHY haven't I heard of her? WHY isn't she a mainstay in my doctoral class discussions? WHY haven't I heard of DR.JULIA HARE? Why when I was learning history was her name never mentioned? WHy aren't her books a part of my curriculum? WHY wasn't this conference publicized in a way that I could hear more about it? I am ANGRY! When Black America does something positive, it is left to word of mouth! WHY? I am livid. So I have made it my duty to make myself more aware. I have thought so many times of how I could've known about Smiley's event on CSPAN if I didn't check the listings on a daily basis and I found this website: http://www.covenantwithblackamerica.com and I will commit myself to combing through the site and keeping myself informed while fighting to keep Plymouth damn rock off me! We MUST arm ourselves with knowledge or we and the cause/struggle will die.

A great passage from Ralph Ellison's book

2007-06-21T23:37:00.000-05:00

I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am i one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids--and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me...That invisibility to which I refer occurs because of a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those with whom I come in contact. A matter of the construction of their inner eyes, those eyes with which they look through their physical eyes upon reality. I am not complaining, nor am I protesting either. It is sometimes advantageous to be unseen, although it is most often rather wearing on the nerves. Then, too, you're constantly being bumped against by those of poor vision. or again, you often doubt if you really exist. You wonder whether you aren't simply a phantom in other people's minds. Say, a figure in a nightmare which the sleeper tries with all his strength to destroy. It's when you feel like this that, out of resentment, you begin to bump people back. And, let me confess, you feel that way most of the time. You ache with the need to convince yourself that you do exist in the real world, that you're a part of the sound and anguish, and you strike out with your fists, you curse and you swear to make them recognize you. And, alas, it's seldom successful...I have been boomeranged across my head so much that I now can see the darkness of lightness. And I love light. ---from the Prologue of Ralph Waldo Ellison's Invisible Man. Hands down, the greatest story ever told of man's plight to survive in a selfish world.

When White Women Go Missing

2007-06-21T11:58:00.001-05:00

It seems like the entire world stops when someone white and female goes missing. And nobody is lashing out against this injustice. Countless Black children go missing on a daily basis and the most I'll hear about it is on some lousy email sent out by friends. Why is this so? Isn't Black life as valuable as White life? Well, based on the latest events, apparently not. Black people die everyday in gullies and lakes. Black children go missing on Spring Break all the time. Yet, there is no paper trail, no CNN World News Report, no MSNBC coverage, NOTHING! And then they look at us and say America is not divided...BULLSHIT!

Graduate school and friends

2007-06-19T08:59:00.001-05:00

If I ask one in every ten friend or colleague I have what they know about my program, they will probably recite a long convoluted explanation of a paper I wrote or a description of my previous job. Nobody really understands what I do or what I am doing. I was accused the other night of having nothing to do, which is why friends, and family members abuse my time by waking me up at obscene hours of the morning whining about their problems, or just sitting in mere silence, or just to ask questions about nothing. So my status as a full-time graduate student somehow translates to free time. What people do not understand is the high demands that I face on a daily basis. Deadline upon deadline, project upon project. Right now I'm taking on summer course which basically translates to hell. What would have been 13 weeks of work has now been crunched into 4 weeks of work. I am expected to produce a dissertation proposal (something that takes months to prepare) in one month. Yet I am awakened daily with text messages, phone conversations about the weather, squabbles about irrelevant and minute things, instant messenger conversations about things that are beyond my scope at the moment, and a bunch of other things which make it evident that people think I sit around scratching my armpits all day.

So I made a new rule. I am no longer available for counseling or keeping company or for mindless chatter, etc. And the consequences, I'll face head-on with no qualms. I have lost many acquaintances on this quest of higher education: Those who curse me for not calling them back (because I have only free time right?) and those who think I was not there for them in their time of need have all written me off as someone who is inconsiderate or not quite a friend. So where is the support? Somehow my education has translated into worldly knowledge because I'm being asked to help edit this paper and that, formulate this idea and that, give feedback on this idea and that and the list goes on. While I am flattered by the confidence others have in my knowledge, I am overwhelmed by my own work and don't need the extra baggage. The most difficult part of doing doctoral work is being out there alone with nobody to share the joys and struggles with. Friends and family just don't understand.

My nights and days consist of constant reflection on the things I have due and on the things I plan to do to avoid staying in this program for another 10 years. I have met and still know people who have been enrolled in doctoral programs for 10+ years. Life happens, what can I say? But in order to avoid becoming one of them, I am aware that I must seclude myself from my own world of chatter and mindless involvement to focus on a greater goal. When I finally get through (which is what people keep asking...) I will be young enough to concentrate on building friendships that have solid foundations. However, at this time, my work is a full-time commitment which I must face head-on in order to avoid failure.

So I no longer feel guilty for ignoring my phone or turning it off for that matter. If people call me at 8am, I have no problems hanging up on them. When people insist that I hang out or visit them, I have no qualms about ignoring or turning down such invitations, and I feel no guilt for enjoying free time ALONE. Doctoral work is stressful and demanding and clearly those who have not experienced it with someone or on their own will never understand.

Kids go to Planned Parenthood on a trip. What's the big deal?

2007-06-13T22:01:00.000-05:00

http://www.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/06/13/planned.parenthood.trip.ap/index.html

So a trip took children to Planned Parenthood after school and this made negative national news. This ruffled my feathers a bit because what is the point of this argument in New Hampshire? Promoting safe sex and allowing students to understand the resources available to them in case of certain normal teenager emergencies and this is a problem? In this day and age we must understand the importance of teaching children responsible behaviors and alerting them to the options they have. I think we are starting to place rhyme over reason here. The fact that people were standing outside with placards about abortion has very little to do with the high level of educational activities that are sponsored by Planned Parenthood. In fact, the pamphlets that they create and distribute about women's health and birth control have won numerous awards. Maybe if we would educate our children about birth control methods we would help them avoid the multiple abortions that some have before graduating high school! Have I shocked you? I can't count the many students I had in high school that had multiple (NOT JUST ONE) abortions by 11th grade. Had they known that there was a place where they could get confidential support and preventative methods, they might have been better off. And I won't even discuss the high level of STIs amongst high school children.

We ought not get carried away with old traditions. We must teach chldren responsibility even at the expense of offending those parents who are still in denial about their children having sex. But then again, that's just my two cents...

Genarlow Wilson Released

2007-06-11T11:05:00.001-05:00

A 17-year-old young man accused of raping a 15-year-old while having consensual oral sex was released today in Georgia (*EDIT. Upon appeal from the prosecutor, Genarlow must remain behind bars until the appeal has been heard). After spending 27 months, 25 days, 19 hours, and 6 minutes in the old slammer, he has been released. In the 1990s, when the country was cracking down on crime, the Georgia General Assembly passed a law that stated that anybody who has sex with anyone under 16-years-old is automatically a rapist. This was considered one of Georgia's 7 deadly sins. The law was created to protect children from child molesters.

One night in Georgia, Genarlow received oral sex from a 15-year-old girl at a Day's Inn Hotel. Why Day's Inn rented a room to unsupervised teenagers is already beyond me. But that's neither here nor there. Even the Prosecutor admits that he did not consider the sex forced. Genarlow was given the same sentence as a sex-offender who preys on children and weak individuals. This was another unfair case of a teenager being a teenager. Marcus Dixon knows a bit about that.

So today, June 11, 2007, Genarlow is a free man but can the state of Georgia ever repay him for the time he spent behind bars or for the mental anguish he suffered those two years? Imagine the psychological effects of Genarlow ever engaging in sexual activity again; he is indeed traumatized. He suffered this ill fate as a child and in one day his life changed forever. The college scholarships, the 3.2 GPA he boasted, the Homecoming King title he sported, the popularity he had, his entire future, all smeared by one night of irresponsible teenage fun. This all while Paris Hilton is making national news for crying about a few days she has to spend in a cozy prison hotel for DUI charges (careless adult fun). What is justice if justice turns a blind eye to inequity? That's just my two cents.
For more about the Genarlow Wilson case: http://www.wilsonappeal.com/index.php
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/06/11/teen.sex.case.ap/index.html

Money for grades? Mayor Bloomberg proposes a new plan for NYC children

2007-06-10T20:29:00.000-05:00

Cash is cool: Mike

Nothing wrong with it, says mayor, of kids scoring dough for grades

BY MICHAEL SAUL and ERIN EINHORN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Posted Saturday, June 9th 2007, 4:00 AM

Mayor Bloomberg

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mayor Bloomberg defended a controversial proposal to pay kids for high test scores yesterday, but said there are no specific plans to make it happen.

"As one of the new approaches to try to tackle the intractable problem of poverty, we have said that we would raise ... $50 million privately to encourage people, using economic incentives," Bloomberg said. Money for test scores is "one of the possibilities."

The Daily News reported exclusively yesterday on a plan to pay fourth-graders as much as $25 and seventh-graders as much as $50 for high scores on so-called interim assessments, which, beginning in September, will be administered in all city schools. The tests will help teachers determine what kids know and what they still need to learn.

The mayor's Opportunity NYC plan also would give poor families cash rewards for actions like taking their kids to doctors' appointments and attending job training.

The test-score proposal, which education officials say is preliminary and has not yet been approved by the mayor or Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, would be structured differently, with the money going to schools that would then pay it out to kids.

Dozens of principals who attended an information session this week expressed initial interest in the program, including Rose-Marie Mills of Middle School 343 in the South Bronx.

"My kids need incentives to do really well, and they're not privy to some of the finer things that other kids are," she said, noting that poor families can't afford to reward kids for good grades as easily as middle-class families can.

Maryann Manzolillo of Intermediate School 162 in the Bronx said she would put the incentives in school-based bank accounts, then use them to teach kids about managing money.

Now, she said, attendance is low on interim-testing days. "Children say, 'Oh, it's a practice test. It doesn't count,'" she said. "Money makes everything really count."

Some teachers and parents yesterday applauded the idea of motivating kids, but others, including Tina Pack, a mother of eight who lives in public housing on the upper East Side, had reservations.

"In my mind, kids will cram to do better on a test, but what knowledge will they gain?" she said. "I never say if you get an A on a test I'll give you a reward.... What if maybe you're working really hard and you get a B? I'm trying to reward the learning."

msaul@nydailynews.com

With Carrie Melago, Jens Dana, Elaine Chan and Karl Stampf

---Now my parents used to offer $1 for every A I got but this is a new spin on motivation. How can the city afford to pay children for grades? This, to me, is a testimony that NCLB has led the nation to all-new-LOWS as far as education is concerned. High scores, low values, that's the effect of NCLB. And can we truly blame Mikey B? The guy is a billionaire; he thinks in terms of dollars! His iris is the shape of a golden dollar, his pupils are dollar-signs, this guy is the money man! And what better way to motivate poor children to do better than to pay them? Instead of paying the teachers more money to stay after school and assist them, let's pay each child $50...it's so much cheaper to pay 4th graders to pass a test than to give them the books they need to study for the test. Mayor Mike has seen the light but it's so bright that it's clouding his good senses. TRY AGAIN!

Presidential Candidates

2007-06-09T20:21:00.000-05:00

I have been listening to the debates by both Republican and Democrats and I have noticed one common theme: War. I believe, however, that they keep discussing the wrong war. They keep looking at the war overseas and talking about world peace and a bunch of things. For the candidates I have a few questions about certain wars that are being fought in America.
What about the war on:
Poverty
Illiteracy
Civil rights
Racism
Ignorance
Police brutality
Affordable Healthcare
Illegal immigration
White-collar crimes
Violence
A.I.D.S
Cancer
Affordable housing
Poor schooling
Bad teachers
HURRICANE KATRINA VICTIMS
...and the list goes on ?

What say you, Mr. Obama...do the people in Alabama feel that you feel their pain? What about you Mrs. Clinton? How do the people who used to live in what is now Clinton Hills feel about affordable housing? What about Rudy G? What do you say to rude behavior towards teachers in classrooms? John Edwards are we heading forward or falling backwards? Mitt Romney, What would Jesus Do? Better yet, what would he say to you? Would he even know your name?

What the candidates fail to realize is that we are educated voters who care about the things that matter. When will they answer questions about the wars that have been around for too long?

What do you think about this guy?

2007-06-07T23:32:00.001-05:00

According to a newsfeed from gmail:
Anthony Hervey, the African-American scholar, philosopher, and black leader, who can be seen waving his Confederate Flag in the Town Square where his Mississippi home is located, has penned another new book.

Titled; "Why I Wave The Confederate Flag," the book calls black leaders on the carpet, chastises welfare programs, and says desegregation has harmed blacks and contends white people are on a guilt trip.

Visit his website:
www.AnthonyHervey.com

Service to others

2007-06-07T20:36:00.001-05:00

How much of your time do you give to others? How much of your time do you spend making the world a better place in a non-self-serving way? There are many young people who could use the service of a mentor that has been successful or is on the right path to success. If we give of ourselves to these young people, we would be building a better future. For ways to help uplift the community you can contact your local Boys and Girls Club of America, Urban League, Public Library, United Way, Girls Scouts, and local churches. Food kitchens are usually offered by neighborhood churches and they always seek volunteers to pass out food. Do something for your community today.

When is enough enough?

2007-06-06T19:28:00.001-05:00

GALESBURG, Illinois (AP) -- Five students will get the diplomas they were denied when cheers erupted for them at a high school graduation, and school officials said Wednesday they would review a get-tough decorum policy.
Galesburg High School officials had said they would not hand over the keepsake diplomas unless they received apologies. But the stalemate over the diplomas and the media attention it attracted have taken valuable time and energy, they said.
"It is time for the good of the community, the school district, the families and the students involved to move on," Superintendent Gene Denisar said in a written statement.
The diplomas were withheld because the school said cheering violated a school policy aimed at restoring graduation decorum. The students still were considered graduates on paper, but they didn't have a diploma.
Graduate Nadia Trent, who picked up her diploma from the school secretary Wednesday afternoon, said she's "just happy it's over."
"If they would have apologized, it would have been better," said Trent.
Denisar cited talks with the Illinois State Board of Education, which has said it cannot support the district's decorum policy because it makes students responsible for behavior they cannot control, in explaining the decision.
The central Illinois school district about 150 miles southwest of Chicago will continue efforts to make commencement a "respectful and dignified occasion that all graduates and their families can enjoy," school board President Michael Panther said in statement. Officials did not say how they planned to review the no-cheer policy.
Peoria attorney Jeffrey Green, who took the students' case at no cost, sent a letter late Tuesday threatening to sue the district if officials did not apologize and deliver the diplomas by 5 p.m. Wednesday.
"They met with the families two or three times and had a chance to get this thing right," Green said. "I've been involved less than 24 hours, and now they have their diplomas, so you draw your own conclusions."
Parent Pam Kelley said she was disappointed that school officials did not apologize and that her daughter, Amanda, was handed the diploma by a high school secretary, not principal Tom Chiles.
"At least he could have come out and shook her hand and said congratulations," Kelley said.

Ms. Educated--I won't even waste my time. Nobody considered the joy of the family members for whom these children could very well be the first child graduating with honors. Or that they had seen the children work hard throughout the years to overcome obstacles (many of which I'm sure they faced in this school district) and were just simply proud to see them get out of there. This is a travesty and nobody can control the joy of parents at a graduation ceremony; it's preposterous. Absolute power corrupts absolutely

Confronting the powers that be

2007-06-05T22:40:00.000-05:00

Had a meeting today with the prof. I'm exhausted. I never thought I'd have to explain myself so much in a million years. I don't understand how people are Athiest...there IS a God. There might be no Santa Claus but there is definitely a God. Those who are in power often forget that there are others higher and more powerful than they, even if the higher One has no given name, in their book. When struggling with the powers that be, remember that within you there is a force that cannot and will not be compromised because of their insecurities or their fear of confronting their own prejudices. Even a child knows the importance of this; my six-year-old niece told me today that she wants a book for Christmas. I feel great knowing that her spirit and love of learning have not been pulverized by the negativity she suffered from a deameaning public school teacher of color. That is reassuring. Nothing else in the world matters.

The things we take for granted

2007-06-04T20:43:00.001-05:00

Health insurance, PCPs, low-cost prescriptions, our dignity...these are the things we take for granted in America. Today I experienced life through a poor woman's eyes. I went to a free clinic for a yearly check-up and boy, did it take forever! I had forgotten what life is like for many people who don't have affordable healthcare. I walked in, went to the reception window and all I wanted to know was if I was in the right place. I approached the reception desk, a white woman of about 55 years got up, opened the sliding glass and before I could finish my sentence said "take a number" and then slammed the glass. I was 30 minutes early for the opening of the clinic and I was number 23.

A year ago I didn't even know that a free clinic existed. I had the highest coverage from a notable HMO and was able to visit the doctor as many times as I was sick without even thinking twice. Healthcare was not a concern for me; all I had to do was flash a card and I'd be seen in less than 30 minutes wherever I went. Today, I stayed in a clinic for 3.5 hours before I was seen by an intern. Nobody answered questions, I was just a number and everything seemed to refer back to that one number, 23. When I was called forward to explain why I was worthy of their service, I was told that new patients are being screened because there were less doctors available and new patients were only being seen if their situations were important.

A one-year checkup is not important in free-clinic logic but a nurse had been listening in and approached me after I walked away to wait on the receptionist to confirm with the doctor to see whether I was eligible (I call it worthy) to be seen. The nurse was a young 30-something woman who is working on her Ph.D. After our initial interview she found out that I, too, am a doctoral student. Her brow raised of course and the condescending, spell-out-each-word-as-if-I-have-no-sense talk that she had been giving me changed to more "normal" free-flowing conversation. I guess I was no longer "really poor" but just "a needy student" so I was not quite like the other people in the room. After she gave me my informed consent and interview session for my paid participation in the study (I earned a whopping $20 for filling out 40-mins worth of paperwork. Cool way to make money while you wait, huh?), she returned to her post behind the glass window. Soon, I was treated with utmost respect by everyone behind her glass window. One nurse who did my initial patient screening even commented on how "impressed" she is that I am doing this work. Everybody, including the nasty receptionist, began to speak to me with respect and asking me questions about the book I had been holding in my hand and about my areas of interest. So I guess education does make all the difference, even if you're a poor graduate student who sits in a free clinic, having to validate your need to maintain good health just like everyone else.

A number of my students have lived their entire lives without health insurance. Besides being humiliated by slamming glass windows, condescending stares, and long waiting hours, there is the fear of not being seen at all after waiting three full hours. After my experience today, I could not conceive of how it must feel for people who have to spend their entire lives going to free clinics and waiting. I spent more time just waiting than anything else. For me, this is temporary poverty, since grad school only lasts for a few years. I have the option of quitting school and going forth to maintain an upper-middle-class lifestyle. So this temporary humiliation, for me, is endurable. But what about those for whom this reality is permanent? How must they feel each time they approach the glass window to ask a question? I am sure that some people who could use the service of the free clinic probably do not even take advantage of it. Just imagine having to work 2-3 jobs and sitting in a clinic just waiting. It's no wonder that people who live on or below the poverty line are in poor health.

The services offered at the free clinic are thanks to doctors who volunteer their time but there must be more that the government can do to help those who are truly in need feel more validated and less inferior when they attempt to get good healthcare. That's part of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, isn't it.? That's just my two cents.

Dear Mr. President

2007-06-03T00:03:00.001-05:00

I went to a dance recital last night and I saw the children perform this song. I thought it was a great way to make a political statement through dance. The lyrics are so powerful! The song is written and sung by Pink as an open letter to President George Bush. I wonder if he ever heard it and I wonder what he said when he did. I know if it were addressed to me it would've made me feel mighty ashamed of myself, how about you?

Dear Mr. President,
Come take a walk with me.
Let's pretend we're just two people and
You're not better than me.
I'd like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly.

What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street?
Who do you pray for at night before you go to sleep?
What do you feel when you look in the mirror?
Are you proud?

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry?
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye?
How do you walk with your head held high?
Can you even look me in the eye
And tell me why?

Dear Mr. President,
Were you a lonely boy?
Are you a lonely boy?
Are you a lonely boy?
How can you say
No child is left behind?
We're not dumb and we're not blind.
They're all sitting in your cells
While you pave the road to hell.

What kind of father would take his own daughter's rights away?
And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay?
I can only imagine what the first lady has to say
You've come a long way from whiskey and cocaine.

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry?
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye?
How do you walk with your head held high?
Can you even look me in the eye?

Let me tell you 'bout hard work
Minimum wage with a baby on the way
Let me tell you 'bout hard work
Rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away
Let me tell you 'bout hard work
Building a bed out of a cardboard box
Let me tell you 'bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
You don't know nothing 'bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
Oh

How do you sleep at night?
How do you walk with your head held high?
Dear Mr. President,
You'd never take a walk with me.
Would you?

Which America do you live in?

2007-06-01T21:13:00.001-05:00

I live in a very white town. Blacks make up 5% of my neighborhood. Today someone invited me to a town fair and while I'm very much a non-fair-going city gal, I decided to take in some of this very white town's festivities. I arrived in time to see a number of fire brigades floating down the street where a parade was taking place. Blasting from the speakers was the song "Proud to be an American," and as I rattled my brain to figure out where I had heard the song before (oh, yeah, 9/11, American Idol?), I looked around to see the proud faces of this America in which I will have to live for the next 4-5 years. The on-lookers, my neighbors that I had never seen, who hardly even realized I was standing there, were primarily white. I felt like I was at a redneck Republican convention. All around me were long beards, flush red cheeks, construction boots and Birkenstocks, and an all too familiar obnoxious smell of Marlboros all around. (Where's Derrick the WHADAFXUP guy when you need him? ).There is a grey cloud over this town and I swear it's thanks to cigarettes. But I digress. The only diversity I saw in my limited line of vision was in the colors red, white, and blue and some orange that the attendees and the participants of this parade wore. No sign of diversity in this town. Then I wondered why the heck someone would invite me to this kind of function. I felt like a stranger in a world that seemed all too familiar to everyone else who was there. They were clapping and cheering and jumping to catch the candy that the paraders threw out and all I could think about was how vastly different this America is from the America I have known for 13 years. Then suddenly, black man rode by on his makeshift float. He is running for town judge. I thought "Oh maybe it isn't so white after all!" But I was standing within earshot of a couple in their late sixties. The woman exlaimed in a most condescending and surprised tone "town judge?" as if to say "how dare he! Does he not see what town this is? Apparently not. This is America!

People here seemed to have no care in the world. I saw some soldiers walk by and I immediately thought of the soldiers in Iraq. The 18 year olds who had no choice but to enlist in the army after high school, the fathers who have never seen their newborn daughter or son because they were deployed too soon, the mothers who had to walk away from their children to serve...I thought of them. And then my attention was called back to the scene. It was time for the bed and bath tub race. People decorated beds and bath tubs and dragged them down the street as a form of entertainment. This is when I zoomed out again because I couldn't help but think of the victims of Katrina who were still displaced. Those who still have no bed nor a decent bath in which to take a shower. This is America...the America I live in. Then it was time for the wave. A young girl volunteered to run along the side of the street as the "wave director." This was all new to me; I'd never seen it. The young girl took her white-socked feet out of her Adidas slippers and the commentator said "your mom is going to kill you for running in those socks." She shrugged as if to say "so what, I have plenty more where this comes from." And again, I had an out of body experience--I started thinking of the many children who hide their feet when they change their shoes in order to hide the holes in their socks. But she shrugged. She took it for granted. This is America...the America in which I reside. It's definitely a different world from my own. And now I know why I was invited to the fair. The people who teach me and other teachers in my program are from this world. They would never understand what I mean when I speak on behalf of the child who does not have the things they have because to them being middle class, Republican, and monolithic is American. This is the America that controls my future...and I will probably never understand it or live in that America but I'm glad I got to see the other side. Am I proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free? I have to think about that for a while but first, I need to understand what the word free means because with what I saw today, freedom comes at the expense of the other America; the one in which I've lived and worked for 13 years. But I definitely won't forget the men and women who died and gave that right to me. But I doubt Lee Greenwood was talking about the same men and women that gave my rights to me. Not to take anything away from the troops. I am the only sister of a soldier. But let's talk about the two Americas and the two kinds of people who gave their lives for freedom because someone seems to have forgotten 1619 and before...that's my two cents.

Have you heard of Blair Holt?

2007-05-31T21:19:00.000-05:00

This child died being a hero. He gave his life for other classmates on a Chicago city bus. So many children had died before Blair. In fact, he was number 20. Why did it take 20 for them to pay attention? When a white child disappears it becomes national news. A Black boy gives his life to save his classmates and only one national network reports it. Thank God for Anderson Cooper.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/mitchell/385585,CST-NWS-mitch15.article
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news&id=5295070
http://video.nbc5.com/player/?id=109760
They're offering $10,000, is that all this child is worth? Stop the violence, save our children! And demand that America puts value on the life of Black children just as they do on the lives of white children. There are too many missing Black children and too many dying to violence and they go unheard of. Racism is insidious and the media perpetuates it every time a White child goes missing.

Poverty in America

2007-05-30T10:27:00.001-05:00

Poverty is a killer in these United States. I have seen a couple of documentaries about poverty in America and they each one shocks me more and more. I was watching one on MTV today called "I'm Dead Broke" and there was another that I saw recently called "Hardscrabble Childhood" that really spoke to me. Sometimes we take for granted the things we have without thinking twice. There are people who have to hustle up a dime so they can find places to live or so they can eat. These people are the parents of the children that walk into classrooms everyday and we can't ignore the reality of this. There is such a thing as Third World living in a First World Country, ask the people who had to suffer the ills of Katrina and those who live below the poverty line in many rural and urban areas in the United States. What can educators do? We can be empathetic towards all of our students, even without knowing who's who. Notice that I said empathetic, not sympathetic because sympathy often renders itself in unwelcomed forms. We need not isolate a child and offer him/her financial support or clothing to make the child feel stronger. We simply need to continue to make the child feel valued, worthy, important, and capable of achieving his/her goals. Empathy requires that we constantly reflect on our own lives and our practices as educators so that we could make the classroom experiences of students more empowering. Sometimes a simple daily smile can help change a child's life, if even for a few hours. To learn more about how poverty affects children in the United States, check out Lisa Delpit's Other People's Children, Jonathan Kozol's Savage Inequalities, Amazing Grace, and The Shame of the Nation, Barbara Ehrenrich's Nickel and Dimed or Anne Lareau's Unequal Childhoods.

Invictus by William E. Henley

2007-05-29T22:49:00.000-05:00

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of Circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of Chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Believe..

2007-05-29T21:22:00.000-05:00

A friend sent this to me today and I don't think he knows how much it meant to me. I'm sharing it with others because I believe that this will make someone else's day too... Thanks LW

BELIEVE WHILE OTHERS ... by William Arthur Ward
Believe while others are doubting.
Plan while others are playing.
Study while others are sleeping.
Decide while others are delaying.
Prepare while others are daydreaming.
Begin while others are procrastinating.
Work while others are wishing.
Save while others are wasting.
Listen while others are talking.
Smile while others are frowning.
Commend while others are criticizing.
Persist while others are quitting.

Images

2007-05-29T00:04:00.000-05:00

I just read a post on a message board that says that a particular family reality show on television is portraying a disrespecful image to the "black struggle." The argument that this person used to defend this claim is that "most black people do are not wealthy, driving Bentleys, they are poor to middle class." Of course there were no statistics to back THAT up but I had to wonder how many people actually thought that was the standard--poor to middle-class and WHY?

I had to seriously reflect and consider the source of this kind of thinking and the only sources I could come up with are schools and the media. In her article concerning social class, Jean Anyon (1980) highlights the differences between the way poor children are taught versus the wealthy. It is unfortunate that black people come up in many studies done about poor people but in very few about the wealthy. It is then no wonder why people think that most black people are either poor or middle class and that this is an OK concept. Why is it bad that some black people are affluent and can afford the Bentleys and the jets without going broke? This leads me to the second responsible source of this form of thinking: The media.

You know what annoys me the most? Pictures of starving children in Africa. Yes, more than the show Hollyhood or The Flavor of Love or I Love New York, pictures of starving children in Africa annoy me. Having traveled to the motherland three times and having the best experience of my life, I am appalled when the only image of Africa is suffering. This is not to say that there are not starving children in Africa (I personally didn't see any and I went to villages, towns, cities, schools, church, the market, people's homes) because I'm sure there are. But I have seen more homeless people in America than in the the developing countries I've visited. But I digress. The way that black people are depicted on television is nothing short of appalling. I grew up on the Cosby Show and A Different World and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Black people were part of families--successful families. A dual parent household was normal and children such as myself aspired to own brownstones in Brooklyn because we thought we could. College, success, stability, THAT was our reality. When did that change? When did having a family, a big house, and values become disrespectful to the black struggle? It was once the aim of the struggle! But money and the media have both influenced society's image of what being black is.

For two great perspectives on this issue, I recommend Dr. Bill Cosby's Come on People: On the Way From Victims to Victors and Dr. Michael Eric Dyson's Is Bill Cosby Right?

long

2007-05-27T13:17:00.001-05:00

I am aware that my posts are long. Can you blame me? I have spent 13 long years in public school; I have a lot to say! Ok, so I will try to make shorter posts...TRY...operative word. And we all know what that means. If you don't, ask Yoda.

urban schooling

2007-05-27T11:42:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I sat to reflect on what I really want to do about the way non-white children are educated. I thought of it because I was creating my syllabus for this class I'm going to teach about education policy and I had to skim through the readings I was assigning to figure out what order I wanted them to follow on my syllabus. That's when I started to realize that it matters not where Inequity and Overcrowding or Censorship and Overrepresentation of minorities in special ed. were placed, they are all equally horrendous and nobody is doing much to solve the problems. Instead, more problems are being created and more education leaders are turning a blind eye because their children's private school education is paid in full.

I'll tell you something sad. I taught public school but I am an advocate for independent schools. I have stories to back my belief and I promise to write about that another day. My colleagues always snubbed me when I said that I would never send my children to public school in New York City but I guess they just never understood where I was coming from. I am a product of public schooling and what I now know about my history wasn't taught in my textbooks. NYC public schooling, for Black children, is just another medium of teaching survival and subordinance. "Here's your schedule," "No, you can't graduate early," "Take this class, it's good for you," "Apply to this school, your average isn't high enough," "Here's a scholarship application, don't tell anybody I gave this to you," "Take off your coat and put your bag through the scanner," "Walk slowly through the metal detector." I don't think that was preparation to be a leader or a corporate executive or a professor, do you?

None of my high school teachers ever told me that they expected me to be better than them. And that's a crucial lesson that I taught to my own students. Having taught at my alma mater, I told my students that I deemed myself successful and I expected that since I have taught them my secrets to success, I expect them to be greater than I ever was or could be. Teaching was not my way to keep them below me; it was my way of giving them the little I had and showing them ways by which they could get more. I remember one class that I taught. They thought I was a total bitch (another term reserved for Black female teachers who push students harder than their white counterparts and who tell students the truth) and that I was grading them unfairly. I gave them the grades they deserved. How could you write one-page summaries in AP English and get a 95? But that's the mediocrity that was expected of me and was now expected of them. I sat in a former teacher's classroom with them once and I was able to recite her entire lesson; she had taught it to me 6 years prior, in another century...and in the 21st century, she was teaching the same lesson. It was appalling. I can't recall a lesson in my years of high school that actually highlighted my experiences. Why? Because none of my teachers had actually lived my experience. Those who didn't live off in the suburbs of Long Island, lived in brownstones in fancy neighborhoods where many of us had never visited except to collect something from our West Indian mothers who sat in their homes babysitting their white children for a small, tax-free fee and second hand clothes--a far cry from stuffy apartment buildings. Maybe their children attended public schools but none of their children attended my school--they went to their neighborhood schools where most of the other students looked like them.

So when I started teaching, I went with one goal: To make my students better than I was. I wanted share with my students my own experiences and give them possibilities. No, you don't have to apply to state and city colleges; there are other great institutions out there! Nobody ever assured me of this--they just mentioned it in passing. So you don't have money for college, ever heard of a student loan? Nobody told me that loans were ok, nor did they tell me that there were programs that would forgive my loans. I had to go back and tell somebody! After all, I am African and that is how we learned to uphold traditions (and community stories): By word of mouth. I had to tell my students that it was not okay to keep scholarship information to themselves, even when they had no intention to apply. I had to tell my students that it is ok to travel abroad and see new places. I had to tell my students that applying to Harvard isn't such a bad idea even if you're a student in an inner-city school who has been told that he/she isn't good enough. I had to tell my male students there just aren't enough basketball scholarships for everybody and even NBA players needed a brain, that they weren't work horses responsible for dragging the load of keeping American sports competitive, that there was more to life than just sex and money and jewelry, that they were important and what they had to say was valid and that somebody was listening and observing their talents.

If I were to ask my students to tell you the things they have been told in schools, they would probably shock you. The sad reality is that oftentimes, children are hurt but they absorb what they are told because they think these things are normal. It is not normal to tell a child to apply only to city colleges. It is not normal to call a child an animal for break dancing in the hallway. It is not normal to tell a child to be quiet or else you will take off point from his/her grade. It is not normal to make a child feel inferior and second-guess him/herself. It is not normal because they don't do it to their own children. This is not to say I am not guilty of hurting students or that I have never offended them. I have. I have also loved them, each one differently for the difference they brought to the classroom. One poster I had in my classroom says, "an original is always better than a copy." I love that quotation.

A professor of mine once asked us "why would the colonizer teach the children of the colonized the way he does his own children?" And I pass that statement on to every Black parent today. And don't be mistaken, the colonizer is not always of a different race. I wish that every Black parent would follow the news and learn about the things that are going on in inner-city schools. I wish that every Black parent could be a fly on the wall in his/her child's classroom to see the atrocities that occur when unlicensed, untrained teachers become babysitters and no more than just that because they feel that their daily plight is to sedate rather than educate our children. They used to ask me how it is that I had no referrals from my class or how it is that I never talked about discipline problems and I used to simply say "because I'm too busy teaching." My students were too busy learning to find time to create problems with each other. I knew and understood that my students were civilized human beings with feelings and thoughts and ideas that were sometimes far better than my own and that the classroom was a place for sharing ideas, not for pushing my own agenda and I didn't need John Dewey to tell me that. Some white teachers take things too personally. They want to respond to every comment a child makes and to correct every "deviant" behavior through punishment. Never through love. When I interviewed for my teaching position, the interviewer said "you have the heart of a teacher." I wasn't sure of what she meant but I am hoping she didn't mean the heart of those babysitters.

Teaching is one of the most inspiring jobs one can have. When I woke up each morning, I wasn't fearing going to work. My greatest fear was failing to teach my students what they needed to know. I wanted to teach subject matter but I also wanted them to understand life and to feel that they had an advocate. Many of them had brothers and sisters and parents who had been successful college grads but some of them had no examples of success to follow. Most of them wanted be doctors but nobody had ever taken the time to explain to them the process of becoming an Oncologist or a Cardiologist. All they knew is that they were going to college. They didn't know how long it would take for them to achieve such goals, they just knew they had to do something "big". Now tell me, how can one do something big if he/she has no idea of the steps to take? Walking blindly into traffic, is what I call it. I shared every happy moment with my students and told them that failing was not an option. They had to learn to code switch, they had to learn to smile with a fork in their side, they had to learn to take responsibility for their work, they had to learn to present themselves with pride. The kids you see on the subway and on the bus and on the street aren't superficial: They have stories that they can tell if only someone is there to listen. They have real-life characters and plots, settings, climax, denouement. They have their own rhythms and their own rhymes. They have their own theatrical productions to write. They have their own ideas of what reality looks like and it does not always resemble Jay Gatsby's.

When it comes to teaching children of non-white parentage, it is imperative that people understand that their stories, like mine, aren't going to be read in textbooks, they will only be heard but only if we listen keenly.

My first year as a doctoral student

2007-05-26T16:50:00.000-05:00

It felt like nothing I had to say mattered. There were so many times when I just felt like giving up and then I realized that others would follow me and so I had to fight the good fight. I am one of two Black women in the program. The other woman was told that she doesn’t even deserve to be in the program. I was never told but was rather treated that way. Nothing that I said mattered. It was as if I spoke and no one was listening; like I wrote and nobody read what was written in black ink; like I taught but nobody learned.

At 26 years old, I am the youngest in my program. My age and my ethnicity have worked against me in myriad ways. First, I had to put up with the agist comments of some of my colleagues who did not think that a 29 year old superintendent knew what he was doing. I had to put up with racist comments by professors and colleagues. They spoke things in front of me that shocked the daylight out of me but I had to tolerate and subdue my anger and rage for fear that they would consider me another “angry black woman.” I tried to understand this culture of power, but I felt like an outsider ALL THE TIME. I remember one specific incident in which a woman spoke about the disempowered children in her school. She told the class about the clear difference that can be seen when some children drive Escalades at 16 years old and others have to walk or take the bus. The professor’s immediate response: “so you have the Black kids and the White kids.” I was floored. The woman had said nothing about color, she just spoke about privilege and already the assumption by the person leading the class was that privilege or lack thereof was equivalent to race.

I was always the exception: “City kids have no skills when they come here, they lack basic skills.” A statement like that would be followed by the furtive glances by certain class members and then the person would correct the statement by appeasing me with a “oh not you because clearly you’re here with us.” But what about the city kids that I had taught for four years who are now attending Ivy League institutions? I recall a time when a white woman brought her daughter who was on spring break from college to class. I watched as she introduced her daughter to everyone but me and the other black woman in class. We were standing right next to her but she never thought it necessary or proper to introduce us. Not that we cared, we just noticed and my friend and I talked about our memories of the Jim Crow era when white people would never introduce a Black person to another white person and here we were in 2007 experiencing the same thing.

And then there’s the woman who despises Martin Luther King because there were so many other people who fought for civil rights that have gotten no credit. But she never took the time to highlight the accomplishments of King who so constantly and respectfully gave credit to his supporters and to Mahatma Ghandi for the teachings of non-violence. She never showed respect for the fact that I sat in the room as one African American in a class of 13, and never acknowledged that the very things that Dr. King fought for were still not being practiced in our school. All she could say was that Dr. King didn’t deserve the accolades he received because he did not do it alone. Her point, though valid, was offensive to me, a Black woman who appreciated the leader that helped spark change in the way America views difference.

It was as if I was invisible in some of their conversations. They said things that shocked me. I was amazed that people who have been exposed to difference, who have traveled far and wide, who are teaching children from varied cultural backgrounds could say the things that my colleagues said. Whenever they wanted an international perspective, they would point the direction to the only non-fluent English speaker in the class—the woman from South Korea. They even once asked her what it was like to live in a Communist country and in my mind I thought—She’s South Korean…how could you guys even ask such a stupid question. I would watch them flinch and roll their eyes as she spoke. Some would often offer a condescending nod in agreement even when what she said didn’t require agreement. It was as if they were sorry for her simply because she didn’t speak English well. They didn’t speak to her outside of class. In fact, they hardly spoke to anyone but each other outside of class and this is why I didn’t attend social functions.

The two social gatherings that I actually attended confirmed to me that I would never attend anymore. They were stuffy. If anyone brought anything as a dish other than crackers, cheese, or cucumber sandwiches, the food would remain untouched. Another rule I learned, don’t bring ethnic food unless it’s from some European country. They don’t eat it. I made the sad mistake of bringing rice and beans to a dinner and then I realized that my rice and beans remained untouched as people reveled in the luscious taste of brownies and ham sandwiches, barbecued ground pork and some other very White meals that I tried out of deference. All the white people spoke together with an occasional acknowledgement of the fact that I was in the room when they wanted to know what the dish I had prepared was. “It’s rice and beans,” I’d say, as I conjured up creative names for the rocks they had been living under for their very white, middle class lives.

We have an annual lecture series in which they invite an outside speaker. Last year, before I joined the program, they had Dr.Lisa Delpit. I don’t think they learned from her or else they would not do the things they do. I went back to read Other People’s Children and I am all three of the graduate students quoted in Chapter 2. I made a copy to give to my professor. I don’t know what else to do. This year, it was some other lady who talked about kiddy literature and something else. They had really wanted Cornel West but he was “booked.” I am of the opinion that they really hadn’t tried to get Dr. West, they just said it to appease my query about why this year’s lecture wasn’t featuring someone who dealt with social justice issues. For this year’s lecture, I had been sick all week but I thought I’d do my best to attend since my school was responsible for the event. Upon entering the reception area, I saw my advisor and since I had my partner with me, I thought it would be nice to introduce him to her. As we walked over to her, I saw two other professors, who acknowledged us and inquired about my health. They offered their well-wishes. As I approached my advisor, I realized she had been engrossed in a prior conversation. As is my cultural custom, I did not interrupt. Instead, I stood to her right and waited. She did not acknowledge my presence. She carried on in conversation and then proceeded to walk right in front of me and made her exit. For the entire evening, she did not make eye contact, nor did she as much as wave to say hello. And then I remembered something I learned about some white folks: They won’t acknowledge you in public.

Then there was the struggle of writing. I’d get papers back with comments such as “well-written, well-organized paper.” As if they didn’t expect that I could write or organize my ideas. Nothing is said about what is written, except if what is written is wrong. As an English teacher, it is my practice to have conversations with my students’ work on their papers. I’m not reading their papers for organization but for substance. These doctors of miseducation seem to have missed that lesson in teaching. I would get papers referring me to ask my classmates about certain topics as if what I had to say was not valid but their knowledge was. I got comments that were directed towards personal things rather than what I had written on the paper. People assumed that what I said on the paper constituted my opinion rather than my research, although I had listed several sources to confirm what I had written. It was as if nothing I said mattered unless I could cite a million white people who said the same thing. I would write about Black people and then I was always asked if this isn’t true for all people. I’d be referred to read books by white authors never by a Black author. If I were to find something by a Black author, it would have to be on my own. I was not free to speak my mind for fear of backlash. People warned me to be careful of what I said and to whom. But I have never been that kind of student. I was never one who would sit and take what people said without responding.

The one thing I have learned during my first year of doctoral studies is that my experiences are invalid and that I am not a member of the “group” although I did the same things—if not more—that the others did to get where I am. I found myself constantly defending myself and since there are no Black faculty members in my school, I felt alone and vulnerable. I became resentful, angry, but subdued. I spent extra hours working on things that would be simple if I hadn’t felt the sting of racism at my tail. People wanted me to fail. They corrected spelling and fixed my commas, took points off for me forgetting an ampersand on my works cited page and I constantly received grades with a – or + next to them; rarely a solid grade. It was after my second semester after I had painstakingly written what I and others who read it considered an excellent, informative paper that I began to feel the need to fight back.

I knew that I had done the right thing and that my paper had been based on the research I had found. I made one simple blunder, which I acknowledged, and I became a sacrificial lamb. I am tired of defending myself from their mindsets. There is just no way I will be able to withstand the rabid racism that lives in these people’s minds. I thought about quitting three times during my first year and it was not because I thought the work was too difficult for me to manage. It was mainly because I felt demeaned, disrespected, and distraught by the things I was told and the things I heard and saw.

My program and the people who run it are no different from public schools where Black children are treated as inferior. They have built the program on a social justice theme, where they claim that the focus is to change society but my program is more of a replica of racist America than they realize. On one of my last papers, my professor asked how can we solve the problem of retention and recruitment of Black scholars in programs dealing with education and after pondering on her question, I realized and understood why more African Americans are not in doctoral programs. We are tired of being banged against society like the narrator of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. My first year made me wonder what these professors are teaching teachers to do to Black children, if this is what they do to Black adults. It made me realize that retention rates of teachers and drop out rates of students is probably never going to change as long as there are people who think they are superior to others.

I have never come this close to giving up the fight and though my program is two years long, I fear, no DREAD the day when I would ever have to enter another classroom taught by another white person who has predispositions about what I should and should not know or say. I have to think back to the days of segregation and wonder what those who have come before me would have done. I cannot sit by and allow prejudice to dictate what will become of my life because although I do desire to do better for myself, I love what I do. Education is my calling and I will not and cannot allow white people who think they have written the books on how to teach, dictate what will become of my self-esteem and self-worth as a teacher.

I think of what will happen if I stay here. Who will sit on my committee? I look around my school and there are no faces that look like mine, no hearts that dance to the beat of African drums, and no lips that speak the truth about my people; I cannot stay here. Yet, I need to stay here so that I can do for someone else what nobody here can do for me: help. Never before in my educational career have I felt so hopeless, so undeserving, and so useless as I have in my doctoral program. These people have worked and continue to work to squeeze every bit of pride and self-esteem that is left in me and in my other Black female colleague. Nothing we say matters unless I can cite a million other white people who are saying something similar.

But I can hardly find enough white people saying similar things as I have experienced them in New York City’s public schools. They are all saying that Black children are not achieving. My children are achieving and have achieved with very few resources and yet nobody chronicles their experiences. I have reached the point of saturation and I am seeking a mentor, someone who can guide me; someone who can provide one word of encouragement to say “hold on” because they are doing everything to crush my spirit. They constantly challenge my knowledge and my scholarship as if they have written anything groundbreaking or earth shattering in the last ten years. I am frustrated and ready to give up and go back to my students who I love and miss so much. They send me motivation everyday and they are behind me, rooting for me to finish this program and do something to fix the inequities in their school. But I cannot endure the sting for much longer and each step I make towards endurance and resilience is pushed ten steps back by the powers that run my school. I am lost, alone, and frustrated and I cannot even tell this to my advisor because she is one of them. I am a fallen tree in an empty forest: nobody is hearing.

I’m meeting with a professor next week to defend another paper...How much can one person take?