unsafe passage

i'm rereading octavia butler's parable of the sower this week, and i've been telling my friends that it's hard to get through because the 2025 butler presents seems less and less farfetched every time i read about it.
there's an article in the times today that makes it that much more real. there are a number of high school children in chicago who are afraid to walk to school alone. this is probably not new news to people that know chicago, kind of like the random section in today's times article on KGIA acts like children bringing weapons to school or using racial slurs in the presence of teachers is a new thing. most of the sensation is a result of ignorance. but. children are afraid to walk to school for fear of being shot in the midst of a gang war. read parable of the sower and tell me what's different. tell me the world butler creates isn't possible, or maybe even likely.
these are troubled times.

sukh aur dukh ki kahani

the title of this post is also the title of a show i saw yesterday at the culture project as a part of women center stage. "sukh aur dukh ki kahani, a journey of love, risk and loss," brought on a sense of unknowing and/or not understanding was part of the entire process at the show yesterday. andolan, a non-profit founded by and for low-wage south asian women workers, brought five women together to tell their stories of struggle and to empower themselves through performance. the result of their own self-explorations is a powerful show that exposes the truth of the variety of immigration and u.s. living experiences of south asian descent. i think (and i know in my own experience as an imperfect and often ignorant person) that south asians often are placed in the model minority pool along with east asians. it is very rarely (if ever) that we see s. asians portrayed as financially struggling unless the movie or film is actually set in s. asia and the character is a beggar or servant, or it is wartime. in u.s.-set movies/t.v. shows/novels, south asians most often suffer from being overlooked in the professional sector, or are mocked for accents and cultural differences, but there is, as far as i know, no real portrayal of low-wage domestic workers of south asian descent. south asians are also often seen as legal immigrants, not illegal ones.
"sukh aur dukh ki kahani" explodes all of those stereotypes. there are four languages spoken in the show- english, bangla, hindi and marathi, and of those languages the director only speaks english. two teenage interns provided translation for the women across their language barriers, and the show was created by the women across their differences to speak out against violence. at the beginning of the show the director made a point to welcome the audience to fully experience the discomfort of not understanding, and to try to connect to the emotion in the women's performances without full translation. key phrases and words were displayed on a screen in english, and the program provided basic english translations for the five stories shared.
in the q-and-a, one man asked whose stories the women were sharing, and whether or not they were written collaboratively. it was explained that all of the women were sharing their own experiences, and the courage it took for them to get up in front of all of us became all that much clearer. to speak of being in the country illegally, to speak of escaping from your abusive former employers' home, to speak of losing two infant children to hunger in front of 100 strangers is, i'm sure, terrifying, and the grace and strength the women brought to their words was beautiful. andolan will be trying to take the show other places in the future, so keep your eyes open. they also take donations, so if you're looking for a place to share your resources, check out the website.
i thought of this poem by audre lorde as i left the theater yesterday, so i'll share it with y'all~

the brown menace
or poem to the
survival of
roaches

Call me
your deepest urge
toward survival
call me
and my brothers and sisters
in the sharp smell of refusal
call me
roach and presumptuous
nightmare upon your white pillow
your itch to destroy
the indestructible part of yourself.

Call me
your own determination
in the most detestable shape
you can become
friend of your own image
within me I am you
your most deeply cherished nightmare
scuttling through painted cracks
you create to admit
me into your kitchens
your fearful midnights
your values at noon
into your most secret places
hating
you learn to honor me
by imitation as I alter
through your greedy preoccupations
through your kitchen wars
through your poisonous refusal
to survive.

To survive.
To survive.

(1973)

ladies and gents, fr. michael pfleger

l'heureux did his piece with bill o'reilly, but father michael pfleger is a force to be reckoned with. the fox news reporter didn't have a fucking chance. there's definitely a reason they aren't streaming this one on the main homepage...

h/t to JJP

there's a lot going on in this post: on mlk and blackness and wanting

jalylah over at hello, babar/she real cool is always teaching me shit. this morning is no exception. her post commemorating dr. king and discussing her own body politic is insightful and feels painfully familiar. the way black women's bodies are simultaneously hyper- and in-visible is one of the most painful aspects of my personal struggle against oppression- sometimes it just feels impossible to change the way people (can't) see you.
anyway, beyond providing an incredible chance for reflection, jb's post also sent me to this link on the kerner report by bill moyers. it's worth a watch. structural racism lives on.
***
on another note, i want to say something about the theorizing blackness conference put on by the africana studies group at the cuny graduate center yesterday. finding the words, though, is the hard part.

i'll start by saying that the 12 pages of notes i wrote speak to the absolute profundity of many of the presentations yesterday. mark anthony neal is amazing. there were two concepts that stand out amongst the many quotes of his that i scribbled during his keynote, and i'll share them here:

1) we need to, when we think about "blackness" in 21st century USA and in the diaspora, think about the distinction between african-american and black.

we cannot continue to assume a shared history around the civil rights movement in the US if we hope to truly galvanize movement toward dismantling structural oppression. our blacknesses are distinct though connected and we have to learn to be comfortable with learning the topography of our differences, not just those between our race and others.

this idea leads to the second i can't really let go of:

2) "unity is a myth. solidarity is a strategy." ~m.a.n.

i think this is so deep. deep! and obvious. and true. but it is also something i think we often forget. standing in solidarity with one another has always been the strategy of successful civil rights movement. there was nothing unified about the american black community in the 50's- there has always been and always will be class/color/location stratification. we never have been and never will be a monolithic, homogeneous group. we have to choose to stand up with one another to make change. solidarity, though, begins with knowledge of one another and ourselves. you have to know who the other is in order to trust her.

as i try to wrap up this post i find myself at a loss. i want to talk about the paper on lauryn hill and madness, the one about transnational translation of black feminism in english, the one minstrelsy and madea, the one on something new and cheryl dunye, the one on racial uplift in the 21st century. i want to talk about bill cosby and oprah winfrey and how they are irrevocably human and how they are rich and how they've been rich for a really long time and how that means they don't know much about the reality of the lived experience of poor black people in the 21st century at all. i want to talk about the ways that tokenism (and the inability for wealthy black people to remember how difficult finding success can really be) works to make solidarity across class lines in the black community almost impossible.

i also want to talk about black women's literature and the importance of our voices. i want to talk about the cute boy i met who i also saw at the black feminism conference. i want to talk about my own ignorance that led me to question the "blackness" of a black man who didn't strike me as being "black enough" at first glance.

i want to talk. to you. and to my former students. and to my family. i want to hear what blackness means to us, and start a conversation about its power.

i want to start a school where visiting scholars come and speak to young students of color about these issues. i want to build the ties between and among black people so we can then start talking with our other allies with confidence.

iwantiwantiwantithinkiwantiheariwantihopeiwant.

that was my day off :).


**funny last note- i google image-searched for "black enough?" and the first twenty images were all barack obama (dr. nassey-brown of hunter college had some awesome things to say about barry at the closing plenary yesterday, btw. keep your eye out for the journal of af-am studies, because some of the papers from the conference will be published there?)! oh wait, you're not surprised :).

mlk 40

the root is doing amazing things today to commemorate dr. king.

check out dana cook's remembrance series (there are a bunch of articles, i can't link to them all). sam fulwood III's piece on the black middle class is worth a glance too, as is melissa harris-lacewell(academic crush alert!)'s piece on the women so often depicted behind the men. and so is everything else.


let's not forget how much we owe, and to how many.

maybe one day, one of my/our students

will thank me/us as eloquently as this young person has thanked their teachers (some of whom may be my old cali colleagues!).

appreciation never gets old, and i, for one, prefer it out of the mouths of the children than from anywhere else. read afika khan:



Thank you, teachers

An L.A. Unified grad gives some gratitude during a hard time for schools.
By Afika Khan
April 1, 2008
After reading "With jobs on the line, teachers explore their options," regarding layoff notices teachers are receiving, I wanted to say thank you to teachers who have stayed in the educational system, however bad it may be.

Your resilience is very impressive to say the least. Year after year, you get thrown around because of budget cuts in the education system. Budget cuts have encroached on every aspect of your careers. Thoughts of simply surrendering to this supposedly admirable governor and getting a job that is less agonizing must have crossed your minds, but you persist and remain dedicated to public schools. On behalf of myself and probably all the students whose minds you have nourished with hopes of a successful future, thank you.

I wish thanking you was enough. This year will be especially hard on you. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger expects to cut billions of dollars out of the education system in California. There are prospects of teachers getting laid off. However, the Los Angeles Unified School District has decided not to lay off any teachers. A burden of insecurity has been removed from these teachers' backs, but an even larger one has replaced it: dealing with larger classroom sizes, inadequate school supplies and even salary cuts.

You teachers have developed a hard shell because of these inconveniences. As the governor keeps taking money away from the system every year, your shell grows thicker. It is not right that you to have to conform to such intolerable measures. Managing such inconsistencies and frustrations is a noble and honorable act in itself.

Having grown up in the L.A. Unified system from kindergarten through my senior year in high school, I remember seeing countless teachers exhausted and frustrated. However, when it was time to teach, they came in the classroom with conviction and amazing strength. I could tell they loved their work, but it was as if they were fighting a war that they were too drained to fight. Thank you for not giving up. I would not be at a four-year university were it not for your dedication.

We cannot keep treating teachers this way. California has one of the largest economies in the world, yet it ends up being one of the worst states in education funding. According to Education Weekly, our school finance is worse than that of Louisiana, even after Hurricane Katrina. It is ironic that although the governor could risk his life to save a class of kindergartners in a movie, when it comes to real life, he is hurting kindergartners by continually neglecting the teachers who help them learn and develop. Someone needs to tell him to stop terminating teachers and fix this problem.

In May, the governor might make revisions to the budget plan. To save schools from budget cuts, the state could increase taxes on cigarettes and alcohol, or on sales of concert tickets, CDs and DVDs. He can even tax the distribution of candy. Maybe then he can redeem himself at the "May revise" and start saying he "will revise."

I do not know when Schwarzenegger is going to realize that investing in teachers and the education system would be most beneficial for California. If he does not do it soon, the education system could very well start to crumble, and there will be even more instability than there is now. Such deterioration could lead to a ripple effect in the economy. Without knowledgeable teachers guiding society, the very ideals of democracy could be jeopardized.

So I thank teachers for having the strength and patience to continue teaching.

Afika Khan, a USC sophomore studying political science and international relations, attended schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District for 13 years.

to finish the posting frenzy, another women's history month poem

loving the carnival. this entry was posted over at women's space:



The Other Woman

The ancient lines
Drawn
The ancient dust
Settles the storm
Arriving

On the eve of the revolution

Blood flows red
Into the gutter.
Sites of ancient women’s power
Buried
In the dirt
In the dust

I want this more
Each day I flounder
With the words left unsaid

I am not
As white as you
I am not
As rich as you

Still I bleed red
In darkness

While you shine
With your golden hair
And your beautiful words

And I hate you

But really, deep-down
You are everything
I wish to be

With your confidence
Your grace

I know
You will be a leader
Women will love you
Women will follow you

While I lie
Here in the background
With the other
Lost and buried
Women

Because my hair
Does not shine gold
My voice
Does not sing sweetly
You are everything
That I am not

And I hate you
Even though
I know I shouldn’t
Even though
I want to love you
Even though

Everything in you screams
‘I am a fucked thing
Just like you
I hate you too
Shut the fuck up shut the fuck up shutthefuckup

SHUT THE FUCK UP’

And everything in me
Screams back
Until
We can not hear each other
We can not hear ourselves

So

I ask you
To join me here
On the eve of the revolution

Round the kitchen table
In the garden
Round the tribal fire
In those ancient sacred sites

Believe that there is a
A place
Where women are free
To love ourselves
And each other

That place
Is in my heart
When I reach out a hand
And call you sister

That place is in you
When you reach back

–by Dani/allecto, who is a 26 year old radical feminist lesbian, a descendant of a First Nations people, an activist, vegetarian, child-care worker; a creative, passionate, alive, inspired woman. She believes that Sisterhood is the most powerful force in the Universe.

some quotes from my ladies

lucille clifton and grace lee boggs on 9.11. these two quotes- one a poem, another an excerpt from a recent speech, stuck out to me in the midst of all the strife around jeremiah wright this week (and last week). as i watch clips on fox and read blog posts around the net, i remember that, in my mind, the most important part of loving someone, or something, i.e. a country, is being willing to take a risk and see their wrongs. there is nothing more painful than recognizing flaws in those you love. that is the state people of color, queer people, differently abled people, poor people and their allies feel every day. we see what's wrong with our country, and many of us love it, the united states of america, enough to struggle to make it better. and that makes us, if anything, more patriotic than those that follow the tide. but that's enough from my humble mouth. read lucille and grace.

4 9/14/01
some of us know
we have never felt safe

all of us americans
weeping

as some of us have wept
before

is it treason to remember

what have we done
to deserve such villainy

nothing we reassure ourselves
nothing

~lucille clifton, from september song, a poem in seven days


"'The revolution to be made in the United States,' Jimmy wrote, nearly 30 years before 9/11, 'will be the first revolution in history to require the masses to make material sacrifices rather than to acquire more material things. We must give up many of the things which this country has enjoyed at the expense of damning over one third of the world into a state of underdevelopment, ignorance, disease and early death...It is obviously going to take a tremendous transformation to prepare the poeple of the United States for these new social goals. But potential revolutionaries can only become true revolutionaries if they take the side of those who believe that humanity can be transformed...'
This means that it is not enough to organize mobilizations calling on Congress and the President to end the war in Iraq. We must also challenge the American people to examine why 9/11 happened and why so many people around the world who, while not supporting the terrorists, understand that they were driven to these acts of anger at the US role in the world, e.g. supporting the Israeli occupation of Palestine, overthrowing or seeking to overthrow democratically-elected governments, and treating whole countries, the world's peoples and Nature only as a resource enabling us to maintain our middle class way of life."

- grace lee boggs, closing plenary for the left forum 2008, full text here


last bit- if you haven't read grace's autobiography, um, what the hell are you waiting for?

ay yi yi

this article on the hutto family detention center and others like it hurts my heart. why do we jail people who have committed no crime other than seeking safety?

grrrr. beginning of article after the jump, complete text found here.

The Lost Children
What do tougher detention policies mean for illegal immigrant families?
by Margaret Talbot March 3, 2008

In the summer of 1995, an Iranian man named Majid Yourdkhani allowed a friend to photocopy pages from “The Satanic Verses,” the Salman Rushdie novel, at the small print shop that he owned in Tehran. Government agents arrested the friend and came looking for Majid, who secretly crossed the border to Turkey and then flew to Canada. In his haste, Majid was forced to leave behind his wife, Masomeh; for months afterward, Iranian government agents phoned her and said things like “If you aren’t divorcing him, then you are supporting him, and we will therefore arrest you and torture you.” That October, Masomeh also escaped from Iran and joined Majid in Toronto, where they lived for ten years. Majid worked in a pizza place, Masomeh in a coffee shop. She dressed and acted the way she liked—she is blond and pretty and partial to bright clothes and makeup, which she could never wear in public in Iran—and for a long time the Yourdkhanis felt they were safe from politics and the past. Their son, Kevin, was born in Toronto, in 1997, a Canadian citizen. He grew into a happy, affectionate kid, tall and sturdy with a shock of dark hair. He liked math and social studies, developed asthma but dealt with it, and shared with his mom a taste for goofy comedies, such as the “Mr. Bean” movies. In December, 2005, however, the Yourdkhanis learned that the Canadian government had denied their application for political asylum, and Majid, Masomeh, and Kevin were deported to Iran.

Upon their return, the Yourdkhanis say, Masomeh was imprisoned for a month, and Majid for six, and during that time he was beaten and tortured. After Majid was released, the family paid a smuggler twenty thousand dollars to procure false documents and arrange a series of flights that would return them to Canada.

Then, on the last leg of the journey, the family ran into someone else’s bad luck. On February 4, 2007, during a flight from Georgetown, Guyana, to Toronto, a passenger had a heart attack and died, and the plane was forced to make an unscheduled stop in Puerto Rico. American immigration officials there ascertained that the Yourdkhanis’ travel documents were fake. The Yourdkhanis begged to be allowed to continue on to Canada, but they were told that if they wanted asylum they would have to apply for it in the United States. They did so, and, five days later, became part of one of the more peculiar, and contested, recent experiments in American immigration policy. They were locked inside a former medium-security prison in a desolate patch of rural Texas: the T. Don Hutto Residential Center.

Hutto is one of two immigrant-detention facilities in America that house families—the other is in Berks County, Pennsylvania—and is the only one owned and run by a private prison company. The detention of immigrants is the fastest-growing form of incarceration in this country, and, with the support of the Bush Administration, it is becoming a lucrative business. At the end of 2006, some fourteen thousand people were in government custody for immigration-law violations, in a patchwork of detention arrangements, including space rented out by hundreds of local and state jails, and seven freestanding facilities run by private contractors. This number was up by seventy-nine per cent from the previous year, an increase that can be attributed, in large part, to the actions of Michael Chertoff, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, which runs the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division. In 2005, Chertoff announced the end of “catch-and-release”—the long-standing practice of allowing immigrants caught without legal documents to remain free inside the country while they waited for an appearance in court. Since these illegal immigrants weren’t monitored in any way, the rate of no-shows was predictably high, and the practice inflamed anti-immigrant sentiment.

* from the issue
* cartoon bank
* e-mail this

Private companies began making inroads into the detention business in the nineteen-eighties, when the idea was in vogue that almost any private operation was inherently more efficient than a government one. The largest firm, Corrections Corporation of America, or C.C.A., was founded in 1983. But poor management and a series of well-publicized troubles—including riots at and escapes from prisons run by C.C.A.—dampened the initial excitement. In the nineties, C.C.A.’s bid to take over the entire prison system of Tennessee, where the company is based, failed; state legislators had grown skeptical. By the end of 2000, C.C.A.’s stock had hit an all-time low. When immigration detention started its precipitate climb following 9/11, private prison companies eagerly offered their empty beds, and the industry was revitalized.

One complication was that hundreds of children were among the immigrant detainees. Typically, kids had been sent to shelters, which allowed them to attend school, while parents were held at closed facilities. Nobody thought that it was good policy to separate parents from children—not immigration officials, not immigrant advocates, not Congress. In 2005, a report by the House Appropriations Committee expressed concern about “reports that children apprehended by D.H.S.”—the Department of Homeland Security—“even as young as nursing infants, are being separated from their parents and placed in shelters.” The committee also declared that children should not be placed in government custody unless their welfare was in question, and added that the Department of Homeland Security should “release families or use alternatives to detention” whenever possible. The report recommended a new alternative to detention known as the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program—which allows people awaiting disposition of their immigration cases to be released into the community, provided that they are closely tracked by means such as electronic monitoring bracelets, curfews, and regular contact with a caseworker. The government has since established pilot programs in twelve cities, and reports that more than ninety per cent of the people enrolled in them show up for their court dates. The immigration agency could have made a priority of putting families, especially asylum seekers, into such programs. Instead, it chose to house families in Hutto, which is owned and run by C.C.A. Families would be kept together, but it would mean they were incarcerated together.

amazing woman

okay, first of all, i'm not sure what's going on with my template. i'm going to work on that.

also, went to this conference on black feminism yesterday. i'm feeling rejuvenated and refocused; i've relocated those goalposts and re-oriented myself. i wrote this yesterday during a presentation on lucille clifton and sonia sanchez, and just the sight of all of these amazing women's names in one place still puts a smile on my face and a lift in my heart. i am so thankful to have had the opportunity.

amazing women
nzadi keita
nicole watson
sherie randolph
rose afriyie
sala cyril
ashley lewis
toccara
robyn spencer
adrienne kennedy
lucille clifton
safiya bandele
assata
barbara omolade
nadine
sonia sanchez
women panthers

the academy fails us again

and denies an incredible scholar and activist, who happens to be a woman of color, tenure. the women's studies @ univ. of michigan is the offending party here. if you know of prof. andrea smith's work and are interested in supporting her with your words, find information after the link.

why is education in this country so treacherous?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 25, 2008
Statement of University of Michigan Students and Faculty in Support of Andrea Smith’s Tenure Case
CONTACT: TenureForAndreaSmith@gmail.com

On February 22nd, 2008, University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science and the Arts (LSA) issued a negative tenure recommendation for Assistant Professor Andrea Lee Smith. Jointly appointed in the Program in American Culture and the Department of Women’s Studies, Dr. Smith’s body of scholarship exemplifies scholarly excellence with widely circulated articles in peer-reviewed journals and numerous books in both university and independent presses including Native Americans and the Christian Right published this year by Duke University Press. Dr. Smith is one of the greatest indigenous feminist intellectuals of our time. A nominee for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Smith has an outstanding academic and community record of service that is internationally and nationally recognized. She is a dedicated professor and mentor and she is an integral member of the University of Michigan (UM) intellectual community. Her reputation and pedagogical practices draw undergraduate and graduate students from all over campus and the nation.

Dr. Smith received the news about her tenure case while participating in the United States’ hearings before the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. Ironically, during those very same hearings, the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decisions that restricted affirmative action policies at UM specifically were cited as violations of international law. At the same time, there is an undeniable link between the Department of Women’s Studies and LSA’s current tenure recommendations and the long history of institutional restrictions against faculty of color. In 2008, students of color are coming together to protest the way UM’s administration has fostered an environment wherein faculty of color are few and far between, Ethnic Studies course offerings have little financial and institutional support, and student services for students of color are decreasing each year.

To Support Professor Andrea Smith: The Provost must hear our responses! Write letters in support of Andrea Smith’s tenure case. Address email letters to ALL of the following:

* Teresa Sullivan, Provost and Executive VP for Academic Affairs, LSA, tsull@umich.edu
* Lester Monts, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, LSA, lmonts@umich.edu
* Mary Sue Coleman, President, PresOff@umich.edu
* TenureForAndreaSmith@gmail.com

Voice your ideas on the web forum at http://www.woclockdown.org/

To Support Women of Color at Michigan and the Crisis of Women’s Studies and Ethnic Studies:

Attend the student organized March 15th Conference at UM!!!!

Campus Lockdown: Women of Color Negotiating the Academic Industrial Complex is free and open to the public.

Speakers include renowned activists and scholars Piya Chatterjee, Angela Davis, Rosa Linda Fregoso, Ruthie Gilmore, Fred Moten, Clarissa Rojas, and Haunani-Kay Trask. For more information and to register, visit: http://www.woclockdown.org/.

TALKING POINTS YOU CAN USE IN YOUR SUPPORT LETTER:
• Smith is author of the following books:
o Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide
o Native Americans and the Christian Right: The Gendered Politics of Unlikely
Alliances
o Sacred Sites, Sacred Rites
• Smith is editor and/or co-editor of the following anthologies:
o Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology
o The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial
Complex
o Native Feminisms Without Apology
o Forthcoming on theorizing Indigenous Studies
• She has published 15 peer reviewed articles in widely circulated academic journals
including American Quarterly, Feminist Studies, National Women’s Studies
Association Journal, Hypatia, Meridians, and the Journal of Feminist Studies in
Religion
• Smith is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards from organizations such as the Lannan Foundation, University of Illinois, Gustavus Myers Foundation, Ford
Foundation
• Smith was cited in the U.S. Non-Governmental Organization Consolidated Shadow
Report to the United Nations
• A co-founder of Incite! Women of Color Against Violence and the Chicago chapter
of Women of All Red Nations, she has been a key thinker behind large-scale national
and international efforts to develop remedies for ending violence against women
beyond the criminal justice system. As a result of her work, scholars, social service
providers, and community-based organizations throughout the United States have
shifted from state-focused efforts to more systemic approaches for addressing
violence against women. In recognition of her contributions, Smith was nominated
for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.
• As of June 2007, Professor Smith’s book, Conquest: Sexual Violence and American
Indian Genocide (2005) had sold over 8,000 copies. Three-fourths of these sales
have gone to college and university courses. In addition, the leading Native studies
organization, Native American and Indigenous Studies Association organized a
special panel about this book at their last annual conference (2007). The international impact of Conquest is evidenced by its reprinting in Sami (Sweden) and in Maori Institutions in New Zealand; by Professor Smith’s invitation to participate in an academic workshop in Germany based on the book; and by the book’s frequent use in Native Studies classrooms in Canada.
• She has also played a key role in contributing social-justice based research, teaching, and community building at the University of Michigan.
• Under Andrea Smith’s mentorship, a large number of undergraduate and graduate
students have grown as intellectual members of the UM’s campus community.

FACTS FOR DR. ANDREA SMITH’S TENURE CASE
• Her intellectual work contributes to the fields of Native American Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, Ethnic Studies, Religious Studies, and American Studies.
• Smith is jointly appointed in the Program in American Culture and the Department of Women’s Studies at Michigan.
• The Program in American Culture gave a positive recommendation for Smith’s tenure, while the Department of Women’s Studies gave a negative recommendation. After the tenure recommendations were released from the two departments, the College of Literature, Sciences, and the Arts reviewed the tenure file and also gave a negative tenure recommendation.
• She is currently the Director of Native American Studies at Michigan.

letter and info courtesy of la chola.

black.womyn.:conversations

really awesome documentary currently looking for screening spaces.

black lesbian women speaking out. check out the myspace page for lots of great clips.

hip hop ed- it matters!

city on a hill press has something to say about hip-hop in schools, and the power of our words...read on.


Education to a Brand New Beat

By Elizabeth Limbach

It’s a Tuesday morning in Inglewood, California, and Ms. Gray’s 5th grade class is talking about Nas.

“It’s almost like he’s being hypocritical,” one student articulated. “I know that he has made songs that are really positive, talking about how black people were kings and queens, and now he’s wearing this T-shirt.”

The previous day, the rapper had shown up to the 2008 Grammy’s with the word “nigger” boldly written across his chest to promote his forthcoming album of the same title. And, despite their youth, these fifth graders asked some heavy questions about the superstar.

“They [were] asking me if he understands the effects it would have on black youth who would see it, and how people all over the world might now think it’s OK to call him this,” said teacher Salina Gray. “I thought that was really profound for 10-year-olds.”

Gray is one of the many teachers across the country who uses hip-hop in the classroom to engage students, most of whom are generally disconnected from the standardized curriculum.

A growing number of hip-hop educators, scholars and activists are currently uniting in a budding hip-hop education movement to counter this disengagement.

Concrete figures on the movement may be nonexistent, but the sheer variety of grassroots and community-based hip-hop education organizations and quantity of available hip-hop lesson plans reveal the trend’s growing size. And while these groups and individual teachers are separately scattered from coast-to-coast, they share the common goal of empowering youth through hip-hop culture.

Hip-Hop Education 101
Water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit,
Water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit,
When water boils, a liquid becomes gas,
Gravity makes rain drop down fast,
Now you know science, so don’t ever say, ‘I can’t’
Now it’s time to say the Science Chant
— excerpt from “The Science Chant” by Dr. Ron Kelley

Hip-hop education manifests itself in the classroom in as many ways as it appears in popular culture. From math raps that teach multiplication to giving the option of presenting a book report as a hip-hop song, the possibilities are endless.

The practice utilizes the four traditional elements of hip-hop culture — DJing, MCing, breakdancing and graffiti — in one of three educational approaches: as a hook to get the students interested in a lesson, as a tool for teaching the disciplines, and, thirdly, as a subject in and of itself.

In her 13 years of teaching, Gray has found that hip-hop is an invaluable way to get her students invested in their education. Not only as a means of teaching curriculum, but also as a platform for discussing the myriad of social, political, economic and personal issues that are packed into hip-hop culture and reflect the larger society.

“Hip-hop is a vehicle to talk about very complicated facts of society in a way that they understand and are interested in,” she said. “We talk about misogyny, patriarchy and racism. Then we’ll bring in a song and deconstruct it, and the students are able to point [them] out.”

Using popular culture in the classroom is nothing new. Most educators behind this movement were using hip-hop in their classes long before they found one another and united in the cause. And while few here in small town Santa Cruz may be aware of its mounting presence in inner-city education, it is becoming increasingly popular in K-12 classes, after-school programs, prisons and youth camps throughout the country.

Thanks to the recent efforts of numerous non-profit, community-based and national organizations, individual teachers now have the help of a legion of hip-hop educational resources, from lesson plans and student workbooks to teacher training courses and conferences. Even the New York Times, PBS and the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame offer hip-hop lesson plans.

The New York-based hip-hop Association (H2A) recently published the Hip-Hop Education Guidebook: Volume 1, the first all-encompassing set of hip-hop lesson plans that cover all subjects and meet education standards.

Martha Diaz, H2A president and founder, found the inspiration for the education initiative (H2ed) from her years of using hip-hop as a teacher in the Bronx. After putting on three H2A teacher-training summits, Diaz saw an opportunity to make hip-hop education into a tangible reality for other educators.

“We realized there were some amazing lesson plans out there,” she said. “Educators were rocking it all over the world and we needed to show that, so we self-published the book that would highlight the best ones and prove that it can be used in the classroom, standardized and everything — you won’t get in trouble for it.”

The guidebook’s lessons range from an activity for middle school students that uses break dance moves to teach the muscle groups to one for high schoolers entitled “Who Runs Your Streets? Introducing Democracy, the Electoral Process and Government Into the Classroom.” The latter intertwines Eminem’s politically focused music video “Mosh” with a study on the Declaration of Independence and the writings of Frederick Douglass.

In addition to using hip-hop to cover core subjects, Diaz believes it has great potential for teaching violence prevention, social skills, entrepreneurship, community organizing and to help develop artistic talents. She attributes these many possibilities to the multi-cultural, multi-generational and multi-ethnic identity of hip-hop, something that is often overshadowed by current, mainstream perceptions of the culture.

“It isn’t what people think it is,” Diaz said. “It is a part of the culture for a reason. It is our role in educating the community in how to use hip-hop in a positive way in the classroom, after school and for community development.”

Answering Cries for Help: While programs like H2ed and D.C. based hip-hop Education Literacy Program (HELP), which Gray employs, seek to remedy the lack of engagement in inner city classrooms, they are still only addressing the problem from within the system — a system that may need to be radically changed before these groups of students are properly incorporated and cared for. Gray, along with most hip-hop educators, recognizes this.

“Historically, and even currently, urban public schools, which pretty much means schools where there are black and brown youth, were not designed with the notion of creating analytical thinkers who were going to go on to become the next wave of local leaders, entrepreneurs, etc,” Gray said. “A lot of schools are basically warehouses that shuffle kids from grade to grade, preparing them to become low-income wage earners and some would even say criminals.”

Tricia Rose, hip-hop scholar, author and professor of African Studies at Brown University, cautions against seeing hip-hop education as a means in itself for solving this education crisis.

“These are all strategies for managing disenfranchisement and lack of education,” Rose said. “Whatever we can do is great but we can’t put a Band-Aid on the fundamental problem; hip-hop can’t fix the fundamental problem.’”

While this may be true, the efforts of hip-hop education can help to soothe the current educational estrangement of urban students. According to those mobilizing the movement, students are marginalized mainly by what the system doesn’t do: the curriculum does not cover their histories, cultures or communities, and the teaching staff often does not reflect the student body. Not surprisingly, then, these students find spaces outside of the classroom, such as hip-hop culture, much more relatable.

Baba Zumbi, perhaps more commonly known as Zion from the Oakland-based underground rap group Zion-I, realizes the authority the hip-hop industry has over youth. As a former second and third grade teacher, Zumbi recalls that the young students’ loyalty already lay with hip-hop and not with their education.

“They would come in every day with the latest Usher song or Bustah Rhymes or whoever, and they’d know every lyric,” he remembers. “And I’d be like, ‘How do you know that song, but when I give you this piece of paper on something we’ve been doing for two weeks straight you don’t want to do it?’”

He soon realized that embracing hip-hop as a means of education would be the most effective way of changing this.

Andrew Landers, a special education teacher at Wadleigh Secondary School in Harlem, New York, agrees that school and education are falling far behind in the scope of students’ main influences.

“Where I live there are a lot of other things at the forefront of the child’s universe other than education,” Landers said. “There are problems with the family, or problems right in front of you on the street all the time. When there is so much else going on, [it is hard when] you are trying to get your students excited about something.”

Landers, who is now the co-director of H2A’s education initiative, started using hip-hop to find something that would make his students, many of whom are what he calls “reluctant learners,” feel like education was something they were a part of.

“All the students I’m working with love hip-hop, so in that form I was using hip-hop as a way to spark interest and create educational moments,” he said.

As something familiar, interesting and packed full of culturally relevant meanings, Landers says that hip-hop allowed his students to bring what they knew and cared about into the classroom.

“[Hip-hop education] is showing respect for the student’s life and interests, which is something they desire and don’t get a lot of.”

Hip-Hop Education, a community-based organization in Chicago that works with youth to create positive hip-hop music, believes that music, and hip-hop especially, can help to keep children on the right track.

Sabrina Wiggins, CEO and co-founder of the organization, said that programs like hers must be more widely implemented in order for this to happen.

“We want to try to get in to the school systems, and some of the juvenile systems as well, because they need our help right now,” Wiggins said. “They’re crying out for our help and no one is really there to help them at this point.”

The program works with young children to create positive alternatives to mainstream music. They write and record songs that discuss serious issues like 9/11 in a child-relevant manner, but also instructional raps about remembering to “Buckle Up” and brush your teeth.

“’The Toothbrush Song’ was created for my youngest daughter,” Wiggins explained. “When she gets up in the morning, she sings along to that song and knows ‘okay, I need to brush my teeth.’”

*“The Kids Just Don’t Know”*: As a junior high school teacher in Oakland, California, Jamal Cooks began to realize that his students, although they whole-heartedly identified with hip-hop, actually knew very little about the culture or history.

“The kids don’t know,” said Cooks, who is now a PhD Assistant Professor at San Francisco State University and creator of the online teacher resource bank, hip-hop Circuit. “It’s important that if you call yourself a hip hopper, if you see yourself as being a part of hip-hop culture, [you have an] understanding about its history and where it came from, and that it was about a socio-political movement of a group of people.”

Thus, hip-hop education, when done properly, also encompasses lessons on its history, roots and pivotal figures such as Afrika Bambaata, KRS-One and Public Enemy. Teachers also rely on positive modern day examples, such as Lauryn Hill, Common, Talib Kweli and Kanye West, to promote conscious hip-hop to their students. Cooks, who has even used Will Smith when working with elementary school children, explains that educating kids on the positive powers of hip-hop would not only provide them with better influences and perspectives, but also lend toward a brighter future for the genre.

“If they understand the history of hip-hop, I think they can respect hip-hop culture a whole lot more,” Cooks said. “The next hip-hop artist is hopefully going to be the kids coming out of my classroom, [so] hopefully [hip-hop education] can impact the future generation of hip-hop artists.”

“Hip and Hop is not just music/ Hip is the knowledge/ Hop is the movement” –KRS-ONE

In the day and age of No Child Left Behind and high-stakes testing, administrators and older teachers are rarely willing to teach anything that doesn’t correspond directly to standardized tests. hip-hop educators are also facing opposition from those who are reluctant to stray from the canon or hesitant about their ability to teach hip-hop.

Cooks is determined to deconstruct this last reason, which he cites as one of the main myths about hip-hop education.

“[There is] the perception that if you do hip-hop in the classroom, the teacher has to come in with their pants sagging and Timbaland boots, and that’s not what I’m saying,” Cooks said. “I’m saying allow the students an opportunity and a space to bring in a piece of their lives, a piece of their identity, which could be hip-hop, into the classroom.”

Educators including H2A’s Diaz and Landers agree that the movement needs the legitimacy of studies and research to be more widely accepted by administrations. H2A will be publishing a report on effectiveness later this year, from which Diaz expects positive results. She is confident that current hip-hop education and activism will make visible differences in the future of hip-hop culture.

“All of these seeds that everyone is planting will create a whole new generation of youth that are leaders,” she said. “It’s not cool to be dumb anymore, hang out on the corner and smoke blunts. It’s cool to have the latest technology, its cool to know world issues, it’s cool to know our history. So we are cultivating this new generation and hopefully we will have created future hip hop ambassadors.”

These future ambassadors, local leaders and next generation hip-hoppers still have a lot working against them in the current educational system. Until larger education issues are addressed, the hip-hop education movement will continue to fight for the academic success of disengaged youth.

Cooks, who maintains a sense of optimism characteristic of the movement, has a hopeful vision for the future of inner-city education that hip-hop could help generate.

“I want to be able to walk into any classroom across the country, especially in urban, inner-city areas, and see kids wanting to learn and excited about learning,” Cooks said. “If it comes up on test scores, fine. But more importantly, if that makes that kid come back the next day because they’re excited to be in a class, or if something they talked about in a hip-hop song allowed them to be able to make a good decision outside of school, to be able to get out of that situation and make it back to school the next day, to me those are most important things.”

the practice

what does it mean to do "good work"? when is our work just what it is? when can we be satisfied with our practice as educators?

these are questions that i ask myself constantly, trying my best to chart the right path. i'm smack dab in the middle of my twenties and i am still unsure of direction. sometimes i think things are taking shape, but then i lose focus and things blur. it's hard.

i have a funky idea knocking about in my head. i'm just wrapping the hip-hop curriculum now, and i'm thinking that i'd like to start my own project next. maybe something to do with bringing black (or third world/us?) feminist literature/work/artistry to the K-12 classroom? ways to bring all the great literature and ideas to which we are so often not exposed until college into middle school and high school? not sure what it would look like, but i'm kind of obsessed with the idea. maybe a collection of reflections of teachers (male and female, of-color and not) who have tried to push students to confront white supremacist capitalist patriarchy in the classroom using the work of women of color, a la rethinking schools?

dunno, dunno, dunno. but if you read this and think you might be interested, holler back.

a quote from michelle obama (god, she's smart):

“I realized that gnawing sense of self doubt that lies within all of us is within our own heads. The truth is we are more ready and more prepared than we even know. My own life is proof of that.”

what privilege do i have?

answer: a lot. before i even complete this "privilege meme" that has been circulating (and which i picked up from what tami said via racialicious, which originated at social class and quakers), i know that i will stepping forward quite a bit.

i am an african-american woman who was born to two "upwardly mobile" black professionals who themselves came from what would be considered the black upper crust in their towns of origin. not doctors and lawyers, mind you, but highly regarded people in their communities. my grandaddy on my mom's side was the first black mayor of his town (this is especially impressive because he was an ex-con). my grandaddy on my dad's side was the contractor that built much of grambling, louisana (go tigers!). i have privilege up the wazoo. my family had to work for it, harder and probably for longer than our white counterparts, but i have it.

what does this mean? i dunno, but it reminds me of the exercises i used to facilitate in college (PDAC, stand up!). go figure.

my "meme" below.

and yes, i'm a month late on this, but i don't care. i wanna!


Father went to college
Father finished college
Mother went to college
Mother finished college
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor.
Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
Were read children's books by a parent
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
Went to a private high school
Went to summer camp
Had a private tutor before you turned 18
Family vacations involved staying at hotels
Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
There was original art in your house when you were a child
Had a phone in your room before you turned 18
You and your family lived in a single family house
Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
You had your own room as a child
Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
Had your own TV in your room in High School
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
Went on a cruise with your family
Went on more than one cruise with your family
Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family


**
so i've had a chance to think about this a bit more, and what i think is most interesting about this privilege exercise is what is left out. for every relative i have this is an attorney, physician, or lawyer, i have at least one who works for UPS, is a high school or college dropout, or is sick with an illness that will probably kill them, even though it shouldn't. i don't want to go into a lot of "excuses" for the privileges i have, but i do think that this exercise, and others like it, do little to usefully complicate discussions of power and privilege. it was interesting to think about these markers of "class," i guess, but i'm not sure what it really tells me about the things i have access to that are important. as usual, what interests me more is where these things intersect with markers of other aspects of my identity. that checklist might take awhile to put together. anyone have any suggestions?

things that rock about today

1. today is the day after the second meeting of my ItAG (and the first that everyone attended). we played games from "games for actors and non-actors," introduced ourselves, and started to get a taste of what we all bring to the super-positive, awesomely radical educators' table. i left at 9:15 feeling radiant and expansive, and exhausted. good talk about good books is like crack to me, without the horrible post-hit crash :).
2. my promotion (as lukewarm as i felt/feel about it) was announced at work today. it's good to have it finally out in the open. it's also good to have a great officemate to make sense of it all with.
3. restaurant week dinner at amalia with heather and nicole. FAB! from caldo verde to balsamic-glazed short ribs to warm chocolate cake with vanilla foam and caramel ice cream, fancy dinner was worth every single penny. add the pinot/cabernet/syrah blend to that, and you've got near-perfection. good eats and good conversation-- a great way to end a wonderful 48 hours.

what's up next in this oh-so-blissful week?

• a pan-african literary forum reading at the new school tomorrow featuring our friend c. n. adichie
• maybe first fridays at the bronx museum?
• maybe first saturdays at the brooklyn museum?
• maybe a kinda silly obama-love event at piano's on thursday?

i dunno. but having to decide between this many awesome choices is priceless.

color of change rocks my (and your) socks off

not endorsing one candidate, but rather allowing their audience to speak their minds. i love smart people who do smart things. become a member of colorofchange.org and share your thoughts, too-- i want to hear what you/we have to say!

Dear ****,

As the primary heats up, celebrities, politicians, newspapers, unions and advocacy organizations are lining up behind presidential candidates--trying to use their personal or institutional power to influence voters.

At ColorOfChange.org, we believe that it's our collective voice that can bring about profound political change for Black America. The 2008 presidential election is a crucial time for us to make clear where we stand as folks who are engaged, informed and committed to the interests of Black Americans. Today, we want to give you a chance to tell the world which candidate you support. Can you take a moment to vote for your favorite candidate?

http://www.colorofchange.org/poll/

Because not all ColorOfChange members support the same candidate, we don't think it would be right for us, as an organization, to endorse one of them. But we absolutely want to give ColorOfChange members an opportunity to use our collective power to elect a President who will defend and advocate for the interests of Black folks. After you vote in our online poll, we'll publicize the results. It's a way for the media to see where ColorOfChange members stand, and it gives each of us a chance to see what other ColorOfChange members think.

Within the next couple of days, we'll send you the results of our poll and information on how you can support your favorite candidate by donating or volunteering for his or her campaign. Using our individual and collective power to influence the 2008 election will help us demonstrate our power to influence electoral politics and ensure that the next president stands up for our interests.

Can you take a moment to vote for your favorite presidential candidate?

http://www.colorofchange.org/poll/

Thank You and Peace,

-- James, Van, Gabriel, Meryvn, Clarissa, Andre and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org PAC team
January 29th, 2008

sexy sexy

South Carolina Unofficial Results
Democratic Presidential Preference Primary - January 26, 2008

Statewide Results

	Joe	Hillary	Chris	John	Mike	Dennis	Barack	Bill
	Biden	Clinton	Dodd	Edwards	Gravel	Kucinich	Obama	Richardson
Totals	78	14317	33	12263	22	63	28566	90
Percentages	0.1%	25.8%	0.1%	22.1%	0.0%	0.1%	51.5%	0.2%

this really just gets me going. i cannot WAIT for february 5th, and my turn in that booth. ugh, it's so nice to be excited about politics in this country for a change!

hmmm. was bill clinton the first black junkie president?

cuz he's talking like his brain's on drugs. you know, like those saturday morning commercials with the egg in the frying pan? i mean, straight crack talk. what is this?

"At the Greenville event, Bill brought up Obama’s joking reference to him in the debate, about how Obama would have to see whether Bill was a good dancer before deciding whether he was the first black president.

Bill, naturally, turned it into a competition. 'I would be willing to engage in a dancing competition with him, even though he’s much younger and thinner than I am,' he said. 'If I’m going to get in one of these brother contests,' he added, 'at least I should be entitled to an age allowance.'"
- from Maureen Dowd's 1.23 op-ed in the Times, emphasis mine

Okay, so, granted, Obama's "joking reference" was a little silly, as it really relies on a sort of critical consciousness that we can't take for granted in America's voters. I mean, why set people up to potentially think you mean what you say? That's a quick way to end up Dave Chappelle-like, running off in a frenzy of self-loathing and getting lumped in with Mariah Carey's really crazy ass.

So Obama has been a little silly and given a setup, but what does Bill say? Bill's response to this "joke" is a suggestion that he is, in fact, at least as black as Barack-- now he as a white man is eligible for a "brother contest"-- go fuckin' figure! And I was sitting here thinking that a white man that goes through his life with all the privileges of white supremacy at his back, and who has SERVED AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES would have to acknowledge that there's really no way for his dumb ass to be black, literally or figuratively. You would think that he would acknowledge the assertions of the completely idiotic black leaders that feel the need to open their mouths every G-D day and then modestly back away. You would think he would intelligently point out the differences in his experiences and that of a black person, and express a sense of flattery, but that the assertions minimize the reality of racism and discrimination in this country. You would think.

Basically, it would be hoped that he would put down the crack pipe, if only for a minute. Bill, as we "blacks" often say to each other, you've GOT to do better.

soooo in love with the new layout

i don't quite know what to do with myself :).

first off, a conversation had with my parents (and particularly my mother) over breakfast one day during the winter vacation got me thinking about the importance of memory and of truth. my siblings and i are fortunate enough to be one generation after the civil rights era, and hearing my mother's own truth, one that is absolutely shaped by her location as an african-american and a woman born into the sixties, is always a wake up call. to really understand the ways in which she and my father suffered to make our my reality one in which the horrors that they witnessed are almost unbelievable is to be deeply, almost painfully humbled.

humility is where i start today.

BAM started their ticket giveaway this morning at 8:30 or something similarly as crazy, so i won't be there this morning after all. i'll be sitting at my desk working feverishly away on this hip-hop curriculum i'm writing, hoping that what i'm doing helps, in its own little way, to further the dream.