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

In President Obama’s last State of the Union address 

The answer is no, but that does not mean the effort is without merit. To create serious traction any effort to help young males of color must battle on two fronts: the empowerment of young males and changing the institutions and systems through which these young males travel. Choosing one front and not the other is a dangerous move.

Read more at Ebony.com.

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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On December 5th, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, affectionately known as Tata Madiba to some, transitioned to the ancestral realm. His name rings in many corners of the globe and on Tuesday he was memorialized in South Africa, but his relevance and importance to global and local freedom struggles cannot be underestimated. In the past few days, many accounts have sought to paint him as both revolutionary and peaceful, anti-establishment, as well as establishmentarian—the truth is that in 95 his years Mandela was all of these things. Through my own lens as an African-American with Pan-Africanist sensibilities, his diverse personas lent me insight into what “a long walk to freedom” looked like and why we all must engage in the process of creating, not only more just communities, but a more just world.

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Photo by Karl Ferguson

As I was saying, in a Sunday morning Ebony.com pulled together a diverse group of brothas at B. Braxton’s in Harlem (real nice spot, check it out if you want upscale professional barber experience … this is not a paid endorsement). On that morning we talked for about two hours on subject ranging from when we believed we became a man to the significance of the “black head nod.” It was an amazing experience that I pray we will replicate and I know many of you would have loved to be there … now you have a chance. Part 1: Manhood and Fatherhood is here and Part 2: Women and Relationships is here.

As a child, I used to look forward to the fabled moments in recess and gym class when we would play “girls versus boys.” While rare, it was a chance to go head-to-head with my classmates for gender supremacy. The stakes in gym class were bragging rights at best, but when we look at the current educational landscape, the competition between boys and girls is a bit more complicated. In recent years, we have seen the gender gap—the gap in average scores between males and females—reverse with girls surpassing boys in academic subjects like science and reading. This, not surprisingly, has led to a reincarnation of the battle of boys versus girls. But this time, school culture and societal inequality will be up for grabs.

Recently, David Brooks penned an editorial in the New York Times on the gender gap in our schools. Brooks cited research evidence to suggest that schools are geared towards female students, leaving boys at a disadvantage. This is not a wholly original argument, and the response from Soraya Chemalay suggests that any disadvantages that males face in school are but a microcosm of the larger gender inequities that females face in the world-at-large. While both Brooks and Chemalay are rightfully concerned, we must be careful to ensure that the education of children will not be taken as a zero-sum game, where one gender must win and one gender must lose.

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On Thursday July 26, 2012 President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order creating the White House Initiative for Educational Excellence for African Americans. The initiative creates a commission that is tasked with monitoring and improving the educational performance of African American students. At its best, Obama’s creation of this commission is groundbreaking and signals the start of a national commitment to the educational needs of Black children. At its worst, this could be a political hat tip but provide little force in shifting the trajectory of Black education. What will be the deciding factor between these two? You will be.

The creation of the commission should come as no surprise with the 2012 Election campaign in full swing. This is not to suggest that this is simply political pandering by Obama, rather I’m suggesting that the president knows keeping the African American electorate on his side is essential.

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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.

Summer is finally

For more than two decades, educational researchers have noticed a pattern: during the summer, Black and poor children tend to have their academic growth stunted and in many cases have their educational achievement rolled back. While all kids fall back some in learning during the summer months, poor and Black kids are particularly susceptible to greater fall offs in achievement. This is known as “summer setback” or summer learning loss. Summer learning loss is most often tied to a family’s socioeconomic status (particularly things like income and wealth) and what activities their children do during the summer months.

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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.”

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.

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

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

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

Gil Noble Archives Fund

PO Box 43138, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read more here.

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

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

Read more here

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Amy Jacques Garvey 1927

hat tip to @AroundHarlem

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.