Today I’ll be doing the bloggers roundtable on NPR News and Notes. Check your local NPR listings or look for it on the webpage and podcast later today. I know, I know, it’s Christmas eve, but while you’re wrapping gifts, working, or laying on the couch check us out. After all, what would it mean if Black critical thought took a break during this season of spending? We’ve got some great topics lined up so I look forward to the discussion.
I’m scheduled to be on with some very interesting folks:
This past week, I had a chance to appear on NPR’s News and Notes with Farai Chideya and discuss racial identity and the workplace. The segment was two parts, the first with my discussion of how racial identity and intersecting identities can affect the work environment. Second, there is a discussion with Clovijean Good who was the first Black female Longshoreman (her term) in her area of California. I can only imagine the challenges that Clovijean faced in desegregating a historically male and White workspace. It is amazing and disturbing that it is still commonplace for people of color to “be the first” in their workplace. In the segment, I discuss some ways to negotiate these dynamics before you become a victim of “When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong.”
Over a year ago, controversy over the Kahlil Gibran International Academy unfolded, if you don’t know who Kahlil Gibran was stop reading and click here – yeah, he’s that important, in Brooklyn. The visible battle over the mission of the school, its practices, and its leadership put the academy in the national spotlight fonr discussions of ethnicity, language, religion and identity. But soon, this spotlight faded and many have forgotten that the school still is in operation. Colorlines runs a great web article by Seth Wessler entitled, “Silenced in the classroom” on what is happening with the school now. Spoiler alert, its a far cry from its original intentions. The article does a great job of discussing how education can be informed or deformed by our political conditions. I excerpt below.
The Khalil Gibran school was to have been a refuge in the midst of post-Sept. 11 New York City, a place where a mixed group of Arabic speakers and non-Arabic speakers would learn together. The school, which opened in 2007 with a sixth-grade class, was designed to grow into a middle and high school in the spirit of the more than 65 dual-language schools in New York City, which teach in Spanish, Creole, Russian and other languages. By graduation, it was expected that Khalil Gibran students would have a command of Arabic and an understanding of the cultural context in which the language exists.
According to some of the school’s original students, parents and teachers, the Khalil Gibran school retains little more than its name as it enters its second year. It is no longer a place where tolerance and respect are fostered. Hassan Omar, the humanities and Arabic teacher who felt so intimidated that he cut images of mosques from textbooks, remembered, “When I first heard about the school, I thought it was a dream, with a rigorous curriculum and intensive language program. The dream collapsed and became a nightmare.”
Recently, Roland Fryer – economist, NYC Public Schools’ Chief Equity Officer, and the public’s latest cat’s meow, was on the Colbert Report (video below) discussing his incentives program. The program has been the subject of much debate, acclaim and most importantly visibility. The interview is brief, a little funny, but reminded me that our discussion of education remains far too short sighted. Not only does Fryer still make troubling statements in jest like, “It’s not racism, it’s reality”, which reminds me of something I would expect Herrnstein and Murray respond to discussions of the Bell Curve as racist. He openly admits that the effects for his incentive program are unknown. While the program narrowly focuses on improvement in achievement through incentives such as cash, I wonder what are the “spill over” effects on children and families psychologically and socially. Considering Claude Steele’s body of work on stereotype threat, there are a myriad of potential negative outcomes, but also what happens when we reinforce the model of child “as breadwinner” in homes with meager resources. CONTINUE READING
People have been tripping over the corruption of the governor of Illinois and his hair. But for some strange reason his hair didn’t trip me out. I was strangely comforted by it, now I realize why.
Wonder who told him getting his hair styled by the lego people was a good idea?
The Automaker “bailout” remains a hot topic and the conversation about it on the web and in the mainstream press are interesting. I’ve tweeted about my frustrations with Big business’ insistence that worker wages were the reasons for the Big Three’s failures. I’ve seen some good conversations and writing in the blogosphere about it, but these haven’t trickled through the media monopolies to mainstream sources. The NY Time finally broke down the “cooked” 73 dollars an hour figure toted out by anti-labor advocates. It’s nice to have some reality injected into this political and polemical debate!
Here are some excerpts:
So what is the reality behind the number? Detroit’s defenders are right that the number is basically wrong. Big Three workers aren’t making anything close to $73 an hour (which would translate to about $150,000 a year).
And yet the main problem facing Detroit, overwhelmingly, is not the pay gap. That’s unfortunate because fixing the pay gap would be fairly straightforward.
The real problem is that many people don’t want to buy the cars that Detroit makes. Fixing this problem won’t be nearly so easy.
I was watching Soul Food the other day and remembered the Boondocks summary and died laughing out loud. The episode entitled “The Itis” also featured “The Luther“, allegedly named after the last thing Luther Vandross ate. I ran across this laughable and cryable moment on a friends page today by Paula Deen. And Paula, yes you are nasty for licking your fingers and then passing that death on wheels to that woman!
In an age when grassroots Black leadership has become distilled, sanitized, and all too often co-opted, we are often left looking backwards to our ancestors for guidance on our future. Today, December 4th, marks the 39th anniversary of the assassination of Fred Hampton by the United States Government. Chairman Fred Hampton was a dynamic leader in Illinois who was committed to the transformation of poor communities and did some of the original bridging work between Black, Brown, and White folks. As a Black Panther, he galvanized the grassroots activists across race lines, negotiated truces between street gangs, and raised the conscious among the proletariat to take control of their communities and push for transformation. I often look back at figures like Fred Hampton and wonder, where are the Freds now? CONTINUE READING
Just in time for some snowfall and to pay rent, I present five quick questions.
1) Now that Kanye and Weezy have demonstrated that auto-tune can be used to make someone whose singing is unbearable sound likable, do you think Kim from Real Housewives can actually have a real album?
2) Barry, is this the change I am supposed to believe in? Or maybe this one?
3) Why am I so excited for my birthday?
4) Are you serious, it was 10 guys who held Mumbai in terror? Imagine what could happen in the Bloods and Crips got together?
So in bizarro world news yesterday, my phone and twitter started blowing up about the commuting of sentence that John Forte received by outgoing (I just like saying that) president George W. Bush. As my friend Marc Lamont Hill put it, “The irony is that George Bush frees a Black man that Bill Clinton locked up.” While I savor that irony and celebrate John Forte’s re-entry to a society outside of the bars of prison, I’m worried for two reasons. First, we’ve been asking the wrong questions. Second, we don’t realize why Forte is free and why Mumia will likely remain locked.
Ask the wrong question, get the wrong answer.
All sorts of people have been asking, “Why did John Forte get freed?” I think that is the wrong question, but since it’s been asked, I’ll answer it. Ostensibly the reason that John Forte is free is Carly Simon. However since pardons do not require a rationalization, we won’t know for sure “why” Forte is free. The question I wish folks would ask, was “Why was John Forte locked?” And not in a literal sense, he was arrested for “moving weight.” I want a discussion of the reason he was imprisoned, mandatory minimums. CONTINUE READING
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