1) Fasting from alcohol
2) Fasting from additional sugar and sweets
3) Reading Joy James’ “Imprisoned Intellectuals”
4) Leading and participating in a weekly study group for male identified friends on “uprooting patriarchy”
5) Connecting with and building with justice oriented sociologists

There are a million ways to become better and to take inventory of what you’ve done over the past year. In a year where we’ve seen 551 people killed by police, there is much work to be done. In a time when the Black child poverty rate has remained steady while all other groups have declined, there is much work to be done. I’m proud to have such amazing comrades who join me in this month and work daily for liberation. One such person is Marc Lamont Hill. If you haven’t done so already, pick up his new book Nobody: Causalities of America’s War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond. It’s a powerful read about where we are, how we got here, and what it’s going to take to move us forward!

There isn’t enough ink to express our pain. Day after day, month after month, year after year, the pain of being Black in America globally is apparent. Moments ago I read the headlines and tweets that told me the NYPD officer  Dan Pantaleo (say his name until it can’t be forgotten, until he’s held responsible) the NYC cop that killed Eric Garner would not be indicted. A week and two days before that I heard news out of Ferguson, Missouri that Darren Wilson would not be indicted. That same day hours before, I watched my beautiful daughter be born into this world. Being Black is like that, valley, peak, valley—in that order.

No matter who it is, the time comes that you realize that being Black is hard and beautiful. You come to learn that your cool, your clothes, your rhythm is quested after like a golden fleece, and then you remember that you’re hated all the same for it. Hated for the thing you inherently possess and ultimately cannot dispossess—trust me, many are trying to give it up, but you can’t. Many are trying to recreate/generate it, but it has to be organic—we synthesize, it can’t be synthesized.

I recently got in an online disagreement with a family member. I gave up arguing online about 2 years ago and my life has been all the better for it, but this time suffering from sleep deprivation courtesy of our bundle of joy, I engaged. My cousin, one of closest loved ones on the planet, posted a status about shopping on Black Friday and tongue-in-cheek told folks to “say something” about her shopping. I was frustrated at her at life.

I remember when I first heard the calls to boycott Black Friday #notonedime, I knew that arm chair theoreticians and activists would sharpen their darts aiming at the hot air balloon of social activism. I knew it’d be a dog pile of, “How is that supposed to help?”, “We need new solutions!”, “What difference will it make?” –you know the standard chorus of consternation. I’d decided that for each post that someone put up like that I’d ignore it and write them off as disaffected, short-sighted haters (which they often are). But truthfully I understand them. I’ve been them. It’s kind of like being at a dance and not really knowing how to dance so rather than stepping out and risk being a fool, you talk about the DJ, you chit chat with your boys, you explain how you don’t like the newest fads … all the while the dance goes on, everyone else is sweating it out and having a good time, and you go home realizing you missed out, but never admitting it. It’s easy to be on the sidelines, it’s hard to put your shoes on the dance floor.

Moral and ethical courage are sometimes in short supply, but we have enough to move ahead, we never needed 100 percent to be on board, just a few committed ones. A few years ago an elder told me, “If everyone who claimed to have marched across that bridge [Edmund Pettus Bridge] was on that bridge the damn bridge would have fallen in!” They’ll come around later … or come around for the victory party. When Fidel Castro was asked about what he’d do differently regarding the Cuban Revolution he said he started with 82 men but he would have started with fewer men but ones who had absolute faith. That’s real rap!

Boycotting Black Friday or Cyber Monday may not be your cup of tea, but neither is the loss of Black life. I am in awe of the young people organizing out of Ferguson and the people who have poured into that community for the past 118 days. The boycotts on Friday or Monday were mass actions that allowed folks without much skin in the game to make a sacrifice, to symbolically and strategically show impact. It worked, no matter what mainstream media says. I’m still not really cool with my cousin for not participating, but she’s not alone. It just means we need to do more work to show folks why we matter, why boycotts matter, why protests matter, why Black lives matter.

We have too many servants and too few activists. Activism is sustained struggle. (Community) Service, often, is for a moment and done. Activism is not a visit to the soup kitchen; it’s not tutoring after school; it’s not collecting donors for a cancer run. Okay, it can be that, but that’s only a small part of it. Activism, in my estimation, has to do more than service the sick or un-well, it’s got to do the work of uprooting the things that injure and press to build a safe space for a thing to live and thrive. Too few of us have a heart for activism, because true activism means you give up something, not once, but daily. It’s a process of dying so others can live—it’s martyrdom, but without the fanfare.

The tweets, the appearances on news media, the op-eds will all die out soon enough, but our willingness to sacrifice and fight must not. We can’t accept a commitment to body cameras and tough language (not policies) around ending police misconduct. The legislation needs to change, I truly believe it does #changethenypd. But more than legislation our entire orientation to Black life must shift. And I mean the lives of Black men and women, all lives matter but our blood runs too freely for us not to demand special attention.

The police don’t love us, and they never did. My dad was a cop and even he knows this, but I’m not sure he’d admit it. No matter how many times you show me a teary eyed boy or a dancing cop, I can’t forget that those moments don’t compensate for the force that they use on our bodies and have been doing so for centuries. Du Bois was right. The police are a new articulation of slavery. He was right – It’s not about diagnosing the problem, the bigger and trickier task is to get people to care and then to act. You’ve read all this so I guess it’s wrong of me to ask, “do you still care?” but I have to ask these days.

It’s hard to continue to care. For many of us, by the time we heard the non-indictment of Garner come down we were numb. Some of us got numb when we saw loved ones beaten into within an inch of their lives by cops and realized that no one cared—not the grand jury, not internal affairs, not the mayor, not even the politician who promised to get tough on corruption. Some of us have been numbed by what we have access to—hey, who doesn’t want to get that 60 inch on deep discount? Some of us are numb because the cost of caring is reckoning with the vulnerability we all must come to grips with—you may have more degrees than a thermometer but your skin remains a target. We’ve got to care enough to fight.

We’ve got to fight the system. We’ve got to struggle with ourselves. Love ourselves enough to correct ourselves. Love each other enough to remind each other that we got this. That our ancestors have already showed us ways and walk with us now. We’ve got to love so that we can see a new day. When I look at my daughter in resting slumber I get haunted with visions of the reality that she will face. I get scared. I get angry. I fight that with ancestral love. I fight it with knowledge that if we wake up, nothing can put us to sleep. I fight because I love her. I love my nephews. I love my nieces. I love our elders.

Love wins not because we will have some “pie in the sky” kumbaya moment—we won’t, and if there is I ain’t showing up because I know it’d be a sham. Love wins because it stands up to injustice. It doesn’t ask for forgiveness for the person who is stomping on the vulnerable. Love kicks the ass of the person stomping, helps the vulnerable, and tells the one stomping to get help … or get more ass kicking. I don’t mean that literally, well maybe I do. It’s somewhere between what the Bible and George Jackson said. Love is patient …  Patience has its limits. Take it too far and it’s cowardice.

My ancestors want me to be patient, but not a coward. They want me to wake up, to wake my neighbors and to dream. Dream the other world. Build the other world. Fight this world that is trying to rob Black joy and Black life. Remind them Black is beautiful and if you don’t know you’re going to figure it out later, but we got a nation to build, a world to transform, a system to fuck reform overthrow eliminate. We’ve got to sacrifice what’s here to create what should be. I’m not waiting for a grand jury; I’m waiting for my cousin; I’m waiting for my comrades; I’m waiting for us to be sick and tired of being sick and tired. But don’t wait too long. Don’t be too tired.

The last words you hear from Eric Garner on the tape of him being killed are him saying, “I can’t breathe!” I feel him, but I want to change that. I want to make it clear. I can’t breathe; I can’t live right; I can’t stop thinking about the trees cut short before they could grow and give their gifts. I can’t and won’t breathe without thinking about what they came to teach us. I can’t and won’t breathe without remembering there is work to be done. Now the only thing I have left to ask is, “I can’t breathe, can you?”

If you missed it, here’s a quick summary: with the words  “Hood Disease” emblazoned next to her head, Wendy Tokuda of the San Francisco Bay area’s CBS affiliate KPIX delivered the following, “Even the Centers for Disease control says that these kids often live in virtual war zones and doctors at Harvard say they actually suffer from a more complex form of PTSD, some call it ‘hood disease.’” The story then began to discuss the set of complex issues that many youth of color in high poverty areas experience daily and some of their consequences on academic engagement.Tokuda’s reporting made it appear as if Harvard scholars coined and were studying “hood disease” which set off a firestorm and multiple questions about research, Harvard, and the sources of the story. A trip to Tokuda’s personal Facebook page reveals that she derived the term “hood disease” from Mark Beasley. Who is Mark Beasley you ask? Beasley is one of Tokuda’s Facebook friends.

The jokes should write themselves here, but this is the sort of propaganda that reinforces dangerous stereotypes about people of color, especially those with economic challenges. Even if you dismiss the ill-fated term,  the report is still framed in a way that makes it seem that the issues that youth in urban high poverty neighborhoods face are actually a disorder that they co-create.

Within the social sciences there is a long history of suggesting that problems among Black and impoverished communities are a function of their own practices and beliefs and divorced from larger social problems. In 1965, the Moynihan Report famously popularized the concept of “tangle of pathology” that argued Black female headed households perpetuated poverty, not lack of access to jobs and economic resources. Later arguments about the “culture of poverty” came to dominate academic and social policy circles resulting in divestments from communities of color and the belief that Black culture was the issue and the role of social structure was minimal, if meaningful at all.

Essentially, Blackness is the disease—or so the narrative goes.

Read more at EBONY

While cameras follow Idris and Seun, the film is more about their parents’ educational and social negotiations than the boys’. Idris’s parents (Joe Brewster and Michele Stephenson) double as central subjects and filmmakers. A moment that stood out to me was Michele Stephenson’s commentary on their choice to send Idris to a historically and predominantly White private school. “Initially I didn’t want to even go to the interview at Dalton. I didn’t want Idris to be part of this elite school that didn’t give him any sense of grounding or sense of self. You know? A bunch of rich white kids disconnected from the larger world that [are] self-involved etc., etc. But going to the school, experiencing commitment to diversity and comparing it to the other schools that I went to, I finally gave in. I can’t say that I regret it. It’s going to hopefully allow him to compete at the top level with his peers.”  Stephenson’s analysis is like many Black parents who seek high quality education for their children but simultaneously recognize that schools are often alienating to students of color, at best, and devaluing of them, at worst. Seun’s parents share similar concerns about the issues that they face as they steward young Black males through school.

Both families’ initial reservations seem to be well placed, but when we look at Idris’s and Seun’s paths through Dalton their parental concern didn’t necessarily lead to better outcomes. Seun and Idris were the only two Black boys in the class in primary school and soon were referred to special tutoring services to which none of their classmates were referred. As time passed, both families encountered pressure from the school administration to evaluate their sons for learning disabilities and behavioral problems, and both struggled with peer acceptance. Early on in the film Seun is diagnosed with dyslexia and eventually struggles to stay afloat academically at Dalton, leading him to leave Dalton and attend Benjamin Banneker Academy in Brooklyn for high school (a predominantly Black school with an African-centered school philosophy).

Idris remained at Dalton through high school and had a very different educational experience than Seun.  Throughout the film Idris’s parents question the ways Dalton characterizes their son: disruptive, unfocused, hard to manage. His parents highlight his academic acumen but also question his lack of follow through and drive when it comes to academic matters. The school pressures Idris’s parents to test him for ADHD but they resist (it should be noted that Idris’s father is a psychiatrist). In contrast to his parents, Idris wants to be diagnosed because he believes if medicated his test scores may improve, a pattern that he believes has occurred with his classmates. Ultimately he gets assessed and is excited to receive an ADHD diagnosis.

Both Idris and Seun’s experiences reminded me of my educational journey. During my freshman year (and first year) at a similarly elite private school in Connecticut, school administrators encouraged my parents to have me screened for learning issues. Faculty of color at the school privately pulled my parents to the side and informed them that there was a pattern of over-diagnosis of students of color. My parents, excited to have me in such a renowned school, heeded the school administration’s advice to undergo evaluation and ultimately, they were told I had a “learning disability” though no type was ever specified. This led to ” academic accommodations” but also led to teachers treating me differently in the classroom.

The over-diagnosis of Black boys (and to a lesser extent Black girls) with learning disabilities occurs across educational and economic settings. In Inequality in the Promised Land I discuss how parental desires and school staff desires often clash—and what can be done to change that. For many Black parents in well-resourced schools, these dynamics often meant begrudgingly accepting diagnoses they didn’t agree with or being coerced by school cultures that seemed to devalue their children but potentially provided strong academic foundations. This type of trade-off is too common.

In American Promise, we see two families attempt to get the best education for their sons while still dealing with the hazards of race (and to some degree class). The promise of American opportunity will remain unrealized until Black families, as well as poor families, have equal opportunities to reap the benefits of well-resourced schools without suffering pyscho-social consequences along the way.

Amiri Baraka—author, cultural critic, revolutionary, professor and intellectual—passed away today in New York City after a long illness. There is no doubt that he will be remembered fondly in circles of poets, politicians, and the proletariat, all of which audiences Baraka moved between in his 79 years on earth. Amiri Baraka was, as Maya Angelou called him “a griot”— a griot that dynamically approached the stories and lives of Black and oppressed people. From decade to decade, Baraka dynamically changed his approach to the problems facing oppressed people but always remained committed to producing revolutionary art.

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Nightmares – The worst-case scenario has occurred. Not the disaster, but the funds that were intended for disaster relief getting diverted. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina the US public got one of its first glances at issues the Red Cross had with doing disaster work by stumbling, squandering, and misappropriating relief funds. After the earthquake in Haiti, globally donations poured into Wyclef Jean’s Yele foundation, only to learn that the infrastructure was not on the ground and the organization as grossly mismanaged. And now Hurricane Sandy has left many with donation skepticism given increasing claims that the Red Cross is not doing a sufficient job.

Things I tend to consider in giving:

Capacity – Does the organization that you are sending money to have the capacity to get the needs of the affected met? This question is probably the biggest “black box” that you have to consider. In moments of tragedy everyone wants to help, but the question of do they have the skills or the access to do it is tough to discern. In general, I will sift through sites like Charity Navigator or Charity Watch to see how they rank major charities. Keep in mind; they deal with larger established brands, so you won’t see many local organizations that are asking for assistance. Additionally, they rank “efficiency” which gets defined differently depending on the service. If you’re into number and policy wonky stuff you can check out their methodologies or buy a Guide Star Charity Check report.

Community – One of the things that is important to me when I’m giving is to think about which groups get reached and which groups of people do not. It could be because of geography or demography (race, class, gender, ethnicity). As I have begun to receive messages from loved one in Hurricane affected areas I’m starting to hear them talk about lack of attention that getting to low-income areas like the Rockaways. Media coverage matters, but not everyone has access to that spotlight. While funds may go to storm relief, often where it actually goes is unknown. For this reason, I try to leverage local connections.

I have the advantage of being in New York City and being connected to a number of grassroots organizations that don’t do relief work, instead the do community building. In that way, their weekly food pantries, clothing drives, and know your rights campaigns have endowed them with relationships to some of the harder hit communities. While organizations/businesses like People’s Survival Program, Occupy, or Mrs. Dorsey’s Kitchen will never appear on a Charity Navigator, my opportunity to pick up a phone and call them to lend a dollar or hand is priceless. I’ve seen them say, “I went by area X today, no one is there. We’ll be there tomorrow with X, Y, and Z” because they need it.”

My approach – In the case of Hurricane Sandy, I’m doing my best to spread what I have around. Yes, there is a need for major disaster organizations like Americares to get relief to people, but there is also a need for local grassroots groups to get your assistance. In the end, I have a belief in people that whatever I provide will get where it needs to be. Will it all get there, I doubt it, but if all give something (be it money or volunteering our time) then the load is lighter and the work has greater impact. The thing that I think is the worst-case scenario is to not give at all. The 20, 50, 200 dollars that you give will be put to some work, which is worth it to me. I’d rather give and see some of it lost than to not give and see none of it gained.

A sacred space

I am part of the problem. I spend more time and money purchasing books online than going into brick and mortar bookstores. But there was a time when the bookstore was one of my favorite destinations because it held a wealth of information and people who showed me another side to my community, culture, and intellectual life. Black bookstores have never been mega-stores like Barnes & Noble but often have been small individually-run libraries of community enrichment.

Read More at Ebony

Additionally, I was featured in video for the Manhattan Times that discussed the closing of the Hue-Man. Special thanks to Sherry Mazzocchi. Also, don’t forget to support Hue-Man at their online portal and look for pop-up events in the coming months.

I recently found

Unfair? Yes. A safer NYC? Definitely not. I reminded my chat mate that only 2 percent of stops result in contraband being found and that 88 percent didn’t end in any summons or arrest. I told them by any metric it wasn’t effective policing but it could be seen as effective harassment of Black and Latino youth in New York City.

The men’s eyes began to widen as I rattled off statistics and expressed my concern for my younger brothers and sisters who were too often viewed as the embodiment of delinquency by the New York Police Department. One man responded, “That sucks!” I responded, “Until people who are not likely to be stopped and frisked begin to conscientiously object to it, this practice is going to continue.”

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Despite the rhetoric of change and racial transcendence the schools that our children attend are deeply segregated. In fact, according to scholars like Gary Orfield, schools are more racially segregated now than they were in the Jim Crow South. However, today’s segregation is so pernicious because it is overlooked and we, as a country, continue to fail to address school segregation’s root in housing segregation. If we are to address the issue of quality schooling and segregation we must move beyond two common errors. The first error is believing that segregation is the problem. The second error is believing that segregation is not a problem. Read More

Also, check out the Schott Foundation’s recent report on NYC Schools – “A Rotting Apple: Education Redlining in New York City.”

Sixty four schools will likely close in Philadelphia.

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

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

As I climbed the subway stairs

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

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

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

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

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

If you cannot see the video, click here.

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

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

For more click here

Read more here

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

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

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

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1) Captain Obvious to the rescue

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

2) The Great White Fear

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

From IRAAS Harlem History Photo Essay

3) Urban Amnesia

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

4) Black is, Black ain’t?

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

5) Whose/Who’s Harlem?

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

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

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

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

For spenders:

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

For philanthropists:

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

For activists:

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

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

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

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

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

I believe in living,

I believe in the spectrum

of Beta days and Gamma people.

I believe in sunshine.

In windmills and waterfalls,

tricycles and rocking chairs.

And i believe that seeds grow into sprouts.

And sprouts grow into trees.

I believe in the magic of the hands.

And in the wisdom of the eyes.

I beleive in race and tears.

And in the blood of infinity.

I believe in life.

And i have seen the death parade

march through the torso of the earth,

sculpting mud bodies in its path.

I have seen the destruction of the daylight,

and see bloodthirsty maggots

prayed to and saluted.

I have seen the kind become the blind

and the blind become the bind

in one easy lesson.

I have walked on cut glass.

I have eaten crow and blunder bread

and breathed the stench of indifference.

I have been locked by the lawless.

Handcuffed by the haters.

Gagged by the greedy.

And, if i know any thing at all,

it’s that a wall is just a wall

and nothing more at all.

It can be broken down.

I believe in living.

I believe in birth.

I believe in the sweat of love

and in the fire of truth.

And i believe that a lost ship,

steered by tired, seasick sailors,

can still be guided home

to port.

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

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

Murray Hill Suite, New York Hilton Hotel

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

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

Please note time change: Forum starts at 4 PM

Harlem Political Forum

In Commemoration of Hubert Harrison:

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

Which Way Forward for the Black Left?

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

Sunday, May 31, 2009 at 4 pm

St. Mary’s Church, 521 West 126th St.

(Between Amsterdam Avenue and Old Broadway)

Reception: 2 to 3:30 PM:

Food & Drink: Admission $10

Forum Admission: $5 Suggested Donation

(To help defray cost of event)

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

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

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

Brief Highlights: Connecting the Political Analysis to Local Struggles

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

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

Hubert Harrison, 1920.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rest in Peace.

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

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

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

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

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

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

2) There are multiple forms of achievement gaps

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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