The Other Two-Fifths

Black Male Student Success

2012-02-12T14:28:00.000-08:00

Since there has been quite a gap between my last post and this, I want to start on a positive note that is nonetheless on the theme of reclaiming "the other two-fifths" of the existence that was designed into the U.S. Constitution at the end of the 18th Century. There is bound to be plenty to grouse about later as this election year unfolds.

The first snippet below comes from excellent coverage a few days ago at Inside Higher Ed. If there were no month of February, we'd have to invent it just to accommodate stories like this:

When Black Men Succeed
February 6, 2012 - 3:00am
By Doug Lederman

The litany of bad news about the status of black men in higher education is by now familiar. They make up barely 4 percent of all undergraduate students, the same proportion as in 1976. They come into college less prepared than their peers for the rigors of college-level academic work. Their completion rates are the lowest of all major racial and ethnic groups in the U.S.

Shaun R. Harper is tired of hearing the list. It's not that he believes it's inaccurate -- the facts are the facts -- or irrelevant. But what troubles Harper, an associate professor of higher education at the University of Pennsylvania, is that it's pretty much all that we hear, in higher education research, in news reports, and as reflected in campus policies. That single-minded theme struck Harper personally as incomplete, since it didn't reflect his own experience or that of many black men he knew... [emphasis added]

Professor Harper could have just kvetched, but instead undertook the largest qualitative study to date that takes as its premise black male success and not black male pathology, the National Black Male College Achievement Study. Here is the link to the PDF of the study:

http://www.gse.upenn.edu/equity/sites/gse.upenn.edu.equity/files/publications/bmss.pdf

Enjoy!

Wake up, Dorothy. You were never in Kansas

2011-07-20T07:10:00.000-07:00

[Big ol' tip o' the fedora to Prometheus6 for snapping me out of "too busy to post" mode.]

Apparently you can make death threats against a Presidential candidate (translation: a black candidate, specifically Barack Obama) on the Internet and get away with it.

Man's call for Obama assassination is free speech, not crime, court rules
July 19, 2011 | 4:27 pm

A La Mesa man who posted racial epithets and a call to "shoot" Barack Obama on an Internet chat site was engaging in constitutionally protected free speech, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in overturning his criminal conviction...

...the statute doesn't criminalize "predictions or exhortations to others to injure or kill the president," said the majority opinion written by Judge Stephen Reinhardt.

"When our law punishes words, we must examine the surrounding circumstances to discern the significance of those words’ utterance, but must not distort or embellish their plain meaning so that the law may reach them," said the 2-1 ruling in which Chief Judge Alex Kozinski joined but Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw dissented.

Quick now, who's surprised? And who thinks this would be consistently applied to threats against a white candidate? And who thinks the (two) judges in the majority are sure in their own minds that race played no part in their decision?

Full decision here.

Neil deGrasse Tyson on Innovation [cross-post]

2011-06-13T11:47:00.000-07:00

h/t NewBlackMan where I commented on how/whether to show this clip to students.

Crooked Timber takes another whack at the prison system

2011-06-04T14:37:00.000-07:00

Crooked Timber tends to come at issues from an academic's angle. Not always scholarly and not always literary, but highfalutin enough to ward off the kiddies who have just learned to keyboard and post. Not always right, but they tend to think through posts before they go live. Often a bit smug and ivory-tower and detached (exception: when one of their own was affected by the Wisconsin protests of late winter), but usually self-aware enough to know they're doing it.

Yesterday, CT's Eszter Hargittai put up a side-door post about the recent narrow Supreme Court decision that admonishes the California prison system for its perennial overcrowding and lack of health services. This ties back to a recurring TOTF theme.

The CT commenters are covering the bases fairly well from their perspective, with a bit less snark than is their norm (yes, a bit less) so take a look, in the spirit of well-roundedness. They do tend to belabor and over-argue certain points that may be self-evident to some of us. (OK, fair enough, "some of us" would probably include anyone who's been a person of color in the US for more than three days.)

Haiti is not rebuilt but we must have our priorities

2011-06-04T07:33:00.000-07:00

While the media and many in the blogosphere are seemingly obsessed with how a couple of politicians' personal lives are melting down, I'm reminding by rikyrah at Jack and Jill, who was reminded by BooMan, whom I don't cite often, that Haiti is still under the imperial thumb of yore.

Believe me, if I had a better term than "imperial thumb" I'd use it. But the same external influences (socioeconomic, cultural, religious) that have been punishing Haiti since it dared attempt independence are still in full play...

And if nothing else we should remember that they had an earthquake too.

Because BooMan breaks it down like a fraction* better than I can paraphrase on this rainy Saturday morning, I will just link through. Enjoy and be enlightened.

This also reminds me that I'm overdue for a contribution to Partners in Health, one of the few NGOs that seems to just stay there and help people directly, before, during and after earthquakes. I'll take care of that today.

____________
*Don't worry, I will stop saying "breaks it down like a fraction" after a while.

Memorial Day and the Former Slaves Who Started It

2011-05-30T14:07:00.000-07:00

h/t Kris Broughton at Big Think/Resurgence for starting me on this trail. I'm all for honoring the fallen each Memorial Day. I want to honor all the fallen, though, and this is my contribution to that end. From another perspective it's a good case study of how history may be "lost" and how it can be rediscovered.

Broughton's May 30 post popped up on my Blogger reading list with the headline "S.C. Black Freedmen Organized First Memorial Day Celebration In 1865"-- and after replacing my uppers, I went straight to Wikipedia, font of all wisdom. Sure enough, the Memorial Day entry says, and I quote:

Formerly known as Decoration Day, which was first recorded to have been observed by Freedmen (freed enslaved southern blacks) in Charleston, South Carolina in 1865, at the Washington Race Course, to remember the fallen Union soldiers of the Civil War. Today, what is now known as Memorial Day, is a day of reflection and recognition of ordinary people who sometimes visit cemeteries and graves to honor their deceased relatives while also commemorating all U.S. Service Members who died while inmilitary service.^[2] The recognition of the fallen victims was then enacted under the name Memorial Day by an organization of Union veterans — the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR)^[3] — to honorUnion soldiers of the American Civil War. Over time, it was extended after World War I to honor all Americans who have died in all wars.

I knew about the expansion after WWI part, but not the prior history of the holiday. That never got mentioned, somehow, in the required history that was covered during my military service.

After a quick skim of the Wikipedia entry, I dutifully went to the Broughton post. Seems he had been inspired by a Ta-Nehisi Coates post at The Atlantic... (with some quite cogent comments there, by the way, and not too much racist chaff, as TNC screens for that)

...which was in turn inspired by an excellent David Blight article in the New York Times...

...which drew upon research Blight had done some time earlier, and earlier discussed near the end of...

...a lecture he gave about the end of the Civil War called "To Appomattox and Beyond: The End of the War and a Search for Meanings." [video at the link, transcript available here]

Back to the Resurgence/Big Think post, there was one link I had skipped so I went back for it. The link leads to an article titled "Slaves Started Memorial Day" that was republished in May 2010 by the L.A. Watts Times. (This Brian Hicks article first appeared under the title "The First Memorial Day" on May 24, 2009 in the [Charleston, S.C.] Post and Courier. It may be read here.)

The Hicks article also brings a bit more of the local view and that makes it worth a read.

"Later" turns out to be "now" for California prisons

2011-05-27T20:08:00.000-07:00

There's a new conversation at subrealism about the Supreme Court decision on California prisons. Too many prisoners, too little space, too few services. (Services, if you're concerned about taxpayer dollars, are things like just enough medical care to keep the state out of "cruel and unusual punishment" territory if administered properly.)

We've known the extent of the problem for some years, thanks to Judge Thelton Henderson's constant admonitions, but as a state we kind of dragged our societal feet until, oh, right this minute. Shifting prisoners to the county jails and declaring victory is not going to work well, as there is overcrowding and underfunding there too, and the sheriffs are pretty upset about the whole thing. Add potential layoffs to the mix and it's even less pretty.

ProfGeo comment is at the "new conversation" link above, with some informative discussion from CNu and the crowd as well. Please check it out.

The difference between Strom Thurmond and Arnold Schwarzenegger

2011-05-19T08:50:00.000-07:00

Conservatives never openly bad-mouthed Strom Thurmond.

A "Fair Use" shot across the bow

2011-05-14T08:38:00.000-07:00

The folks at Racialicious have heard from New York magazine over a recent (May 13) post that quotes from an article on Asian Americans. My guess is they are discussing the amount of the article that is quoted vs. the amount of new commentary from the Racialicious blogger. I don't think the magazine is trying to shut down discussion of the subject matter itself, in this particular case.

Those of us who largely blog in "reactive" mode, citing the news of the day, should take note of the proceedings. According to the U.S. Copyright Office, there are four tests for fair use and a body of case law. There is no simple, hard and fast rule that applies to everyone all the time. We are concerned in academia as well as in the everyday world of sharing.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) didn't help. The waters have been further muddied over the past several years as certain outlets (e.g. major networks like MSNBC; TED...) have actively promoted embedding and in some cases even provided tools to selectively clip/edit their stuff for sharing. New York is old school print and they seem to be reacting to Racialicious from that perspective.

Why, Clearly, America has a Fighting President, not just a Black President*

2011-05-04T20:44:00.000-07:00

Since Sunday night, May 1, when President Obama announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed, the tenor of media coverage everywhere has changed. Although some right-wingers are paying left-handed compliments to our left-handed President, at least they're compliments for the moment.

MSM have resurrected a few media zombies such as Paul Wolfowitz, Alan Dershowitz, Michael Steele (who never really disappeared) and let them take the bit in their teeth. There is some second-guessing over whether to release photographs of the body, but everything else is like water off a duck's back, a bit of unseemly but not unexpected quibbling.

There has been a lower-key response from the more peaceful and peaceable among us. Some with Buddhist perspective, most about the sanctity of life, most, I believe, a reaction to the finite-game, sports-victory home-team aspect of the "spontaneous" celebrations Sunday night. (Where did they get all those flags that late at night, anyway?)

But for the moment, the President is just the President. I choose to savor that part of it.

__________________________________
*This post's title is dedicated to Gene Wolfe.

Tell Bill Maher: stop legitimizing Andrew Breitbart

2011-04-29T07:43:00.000-07:00

Tell Bill Maher: stop legitimizing Andrew Breitbart

James Rucker (ColorOfChange) makes the case that Maher should not be re-booking Breitbart, or at the least should come clean about Breitbart's record and not softball him. Cross-posted from JJP.

Why We Fight, or: Clearly, America has a Black President, not just a President

2011-04-28T06:24:00.000-07:00

On the night of April 27, 2011, the night of the day President Obama called a special press conference to personally release his birth certificate, thus "showing his papers" to the country, Rachel Maddow was smart enough to turn her show directly over to Goldie Taylor of The Grio. Goldie explains, through a story about her own family, how this aspect of race in America has shown the constancy of the trade winds.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Once you have absorbed the video, I recommend to your attention the full text of Goldie Taylor's column at the Grio.

ETA: I am reminded by rikyrah at JJP to remind you to check Baratunde's April 27 video as well.

Digital Africa (cross-posted, sort of)

2011-04-27T16:39:00.000-07:00

I just don't want to lose this item from Intelligent Life magazine (from The Economist) before I've had a chance to reread it. I think you'll find more on topic re: technology and Africa, or corporate dominance and Africa, elsewhere... I focused on this article in the first place due to coverage at CNu's place of Libya's impact across Africa.

Digital Africa

In a continent with few computers and little electricity, a smartphone is not just a phone—it’s a potential revolution. J.M. Ledgard reports from Somalia and Kenya ...

From INTELLIGENT LIFE Magazine, Spring 2011

The front-line in Mogadishu was just beyond the ruined cathedral. You could hear the small-arms fire of the al-Qaeda fighters and the return of heavy machinegun-fire from the sandbagged positions of the African Union troops. But the scene on the sun-washed street in the Hamarweyne district was calm. Women were shopping for fruit and vegetables, and the ciabatta and pasta Mogadishu gained a taste for in its Italian colonial days. A couple of cafés, serving also as electronics shops, were crowded, with people inside making voip phone calls and surfing the internet. Outside on the street boys were fiddling with mobile phones, Nokia and Samsung mostly, but also those fantastical Chinese models you find in poorer countries, nameless, with plastic dragon-like construction, heavy on battery-guzzling features like television tuners. I asked my Somali companion what the boys were up to. He wound down the window and summoned his gunmen to go and ask. The answer came back. “They’re updating their Facebook profiles.”

According to a recent intelligence estimate by a defence contractor, 24% of residents in Mogadishu access the internet at least once a week. This in a city in a state of holy war, too dangerous for foreigners to visit freely, where a quarter of the 1.2m residents live under plastic sheeting, infested, hungry, and reliant on assistance brought in on ships that are liable to be attacked at sea by pirates. Half the population of Mogadishu is under 18. Some of these teenagers end up uploading and downloading ghoulish martyrdom videos and tinkering with websites celebrating the global jihad. But far more spend their time searching for love, following English football teams, reading Somali news sites uncensored by the jihadists, and keeping track of money transfers from relatives abroad. It takes more than violent anarchy to extinguish the desire of the young to stay connected, and to keep up with the contemporaries they see on satellite television.

When it comes to electricity, Africa remains the dark continent. There are a billion Africans, and they use only 4% of the world’s electricity. Most of that is round the edges, in Egypt, the Maghreb and South Africa. The rest of Africa is unlit; seen from space, the Congo River basin is as dark as the Southern Ocean. Demand for power is already outpacing economic growth. With its population expected to double to 2 billion by 2050, Africa will have to build entire new power grids just to stand still. So far, the failure has been systematic: of Nigeria’s 79 power stations, only 17 are working. All of this increases political risk. Some African countries could collapse by 2020 unless they can power an industrial base. Yet Africa’s virtual future is not dependent on its physical future. You don’t need much electricity to run a phone network. You need even less to run a phone itself. Even the scabbiest African village has worked out how to charge mobiles and other devices using car batteries, bicycles and solar panels. Connectivity is a given: it is coming and happening and spreading in Africa whether or not factories get built or young people find jobs. Culture is being formed online as well as on the street: for the foreseeable future, the African voice is going to get louder, while the voice of ageing Europe quietens.

What makes this possible is a series of undersea cables which have finally hooked up Africa to the rest of the internet. EASSY (the East African Submarine Cable System) emerged from the Indian Ocean at Mombasa last July, looking as fine as gossamer and delivering 3.84 terabits per second to 18 countries. It seemed inconceivable that it could carry the weight of so much information and so many hopes. But EASSY and other fibre-optic cables are freeing Africa from the costs and failings of the satellite internet, and for the first time making it affordable for Africans to talk to the outside world and, crucially, to each other. Prices are down, speeds are up: it takes minutes now instead of hours to download a YouTube video. The future is not supposed to feel futuristic—it’s usually far more like the present than the novelists and film-makers imagine—but the present in Africa has been rudimentary for so long that this future really does feel like science fiction...

[Much more at the above link on impact of mobile, and influence of Facebook, Google & Nokia]

350 for Earth Day

2011-04-22T14:15:00.000-07:00

A neat compilation, "350 for Earth Day: African Americans Enriching Life on Our Planet," at:

http://www.hiphopcaucus.org/earthday/

Google & minority hiring practices as "trade secret"

2011-04-21T17:11:00.000-07:00

Duly noted that Blogger is owned by Google and all that, and people providing "free" services don't have to explain anything, not really. Yeah, I'm glad for the space, having haggled with ISPs in the past. And I can follow that Google's hiring process might be a trade secret. But the actual numbers of minorities employed? Reverse-engineer those numbers to understand Google?

Google won’t release minority hiring statistics, claiming trade secret
By Priyanka Sharma | 17 Apr 2011

The universal search engine may not be as transparent as it claims.

Google’s mission statement is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” yet when asked to disclose data about its internal hiring process, the company flatly refused.

Google has claimed that its hiring procedures are a trade secret, but other Silicon Valley heavy hitters like Intel, Cisco, and eBay have released their data.

“All we are asking is for Google to show us the numbers,” said Len Canty, chairman of the Black Economic Council. He was among several minority leaders who protested outside Google’s Mountain View headquarters on Feb. 10, rallying for Google to be more transparent about the minorities it hires...

A History of Black Folk on Twitter (cross-post)

2011-04-20T11:01:00.000-07:00

Mark Anthony Neal at TEDxDuke 2011:

See more of Dr. Neal at NewBlackMan. But watch the video first...

The Black History of the White House (book)

2011-04-16T10:27:00.000-07:00

Cross-posted at JJP.

The Black History of the White House on BookTV (C-SPAN2), author Clarence Lusane video at the link:

http://www.booktv.org/Program/...

Book excerpt at City Lights (PDF):

http://www.citylights.com/book...

ETA: Here's a 30-min. NPR segment with Lusane.

Obama's Budget Deficit Speech

2011-04-13T15:05:00.000-07:00

Here's a Wordle visualization of the text of President Obama's speech at GWU on Wednesday, April 13. (The words laughter and applause were removed.) Click on the image for a larger version.

Prison Smorgasbord! not exactly all you can eat

2011-04-09T21:17:00.000-07:00

I was already piling up some items in multiple browser tabs, hoping the browser wouldn't crash, when Prometheus6 went ahead and posted this item that is exceedingly strange due to the joint appearance of Ben Jealous (NAACP) and Grover Norquist (hater of all taxes all the time):

Watch the full episode. See more PBS NewsHour.

So best for all concerned is for me to just add my bottlenecked items about California's new prison transfer law, AB109; Gov. Jerry Brown's signing message affecting how the bill is implemented; reactions from county/local officials; an item on women and prison reform; and several others. Off you go, then:

Jerry Brown signs bill to transfer criminals to counties, angers sheriffs

Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill late Monday that aims to make a key part of his budget proposal a reality -- AB109, which authorizes the transfer of thousands of state prisoners to local jails (and also shifts various other criminal justice functions away from the state and down to the county level).

One problem: Brown planned to fund the measure with tax increases and extensions -- you know, the ones vehemently opposed by Republicans. The governor had hoped to put those taxes before voters in June, but threw in the towel last week after being stymied by that GOP opposition.

But Brown had to do something -- if he didn't sign of veto AB109 by Monday, it would have gone into law automatically. So he attempted to soften the blow by writing in his signing message that AB109 will not take effect until the state has figured out way to pay counties for the extra responsibilities...

Monterey County plans for inmate influx

Governor signs bill returning prisoners to local jails

By JULIA REYNOLDS

Herald Staff Writer

Posted: 04/06/2011 01:42:46 AM PDT

Law enforcement officials in Monterey County are preparing for the return of some state prisoners to county custody even as they try to discern exactly what that would mean.

Late Monday, Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a bill authorizing the return of certain "low-level" nonviolent offenders to California counties — with the caveat that it won't happen until the money is there to help counties accommodate them.

The bill approved by Brown says the "realignment" is scheduled to begin July 1 — but can only go into effect "upon creation of a community corrections grant program to assist in implementing this act, and upon an appropriation to fund the grant program."

Despite that provision, some local police leaders fear the state won't follow through with adequate funds.

"The California Police Chiefs Association has had a lot of trust in Governor Brown since he was attorney general," said Marina Police Chief Eddie Rodriguez. "He normally does what he says. The only problem is the state is in a fiscal crisis and we don't know where that money will come from."

"I don't think 'make sure that it's fair' is part of the paradigm," said Sheriff Scott Miller. "It's not going to be a pretty thing."

But Miller said he has a more immediate concern than the money — where to put the returning prisoners.

The county's jail runs about 200 to 300 inmates over capacity every day...

INTERMISSION: Here's a San Francisco Chronicle cartoon that sums up the above two articles, I think. Click the jammies to see the whole Tom Meyer cartoon.

California prison reform should start with women

Timothy P. Silard,Lateefah Simon

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

If we want to fix California's broken criminal justice system, let's start by changing our approach to incarcerating and rehabilitating women. That is one of the key proposals offered in March by a panel of law enforcement and social justice leaders on California Attorney General Kamala Harris' transition team. Here's why:

California holds the largest number of female prisoners in the country...

How we re-enter women into society affects entire families and communities...

Our current way of doing business makes no fiscal sense. We spend about $52,000 to keep each woman behind bars for one year; the two largest women's prisons, both in Chowchilla, cost $278 million to operate annually. Annual costs for social services for children of female inmates are estimated at $56 million.

The costs we incur make even less sense as the vast majority of women behind bars today are classified as low-risk and were convicted of nonviolent crimes...

State budget crises push sentencing reforms

By GREG BLUESTEIN, Associated Press

Saturday, April 2, 2011

(04-02) 08:32 PDT ATLANTA (AP) --

As costs to house state inmates have soared in recent years, many conservatives are reconsidering a tough-on-crime era that has led to stiffer sentences, overcrowded prisons and bloated corrections budgets.

Ongoing budget deficits and steep drops in tax revenue in most states are forcing the issue, with law-and-order Republican governors and state legislators beginning to overhaul years of policies that were designed to lock up more criminals and put them away for longer periods of time...

Result of furloughs - $1 billion liability

Prison guards, supervisors rack up millions of hours in paid time off

Marisa Lagos, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

(03-08) 04:00 PDT Sacramento - --

California prison guards and their supervisors have racked up 33.2 million hours of vacation, sick and other paid time off - an astounding accumulation that amounts to nearly half a year per worker.

It also adds up to a $1 billion liability for taxpayers of the deficit-plagued state.

Poor management at California's prisons has for years allowed workers to stock up on generous amounts of paid time off - a benefit that employees must either use or cash out when they retire. But the numbers swelled when former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger imposed furloughs in 2009, forcing prison guards and their supervisors to take unpaid days off each month to help save state cash.

Furloughs are problematic at California's 33 state prisons, all of which operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week and have thousands of unfilled prison guard positions. Workers have been coming in on their furlough days and banking paid time off.

"You can't shut prisons down," Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Oscar Hidalgo said. "You have to keep them operational. You have to cover every post. You don't want to endanger staff by not doing that."...

A cross-post for blogging colleagues

2011-04-07T07:48:00.000-07:00

BlackWeb 2.0 has announced a joint event between Black Weblog Awards and Blogging While Brown, in L.A. over the July 8-10, 2011 weekend.

http://www.blackweb20.com/2011/04/06/black-weblog-awards-and-blogging-while-brown-unite-for-a-black-social-media-weekend/

As soon as anti-immigrant folks stop speeding, using drugs, and paying employees under the table, let me know

2011-04-04T20:46:00.000-07:00

I think I could be OK with people who say "Illegal means illegal" if I didn't know so many so-called upstanding U.S. citizens who regularly broke the law as described in the post title.

Tea Party rallies for Arizona-style immigration law at the Capitol

n Arizona-like law to combat illegal immigration has a snowball's chance in Phoenix of passing the California Legislature, but freshman Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, R-Twin Peaks (San Bernardino County) is giving it a shot.

Donnelly, who has patrolled the California-Mexico border as part of the militant Minutemen citizen group, held a rally at the Capitol today for his bill, AB26. The bill would make a number of changes in state law, including requiring law enforcement to verify the immigration status of anyone who is arrested and suspected of being in the country illegally...

The rally attracted about 100 participants, along with a good number of television cameras, and the crowd largely consisted of folks wearing Tea Party T-shirts and other Tea Party garb...

The rally did not go off without a protest, though, as about a dozen people marched and shouted "Si Se Puede" a few hundred feet away. An immigration rights group called the bill "dead on arrival" as it faces its first legislative hearing on Tuesday.

"Simply put, California is a very different place than Arizona. We are proud of our state's spirit of inclusion," said Reshma Shamasunder, director of the California Immigrant Policy Center...

I need to find time for Inherently Unequal

2011-04-03T15:23:00.000-07:00

BookTV (C-SPAN2) just showed Lawrence Goldstone on Inherently Unequal: The Betrayal of Equal Rights by the Supreme Court, 1865-1903 over the weekend and it's available on demand at their site.

May have to multitask and watch it today, even though such practice continues to be decried.

Race-neutral, my eye: William Julius Wilson changes his mind

2011-04-01T08:54:00.000-07:00

The American Prospect Q&A linked below is interesting for where Wilson agrees w/ President Obama (e.g. Promise Neighborhoods) and where he doesn't (e.g. lack of united Democratic Party & administration message against right-wing racism). Wilson's call to bring race back into the political discussion on the left is a change of his 1990s position, which was based on the political situation at the time (Reagan-Bush years).

Personally I'm still impressed w/ the President's Univision town hall* on March 28 which shows the that the President CAN go to specific audiences that are deemed controversial by right-wingers and directly address issues that affect POC. They just have to keep the ball rolling. If they choose to. Okay, here's Wilson:

Race-Neutral Politics: William Julius Wilson revises stance

ETA: A version of this item is cross-posted at Prometheus6 where there's a bit of conversation on Wilson.

*Obama/Univision Mar. 28 text here. Full video is here.

It has begun

2011-03-05T20:45:00.000-08:00

Today, in front of a fairly liberal small town's post-office on California's Central Coast:

Just sayin'.

Freezing Over, Redux: First I cite Matthews, now Dyson

2011-03-05T12:45:00.000-08:00

That's Michael Eric, not Esther. On Republicans' continuing disrespect for the office of the Presidency and for our current President in particular. On open fabrication, making things up out of whole cloth, followed by "who, me?" claims to have "misspoken."

(h/t NewBlackMan)

Clutter: Not about the stuff, though stuff is all about you

2011-03-05T10:58:00.001-08:00

Two posts that remind me of how I've totally fallen off the wagon with my book-reduction project:

1) Hoarding Insecurities from Andrew Sullivan, who apparently is still at the Atlantic right this minute. How did he decide on exactly 200 books, not 100, not 250, to be read in his dotage?

2) Deep Cleaning and Other Cosmic Issues from Claire B. Potter, which apparently inspired Sullivan to inspire himself and indirectly to chastise those of us who will certainly someday most assuredly get around to sorting through whatever there is a pile of in our vicinity. And I will verify for Potter that it's not just a white thing.

The flaw in both the Sullivan and Potter posts is their reference to a "pile of unused CDs," which argument makes not the least dent in the hoarding guilt-armor (pun not intended) of anyone who still has a substantial number of vinyl records.

Blogger in hospital

2011-03-03T16:53:00.000-08:00

FYI, our pal at Prometheus6 is in the hospital (which is why it's been quiet over there) and he could use some positive thoughts, I'm sure.

http://www.prometheus6.org/node/27877

Better'n Black History Month?

2011-02-01T12:56:00.001-08:00

Just a reminder:

February, 2011 is "America STILL Has a Black President" Month.

(paraphrasing Kris Broughton who said this a ways back, but it bears repeating.)

Just when I thought I'd never cite Chris Matthews

2011-01-31T19:21:00.000-08:00

Have a look at this, from Chris Matthews in response to Michele Bachmann on how hard the Founding Fathers fought against slavery.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

ETA: hat tip Prometheus 6 where I saw this first (sorry about that)

A diversity effort I agree with: Fred Korematsu Day

2011-01-29T15:24:00.000-08:00

People who encounter me elsewhere (e.g. at Prometheus6) know I retain a certain cynicism over "diversity efforts" writ large. I dislike those that try to leave our collective checkered past unexamined. I like those with an atonement factor, in which government openly acknowledges past wrongdoing. This is one of the latter.

Fred Korematsu Day a first for an Asian American
Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, January 29, 2011

Ines Trinh scanned her class of 29 fifth-graders in San Lorenzo on Friday and took a deep breath. It was time to make the lesson personal.

"Just imagine, you're told to leave your home, you've got to pack up and you have only two suitcases for everything," Trinh told them. The Lorenzo Manor Elementary schoolkids' eyes widened. "I want you to think about it. How would you feel?"

Ten hands shot up. "Mad," said the first boy. "Sad," said a girl. "Insulted ... guilty ... lonely ... disgusted," intoned others.

Trinh smiled. Sixty-nine years after U.S. soldiers herded 120,000 Japanese Americans into internment camps during World War II, she was able in one moment to make her young charges gain a new understanding of racial discrimination in America - and it was all really thanks to one man.

That man is Fred Korematsu.

Sunday is his day in California, the first in U.S. history to be officially named after an Asian American, and more than 500 teachers like Trinh are using it to tell elementary and high school students about his life and its landmark place in the annals of civil rights.

It's easy to be here and not in Haiti

2011-01-23T15:24:00.000-08:00

My biggest problem right now is not anywhere near as bad as the average problem in Haiti, so here is an update from a set of folks who are actually getting work done there, in and around the organizations that are holding up the show. They were working before the January 2010 earthquake, during the quake, and after the quake.

Story to go with the embedded video is at:

http://www.pih.org/news/entry/mirebalais-hospitals-walls-take-shape

Everyone should post an MLK item. Here's Grace Lee Boggs and Vincent Harding

2011-01-17T12:19:00.000-08:00

Today, I only want to add my appreciation for any MLK posts anywhere that go beyond the one part of the one speech we all know and love and (if we are not careful) take out of context. I present this example for your appreciation. Off you go, then:

How Shall We Celebrate Martin Luther King's Birthday?
A favorite piece on MLK, from the YES! archive. A conversation between Grace Boggs and Vincent Harding

by Grace Lee Boggs
posted Jan 17, 2011

Over the holidays my old friend Vincent Harding, the African-American historian who worked closely with Martin Luther King during the 1960s (Harding drafted King's 1967 anti-Vietnam war speech) spent several days with me. When he couldn't make it to my 90th birthday party in June, Vincent explained, he resolved to visit me during my 90th year and before I might be leaving this life.

A lot of our discussion centered around how in the last three years of his life, King called for a revolution in values against the triple threats of racism, materialism, and militarism. Why do most King celebrations back away from or ignore this message? Is it because he was going where most Americans don't want to go — so that there was almost a sigh of relief when he was assassinated?

King's challenge was not only directed to white people. As Vincent put it ten years ago: "All we need to do is look around us and see how much over the past 15-20 years we black folks have decided (consciously or not) to fight racism by seeking equal opportunity or a fair share in the nation's militarism and materialism. In other words, we have chosen to fight against one of the triple threats by joining the other two."...

Read the rest of Grace Lee Boggs/Vincent Harding at: YES!

Why did you back-burner Haiti?

2011-01-12T12:29:00.000-08:00

The media are doing ritualistic "one year later" stories about the Haiti earthquake as one would expect. If you just went "Oh! Right, mustn't forget," what does that say? Check the photos at the link but don't skip the commentary. I think "indecision" is the word that best applies, after "tragedy."

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/01/haiti_one_year_later.html

I can't top this Shakesville post on the Tucson shootings, so just go read it

2011-01-10T09:44:00.000-08:00

Melissa McEwan at Shakesville has written a piece that deserves to go viral. This is my small contribution to that effort. Here is your teaser:

Let's Get This Straight
Posted by Melissa McEwan at Monday, January 10, 2011
[Trigger warning for violent rhetoric of many different stripes.]

Both sides are, in fact, not "just as bad," when it comes to institutionally sanctioned violent and eliminationist rhetoric.

An anonymous commenter at Daily Kos and the last Republican vice presidential nominee are not equivalent, no matter how many ridiculously irresponsible members of the media would have us believe otherwise.

There is, demonstrably, no leftist equivalent to Sarah Palin, former veep candidate and presumed future presidential candidate, who uses gun imagery (rifle sights) and language ("Don't Retreat, RELOAD") to exhort her followers to action.

There is no leftist equivalent to the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), a group which was created from the mailing list of the old white supremacist White Citizens Councils and has been noted as becoming increasingly "radical and racist" by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which classifies the CCC as a hate group—and is nonetheless considered an acceptable association by prominent members of the Republican Party, including a a former senator and the last Republican presidential nominee...

...This is not an argument there is no hatred, no inappropriate and even violent rhetoric, among US leftists. There is.

This is evidence that, although violent rhetoric exists among US leftists, it is not remotely on the same scale, and, more importantly, not an institutionally endorsed tactic, as it is among US rightwingers.

This is a fact. It is not debatable.

And there is observably precious little integrity among conservatives in addressing this fact, in the wake of the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords...

Go read the full post at:

http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2011/01/lets-get-this-straight.html

I am usually not qualified to discuss this

2010-12-19T11:11:00.000-08:00

h/t the exceedingly odd but always interesting Xeni Jardin at http://twitter.com/xenijardin

When people are right, they're right, even if they're in a minority position on the Internet. The linked image (start of a rather lengthy cartoon commentary) is a reminder that the "default" online presence remains straight white male, due emphasis on male, even in 2010, and minority presence includes female.

Now I have to figure out how to share this further on my other social media feeds without startling the hell out of my more clean-cut contacts. Don't worry, they all know I'm black, I'm not that anonymous nor would I care to be. They also know I associate with certain brash, trash-mouthy folk of various ilk even if I don't personally bandy about "certain language." But in deference to my own sincere Christian relatives and friends, I usually don't put the coarser language a mere click away, I tone it down or buffer it a bit.

So go ahead, click through above. Be patient if it's slow-loading. Note for the record that certain text at the other end is NSFW.

Don't ask some black folk to be consistent. Don't tell them equality covers anyone but themselves.

2010-12-16T06:08:00.000-08:00

UPDATE, Christmas Eve 2010: Since President Obama signed the bill repealing DADT earlier this week, it's been pretty quiet on the objection front. I assume it's because people in black churches everywhere are getting ready to welcome black LGBT folk with open arms this Sunday.

----

I usually make my comments on Don't Ask, Don't Tell elsewhere, because elsewhere is where I encounter most of the jarring statements, inconsistencies and cognitive dissonance. Some black folk, though they know discrimination first-hand and are quick to point it out, will gladly, smugly, gleefully continue discrimination against others-- now it's gays in the military, next time it will be someone else if we don't learn from our own history.

It's weird to have to argue that DADT was a mistake that should not have been enacted as military policy in the first place. The arguments in favor of it, never that strong in the face of military reality since the 1980s, have been overturned, most recently by a survey of people actually on active duty. But argue we must.

When DADT was enacted I was on active duty. Deep down, I knew from the outset it was wrong in concept, hard to comply with, and hard to enforce, but it was what we called a lawful order or regulation . It seemed a way to move on an issue that needed to be dealt with, or if you prefer, "dealt with." The late Reagan and early Bush years brought a heightened awareness of gay presence in the military to the ostensibly straight majority. More women filled non-traditional positions in the 1980s and that brought (inevitable?) accusations against them. The AIDS scourge, little understood at the time, made every male who got mysteriously ill a suspect. Sexual orientation was not a constant front-burner topic but somehow it got enough public attention to warrant action at the highest levels-- hence, DADT.

I should not claim I was born with a view of non-discrimination towards gays or the rest of the LGBT community, or was brought up with it, or entered the military with it. In my childhood, it was all about racial and religious equality in our household. (To my recollection, gender equality was never a topic. We pretended my dad was in charge.) Sexual orientation was never discussed directly.

In my case it took actual service with people who were obviously leading closeted lives. (They were doing so before, but my blinders are pretty darn good.) There was no epiphany, no singular event. But there was a point at which I realized I would never turn anyone in for being gay even if I knew it (as opposed to wondering, suspecting, or some other indefinite state). This point was a bit before DADT, so by the time the policy came into being my attitude had already hardened in favor of just leaving people alone.

DADT doesn't leave people alone. It's past time to get rid of it.

House approves repeal of 'don't ask, don't tell'

The 250-175 vote is aimed at putting new pressure on the Senate to end the policy banning gay troops from serving openly in the military.

By Kathleen Hennessey, Tribune Washington Bureau
December 15, 2010, 2:31 p.m.

Reporting from Washington — After stumbling last week, the effort to end the policy banning gay troops from serving openly in the military received a boost Wednesday, as the House approved a measure repealing the policy in an effort to force the Senate to do the same before lawmakers go home for the holidays.

The House vote on the "don't ask, don't tell" policy -- essentially a repeat of a similar vote in May -- puts fresh pressure on the Senate leaders to prioritize the repeal as they struggle to schedule votes on a handful of last-chance priorities for Democrats.

The final tally was 250 to 175, mostly along party lines.

To paraphrase politely, Haiti can't catch a darn break

2010-12-13T08:56:00.000-08:00

Imagine living in Haiti. Now, imagine Sarah Palin showing up to see how you're doing.

Palin concludes tour of Haiti
Published: Dec. 13, 2010 at 9:29 AM

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Dec. 13 (UPI) -- Americans shouldn't forget about Haiti and the devastation remaining from a monster earthquake in January, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said.

Palin, her husband Todd and her daughter Bristol traveled to Haiti to view relief work led by Rev. Franklin Graham, leader of the non-profit Samaritan's Purse and son of evangelist Billy Graham, The Miami Herald reported Monday...

Next, imagine bipartisan U.S. support for withholding funding.

...Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Richard Lugar, R-Ind., both voiced concerns about the Haitian election. Leahy last week urged Washington hold back funding to the Haitian government until officials ensure a "fair and democratic outcome" to the presidential vote.

h/t this Twitter Trail: Farai Chideya --> Kai Wright --> Mac McClelland --> Jonathan M. Katz

Paul Farmer offers "5 lessons from Haiti's Disaster"

2010-12-05T22:04:00.000-08:00

h/t Balloon Juice.

Paul Farmer of Partners in Health wrote a short article for Foreign Policy that could be a wake-up call for some deserving nation. Can't imagine which nation that would be. Said wake-up could be for how to consider treating Haiti in the future (like a sovereign nation?) or it could be for how to heal the deserving nation itself, as it is in a bit of trouble these days. I'll list just the five lessons, and you can read the details over there.

Jobs are everything.
Don't starve the government.
Give them something to go home to.
Waste not, want not.
Relief is the easy part.

All the prisoners that will fit

2010-12-03T05:55:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week, there was a flurry of articles about California's overcrowded prisons, and how that didn't bother Gov. Arnold (or, one presumes, many other Californians) one bit. The overcrowding has been in and out of the news over the past decade, but in the courts consistently. The case Schwarzenegger v. Plata has finally reached the Supreme Court, hence the current spate of articles.

The most influential jurist along the way has been Federal District Judge Thelton Henderson, an African American who is Google-worthy in his own right. In 2004 he threatened to take over the California corrections system, and in 2006 he got fed up and made good on it, putting prison health care into receivership. In 2007, the Supreme Court weighed in by saying California judges did not have enough discretion in sentencing. Since then, the state has made a show of adjusting sentencing laws and new prison construction, but Judge Henderson says they're foot-dragging and that he's not going anywhere anytime soon.

Here's one sample from this week. I like the Ifills, so this is from The Root:

Keeping America's Prisons Overcrowded
In a case before the Supreme Court, California Gov. Schwarzenegger is arguing that judges have no right to tell states to reduce their prison populations.
By: Sherrilyn A. Ifill | Posted: November 29, 2010 at 6:05 PM

America's prisons, like many of our public schools, reflect our country's most shameful and profound failings. This week the U.S. Supreme Court takes on one aspect of our nation's love affair with incarceration.

In Schwarzenegger v. Plata, the state of California has challenged an order issued by a three-judge federal court under the Prison Reform Litigation Act, which requires the state to reduce its prison population to deal with overcrowding. The court found that overpopulation is directly responsible for the failure of the California system to provide inmates with adequate physical and mental health services. California argues that the prison reduction order issued by the three-judge court under the PRLA goes beyond the scope of the statute and infringes on the state's power.

This case is likely to play out before the court and in the media as a battle over states' rights -- in this case, the right of the state of California to manage its own prison system -- and against the encroachment of federal judges supplanting the judgment of elected leaders with their own version of appropriate public policy. Indeed, 18 states have joined in a brief supporting the state of California and making this very argument.

But there's much more at stake in this case than the age-old "state sovereignty versus federal courts" story. In fact, the federal court's prison reduction order in this case is something of a last resort -- imposed only after eight years in which the state of California, while conceding the unconstitutional overcrowding in its prison system, has failed to reduce its prison population. The Plata suit stems from an action filed back in 2001. The state conceded in 2002 that prison overcrowding threatened the constitutional rights of prisoners...

Much more at the link!

Shirley Chisholm: Acknowledge

2010-12-01T08:28:00.000-08:00

Suspending curmudgeonly comments for a moment, Nov. 30 was Shirley Chisholm's birthday. Here are two items I saw in the past 24 hours that resonated:

(1) Avoice (one word) is a site about African Americans in Congress. Here is the Shirley Chisholm page at Avoice. Short but sweet.

(2) The Daily Kos has a nice multimedia tribute to Shirley Chisholm on Black Kos (Tuesday's Chile).

Enjoy!

Silly me, I thought THAT "master narrative" was back-burnered

2010-11-30T13:30:00.000-08:00

Cross-posting a couple of Civil War celebratory items, courtesy of Tuesday JJP commenters:

(1) From Ta-Nehisi Coates at The Atlantic, who states: "I think we need to be absolutely clear that 150 years after the defeat of one of the Confederacy, there are still creationists who seek to celebrate the treasonous attempt to raise an entire country based on the ownership of people."

'They Have Encouraged and Assisted Thousands of Our Slaves'

NOV 29 2010, 10:54 PM ET

The Times notes that in Charleston, the Sons of Confederate Veterans are planning a 150th anniversary "Secession Ball." Jeff Antley, a member of the SCV, explains:

"We're celebrating that those 170 people risked their lives and fortunes to stand for what they believed in, which is self-government," Mr. Antley said. "Many people in the South still believe that is a just and honorable cause. Do I believe they were right in what they did? Absolutely," he said, noting that he spoke for himself and not any organization. "There's no shame or regret over the action those men took."

It really annoys me the that Times used someone who they felt they had to ID as a "liberal sociologist" to counter Antley. Far better to simply quote from the founding documents which those 170 people authored. In that way we can get some sense of precisely what they were risking their lives for, and the exact nature of the fortune they were protecting:

We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof. The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."

This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River...

(2) From Katharine Q. Seelye at the New York Times, who reminds us: "Commemorating the Civil War has never been easy. The centennial 50 years ago coincided with the civil rights movement, and most of the South was still effectively segregated, making a mockery of any notion that the slaves had truly become free and equal.

"Congress had designated an official centennial commission, which lost credibility when it planned to meet in a segregated hotel; this year, Congress has not bothered with an official commission and any master narrative of the war seems elusive."

Well, let us not say that a master narrative is hard to find-- we seem to be tripping all over them-- but I suppose she meant that in another sense.

November 29, 2010

Celebrating Secession Without the Slaves

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

ATLANTA — The Civil War, the most wrenching and bloody episode in American history, may not seem like much of a cause for celebration, especially in the South.

And yet, as the 150th anniversary of the four-year conflict gets under way, some groups in the old Confederacy are planning at least a certain amount of hoopla, chiefly around the glory days of secession, when 11 states declared their sovereignty under a banner of states’ rights and broke from the union.

The events include a “secession ball” in the former slave port of Charleston (“a joyous night of music, dancing, food and drink,” says the invitation), which will be replicated on a smaller scale in other cities. A parade is being planned in Montgomery, Ala., along with a mock swearing-in of Jefferson Davis as president of the Confederacy.

In addition, the Sons of Confederate Veterans and some of its local chapters are preparing various television commercials that they hope to show next year. “All we wanted was to be left alone to govern ourselves,” says one ad from the group’s Georgia Division...

Voting rights in the South: a drive-by update to push your hot buttons

2010-11-17T08:24:00.000-08:00

I am in the throes of pre-Thanksgiving Week weirdness (have you ever SEEN a gaggle of caged, crazed college students planning & executing a prison break?) so with hat tip to Prometheus6, here is a must-read from The Defenders Online.

NAACP Legal Defense Fund Files Brief to Defend Voting Rights Act Against Constitutional Challenge
Posted By The Editors On November 16, 2010 @ 8:07 pm

Alabama case threatens to have ‘heart’ of VRA declared unconstitutional

(New York) – Yesterday the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) filed a brief in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, a case challenging the constitutionality of two core provisions of the Voting Rights Act. The law requires jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to have voting changes reviewed by the U.S. Department of Justice or D.C. District Court to ensure they are free from discrimination.

LDF’s brief asks the District Court for the District of Columbia to deny Alabama’s motion for summary judgment –which seeks to have the Section 5 preclearance provision declared unconstitutional based on recycled arguments that have been rejected previously. Instead, LDF asks the court to grant its motion for summary judgment on the grounds that a detailed Congressional record demonstrates that ongoing discrimination remains pervasive in those states and jurisdictions around the country where Section 5 applies...

What do Godot and Lefty have in common?

2010-11-06T12:18:00.000-07:00

WAITING FOR “SUPERMAN”
by Brian Edgar

Someone walking out of the theater having just seen Davis Guggenheim’s documentary Waiting for “Superman” shouldn’t be blamed for feeling a breezy confidence about the direction we should be headed with our nation’s schools. “The problem is complex, but the steps are simple,” the film assures us. We simply need to build more charter schools, get rid of lazy and incompetent teachers, create accountability regimes and—oh yeah—hire better teachers. But, first we need to get rid of the archaic bureaucracies and unions that protect these cretins. This would be great if it were true. Unfortunately, the film amounts to propaganda for the reform efforts beginning with President Bush’s No Child Left Behind initiative of 2001, not a prescription for reform.

Superman tells the story of five children as they attempt to transfer from their local public schools (and one parochial school) for better opportunities at nearby charter schools. These stories are poignant and devastating as we watch families pin their hopes and their child’s future on lottery systems to gain entry to charter schools with few openings. Guggenheim’s film creates a sense of urgency about the problem—low graduation rates, poor literacy and math skills, and the associated costs of an inadequate educational system on individuals and society. This sounds like a snoozer, but the film is emotionally charged, compelling, and well-made. While the film does a good job of depicting the overall context of reform from the policy perspective from charter schools, standardized testing, and merit pay, it cherry picks its cases to push an agenda and fails to illuminate what these reforms mean to teachers and students in the classroom, where learning presumably takes place...

More at The Brooklyn Rail

Not sure what else to say post-Election Day

2010-11-03T07:49:00.000-07:00

From Theodore Sturgeon (1918-1985):

"What do we look for now, Joe -- space ships?"

Proof of citizenship? Not so fast, Arizona

2010-11-01T07:41:00.000-07:00

In a serious smackdown of Arizona, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals apparently wants people to vote. It gets a bit conflicting as you look at various provisions and rulings on showing ID and proving residency, but this particular decision means proof of citizenship is not a valid state test.

State can't ask voters for citizenship proof
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 27, 2010

A state can't require people to submit proof of citizenship when they register to vote, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in overturning a key provision of a 2004 Arizona initiative.

Federal law already requires voters to swear that they are U.S. citizens and meet age and residency criteria, and a state can't impose additional rules, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said in a 2-1 ruling.

The 1993 national law was intended "to reduce state-imposed obstacles to federal registration," the court said.

The majority included retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a former Arizona legislator and state judge who has been temporarily assigned to various federal appeals courts.

The court unanimously upheld another section of the Arizona law that requires voters to show poll workers proof of their identity. The judges cited a 2008 U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing Indiana to require photo identification at the polls.

Arizona's pre-Election Day rainbow shades

2010-10-30T08:42:00.000-07:00

At the risk of skewing Google Analytics yet again, here is a 3-dish selection of late-breaking news from the Grand Canyon State as November 2nd approaches...

1. Remember Ward Connerly? Yep, while we have been focused on immigration & SB 1070 he's been laughing all the way to the bank. I apologize to all for missing this:

Arizona seen as bellwether in affirmative-action debate
by Dianna M. Náñez - Oct. 30, 2010 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

Arizona's effort to ban state-sponsored affirmative action has intensified in the weeks leading up to Tuesday's election. But people on both sides agree on at least one thing: If the measure passes, it will trigger similar proposals nationwide and reignite debate over whether America has moved past the racial and sexual discrimination that spurred the 1960s civil-rights movement.

Proposition 107 is a proposed constitutional amendment to outlaw affirmative action in state, county and municipal government, higher education, contracting and hiring, unless prohibiting it would result in the loss of federal funds or violate a court order. If voters approve the measure, Arizona would become the fifth state to pass an affirmative-action ban.

Although such laws have spread slowly, starting with California in 1996, supporters and opponents of Prop. 107 say affirmative-action bans will gain greater publicity if the measure passes because the nation is focused on Arizona's politics and immigration laws. Opponents say they expect several of the states that plan to mimic Senate Bill 1070 to also try to pass affirmative-action bans.

Passing Prop. 107 in Arizona is part of a broader strategy to target states by region, said Ward Connerly, who heads a California-based non-profit focused on dismantling affirmative action in all 50 states...

2. SB 1070 lawsuits in progress-- as summarized by the Arizona Republic. Here's an example of each, more at the link:

SB 1070 lawsuits (Appeals & District Court updates)

Appeals court

- The U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit goes before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on Monday. Gov. Jan Brewer is appealing U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton's ruling to halt the enforcement of four parts of SB 1070...

District court

- Bolton dismissed a couple of the legal arguments in the lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona and several other legal groups but is moving forward with several others...

3. Are the parts of SB 1070 in force actually changing anything? A longish (for newspapers) analysis of law enforcement, policy changes, and community impact at the link:

Arizona immigration law has not lived up to reputation
by Alia Beard Rau - Oct. 29, 2010 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

The nation's toughest immigration law has been in effect for three months. But after the federal courts prevented key portions from going into effect, it has failed to live up to both opponents' worst fears and supporters' greatest hopes.

Immigrant-rights groups and major Arizona law-enforcement agencies say they've heard of no arrests made or citations issued using the statutes created under Senate Bill 1070, and no Arizona resident has taken advantage of the portion of the law that allows them to sue an official or agency that is not enforcing federal immigration law to the fullest extent...

But several state statutes created under SB 1070 went into effect on July 29. Individuals on both sides of the issue said after Bolton's ruling that the law still had teeth.

New statutes

The statutes allowed to go into effect do several things:

- Require government officials and agencies to enforce federal immigration laws to the fullest extent permitted by federal law and allow Arizona residents to sue if the official or agency adopts a policy that violates this requirement.

- Allow law enforcement to pull anybody over for any traffic violation if the driver is suspected of engaging in the "smuggling" of human beings for profit or commercial purposes. This could include stopping a driver for a secondary offense such as not wearing a seat belt, which in every other circumstance can be cited only if the driver is stopped for a separate primary violation such as speeding.

- Make it a crime to pick up or be picked up as a day laborer if the vehicle is stopped on a road and impeding traffic.

- Make it a crime to encourage an illegal immigrant to come to Arizona or transport, conceal, harbor or shield an immigrant if the person knows or recklessly disregards the fact the immigrant is in the country illegally. This offense has to be during the commission of another criminal offense...

Voting early in CA? Watch this

2010-10-24T18:31:00.000-07:00

Or at least watch/read some equivalent, as there are local/regional options if you dig around the news & TV outlets. Embedded below is the always-convivial This Week in Northern California, this episode from October 22. Briefly covers some of the state propositions and races, also Bay Area measures.

State propositions are summarized with the official brief explanations here:

http://www.voterguide.sos.ca.gov/propositions/

Hard copy voter information guides are sitting in all public libraries waiting for people who prefer paper.

NPR Women on Williams (Juan, not Armstrong)

2010-10-23T12:24:00.000-07:00

The Williams men (who are probably 23rd cousins or something, aren't we all) continue to put themselves out there. One more drive-by from me here, this time on Juan. Then, unless they do something else to raise their profiles, I'll move on. Today's Juan Williams revue (sic) is from two women with strong NPR connections and reason to have inside knowledge, Farai Chideya and Michel Martin.

Farai Chideya, formerly of NPR, now of Pop and Politics, has this, which I cross-posted at JJP if it looks familiar at all:

Posted: October 23, 2010 01:44 PM

What Everyone Is Missing About NPR's WilliamsGate

"juan, gettin ugly. wonder if it will result in him severing ties, or mutual"

That was my note at the top of an email I sent back in September of 2007 to a colleague at NPR. In full disclosure, I am a former employee of NPR, let go in 2008 as part of the cancellation of three shows, including one I hosted. In the email, I'd forwarded a Washington Post column by Howard Kurtz dissecting a Fox/NPR/Juan Williams triad of recrimination. The headline: "NPR Rebuffs White House On Bush Talk -- Radio Network Wanted To Choose Its Interviewer." In Kurtz's words:

The White House reached out to National Public Radio over the weekend, offering analyst Juan Williams a presidential interview to mark yesterday's 50th anniversary of school desegregation in Little Rock. But NPR turned down the interview, and Williams's talk with Bush wound up in a very different media venue: Fox News. Williams said yesterday he was "stunned" by NPR's decision... Ellen Weiss, NPR's vice president for news, said she "felt strongly" that "the White House shouldn't be selecting the person."

This incident is more telling than the oft-dissected statement Williams made on Fox that Michelle Obama had "this Stokely Carmichael-in-a-designer-dress thing going." Juan Williams and NPR have been a mutual mismatch for years. In this volley, Williams -- with his reported new $2 million over 3 year contract with Fox -- is the clear winner; with Fox a close second; and NPR left holding the bag. It need not have been this way.

If NPR had such clear concerns over how Juan Williams fit into their organization, in the amorphous role of "news analyst," then they had an opportunity to let him go a long time ago. They could have decided he didn't fit their needs, and moved on in a less polarized time. But by firing him now, in this instance, after years of sitting uncomfortably with his dual roles on NPR and Fox, they made a few crucial errors. They chose to fire him for doing what he has done for years... be a hype man for Bill O'Reilly. Why now?...

More at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/farai-chideya/what-everyone-is-missing_b_772849.html

In addition to the rest of her write-up, at the above Chideya linked out to Michel Martin's Tell Me More segment on Williams. Here is the intro:

MICHEL MARTIN, host:

I'm Michel Martin, and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News.

Today, we are going to talk about another controversy involving the media, ethnicity and ethics. Just recently on this program, we have talked about the firing of CNN anchor Rick Sanchez and former White House correspondent Helen Thomas over comments that each made in public forums that many people considered ignorant and even anti-Semitic. And the question was what kind of dialogue crosses the line between legitimate commentary and bigotry, especially inappropriate for journalists to engage in.

Today's story is along those lines, but it hits even closer to home. It's about the decision by this network, NPR, to fire its longtime employee Juan Williams. Juan has been a host here, a correspondent, and most recently, he has had the title of senior news analyst. And for long stretches of time, he's been one of the few consistent African-American males on the air here. And for a number of years, he's also been a regular contributor to FOX News Channel. And therein lies the issue.

He was fired Wednesday after comments he made about Muslims in an appearance on FOX News' "The O'Reilly Factor." Those comments and NPR's response to them has generated a controversy that has engulfed both networks and the blogosphere. For example, by midmorning today, some 15,000 messages have been blogged about this on NPR's home page.

Later in the program, we'll ask the Barbershop guys to weigh in because they are also a group of journalists of color who are often called upon to speak off the cuff about controversial topics. So we will hear what they have to say.

But first, we've called Asra Nomani, the author of "Standing Alone: An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam," and a scholar in the practice of journalism at Georgetown School of Continuing Studies. Also with us, Richard Prince, he's an editor at The Washington Post, who writes an online publication called "Journal-isms," where he focuses on issues around diversity in the media. And John Watson, associate professor of communications law and journalism ethics at American University. And they're all here with me in the studio and I thank you all so much for joining us...

Listen at:

NPR Fires Juan Williams, Journalists React

Lagniappe: h/t to a JJP commenter for this, since Williams is easily frightened:

http://muslimswearingthings.tumblr.com/

This Wordle seems to suggest I reconsider which words I use a lot:

Haiti cholera outbreak

2010-10-22T20:14:00.000-07:00

It continues. I just got the annual United Way flyer from my employer today and I am going to choose sides. Contribution going directly to PIH. Sorry, employer.

Reuters video at:

http://news.yahoo.com/video/world-15749633/22579834

LA Times story:

Aid workers scramble to contain Haiti cholera outbreak

At least 140 people have died from the water-borne disease in central Haiti, as aid agencies fear it could spread rapidly in the unsanitary conditions in camps for displaced quake victims.

By Joe Mozingo, Los Angeles Times

October 23, 2010

Doctors and aid workers scrambled Friday to rein in a cholera outbreak in central Haiti that has killed 140 people, while warning that the crisis probably would get worse in a country where tent camps are still teeming with people displaced by the January earthquake.

"There's no reason to anticipate that this wouldn't spread widely," said Joia Mukherjee, chief medical officer for Partners In Health, a Boston-based relief organization that runs three hospitals in the area.

The acute bacterial illness, spread primarily through contaminated drinking water, has struck more than 2,000 people throughout the farming valley along the Artibonite River, with the highest number in the port city of St. Marc...

MORE AT:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-haiti-cholera-20101023,0,3422913.story

Yes, Virginia, there is an Anita Hill

2010-10-21T16:00:00.000-07:00

Mrs. Thomas jumped the shark credibility-wise quite a ways back, so one can only conjecture why she thought it a good idea to contact Anita Hill and dig up memories of the Clarence Thomas nomination hearings of 19 years ago. And instead of apologizing on behalf of her husband, she had the unmitigated gall to ask for an apology for HIll's testimony? Is she daft, or is it a setup two weeks before an election? Oh, where is my ballot? I'm voting early.

I have commented briefly elsewhere on this inanity, so let me just give a hat tip to NewBlackMan, and link to a Huffington Post article that may be the only good thing to come out of this minor media frenzy-- a reminder that harassment is not a one-time, isolated thing that just happens to people you don't know.

I Was Anita Hill
by Duchess Harris

Yuckiness at Ebony/Jet: Armstrong Williams

2010-10-12T10:48:00.000-07:00

I'm not a frequent visitor at many sites (there are just too many, and frankly, I do have an outside life). But I went to the Ebony/Jet site yesterday on a photo hunt and found a pretty cool video about their 65th anniversary issue's cover shoot. (Doesn't seem to be embeddable but it'll load in a new window if you click.)

I went back today to dig around for still photos, but their home page gave me a stomach flip-flop. Dang if they weren't leading with an article by known arch-enemy Armstrong Williams. I guess you can't keep him down.

OK, here is a link to his article "The Browning of the GOP" about how impressive the Republican Party has been over the decades. He's left out a little history, like the flocking of white supremacists to the GOP, preferring to emphasis the black reaction of moving to the Democratic Party.

Roland Martin calls out Tom Coburn re: black farmer settlement

2010-10-07T16:59:00.000-07:00

I let an anonymous comment through on a post from a few days ago. Although the writer was a bit too busy venting to be 100% clear, I gathered there were two possible objections to my original.

Bottom line on one of the objections is, I don't know whether Roland Martin knows any black farmers or not. (For the record, one of the few black farmers in Iowa was a good friend of the family and I spent enough time on the farm to claim the experience. I didn't know Thomas Jefferson or Jack Kennedy, though.)

Roland, however, does defend black farmers and I should confirm that in this space. Here's his latest, posted on his blog on Oct. 7:

Steve Erickson, Arc d'X anyone?

2010-10-05T13:21:00.000-07:00

Curse me for a novice, but is anyone out there familiar with Steve Erickson? I just picked up a copy of Arc d'X (1993) which is billed as being in the "avantpop" genre. I'm mentioning it here because Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings play significant parts in the novel.

Any info (comments, suggestions, criticisms) from anyone who's read Erickson would be appreciated!

P.S. I purchased this (on sale, mind you, for 50 cents) in clear violation of the "2 out for every in" book rule I established over the summer. Apologies to my shelves.

This political video is better than it should be

2010-10-04T22:44:00.000-07:00

Hat tip rrp who no doubt needs to hat tip somebody else.

Grumpiness about Democrats, and I'm an independent

2010-09-30T09:31:00.000-07:00

I was being a curmudgeon over at Prometheus6 this morning (something about coastal fog, knowing that the sun's out elsewhere). Commenter no1kstate was lamenting those wimpy Democrats (and I so fret that the phrase is becoming redundant):

So, what's the problem with the pros? Where's Donna Brazille?

Then I sez, I sez:

We don't expect (at this point) Clintonite Paul Begala to jump in on this, as he will still be employed regardless of who controls Congress. Maybe not Roland Martin either (he's sympathetic to black farmers at least but must never have known any) but somebody should be in somebody's face. Dang, I guess it's Rachel. The first 4 minutes of this is classic and should maybe be a top-level post, ahem ahem (I said I was in a mood):

More from Facing Race via JJP

2010-09-30T08:27:00.000-07:00

Here's another installment about Facing Race 2010 over at JJP:

an interview with Melissa Harris-Lacewell after her keynote speech. h/t to The Christian Progressive Liberal who was there and shared notes.

Facing Race just happened

2010-09-28T13:24:00.000-07:00

I was not at Facing Race 2010 and it appears we missed a good one. It seems that rising star Melissa Harris-Lacewell was the keynote speaker and knocked it out of the park, if she will forgive the sports metaphor.

The following is lifted from a post at JJP by the Christian Progressive Liberal.

Oh, my, where to start in reporting about my experience at “Facing Race”?

First off, let me say this – “Facing Race” is not your parents’ Diversity Conference. In fact, it’s not a diversity conference at ALL.

Facing Race is not for the faint of heart – nor is it for people who work in diversity and are usually mandated by your job to be in attendance. It is not for those who can’t stand to hear the painful, honest truth about race; yet these are the very imbeciles who think if they attend a diversity conference or two, that qualifies them to lead discussions on race and racial issues from THEIR perspective, and not the perspectives of the people of color who suffer and live with race on a daily basis.

Facing Race does just what the name says – FACING the Issues Regarding RACE. No “Kuubaayah” moments in this set.

And what a profound experience it was. When 800+ people attend such a conference because they want to really unite our communities; not because they are mandated; not because they are curious:

You have a conference that really does the meat and potatoes discussion of race issues, where POC cheer, and any whites not Tim Wise will wince, moan, groan, leave the room – anything to avoid hearing the hard TRUTH about Race in America, and not how the media wants to frame the issue.

This is the first part of a series of articles I will be doing on “Facing Race”, a nitty-gritty conference held every two years where practitioners attend to plan, organize, strategize and mobilize on the ground forces to facilitate true democracy and equality By Any Means Necessary.

“We don’t do “Diversity” at this conference”, said Rinku Sen, the Executive Director of Applied Research Center, and publisher of the magazine, “Colorlines”, and host of this conference. “We discuss real issues of race – this is a community of people who care about race gather, and aren’t afraid to confront issues of race in a real and forthcoming way.”

“We are trying to consolidate the base and continue to build the community,” Rinku told me. “We share are collective learning experiences in modernizing the racial justice movement. Where there is ‘motion’, we claim it as a ‘movement’”.

MORE, much more in the complete post at JJP.

ProfGeo note: If you are reading this post, white, and "not Tim Wise" (which is not exactly how I would've put it, but I think CPL was in the heat of the moment) I would encourage you to click through and read the post anyway as it lays out some specifics from Dr. Lacewell that are worthwhile for discussion and maybe for wide adoption.

Net Neutrality

2010-09-21T10:41:00.000-07:00

OK, tags are good for something. Here is an interesting selection of three "net neutrality" articles posted over at NewBlackMan. Two are recent, one not so but it still deserves a timely review due to the current election cycle. The issue across all three articles is disparate impact on minorities.

http://newblackman.blogspot.com/search/label/Net-Neutrality

Just because it'll upset some people

2010-09-16T21:34:00.000-07:00

White House Photo of the Day for September 16, 2010:

President Barack Obama fist bumps Vice President Joe Biden, with Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett looking on, before a meeting in the Oval Office, Sept. 16, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) [emphasis added]

I think Dinesh & Newt are in a fever dream about the younger Bush president

2010-09-14T06:33:00.000-07:00

So, because G.W. Bush wanted to finish up in Iraq for his daddy, they think Obama must be up to something because of his daddy? At this point, I suspect these folks are just playing old Bush-era video, grabbing a random sentence, and applying it to Obama, all just to see if people will fall for it. (We already know Fox will run it, that's not the question.)

How D'Souza thinks
Sep 13th 2010, 17:11 by M.S.

I DON'T find it at all difficult to understand how Barack Obama thinks, because most of his beliefs are part of the broad consensus in America's centre or centre-left: greenhouse-gas emissions reductions, universal health insurance, financial-reform legislation, repealing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, and so forth. Dinesh D'Souza, on the other hand, appears to have met so few Democrats in recent decades that he finds such views shocking, and thinks they can only be explained by the fact that Mr Obama's father was a Kenyan government economist who pushed for a non-aligned stance in the Cold War during the 1960s-70s. Since the majority of Democrats don't have any Kenyan parents and have no particular stake in the anti-colonialism debates of the 1960s-70s, I'm not sure how Mr D'Souza would explain their views. In any case, Mr D'Souza's explanation of Mr Obama's views doesn't make any sense on its own terms. This, for example, is incomprehensible: "If Obama shares his father's anticolonial crusade, that would explain why he wants people who are already paying close to 50% of their income in overall taxes to pay even more." Come again? Progressive taxation is caused by...anti-colonialism? Message to American billionaires and the people who write for them: many events and movements in world history did not revolve around marginal tax rates on rich people in the United States.

In other words, while I don't have any trouble understanding how Barack Obama thinks, I have a lot of trouble understanding how Dinesh D'Souza thinks...

Stephen R. Covey has oft said, "First seek to understand, then to be understood." He means shut up and listen, make sure you've got the other person's viewpoint straight before jumping to conclusions. This may be an exception. We have plenty of material on D'Souza and serial-marrier Gingrich, who by now should be in America's dustbin with John Edwards. Time to move on.

Two thought-provoking 9/11 items

2010-09-12T08:25:00.000-07:00

Well, two and a half items. Call it a lagniappe. (You're welcome.) The first item-and-a-half involves Fareed Zakaria, who always makes my IQ go up when I listen to him. The second item is not one I totally agree with, but the writer does use 9/11 to discuss religious tolerance and national holidays in a more creative way than most I've seen.

1. Here's a video of Fareed Zakaria and Peter Bergen forcing Anderson Cooper to have a non-sensationalistic conversation for a few minutes. No shouting or interruptions from anyone. Don't watch it if you can't handle people talking in complete sentences and not frothing at the mouth:

1.5. The CNN page containing the above video has a more extensive text interview with Zakaria. Not the same as the video, but complementary. Worth the click-through:

Did the U.S. overreact to 9/11?

2. The following Slate article by Jack Shafer (h/t to a JJP commenter for pointing me to it) actuallly woke me up by being a bit impertinent at the outset. But it kept me tuned in by referring to how we, as a nation, observe the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday (and a few others).

One thing that I noticed in Shafer's article was what wasn't there-- the dog that didn't bark, if you will. He doesn't discuss how the U.S. military and defense establishment treat 9/11, year after year. They mourn and observe, of course, and then get back to work. They don't make a big deal out of it, not compared with New York and politicians of all ilks. They don't claim to "own" it because of the Pentagon strike, which killed people as surely as the Twin Towers attack.

The other thing was a somewhat divergent discussion about holiday observances, including the "blanding" of the MLK holiday and others. He's more right than he knows, as I have already seen January sale ads with caricatures of King. "Content of their character, 50% off and more!" Not quite that bad yet, not like Presidents Day with idiots in Washington & Lincoln costumes, but wait for it.

Nobody Owns 9/11
And the World Trade Center site is not hallowed ground.
By Jack Shafer
Posted Friday, Sept. 10, 2010, at 5:36 PM ET

Every year, the custody battle over 9/11 becomes more contentious. The current furor over the proposed construction of an Islamic center a couple of blocks away from the World Trade Center footprint has made this anniversary of the carnage at the towers, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, Pa., more prickly than usual... [much more at link]

Compromise? Maybe it's time to try something else

2010-09-11T08:06:00.000-07:00

I've been tossing and turning too much, thinking about this. A recent thread at Prometheus 6 helped it to gel.

The use of the term compromise has been bugging me more than usual since Barack Obama got elected and it became obvious that there would be no compromise on high-profile issues. So far it's resulted in gutted initiatives, the Republicans more than earning the "Party of NO" epithet and being proud of it to boot, etc.

I took formal mediation and conflict-resolution training back in the '90s and learned that even when both parties are interested, compromise is usually not good enough for either party. It's what people settle for when they can't do any better. But getting past it, to a collaborative or jointly-developed solution that benefits both parties, is exceedingly difficult.

Compromise is unlikely in the current Washington, and I would guess in many states. That means coming up with truly beneficial solutions is even more unlikely.

Compromise has been ineffective throughout American history. The compromises of 1820, 1850 and 1877 come to mind as examples that didn't do black folk any good. You could go all the way back to the original three-fifths compromise but that's a given in this space.

Black farmers getting plowed under like unwanted crops

2010-09-09T20:47:00.000-07:00

Recent article from The Root, a story worth spreading and keeping alive. Somebody needs to remember this on November 2nd.

h/t P6 & JJP &...

$1.5 Billion for Wealthy Arkansas Farmers; Nothing for Black Farmers
Apparently, the votes of white farmers in a key state trump the USDA's settlement of long-standing discrimination complaints -- especially in an election year.
By: Frank McCoy | Posted: September 2, 2010 at 5:32 PM

The ire that black farmers and their advocates are currently feeling has two targets: the Senate's failure to vote the money to complete the farmers' settlement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and President Obama's recent generous offer to white Arkansas farmers. Both examples of political expediency are bitter reminders of black farmers' second-class status.

For five months, the Senate has blocked passage of legislation that contains money to fund the USDA's $1.25 billion settlement of the second bias suit lodged by black farmers. The agreement, called Pigford II, is supposed to redress past USDA racial discrimination cases...

I can't apologize to a blog better than this teacher did

2010-09-07T06:30:00.000-07:00

The Grand Champion, instant classic, Hall of Fame apology for not posting regularly was on educator colleague Ms. B.'s blog a few days ago. She talks directly to the blog-- the readers are apparently independent sorts who can take care of themselves. And there is a critter cute enough to make a Sarah McLachlan SPCA ad run through your head all day long:

http://2blog2share2learn.edublogs.org/2010/09/02/sorry-for-my-neglect/

As I must relearn each and every semester, there will never be more time. Yes, the focus shifts, this cause or that, but the clock is really the same clock. This Paul Madonna illustration is now my desktop wallpaper (really):

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/24/PKMADONNA.DTL

Does wallpaper work?

The 2010 Black Weblog Awards

2010-09-01T23:10:00.000-07:00

Usually I don't pay any mind to awards. However, I gotta acknowledge when someone I know wins one in a domain I personally know to be difficult to navigate, like running a consistent blog over months and years. Even if the award winner is a person I just "cyber-know" as is the case here, someone I've been reading since the hoary old listserv days when text was king and people needed you to copy/paste Web page contents for them because they only had e-mail, and weren't quite sure about that browser stuff.

In other words, from before there were blogs.

Quoting the 2010 Black Weblog Awards:

And the winner of the Aaron Hawkins Award is…

Earl Dunovant!

Earl Dunovant is a web developer and political activist who has blogged at Prometheus 6 since January 2004. Dunovant is also a member of the Media Bloggers Association, has attended presidential debates as a credentialed blogger, and has been featured on NPR as part of News and Notes‘ Bloggers Roundtable.

Michel Martin takes the floor and darn well keeps it (CNN Reliable Sources)

2010-08-26T08:29:00.000-07:00

The first segment of this Reliable Sources, August 22 episode, has seen considerable play around the ol' blogosphere. (I will take credit or blame as you wish.) Michel Martin simply does not let host Howard Kurtz simplify or whitewash the New York mosque issue or the "Dr. Laura and the N-word" issue. She kicks serious butt all over the whole panel and takes no prisoners. And explains why the Dr. Laura thing has nothing to do with "debate" or the 1st Amendment better than most of us could. We need more of Michel, everywhere.

I'm still getting my fall classes going (students still come first, so there) and I hope this item, even if a repeat, has value for you.

How many Senators does it take to avoid paying black farmers?

2010-08-12T18:17:00.000-07:00

Once again, here's a timely update to the plight of the black farmers who STILL aren't paid, months after the February 2010 court settlement, thanks to inexcusable delays in the Senate. Hat tip to rikyrah at JJP for posting story & link where I would see it. Comments have been light (nonexistent) on this update over at JJP so I'm cross-posting here for possible penetration.

Black farmers ask why some get aid and they wait
By Jasmin Melvin
WASHINGTON | Wed Aug 11, 2010 8:45pm EDT

(Reuters) - Black farmers involved in a decades-old discrimination case are questioning why the Obama administration has promised to hasten aid for some large-scale farmers in the South while their case is held up in political wrangling.

The administration pledged last week to find $1.5 billion to help farmers hit by natural disasters after it appeared unlikely the Senate would promptly fund the package.

Black farmers reached a historic $1.25 billion civil rights settlement in February to compensate them for being left out of federal farm loan and assistance programs for years due to racism, but are still waiting for funding.

There have been seven failed attempts by the Senate, including one last week, to fund the settlement...

[Original story at Reuters.com]

Quote of the Week (Aug. 1-7, 2010)

2010-08-09T20:56:00.000-07:00

Much as we are enamored of appropriating the "never forget" philosophy and applying it to the Dred Scott case & Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney (h/t to Wikipedia for providing more than the bare-bones quote):

It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in regard to that unfortunate race which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution of the United States was framed and adopted; but the public history of every European nation displays it in a manner too plain to be mistaken. They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far unfit that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.

...for the early 21st Century we defer to this more abbreviated statement from Cnu, the author of the subrealism blog, ostensibly debating only gay rights but it's never that simple (if you think it is, let me help you onto this truck, watch your step):

Who are these people to demand any sort of rights I'm obliged to recognize?!?!?!?!?

That pesky 14th Amendment again

2010-08-06T07:57:00.000-07:00

Between the black "Tea Party Express" folk selling us out at the National Press Club, the Proposition 8 discussion pretty much leaving out LGBT people of color, and a rise in racist stuff claiming not to be racist, I'm starting to feel like an "all other person" again.

So here is a post from rikyrah at Jack & Jill Politics that, while not exactly what I would say about current right-wing and so far all-white attacks on the 14th Amendment, it's close enough:

Remember, when you were in school and you had to pass the U.S. Constitution test to graduate 8th grade? You had to memorize the Amendments to the Constitution…and there were groups, the two most distinct being: 1st 10 – Bill of Rights, and then the 13th, 14th, 15th Amendments, which you could shorten to SLAVERY (13), CITIZENSHIP(14), RIGHT TO VOTE(15).

So, I watch from the sidelines, as the folks on the right keep on bringing up REPEALING the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

AND the silence from our so-called ‘ leaders’.

WHY does the right care about this Amendment?

THEY SAY, it’s because the children of illegal aliens, born in this country, and are U.S. Citizens, is a perversion of the Amendment.

So, what exactly does the 14th Amendment say:

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 1 is what deserves the focus.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

This means that the children of illegals born in this country ARE United States Citizens. They’re talking about this because the majority of the children that qualify -ARE NOT WHITE.

I simply don’t believe that they would care if the majority were from, say, Canada, Ireland, Scandinavia, and nothing will convince me otherwise...

Read the rest + comments at: Jack & Jill Politics

Quote of the Week (August 1-7, 2010)

2010-08-05T07:58:00.000-07:00

The quotation below is from a letter by H. P. Lovecraft to Elizabeth Toldridge. It was used as an epigraph in A Specter Is Haunting Texas, which novel I wish I had read years ago as it does not hold up well aesthetically. It makes for tough slogging now, tougher certainly than Fritz Leiber ought to be, even though it portrays the state/empire of Texas exactly as I picture it, attitudes forever entrenched by Southern/cowboy testosterone and fear, unchanged even by atomic war.

One thing I'll say for labour (the British Labour Party); and that is, that it isn't as offensive as the corresponding mutatory force which now threatens culture in America. I refer to the force of business as a dominating motive in life, and a persistent absorber of the strongest creative energies of the American people. This intensive commercialism is a force more basically dangerous and anti-cultural than labour ever has been, and threatens to build up an arrogant fabric which it will be very hard to overthrow or modify with civilized ideas.
--H. P. Lovecraft, 1929

2 reasons I keep up with Lawrence Lessig

2010-07-30T12:15:00.000-07:00

UPDATE (8/6/10) on Lessig's video:

On the morning of August 6, I (and a zillion others) got a tweet from Lawrence Lessig saying he has pulled his "Of/By/4" video due to a probable misquote of Lincoln in the video. Read more about it here:

http://www.fixcongressfirst.org/blog/entry/lincoln-quote/

When there's more I will post it separately. Meanwhile, let's all aspire to half as much integrity as Lessig showed. No whining, no excuses, just the correction. Now go enjoy some other Lessig videos.

-----update ends-----

I first stumbled upon Lawrence Lessig while investigating better ways for my students to do presentations besides "standard" PowerPoint slide drone-o-rama. Turns out that beyond the technology, his ideas on intellectual freedom mesh rather well with mine, and can inform my thinking & writing whether I believe it happens or not. He's on hiatus from the blogosphere but remains quite active on Twitter and elsewhere.

(1) I like the Lessig method of presentation and wish I had enough TA support to do more of it myself. He hasn't broken anyone's PowerPoint addiction, a pet peeve I tackle with my students in my academic life, but he's managed to work with and build around the core software, and he keeps his talks moving visually so you don't care that they're based in PowerPoint. You learn not to blink much.

(2) He makes sense. We need more "angry white men" who channel it this way. In the below TEDx talk titled "of/by/4" he quotes many people-- yes, his share of "dead white males" and a few live ones (including David Byrne, one of my creative faves who also knows how to liven up PowerPoint) but I admire his selective skills and the lack of women&minorities does not offend. He frames this talk with a pertinent quote from Thoreau:

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

Therefore, I dedicate this post to all the progressives who are running around in circles, independently making sense, yet rarely converging to actually bring "progress" writ large. So carve out 18 minutes, not necessarily all at once but it helps. Watch and learn. When done, check out his other presentations at blip.tv.

No justice, no peace for Janet Jackson: Timberlake as Boo-Boo?

2010-07-28T19:55:00.000-07:00

#castingcouchFAIL

Oh, this cannot end well... Take me back, please, to "Hey, There, It's Yogi Bear!"

'Yogi Bear' Hits Big Screen With Surprise Voices
by Matt McDaniel July 28, 2010

He's certainly smarter than the average bear, but he's always been flatter than one, too.

That's changing this December when Yogi Bear makes the leap from 2D TV cartoon to 3D live-action movie. Like "Scooby-Doo" and "Alvin and the Chipmunks" before it, "Yogi Bear" will have human actors sharing the screen with computer-animated versions of the animal characters. But what is different in this flick is the big names lending their voices to the CGI stars: Dan Aykroyd as Yogi, and Justin Timberlake as his buddy, Boo Boo.

Guest Quote of the Week (July 25-31, 2010)

2010-07-28T07:13:00.000-07:00

Occasionally I will visit Edge of the American West as I have some family roots in that region and I can usually translate what their bloggers "must really mean." That blog has a current thread on Inception -- which film I have not yet seen -- and a commenter ("Anderson") posted something that I believe can be generalized to the world at large:

People who think Inception was “a royal piece of smoldering crap” haven’t seen enough genuinely bad movies, and really should never leave the safety of The Criterion Collection.

Two books out, painlessly again

2010-07-27T14:27:00.000-07:00

This book reduction activity is anything but a habit yet, so pardon me for choosing another couple of easy candidates. One fits into a clear category from the original PostBourgie list (as reproduced at Racialicious). The other isn't per se a book directed at African Americans but I'ma count it anyway because it still gets a book out of the house.

I. Native Stranger: A Black American's Journey into the Heart of Africa, Eddy L. Harris (Category 11: AFRICA)

Why I bought the book: Already familiar with Harris through Mississippi Solo, interested in anything he writes in English. He has since gone the expatriate route and lives in France. I am interested in checking out this 2005 documentary about him, Eddy L. Harris: A Writer in France.

Why the book is going to someone else: This is the paperback edition, and I already had it in hardback. Duh on me for not catching it. (But then, that's one reason I started this project.) The good news is that I bought the paperback secondhand, at "popular prices."

BTW if you ever, I mean ever, confuse Eddy L. Harris with E. Lynn Harris, go sit in the corner for an hour.

II. Thursday Next, Jasper Fforde (Category: none)

Why I bought the book: Having listened to two Fforde audiobooks and read other Fforde, I find he creates a fantasy/alternate universe of a literary Earth that is-- sacrilege alert for some readers-- more entertaining to me than, uh, certain more established universes in the genre.

Why the book is going to someone else: Swapping it out for the 1st edition hardback, a copy of which I stumbled upon a few days ago. To be fair, I should count the hardback as my "in" for the above two "outs."

Van Jones doesn't seem thrown under the bus

2010-07-24T21:48:00.000-07:00

Here's an interview with the recently emancipated "green guy" Van Jones at Netroots Nation 2010 in Las Vegas (h/t JJP). He seems to be doing OK in his post-White House life. Runs about an hour. First several minutes is an intro by Howard Dean.

"I'll Make Me a World": One book in for the last two out

2010-07-24T14:20:00.000-07:00

Earlier in these pages, I reported on two books that I gently set free in my "2 out for every in" project. At the time, I did not say what I actually did with the books, and whether I immediately brought a new one in. In this round, I donated them to a library in my area. Because I went back a day later, I can verify that Push was already snapped up, while The Haunting of Hip Hop was still available.

Also because of that return visit, I can claim one of those small, early successes touted by business books as being important when dealing with change. There was a slim, dark-spined volume that I almost overlooked, and I am exceedingly glad I pulled it off the shelf to examine it. It's one of those books that simply can't be reproduced with justice as an e-book, at least not until they can duplicate the tactile (and maybe the smell). 3D visual will help, but it still won't be good enough.

"The Creation" is a well-known poem by James Weldon Johnson. In 1972, an attractive Hallmark Crown Edition was published under the title "I'll Make Me a World": James Weldon Johnson's Story of the Creation. Here's the descriptive copy from the final page:

"Photographic composition and styling by Jim Cozad. Special photographic techniques were created by back-lighting transparent dies (sic), oils and crystals. To achieve the images, the photographer combined macro-photography and special darkroom techniques. The type is set in American Uncial, a calligraphic typeface by Victor Hammer and in Optima, a sans serif typeface created by Hermann Zapf. The paper is Hallclear, White Imitation Parchment and Ivory Fiesta Parchment. The cover is bound with natural weave book cloth and Torino paper. Book design by Jay Johnson."

Holding this little gem is a sensory treat due to the cloth and paper. The page edges are sort of scalloped but there's probably a technical term for it I don't know. Anyway, it adds to the experience and such a fetish may partially explain why I don't part with more books faster. I'll post a photo or scanned sample of a page, but meanwhile here's an Amazon link with cover image and one additional page:

http://www.amazon.com/Ill-Make-Me-World-Trombones/dp/B002PO4RN0/

And the full text of Johnson's poem can be found at Project Gutenberg (search the page for "The Creation") or at Bartleby.com (on its own page but with annoying ads).

Two Out for Every In: Easy victories

2010-07-11T19:38:00.000-07:00

I am reminded by the reviewer's blurb at Cats and a Book to "be gentle"-- so in my book reduction project (as described in my previous post) I'll remain respectful of writers as I may be kicking some of their favorite children into the street to suffer a Dickensian winter. This is all a two-edged sword anyway, as readers could jump into the comments here with "You had what on your shelf?! For how long?!"

That said, let's get started with our first set of newly-orphaned books.

I. The Haunting of Hip Hop, Bertice Berry

"A ghost story with a beat... a mesmerizing cautionary tale about urban hip hop culture..."

Why I bought this book: (1) Caught my eye because it was a signed copy at a good price. Never mind to whom it was inscribed-- may have been just another book signing, may have been a best friend or relative! (2) The bio in back described the author as an "inspirational speaker, doctor of sociology, and former stand-up comedian." I often pick up books that meet either of these criteria, signed with interesting inscription, OR an intriguing bio. Both criteria and I'll give it a try for sure.

Why this book is going to someone else: I've read it, not likely to reread or refer back to it anytime soon.

One thing I'm keeping from this book: John Oliver Killens. This book had epigraphs at the beginning of some chapters. One that stuck was: "Time is swiftly running out, and a new dialogue is indispensable. It is so long overdue, it is already half past midnight." This is from "The Black Psyche" by Killens.

I started looking for his original. This led me to stumble upon a different Killen article, "The Development of a Black Psyche: An Interview" (http://www.jstor.org/pss/3041631) which I would never have heard of otherwise. I therefore thank Dr. Berry for writing the book.

Best as I can tell from the Googles, Dr. Berry is doing some commendable work out there. For example: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09259/998218-51.stm

II. Push, Sapphire

"A stunningly frank effort that marks the emergence of an immensely promising writer."

--Los Angeles Times Book Review

Eventually Push became just a bit more well-known, due to being filmed as Precious. I have commented previously here and here on book and film phenomena.

Why I bought this book: Caught my eye due to excellent cover design (paperback, Vintage Contemporaries Edition, May 1997). Rave reviews.

Why this book is going to someone else: I've only picked at it over the past few years, reading a few pages here or there. I always feel better when I put it down, including today as I am writing these words.

Why I'm tempted to keep this book anyway: Resale value. Although prices vary wildly, this particular pre-film edition seems to do well enough on Amazon. I'm doing the karma thing in any case, and giving Push to an area library for their book sale.

In an upcoming "2 out": Which motivational speaker motivates me to get rid of his books?

I can quit anytime I want...well, just one more for the road

2010-07-10T20:45:00.000-07:00

The other day over at Prometheus 6 I put my foot in it. We were on another topic altogether, the distracting, never-ending "whaddaya mean by 'acting white,' sucka" topic, and I veered slightly down another road, saying this:

While I'm advocating for skimming books that we believe in advance are going to suck (or which offer nothing new), I look around and realize that I have bunches of books written by and about African Americans/other minorities, and there are quite a few I only skimmed and will not read, and several I retain just because they look pretty good next to a book I really did read. I must "give back to the community" soon.

In a follow-up comment, I added:

Seriously, though, going electronic (as suggested in another thread by P6) is a good route when the physical book doesn't have any particular value for you. I also made significant headway a few years ago with a hard rule: Two books out for every book that comes in. Period. Then I fell off the wagon. Time to put that rule back into effect.

It could have ended there, but I kept seeing book omens (everything is an omen if you let it be such). Over at Racialicious, which is going through some kind of mutation/evolution but is still quite fascinating, they cross-posted the following from PostBourgie (snipped, go read the whole thing):

WHO’S ALLOWED TO TELL THE TALE? (AND WHICH TALES SHOULD THEY TELL?)

by Guest Contributor Belleisa, originally published at PostBourgie

There’s a game I like to play when I walk into a bookstore. Based on the the title, cover and store placement I can always interpret the marketing intention for a book meant for a black American audience. The best part of this game is that the books will, typically, fit into the following categories (they are, in no particular order):

1. Black Pathology or “What’s wrong with Black people?”

2. The literature of “sistah gurl”

3. Christian-oriented fiction/inspirational

4. Street-Lit or Hip-Hop fiction

5. The Slave Novel

6. The Civil Rights Book (This also includes Black Nationalism)

7. The extraordinary rise from street life/poverty/welfare into the middle class.

8. Poorly styled celebrity memoir, or well researched and documented hagiography

9. Black Queens and Kings

10. Hip-Hop analysis

11. AFRICA

12. The “Black” version of some mainstream topic (For example: “Black Girl’s Guide to Fashion; “Black Families’ Guide to Wealth;”) Guides will include slang, bright colors, and inevitably the phrase “the legacy of slavery.”

13. The Classics: Harlem Renaissance 101 and/or The Black Arts Movement. Toni Morrison.

14. Contemporary Classics or Literary Fiction (Mostly woman, mostly diaspora authors)

15. Non-black author writes really compelling story about black person(s); story gets awards accolades, lots of press and movie deal.

These topics produce wonderful books and poorly written books. They often represent a compendium of the black American experience, and just as often, they are simply a reflection of what publishing thinks black people read...

Well, I have a veritable sh--, er, a plethora of items in many of the above categories and they're possible candidates for being given away. I've just googled the phrase "getting rid of books" (with quotes) and almost drowned in the sanctimonious uncluttering of Midwestern spring-cleaning mavens. No extreme methods for me, thank you, just the original, comfortable slow de-booking.

So this marks the official, public start of "Two Out for Every In."

I'll report out on the candidates here, and whether they actually go or stay. Those of you with other, more unseemly addictions will immediately recognize the method. If you go public, you think you'll have a better chance of success, right?

Quote of the Week (July 4-10, 2010)

2010-07-04T10:17:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of stuff we don't know, that is one thing for sure.
--Alex Witt, MSNBC anchor, 7/1/10

Frederick Douglass, 4th of July speech all over the place

2010-07-03T12:25:00.000-07:00

A tip o' th' doiby to rrp for the reminder about Douglass, as I've been sidetracked.

As most of us know, on July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass spoke on “The Meaning of the Fourth of July to the Negro.” (“What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”) This year I'm going to attend one traditional “patriotic” event and one patriotism-neutral event over the 4th of July weekend. Neither is likely to be heavily populated with POC. As with any large crowd on a holiday, some attendees will be irony-impaired, even if they are of liberal mindset, while others will be quite aware and a joy to talk to. So the Douglass speech, originally given to a white audience, may be appropriate to have freshly in mind and in context.

There are many readings of the Douglas speech online. I like Morgan Freeman's at History.com. YouTube has others, including James Earl Jones and Danny Glover (if you're not mad at him this week for ever having associated with Mel Gibson). For the readers amongst you, the original text is readily available as well.

Jones:

Glover:

Event-wise, Massachusetts has quite an interesting and supportive way of acknowledging the speech this year (mileage in your home state--yeah, lookin' at you, Arizona--may vary):

Springfield to celebrate Frederick Douglass' 1852 Fourth of July speech
Published: Tuesday, June 29, 2010, 12:45 PM

SPRINGFIELD - A communal reading of Frederick Douglass' fiery 1852 speech, “The Meaning of the Fourth of July to the Negro” will take place Wednesday at noon in Court Square....

The event is part of a state-wide series of readings that is partially funded by a We the People grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Local collaborating organizations are the Springfield Museums, the City of Springfield, Mass Humanities, the Springfield Cultural Council and Art for the Soul Gallery.

Additional sponsors are The Brethren, Olive Tree Books and Voices, PAHMUSA, Springfield NAACP, and the Teaching American History Program of the Springfield Public Schools.

A word for the Senate Judiciary Committee

2010-07-02T15:42:00.000-07:00

Thurgood Marshall was born on this day, July 2, in 1908.

And July 2010, once again, marks "America Has a Black President" month. (continuing h/t to Brown Man Thinking Hard for bringing this up in the first place)

More to follow on this most patriotic of weekends.

TED: Charles Leadbeater on education innovation

2010-06-23T16:28:00.000-07:00

I got this via Twitter. (You're right, I never thought I would say that.) The "money quotes" start at about 15:00 to the end, but you'll lose some context. Do yourself a favor and just watch the whole thing.

Toy Story 3: Does "all other persons" include movie toys?

2010-06-22T06:11:00.000-07:00

Someday, I will thank my friend at aftertheflood for introducing me to Crooked Timber. You don't need a hit every day (more like weekly), so you don't quite believe it's an addiction. They also have enough variety in the voices to keep me from staying mad at the entire blog for any length of time.

I direct your attention to the June 21 CT post Stinky Pete as Existential Hero. Here's a snippet:

Haven’t seen the new one yet (it will be the four year old’s first movie in the theatre, so we are trying to figure out a family expedition, so that everyone can enjoy him enjoying it), but its arrival reminds me that I’ve been meaning for ages to post on how Toy Story 2 maps out the major themes of Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go. They both are driven by the same basic idea – of highly intelligent, potentially autonomous creatures who define their happiness entirely in terms of the happiness of others. In Never Let Me Go, this makes the (liberal) reader quite queasy. In Toy Story 2, this is treated as an entirely happy and natural state of affairs.

The comments at the above post are a full day ahead of me and they're holding their own. So I will just note that any thread on a non-sf blog that references Gene Wolfe, Brian Aldiss, Philip K. Dick and Roger Zelazny without condescension can't be all bad. Eventually someone uses the "S" word (slavery) and the Stockholm syndrome in describing the Toy Story characters, and that's the other thing that caught my attention. As of this writing, no one has mentioned Al Capp's two self-sacrificing species, the Schmoo and the inexorably multi-racial Kigmy, but they're slouching towards such mention in the later comments.

The comments also link out to a related article at Overthinking It.

Have fun!

Be nice to your dad

2010-06-20T08:24:00.000-07:00

Whether your father is still with us or not (mine's not) you can still be nice to him. Think about it.

Blogging While Brown 2010

2010-06-15T13:44:00.000-07:00

JJP reminds me to remind you that the Blogging While Brown 2010 conference is June 18-19 in DC.

Quote of the Week (June 13-19, 2010)

2010-06-13T11:50:00.000-07:00

In honor of blog fuzziness, which seems to have infected me and several other bloggers (those I faithfully follow and those I just check on now and again), the following:

"And though I have now learnt that a garden is always in the throes of becoming something else, I still haven't come to terms with it."
--Mirabel Osler

A summer project of sorts: saving racist e-mail

2010-06-12T18:35:00.000-07:00

Having spent a previous life in the U.S. military, I had to get pretty good at navigating institutional racism, and figuring out when people were being racist racist, being ignorant of history, or just occasionally pushing my buttons. (The last is actually a type of testing boundaries, of acceptance, of letting you into the club/treehouse; the first two are a type of rejection of you and your identity.)

I'm still in touch with some people I served with, all races, ethnicities, genders, creeds and orientations. I would go to the mat for a few of them to this day, and vice versa. Others, I wouldn't give a Heimlich to if they were choking on a salmonella-infested chicken nugget at the next table.

Anyway, there are a few who can't quite leave the military life behind, and their e-mail proves it. They rarely if ever update you on themselves or their families. They forward a lot of kick-ass photos of tanks, carrier landings, missile firings and such, as well as jokes that may have once evoked a chuckle in the geek's row during a middle-school assembly. All in good fun until they go political, then it gets strange.

There used to be a rule: Tuesdays, Thursdays, and especially Saturdays-- no, sorry, that's an old Woody Allen routine about a moose--

There used to be a rule: Pick on Democrats as weak on defense, suck up to Republicans because they'll always increase the defense budget, no questions asked, and don't acknowledge third parties at all unless fronted by verified ex-military guys like Ross Perot. Be courteous to a Democratic Commander-in-Chief because you honor the office, but that's as far as you have to go. They picked on Carter, even after living with Nixon. They picked on Clinton. So it's no surprise that since January 2009, ex-military folks whose bell-curved lives peaked when they were on active duty are picking on President Obama.

What has changed is that they can't help but bring non-political factors into the criticism. So the occasional e-mail about our current CINC is colored by thinly veiled remarks and asides, undue emphasis on the Hussein in Barack Hussein Obama, and questions about patriotism and citizenship that never would have arisen in previous Democratic administrations. (To be fair, there was a brief kerfuffle in the early '90s about a young Clinton visiting the Soviet Union as a student, but it was so darned minor as to be a non-issue.)

So this morning I was about to put one of my former colleagues on notice. Did he, a white veteran, forget I was black, or did he just think I was right of center? I wanted to tell him to cut the crap with his mass e-mails, or just not say anything to him and send everything from him to my spam folder. Then I realized that in an election year it would be nice to track what he was sending, to see if it really went over the top and pegged my race-ometer. So I'm not going to call him on it just yet. I'm going to track the mail over the summer and separate the merely patriotic and "support-the-troops" items from the treasonous, seditionist, anti-Presidential items. If it turns out there's a substantial amount of the latter, I may put my students on the case as part of their fall election-tracking. If there's a teachable moment in there I will call it making lemonade out of some quite racist lemons.

Everybody needs a hobby, right?

In case you forgot what month June is

2010-06-11T16:57:00.000-07:00

As is every month, it is once again "America Has a Black President" Month, so get on with the celebration...

To confirm, here is part of the Presidential Proclamation issued by Mr. Obama on May 28th:

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2010 as African-American Music Appreciation Month. I call upon public officials, educators, and the people of the United States to observe this month with appropriate activities and programs that raise awareness and foster appreciation of African-American music.

Hat tip to Bob Davis at Soul-Patrol.com!

Ghosts would be easier to handle

2010-06-06T23:05:00.000-07:00

Two friends committed suicide this spring, and I just heard about the second one a few days ago, on June 1. Oddly, this has me thinking not so much about mortality, but rather about the relative immortality of our memories of those who have passed on.

Both deaths are relatively recent. One made the papers and one didn't. One had a memorial service and one didn't. I haven't been able to process much except that there are two people I will still expect to see around town or hear from, but it won't happen. A kind of circular thinking keeps me more aware of both than I might otherwise be if matters were normal-- i.e. if everyone were still alive and going about their daily affairs. Although I've gone through the motions with work and social activity, and continued posting in the comment fields elsewhere as if I didn't have a real life, some of it has been sleepwalking.

One person was a mentor and friend I checked in with and had dinner with now and again. We would talk academics and film history, and I have him to thank for my pristine copy of Donald Bogle's Toms, Coons, Mullatoes, Mammies & Bucks. Being able to call or e-mail in either direction was a given, as was receiving the occasional e-card on holidays.

The other was more of a business acquaintance, but our exchange of niceties had begun to include the personal over the past year or so, as can happen in business relationships. So we had started to discuss family ups and downs in the small talk that accompanies repeated meetings.

In suicides, the survivors (that would be us) tend to wonder whether they could have said or done anything. I am pretty sure the answer is no. This is retrospect, reconstruction of jigsaw puzzle pieces in each case, but direct knowledge is limited to what people actually say and do. When someone tells you that they're depressed, you should probably believe them. That was the case for one of my friends, who already had treatment in progress. Apparently it wasn't enough.

So the double whammy this spring will take me a while to process. I don't even do well when death is by natural causes.

My next post will be upbeat and, I hope, uplifting and on topic.

Quote of the Week (June 6-12, 2010)

2010-06-06T17:35:00.000-07:00

Ordinary adults don't like children to speak of things that are denied them by their own gray minds.
--Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair

The heck with it, I'm yielding the floor to the L.A. Times

2010-05-30T22:06:00.000-07:00

The L.A. Times editors sum up something about the education problem that I would have taken a lot longer to say. They have gone public with the opinion that complex problems in a complex system may have more than two "sides" and may not be susceptible to simple, one-shot solutions. How dare they.

No magic bullet for education
America keeps looking for one simple solution for its education shortcomings. There isn't one.
May 30, 2010

The "unschooling" movement of the 1970s featured open classrooms, in which children studied what they were most interested in, when they felt ready. That was followed by today's back-to-basics, early-start model, in which students complete math worksheets in kindergarten and are supposed to take algebra by eighth grade at the latest. Under the "whole language" philosophy of the 1980s, children were expected to learn to read by having books read to them. By the late 1990s, reading lessons were dominated by phonics, with little time spent on the joys of what reading is all about — unlocking the world of stories and information.

A little more than a decade ago, educators bore no responsibility for their students' failure; it was considered the fault of the students, their parents and unequal social circumstances. Now schools are held liable for whether students learn, regardless of the students' lack of effort or previous preparation, and are held solely accountable for reaching unrealistic goals of achievement.

No wonder schools have a chronic case of educational whiplash. If there's a single aspect of schooling that ought to end, it's the decades of abrupt and destructive swings from one extreme to another. There is no magic in the magic-bullet approach to learning. Charters are neither evil nor saviors; they can be a useful complement to public schools, but they have not blazed a sure-fire path to student achievement. Decreeing that all students will be proficient in math and reading by 2014 hasn't moved us dramatically closer to the mark...

Go ahead, read the whole thing and tell me where they're wrong.

Quote of the Week (May 30-June 5)

2010-05-30T17:48:00.000-07:00

Seems to me all our times have been algorithmic times; we just didn't know it yet.
--Jon Carroll, May 28, 2010

Nothing certain as dearth in Texas

2010-05-23T16:47:00.000-07:00

[At the risk of skewing the Blogger/Google stats about my blog even more, this week's pact post will be again be more reactive than proactive and will contain certain right-of-center terms.]

From a bird's-eye view, there's a national pattern emerging that has been succinctly described as lost they damn minds to explain everything from why there are still black Republicans, to why there are any minority Tea Partiers, to why people will pay to hear Sarah "Half a term is better than none" Palin's word salad, to why certain state officials (Virginia, Arizona, Texas) have done things that are clearly racist to all but the most obtuse-- all while mainstream media pundits continue to "debate both sides of the issue."

I believe that Rand Paul of Kentucky has been sufficiently hoist on his own petard as he trampled on his own primary victory by first being just a little too honest about the 1964 Civil Rights Act in a May 19 Rachel Maddow interview:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

... and then deciding he'd had enough and refusing to appear a few days later on Meet the Press. I can't add much to what's already been well said. I don't know what's in his heart (ignorance or racism) and I don't care, because his smarmy meanderings deny history and contribute to a racist result. From his own comments, he'd clearly allow a return to Jim Crow days-- and on that basis alone, he doesn't need to be a U.S. Senator.

So let's move on from Dan'l Boone country to Texas, where the State Board of Education has been even more direct in their denial of history than waffleberry Rand Paul. On May 21, they officially adopted new curriculum standards for history. This year's conservative rewrite follows last year's revised science standards, which generated a bit of controversy themselves and stopped just short of saying the universe began in the year 4400 B.C.

A decent summary of the Texas proceedings can be found at the Texas Freedom Network (TFN) Insider blog. For an alternative one-pager, try the TPMmuckraker summary. Bottom line: Newt Gingrich and Phyllis Schafly in, overt discussion of Christianity in, minorities (including President Obama) barely tolerated, left-of-center figures out.

I take the impending ignorance of Texas grads seriously because I have young family members in K-12 schools there. One is old enough to miss most of this controversy and will only have a couple of years under the new standards. The other is young enough to be impressionable and will be fully immersed when the new textbooks arrive. I find myself thinking I should send CARE packages of books and videos on black history. One of the kids isn't a reader but the videos might "take."

I also find myself thinking about boycotts. There's just been a push to boycott Arizona over their recent immigration laws. Haven't heard a peep about boycotting Texas, but...

One sector that won't boycott Texas anytime soon would be the textbook publishers. They have their own difficult calculus to deal with. Texas as the 800-pound gorilla may not be a sustainable model much longer, in this age of customizable textbooks, print-on-demand, and e-textbooks, but they're still in charge.

By contrast, the higher ed textbook model is essentially broken already-- the publishers are really pushing e-texts and even book rentals to keep the doors open. They have put their best (and, might I add, best-looking) sales reps on the job to sell their hardcover, high-cost wares to the profs. I don't think it's working, though it's an impressive last hurrah. This has to trickle down to K-12 soon and influence Texas, California and New York, which I believe are the next-largest gorillas. The latter two each have distinct K-12 standards and I hope they won't adopt Texas history just to please the publishers' desire for hardcover sales.

I've also been concerned about the general welfare of the upcoming generation of grads beyond my own family, and I can imagine a need for remedial U.S. history to join the remedial English and math that already plagues so many of our incoming college students.

Remediation is an add-on to my system's 4-year model, but it's destined to shrink, not grow. It's already been pushed to the community colleges at CUNY on the "other" coast. And California State (CSU) is picking up on that idea:

CSU trustees advance college readiness

Despite calls to maintain the status quo, the trustees of the California State University system approved this week the "Early Start" program to address remediation rates that often top 60% at various campuses, and hover near 47% in English and 37% in math system-wide.

Starting in 2012, prospective freshmen who fail the CSU proficiency placement exams must take CSU-sponsored courses to address the deficiency before arriving at college. CSU anticipates this program will reduce the amount of remediation the campuses must offer and help their new students arrive ready for college-level work...

This is touted as "wholesome and gentle" at the above link, but low-income (including white and minority) students are really going to feel the squeeze. From the K-12 side they will be deemed ready to move on if they pass the high-school exit exam and graduate. The CSU English and math placement exams will, in the percentages described above, say they're not ready for college.

The current solution for most students needing remediation is to admit them, and offer a combination of late summer and first semester remediation on campus. The "new and improved" solution is actually a very old one: Get any remediation done on your own before showing up. In principle, one can argue that 4-year colleges shouldn't do remediation. In reality, there's a gap and a need. Our community colleges are full now, so everyone needing remediation won't be able to get it, starting in 2012.

[NOTE: Several parts of this post were adapted from comments I posted on a thread at P6.]

Quote of the Week (May 23-29, 2010)

2010-05-23T16:43:00.000-07:00

"What we sow or plant in the soil will come back to us in exact kind. It's impossible to sow corn and get a crop of wheat, but we entirely disregard this law when it comes to mental solving."
--Orison Swett Marden

Good News Department, updated

2010-05-18T09:25:00.000-07:00

Back on April 12, I posted a link about Katie Washington, the first Black valedictorian at Notre Dame. Here's her speech at commencement, and a PR story about her achievin' life. (h/t to JJP for both of these)

Valedictorian speech:

Video from Notre Dame's Office of Public Affairs:

"Next Blog" of the Week (May 16-22, 2010)

2010-05-16T13:40:00.000-07:00

The sheep proudly raised their heads. "Justice!" they bleated in chorus. "Justice!"
--Leonie Swann

As stated in previous weeks, I still don't have a clear pattern as to what happens when the Next Blog link at top of page is clicked. Could be that the Blogger algorithm just doesn't have a clear pattern of posts from me. Fair enough, it should take years to get inside my head. Be that as it may, a couple of days ago I clicked Next Blog and got a result that is fairly on topic for TOTF, so here we go.

Truth in Justice Files is an offshoot of the larger Truth in Justice site, the purpose of which is "to educate the public about the criminal conviction of wholly innocent people."

While the blog consists mostly of repurposed newspaper editorials about preventing and undoing wrongful convictions, with little new commentary, the main Truth in Justice site is broader in content. It consolidates cases and issues by category (e.g. death penalty, arson, junk science...) and includes a category I wasn't expecting: wrongfully convicted cops. Generally, you think about the police being in the power position and covering their own, but it doesn't always happen.

There's also a recommended reading list, which was more extensive than I thought it would be. Worth a look, even if you think you're up on this issue.

Oh, the quote at top of post is from a darned good ovine-based murder mystery called Three Bags Full. It's a bit out of context, as the sheep actually take charge of their own destiny and work the human-dominated system as they understand it quite well. Would that more people did the same...

Quote of the Week (May 16-22, 2010)

2010-05-16T13:28:00.000-07:00

He had the precious gift of being deaf when convenient. Many people took this for absent-mindedness, but it was rather his faculty for concentrating on what suited him, and remaining impervious to what seemed inappropriate or useless. He was in no way a daydreamer: or at any rate his dreams were based on a sharp observation of life, for in order to grasp reality better he limited his perceptions to a few definite things.
--Jean Renoir

Smorgasbord!

2010-05-12T20:52:00.000-07:00

So many open windows & tabs...

First up: The New York Times finally catches up with David Byrne, three years later:

In Mobile Age, Sound Quality Steps Back

By JOSEPH PLAMBECK

Published: May 9, 2010

...To many expert ears, compressed music files produce a crackly, tinnier and thinner sound than music on CDs and certainly on vinyl. And to compete with other songs, tracks are engineered to be much louder as well.

In one way, the music business has been the victim of its own technological success: the ease of loading songs onto a computer or an iPod has meant that a generation of fans has happily traded fidelity for portability and convenience... [emphasis added]

Quoting a Reuters story on Byrne's presentation at SXSW 2007, in which he discusses music sharing, the death of the CD, etc.:

"It's kind of sad," Byrne said, "but I think of it as a boost for live music. As long as it doesn't get to be too horrible -- the sound quality -- they'll go for convenience and accessibility. He added, "It doesn't have to sound good to move people."

***

Next, something I'll try, but it will still feel like succumbing to the dark side of the Force:

Revamped Microsoft Office Will Be Free on the Web

By ASHLEE VANCE

Published: May 11, 2010

Microsoft has created a chimera in its new Office 2010 software, part desktop software and part Web app.

This latest version of Office, which includes applications like Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint, is Microsoft’s long-awaited effort to modernize one of its most lucrative products and to thwart rivals like Google that are nipping at its heels with free Web software.

***

Recently, I've been concerned about the "other" Digital Divide, the one concerned with access to employment, funding, etc. for minority techies. The Black Web 2.0 folks are apparently doing something about it:

New Media Entrepreneurship Conference

***

Someday, this won't be news:

A Football Coach Used to Tests Insists Her Players Pass Theirs

By JULIET MACUR

Published: May 9, 2010

WASHINGTON — When Natalie Randolph was named the head coach of Calvin Coolidge Senior High School’s football team in March, her players wasted no time in testing her...

Yet Randolph, one of a few women to lead a varsity high school football team in the United States, was not hired at this school in northwest Washington because she had proven herself on the football field.

Members of the hiring committee said she won the job over more than 15 other applicants — including two former N.F.L. players, several Pop Warner coaches and a retired Army brigadier general — because she emphasized one thing that those men did not: helping the players in the classroom....

***

Is that a furtive movement or are you just glad to see me?

2010-05-12T17:42:00.000-07:00

There's a shorthand (trope) that's used in stories like this one, that crime is just so obviously higher in certain neighborhoods, which is why there are more cops on patrol there, which is why there are more events (stops, detentions, arrests, etc.) and it's all very natural and the way of the world.

What people mean is, certain types of easily-pegged, statistics-boosting crimes are more common in certain neighborhoods, and crime is so much harder to spot and harder to prove in other areas so don't blame the cops for going after the easy stat-booster. Otherwise cops would be swarming all over Wall Street frisking everybody in a suit. OK, that's rather extreme-- the '80s stereotype of coke-snorting brokers and traders is surely past. No way anything untoward is going on around Wall Street! But minority neighborhoods are NOT the only places where people walk around and look furtive when cops stare at them. Spread the force out a little, willya?

Tip o' the TOTF fedora to the Times editor, though, for keeping an otherwise minimally-reported factoid in the story, the increased pressure to use the CompStat database.

Minorities Frisked More but Arrested at Same Rate
By AL BAKER
Published: May 12, 2010

Blacks and Latinos were nine times as likely as whites to be stopped by the police in New York City in 2009, but no more likely to be arrested.

The more than 575,000 stops of people in the city, a record number of what are known in police parlance as “stop and frisks,” yielded 762 guns.

Of the reasons listed by the police for conducting the stops, one of those least commonly cited was the claim that the person fit the description of a suspect. The most common reason listed by the police was a category known as “furtive movements.”

Okay, NOW I'm concerned about charter schools

2010-05-10T08:29:00.000-07:00

Prometheus6 frequently posts about charter schools and is the reason I tuned into this story:

Charter Schools’ New Cheerleaders: Financiers
By TRIP GABRIEL and JENNIFER MEDINA
Published: May 9, 2010

When Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo wanted to meet certain members of the hedge fund crowd, seeking donors for his all-but-certain run for governor, what he heard was this: Talk to Joe.

That would be Joe Williams, executive director of a political action committee that advances what has become a favorite cause of many of the wealthy founders of New York hedge funds: charter schools.