Ichabod Ebenezer's Blog, page 2

Patrick From High School

Image by Hands off my tags! Michael Gaida from PixabayPatrick and I were friends back in high school,

but I hadn’t seen him since I left the state for law school. Mia, on the other hand, was hot. So, I kept up with her on all the social platforms.

She’s the one that told me Patrick was in trouble.

I remembered him as a good kid—he just wasn’t a good student. Last I knew, he had a job lined up on a fishing trawler. One of those ‘Deadliest Catch’ deals. Mia told me that he lost a couple fingers reaching for a pulley during a storm.

A dismembered hand wasn’t uncommon on a trawler, but that was enough for him, and he quit to be a mechanic.

Life was looking up for a while. He found a girlfriend and had a kid. But the good times didn’t last.

Two years ago, his shop was raided. Turned out to be a chop-shop, and Patrick was convicted as an accessory. Mia should have called me then. I couldn’t represent him, but I could have helped. Whether he was actually guilty is irrelevant. He did his time and got out four days ago.

Mia called me yesterday. I’m still piecing things together, but his girlfriend was murdered, and his handprint was found in her blood. Mia swore Patrick didn’t do it, but the idiot ran. She could contact him, but he wouldn’t come in.

I used my connections to take a look at the evidence. Cops were on the scene before she bled out, and the only print was Patrick’s right hand. Even without the murder weapon, it was enough.

Mia arranged a meeting in this abandoned garage. As Patrick emerged and shook my hand, I knew the evidence was planted. His two missing fingers came from his right hand.

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If you enjoyed this story, check out Beyond the Rail and Other Nightmares. Thirteen tales of horror and dark fiction certain to keep you reading just one more.

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Beyond the Rail is Officially Released Today!

Maya Angelou said, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”Available Today in Paperback or KindleAs someone who has had dozens of stories crawling around inside my skull,

I can attest to that. But just writing down those stories isn’t always enough.

Today I’ve released thirteen of them in one volume. Some of them have been keeping me company for years now, but the entire collection has been with me constantly for at least six months, so I am overjoyed to finally share it with you.

Beyond the Rail and Other Nightmares
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0963F5PL

I want you to meet LaThanya, Phillip, Chelsea, and John, Agnes and Kevin, and all the others. I want you to face the ghost in the basement of Morris and Tennyson, and dig up the floorboards in Derek’s apartment. I hope you’ll share a drink with David Quill and hear his story. I hope you’ll wish Elie comfort in her grieving. But whatever you do, don’t stare too long at Dixon’s shadow.

But here’s the important part:

If any of that sounds good to you and you do choose to read Beyond the Rail and Other Nightmares, I want to hear from you. I’m dying to talk about the characters, their adversaries, all of it. I want to geek out over these little vignettes the way I did over Star Wars when I was a kid.

It might sound weird that I want to sit down and book club things I wrote, but like I said, I’ve carried them around on my own for too long. So what if I’m a little more invested in this than I was back with Star Wars? Sure, I want you to like these stories, but I’d rather talk about what you hated most than play with my toys on my own any longer. Today is my turn to share, and I really want to see what you come up with.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0963F5PL3

Oh, and if you got a pre-release copy, today’s the day to leave that honest review. Thank you so much for the support you’ve shown me.

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A Holiday to Remember

When Ichabod offered the idea of this post to me, I had no idea what to write.

I had only recently (in the last five years) learned about Juneteenth, although my grandmother was from Alabama, and my grandfather was from Texas! Both states celebrated Juneteenth, and yet it hadn’t been passed down. My mother learned about Juneteenth from the television show Blackish. When we asked my grandfather why he hadn’t taught us about the holiday, he said, “What was the point?” 

If an 80-year-old Black man doesn’t care to celebrate, why should the rest of us? Why should anyone care or celebrate Juneteenth? 

To quote the great Maya, “No one of us can be free until everybody is free.” 

July 4, 1776 may be the “start”of this country, but it’s not the birth of liberty for all. For the over five million enslaved Americans, 1776 was just a day when the flags changed. 

The Juneteenth flag, designed in 1997 by Boston Ben Haith, Verlene Hines, Azim, Eliot Des, and Lisa Jeanne Graf 

Now Junetheen is a Holiday: “It’s the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was created in 1983.” Yay. Now people understand that on this day in1865, Enslaved peoples were finally fully freed. What does that mean? The end of slavery?

Some fun facts about enslavement:

■ Over 20 million Africans were captured for the slave trade. More than half died before they reached the coast. More than 10 MILLION AFRICANS DIED IN ROUTE TO THEIR PRISONS/PLANTATIONS.

■ Thirst, starvation and violence on the slave ships of the Middle Passage were so overwhelming, and suicide attempts so common, that sea captains placed netting around the ships to prevent the loss of human cargo and profit.

■ The 1730 slave code of the New York General Assembly decreed it unlawful for more than three enslaved people to meet on their own, and authorized “‘each town’ to employ ‘a common whipper for their slaves.’

■ Slave patrolling is one of the origins of policing in the old south.

■ “The medical experiments of J. Marion Sims, the father of modern gynecology, included cutting the bodies of Black women without anesthesia in attempts to perfect a surgical technique.”

“AFTER” SLAVERY

■ Laws governing slavery were replaced with Black Codes governing free Black people — making the criminal-justice system central to new strategies of racial control. These “Black Codes” led to the imprisonment of unprecedented numbers of Black men, women, and children, who were returned to slavery-like conditions through forced labor and convict leasing systems that lasted well into the 20th century.

■ Convict leasing was a scheme in which White policymakers invented offenses used to target Black people: vagrancy, loitering, being a group of Black people out after dark, seeking employment without a note from a former enslaver. 

■ Criminal laws also were used against Civil Rights protestors, who were denounced as “law breakers” and faced arrest, incarceration, and police brutality. 

■ From 1882 to 1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred in the U.S

■ Beginning in the 1890s, segregation and disenfranchisement laws known as “Jim Crow” represented a formal, codified system of racial apartheid that dominated the American South for three quarters of a century. 

TODAY

■ 1 in 9 Black men under age 25 lives under some form of restrained liberty: in prison, in jail, on probation, or on parole.

■ One out of every three Black boys born today can expect to be sentenced to prison

■ In 2014, African Americans constituted 2.3 million, or 34%, of the total 6.8 million correctional population.

■ 1 in every 1,000 Black men can expect to be killed by police

Where are we, 400 years after the start? What have we learned? 

Slavery wasn’t just hard work and prejudice. It was a systematic dehumanization and torture, built to destory and rewrite the mind and spirit–keep the body. This dehumanization process continued for generations and its effects are still felt today. Everywhere. 

“In her 1619 essay on medical inequality,”Linda Villarosa cites studies indicating that myths about Black people, such as their resistance to pain, continue to influence modern medical education, resulting in inadequate pain management of Black and Hispanic people compared with White people.”

On Thursday, June 17th, President Biden signed an order officially making Juneteenth a federal holiday. 

Juneteenth will be a holiday, but Breonna Taylors’ murderers are walking free. 

Juneteenth will be a holiday, but police violence continues to endanger and kill Black lives. 

Juneteenth will be a holiday, but over 20 states have proposed or passed laws restricting or banning the teaching of “divisive concepts” on race and racism, or the new buzz word: critical race theory. 

What is that? 

Critical race theory:

“The core idea is that racism is a social construct, and that it is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal systems and policies. The basic tenets of critical race theory emerged out of a framework for legal analysis in the late 1970s and early 1980s created by legal scholars Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Richard Delgado, among others.” 

For those of you who don’t recognize Kimberle Crenshaw, she is the brilliant mind who created the term: intersectionality. 

Intersectionality says that everything is connected. That race and class and gender are interconnected in how the world views us and treats us. That one person’s power is another person’s oppression. Basically: “certain aspects of who you are will increase your access to the good things or your exposure to the bad things in life.”

I taught my high school students about intersectionality this past year. The entire learning process was virtual, and I’ve been trying to integrate after school programming that would keep them both interested and engaged–where we could discuss and understand their experiences through the lens of current political and equal rights movements. I started by creating unique programming and events around each heritage month. I began with Black History Month, then Women’s History Month, followed by Queer History Month, and AAPI History Month. I taught about a diverse group of individuals from different cultures, genders, and sexualities.  I taught about the history surrounding these cultures and how the society at the time shaped the individual. History gives us context. Gives us the big picture. It also is a map for why things are the way they are. But not the way things have to be. That’s the point of critically analyzing race: to create students who understand their history, how history’s problems are manifested in real world consequences today for people of color, and how they have the power to both recognize and dismantle those problems at the root. 

A Black Lives Matter Juneteenth flagNow teachers are being forced to erase parts of history to avoid breaking the law.

“As English teacher Mike Stein told Chalkbeat Tennessee about the new law: “History teachers can not adequately teach about the Trail of Tears, the Civil War, and the civil rights movement. English teachers will have to avoid teaching almost any text by an African American author because many of them mention racism to various extents.””

Without these vital tools, without the freedom to teach our true and un-edited histories, our students will not have the context for their lives, for their societies, and for their futures. Critical race theory is understanding that America was built on tenets of racism and its embedded in the framework of our democracy. Until that fact is acknowledged and not hidden behind “the past,” then we can’t hope to create a better future.

But if all we have are holidays. If our students get Martin Luther King Day off from school but are never taught who or what he fought for. If we have Juneteenth celebrations but can’t acknowledge that Black lives Matter. These are just celebrations without any context. Without history. It’s meaningless. It’s putting a costume on a volcano: no matter how you dress it, it’s gonna burn. 

Here’s a map of all the states where critical race theory is under attack: 

https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/map-where-critical-race-theory-is-under-attack/2021/06

As always, these attacks are not new. In the early 1900s, there was fear about communism and socialism and “progressive” ideas. But today we have a chance to stop this from continuing. 

I’ll wrap up this post with a quote from a joint statement signed by 97 organizations expressing their  “firm opposition” to the legal attempts to repress the subject of race in school.     

“Knowledge of the past exists to serve the needs of the living. In the current context, this includes an honest reckoning with all aspects of that past. Americans of all ages deserve nothing less than a free and open exchange about history and the forces that shape our world today, an exchange that should take place inside the classroom as well as in the public realm generally. To ban the tools that enable those discussions is to deprive us all of the tools necessary for citizenship in the twenty-first century. A white-washed view of history cannot change what happened in the past. A free and open society depends on the unrestricted pursuit and dissemination of knowledge.”

This Juneteenth I call on people of every color to learn.

To learn about the REAL history of your country and how that history STILL HINDERS the lives of Black Americans today. 

LEARN about slavery and how it effects Black Americans today. TEACH it to others. REMEMBER those ten million lives murdered in route to generational torture and enslavment. REMEMBER what it truly meant for those five million enslaved peoples when they were finally free. REMEMBER what happens when Black people dare to live their lives. REMEMBER Tulsa, and Emmett Till, and Breonna Taylor.     Happy Juneteenth Ya’ll!!        

For More Information:

http://www.americanabolitionists.com/fact-sheet.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/16/arts/critical-race-theory-scholars.html

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Chelsey Monroe is a builder of worlds. She graduated UCLA as Valedictorian with a focus on playwriting and brought new worlds to life on stage; after college, using her theatrical foundation, she worked for six years in the magical land of Hollywood as a wardrobe stylist and assistant director, but her true passion lay in creation through language. So she packed way too many suitcases and left Los Angeles for Japan to explore the real world and teach English.

Currently, Chelsey lives in San Francisco, California and writes fantasy, horror, afrofuturism, and YA novels. As a woman of color, she strives to be the intersectional eye lacking in the grand narrative, telling history, fantasy, and horror from alternative angles. Her characters defy norms and heroic tropes. Her goddesses are single-mothers juggling two jobs while her gods are ex-convicts and reformed addicts; her princesses are gender-nonconforming, and her princes prefer men. Inspired by the possibility she finds in authors like Octavia Butler and Tomi Adeyemi, Chelsey uses fantasy to create dialogues between cultures and to reimagine our history and society. Her goal is to inspire people to move beyond the limiting patriarchal narratives offered and work to build their own universes—to be in control of their own stories. Chelsey’s work has won the San Francisco Writers Conference Kevin Smokler Scholarship twice, runner-up in the Women On Writing (WOW) Spring 2019 Flash Fiction contest, the Murphy School of Writing Get Away to Write Scholarship, the Yrsa Daley-Ward 2020 Constellation Scholarship, the Writers Studio 2021 Ralph Dickey Scholarship, and 1st place at the House of Blues Martin Luther King, Jr. Poetry Contest. When she is not writing, Chelsey loves traveling and exploring new cultures, reading late into the night, and baking high-calorie sweets. You can find more of her work on her instagram 

@https://www.instagram.com/wilde4writing/

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Black History Started Long Before We Were Brought Here

As a child. I used to think that history was boring.

To me, it was nothing more than a bunch of stories about dusty White men wearing gray wigs. What was worse was whenever I learned about African-American history, it was simply just more stories about these same dusty White men, only we proceeded to discuss how they were oppressing my ancestors and the subsequent fights for freedom that followed. These fights for freedom remained the singular major “accomplishment” of my people in history while White men were ripe with hundreds of inventions, discoveries, empires, and civilizations that were the envy of most of the world’s people. As I got older, I started to get a bit of an obsession over games that took place in historical times. Warriors fighting with swords and wearing armor alongside archers firing arrows at their enemies with surgical precision. 

I saw numerous examples of this from the Greek Spartans to the Christian knights, the Arabs and their iconic scimitars, and the Japanese Samurai with their razor-sharp Katanas. Even the peoples of Mesoamerica with their largely stone age technology had arms, armor and architecture that were frequently mentioned in our education and mainstream media systems. Entire documentaries about the Inca civilization, ancient China, and just about every part of the world. Disney had movies representing virtually all major cultural groups of the world including Mulan for East Asia, Pocahontas as a Native North American, The Emperor’s New Groove takes place in Pre-Columbian South America, Lilo & Stitch and Moana representing Polynesian culture, Aladdin displaying Arab culture, and the Jungle Book taking place in India. Of course, with Disney being a Western company, it came as no surprise or bother that the majority of their movies were centered on White/Western protagonists. However, one day in my mid-teens, it hit me. Where is Africa in all of this context? 

Disney has been around for nearly a century

and they only have two animated movies that take place in Africa. Tarzan being the first, but the protagonist is a White man who lives wild in the jungle and is considered “The King of the Jungle.” The second one is the Lion King which features no human beings whatsoever and only negligible African culture is incorporated. The names of some of the characters for example. Additionally, the plot itself is based on a piece of European literature. It took Disney well over a half century to finally feature a Black protagonist but again the story was based on a European legend and the princess lived in the modern day United States. Her prince wasn’t even a Black man and hailed from a fictional country. The villain was a Black man who practiced voodoo, an indigenous African religion that was portrayed as an evil thing or “black magic.”

All media representation that I saw on Africa whether it was for the purposes of education or entertainment, it was always innately negative and focused on poverty, civil strife, or just generally primitive people or wild animals. No talk of past African civilizations, innovations, kingdoms, or empires are ever present in any sort of discussion with the sole exception of Egypt. Unfortunately I assumed that these discussions weren’t brought up simply because well… there was nothing really to discuss about African history. Every National Geographic documentary about poor children with fly-covered faces living in dung huts in the middle of the Congo offered a snapshot of all Africa is and ever was if not influenced by the White man’s civilization. However, I took one step that I feel most people in my situation never bother taking.

I used Google… Click to view larger image

It only took a few Google searches to realize that all of these assumptions were incorrect and that it’s simply a lingering relic of White supremacism that continues to perpetuate these erroneous images of what Africa is, has been, or is capable of being. Africa has historically been rich with civilizations, human innovation, and complex cultures. These cultures were impressive in their own right, largely independent of the influence of Eurasian cultures.

I’ve since dedicated not only my YouTube channel but my entire life to bringing this fact to light.

My primary goal in life is to show and teach all of this to the world. I want  to show that Africa is a continent that abounds in rich history, culture, technology, art, architecture, or more bluntly, HISTORY. History that is seldom told. Popular history channels with hundreds of videos tend to take a skip over the African continent. Documentary companies give it a miss. Educational services look elsewhere.

It’s not always racist or malicious. It’s not always antagonistic or hateful. It’s just simply… there. A relic of the past that simply hasn’t been mended yet. From Nothing is dedicated to reversing that through animation, education, entertainment and above all else. Inspiration.

~~~~~~~~~~
Jabari Walker is the creator and host of From Nothing.

https://youtube.com/fromnothing

https://fromnothing.info/sources

https://twitch.tv/TheEmpireFN

https://discord.gg/4Xuh74W

https://patreon.com/FromNothing

https://twitter.com/TheEmpireFN

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Influences: Why I Write Black Characters

It may seem obvious, but I don’t write Black characters just because I am Black.

My Blackness has always been dotted with other cultural influences and I had excellent opportunities to see and experience different things as a young person.

San Francisco Oakland Bay BridgeI am from Oakland, CA.

Some would say the area is a little rough, but if you look closer, you see the beauty of multiculturalism everywhere. Every Black neighborhood had a token White family, just like White neighborhoods had their token Blacks. There was a Chinatown and for miles up and down a particular street (aptly named International Blvd) you could find Elote before Elote was cool. Right on the corner, sold from a cart with questionable cleanliness, there was corn, cojita, mayo, chili powder and lime. And it was good. I won’t even get into how close biriyani, Korean BBQ, lumpia, Egyptian, Jewish and any number of foods or cultural experiences were to me at any one time.

Food wasn’t the end of it, as directly over the bridge (you pick which one) I could arrive in San Francisco where I could see any number of performances spanning dance, music, and theatre from a multitude of nations. Attractions that emphasized cultural awareness were ALWAYS cool.

We cherish cultures in the Bay Area.

In addition to that, my parents were very different people. My mom was straight up, old school R&B (Marvin Gaye and Al Green) while my dad was Rock and Roll (Joan Jett and Nine Inch Nails). Pile that on with the number of times we moved (including one special time we lived in Stone Mountain, GA, very close to a confederate monument…) and I was as open to differences as could be.

When I started writing, I was a middle schooler and we were back living in Oakland. Back then I just wrote about what I liked and modeled my characters after my friends. I drifted away from writing until about 2010 when I was invited to a Facebook writers group and that experience was eye opening. I made friends I’ll never forget and thank god for them because they showed me how important it was for me to express myself through writing again. I also learned about publishing and released my first book in 2014.

That book, Inside Out, is about a detective working in Oakland to catch a serial killer.

Inside Out, by Tiffany Christina LewisAnd yes, my detective is Black.

His girlfriend is Black.

Lots of his co-workers (police officers) are Black.

The book reflected my life in Oakland, not just pure Blackness, because of course we don’t exist without other humans around us. The district attorney is Hispanic as well as my characters’ supervisor. The coroner is White as well as the quirky lab tech but at the end of the day, I wrote a story where the most important person is Black.

Now, I am getting to why I did that. Thanks for sticking with me.

My main character is Michael Taylor and outside of the fact that he is based on a certain celebrity that I had a crush on during that time, there was no way he couldn’t be Black. During the time that I was writing and releasing this book, I was keeping my eyes on the books around me. I was kinda bothered by the fact that so many of the books I’d been seeing, traditionally or independently published, showed Blacks in a less than flattering light. I was tired of seeing a ton of books about drug dealing and criminals in the Black community.

YES. Those things are a part of our culture, not excluding my Oakland culture, but those behaviors are a product of the negativity we have been forced to live with for hundreds of years. If every Black man or woman who engaged in criminal activity had a genuine choice to continue that or have a prosperous position that would help them feed their family, I promise they would pick the better path.

That’s why, my characters are Black AND doing well.

Michael is a detective above corruption, he’s not a womanizer, he believes in monogamy, he’s intelligent, he saves money, he wants to be better, he’s in good shape, he’s polite, loves his family, he’s tough and determined.

I wrote what I wanted to see.

I want people who read my books, Black, White or otherwise, to understand that Black people can be more than drug dealers, killers and gang bangers and that Black authors know about more than “the streets”.

Don’t box Black authors in.

We continually show that we have the capacity to create worlds that take readers away from their toil, we enlighten and entertain.

Additionally, I wanted to show people that reading Black characters is not a genre.

Just as Blacks should be accepted everywhere, so should they be in many kinds of books. Just as they can be villains, they can be heroes. Just as they are killers, they can be healers. Just as they are criminals, they can solve crime.

I had many opportunities as a child to see positivity in my Blackness but not everyone has that experience, so, I write Black characters because they inspire me and because I hope my characters will inspire (all) others.

~~~~~~~~~~
This article was previously posted on Chase Connor Books and has since been revised by the author.

Tiffany is the author of six books and has been published more than a dozen times in anthologies and magazines. She is also a publisher at Rebellion LIT who works tirelessly to support other authors looking to bring their art to the world. She resides in Sacramento, CA with her family and Miniature Pinscher.

Book Links:

Ready: A Michael Taylor Prequel (FREE)

Michael Taylor Series on Amazon

Alyssa Fairfield

Helpless: A Short Story Collection (Multiple Genres)

Or, one link to rule them all

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Juneteenth is More Than a Holiday: It’s a Lifestyle

I am an African American woman born in Southeast Alabama in the mid-1970s,

but I didn’t learn about Juneteenth until I was an adult. This is surprising to me now, since I was raised by Black parents who taught in segregated and integrated Alabama school systems and since I grew up in the same county where my ancestors lived post-slavery. It’s also surprising since I attended Spelman College, a Historically Black College that boasts alumna such as Walgreen’s CEO Rosalind Brewer and Children’s Defense Fund Founder and president emerita, Marian Wright Edelman.

Being surrounded by Blackness in all its beauty and its forms for the first part 20+ years of my life should have introduced me to African Americans’ “real” Independence Day, shouldn’t it? But why didn’t it?  

I realize now that the joy of being Black may have overshadowed Juneteenth.

Growing up in my community was like celebrating Black History Month 365 days a year. Most of the older Black people I knew attended the Henry Country Training School (HCTS), which was built by Rosa Parks’ father, James McCauley. Mr. McCauley was a carpenter and stonemason born in Abbeville, Alabama, the city where HCTS was built. This school was the source of Black excellence before anyone knew what #BlackGirlMagic or #BlackBoyJoy were.

Long before I was born, Black families in this community rallied around each other to educate children who knew school was the alternative to working in the cotton fields. This shared knowledge and love connected Black people like glue.

To me, Juneteenth is recognition of freedom and belonging in a country that wasn’t founded with Black people in mind.

It’s about people rallying together to create better lives for each other. It’s about moving from being 3/5ths of a person to 100% human. It’s about a desire to live one’s best life regardless of demographics.

As people debate critical race theory and its role in the narrative of the U.S. history, I rely on the stories of my people and the pride my ancestors had in home and land ownership, the acquisition of advanced degrees, and the opportunity to educate those who came after them.

Racial injustice is not a topic of the past.

We have not achieved equity in this nation. More than a one-day celebration, Juneteenth should be a time of reflection and for America to thank Black Americans for their unnamed sacrifices, for their commitment to advancing this nation, and for their desire to work toward a more perfect union.

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Monica F. Cox, Ph.D. is a professor, entrepreneur, and change agent with a passion for diversity, equity, and inclusion. She is the CEO of STEMinent LLC. For more information about Dr. Cox and coaching, speaking, and consulting opportunities, check out linktr.ee/drmonicacox, follow her on social media @drmonicacox, or e-mail her at info@drmonicacox.com.

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My STEM is for the Streets

Carlotta A. Berry, PhDI recently discovered a phrase similar to this title on a t-shirt at STEMNoire.org.

I had to immediately purchase. Then, I found an organization with a similar name online. This organization’s goal is to make STEM accessible to underprivileged students. In addition, to encourage girls, minoritized, marginalized and those historically disenfranchised to engage in STEM.

Since it’s discovery, I cannot get this phrase out of my head and I feel like it is a sign. My STEM is truly for the streets. I recently got full professor and became endowed chair of electrical and computer engineering at my university. So, I am now at the point in my academic journey where I feel my work can no longer be contained by a classroom. I am one of only a few Black Women faculty and when examined through the lens of tenure, those numbers are even worse. If we now scale by engineering and robotics the numbers are abysmal. Due to the low numbers and lack of diversity, women and people of color in the academy typically have invisible labor and serve as pioneers and trailblazers. This means that similar to other Black women, I have always done more service in my community than most. For example, I held robotics workshops for girl scouts, mentored my daughter’s all-girls FLL/VEX robotics team and judged FIRST robotics competitions. How could I possibly do more?

Then 2020 answered that question.

Last year was rough for several reasons including the pandemic, working from home, homeschooling kids, summer of social justice and chaotic presidential election. However, if not for this perfect storm I would not have been able to accomplish even half of what I did. First of all, I was on sabbatical from my university and got a well earned break from teaching controls and robotics, serving on committees and doing research with students. This time away from the rat race of academia, gave me the opportunity for recuperation, reflection and rejuvenation. Did I mention I love alliteration? This allowed me to teach my daughter 7th grade pre-algebra since she was out of school for 15 months, mostly being taught by a computer. I was able to return to industry after a twenty four year absence to work as an automation engineer. Furthermore, to address the marketing problem, I worked with colleagues to create a fiction series about Black women STEM PhDs.

After the death of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor,

racial profiling of bird watcher, Christian Cooper, and #BlackInTheIvory trending on Twitter, the STEM community was inspired to act. It started with Black Birders Week in June 2020 and from there the floodgates opened up. I was able to work with colleagues to form communities to address racial bias and inequity in STEM fields. This brought about the creation of the non-profit organizations, Black in Engineering and Black in Robotics. Through them, we created a call to action for anti-racist institutions, formed partnerships with industries, amplified our concerns, and connected with allies. We also created a messaging and media campaign to amplify, normalize and promote Black people in STEM. This media campaign is where my STEM hit the streets. I worked with colleagues to produce videos, became much more active on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn. I post robotics and engineering fun facts, black history month, national robotics week, and Juneteenth videos.

Initially, I struggled to define my new vision for my role as an academic.

I finally settled upon NoireSTEMinism or I am a NoireSTEMinist. This means that I bring robotics and STEM to people and people to robotics and STEM to diversify the profession. I used engineering and robotics to make connections with people of all ages, genders, races, ethnicities, and backgrounds. I took my STEM from the classroom to meet the people where they are. I feel like I have been so much more powerful and impactful in this last year than I ever was in my 18 years in an engineering classroom. By taking it to the streets, I have earned , been featured in magazines and newspapers, given international presentations, connected with new people, done numerous podcasts, and made presentations to corporations.

My desire is for engineering to reflect the world we live in by changing the face of STEM. If we are to solve the problems of the world, then the engineering and STEM thought leaders must have the same diversity as the world. Research shows that diverse teams yield the most unique and efficient results to problems, so the STEM academy and engineering profession has to solve its diversity problem. Teaching is my spiritual gift, ministry and life’s purpose and I now have an entirely new way to do it. So I want to conclude by encouraging other academics to consider a paradigm shift. One where we view social media through the perspective of making professional connections with colleagues and collaborators. One where we amplify our work to get it to the masses in a way that journals and conferences would never do. One where we recruit others to the profession by showing the normality of academics.

https://linktr.ee/CarlottaBerryMedia

https://linktr.ee/DrCarlottaABerry

Carlotta Berry is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. She is also the Lawrence J. Giacoletto Endowed Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering. She was recently awarded the TechPoint Foundation for Youth Bridge Builder Award and named an American Society of Engineering Education Fellow. She is co-founder of Black In Engineering with Dr. Monica Cox and Dr. Tahira Reid. She is co-founder of Black In Robotics with several colleagues including Dr. Monroe Kennedy and Dr. Ayanna Howard.

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Juneteenth Blog Takeover

I stole this image from Kent State University and will remove it if requested.This coming Saturday is Juneteenth,

a holiday that you may or may not celebrate, but one which may soon become a national holiday. Just in case you’ve heard of it, but you don’t know precisely what it is, here’s the two-paragraph version of history:

On September 22, 1862, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, an executive order freeing all slaves in Confederate states on January 1st of 1863 (giving Southern states time to join the Union and thereby keep hold of their slaves, but that’s a post for another time).

Word spread like wildfire via the usual routes, but Texas escaped most of the fighting due to its isolation, and it wasn’t until nearly two and a half years later when General Gordon Granger rode into Galveston and read off General Order No. 3, that the Black folk in much of Texas got the word. June 19th, 1865. Juneteenth.

I’ve said it before, but things happen in America (maybe in this world) only when it’s about damn time, and this was one shining example.

But the past year (and then some) has shown definitively that we’ve still got work to do. And by we, I mean you and me. I’m not saying you need to quit your job and join the next protest du jour, I’m not even saying you can’t continue to put your family first. We’ve all got struggles. So let me by telling you why you should care:

You directly benefit from diversity.

I liken it to brainstorming. You collect all the ideas you can come up with, then you narrow it down to the best ones. The thing is, people from different backgrounds are going to approach a problem differently and therefore come up with different ideas, giving you more choices and a potential best idea you never would have thought of.

The world will always face problems. If you’ve got a room full of monoculture homogenous people with similar backgrounds (think White cis male) working to fix them, you’ll get a lot of the same idea. It’s just that simple.

Our children need a diverse room, and this is how I believe we get there.

■ Support diversity programs in education. We’ve got to make it the norm that no matter a kid’s background, they can feel like a career choice in the sciences and leadership is a legitimate option for them.

■ Support minority-owned businesses. Often times, the only difference between a minority-owned business and a White-owned business is establishment. The White-owned business is established, and the minority-owned business is just trying to get off the ground. If we keep going to the former just because of name recognition, the latter goes out of business, and we lose out on diversity in our region. Again. A reader of my blog recently sent me this list of 181 Black-owned businesses (categorized), and now I share it with you. https://www.websiteplanet.com/blog/support-black-owned-businesses/

■ Read what minorities write in your genre. I’m showing my bias as a writer here, but I believe books change us in positive ways. If you are already reading sci-fi anyway, why not give Afrofuturism a chance? I guarantee you there are some mind-blowing options out there. Personally, I love Maurice Broaddus’s work. If memoir is more your jam, the same applies. You can do this one without leaving your comfort zone (I.E., genre-of-choice), and I think you’re going to love it.

■ If you can’t participate, donate. I don’t have a ton left over at the end of the month, but I always set something aside for The United Negro College Fund and The Union Gospel Mission of Seattle, among others. If you collect what you can each month and send out checks toward the end of the year, you’ll be amazed what impact you can have and how good you will feel.

The above list is just my thoughts on the subject,

and this list will change with time. As norms change, we’ll find other areas to have an impact, and someone may say something tomorrow that will spark inspiration in me. This may even happen here on my site, because…

This week, I have some fantastic Black content creators, people I truly admire, who have agreed to share their thoughts and experiences here. At the very least, you are going to learn something interesting, but my hope is that something this week will resonate with you, and you’ll find a new passion in an unexpected area.

So come back tomorrow to hear from Dr. Carlotta A. Berry, Ph. D. for day one of my blog takeover, and every day through this Saturday, Juneteenth.

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Sand, Music, and Girls

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

Bobby stopped and adjusted the overlarge bag and his guitar so he could dump sand out of his shoes. He decided he didn’t need them, but three steps later in the blazing sun, he threw down his shoes and stood on them.

“Jesus, Frank, do you even know which one is ours?”

“Sorry,” Frank said. “I’ve only got the number, and it’s hard to read the address on these bungalows with the sun in my eyes.”

“Okay, but Carla’s gonna meet us there, right?” Bobby slipped back into his shoes and caught up with Frank. By the time he got there, his shoes were full of sand again.

“That’s what she said. And yes, she’s bringing her cousin, before you ask.”

Bobby emptied his shoes again, looking back at the comfort of his air-conditioned car in the parking lot. “She’d better be as hot as you say.”

Frank scoffed. “Like you bring so much to the table, Bob.” He started walking again. “Get over yourself.”

“I play guitar. Chicks dig music.”

Frank stopped dead in his tracks, turning to face Bobby. “And that’s another thing, dipwad. If you ever want to get with anyone, you’ve got to stop calling them chicks!”

The two faced off silently for a moment, then Frank added, “You’re reflecting badly on me.”

“What happened to you, Frank? You used to call them chicks.”

Frank shrugged, transferring the cooler to his other hand. “I grew up, man.”

He continued down the interminable row of beach shacks, squinting up at the numbers.

Bobby’s shoulders slumped and he followed. “Sorry. I’ll do better. Do you know if she likes music though?”

“Carla says she’s into ‘70s rock.”

Bobby smiled, adjusted the guitar on his back, and hurried to catch up.

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I will not be posting my usual flash fiction piece next week. Instead, I will be running another Blog Takeover for the entire week! Read more about it on Sunday. You can find all my guest blogger posts here.

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Sausage and Change

Image by Günther Schneider from Pixabay

Chris leaned back in the creaky chair into the shade of the nearby umbrella. The group at the next table burst into laughter, causing Chris to smile. He couldn’t understand any of their loud conversation, but he could see why Marlowe loved this little village.

As if on cue, Marlowe approached the table, balancing two plastic baskets atop massive glass mugs of beer. Marlowe plunked one down in front of him. “You don’t expect me to—”

Marlowe set the steaming baskets down before taking his seat. “You were saying?”

“Doesn’t matter.” The basket contained a soft pretzel, two pale, ugly sausages, a pile of wet cabbage leaves, and a large dollop of mustard. Chris poked at a sausage with his knife. “This is…?”

“Weisswurst. You only think you’ve had sausage before.” Marlowe bit into his, then slid down his chair while chewing loudly.

Chris couldn’t hold back a chuckle as he sliced into his own dubious tube of meat.

“Oh, my God,” he said around a mouthful.

“Right? This is why I brought you here. This and one other thing.”

Marlowe reached across the table, and after looking around at the other patrons, Chris took his hand.

Marlowe squeezed it. “I know coming out has been hard for you. The world isn’t changing fast enough, and it’s full of judgmental pricks.”

“Like my family,” Chris said.

“But this village is proof that change happens.” Marlowe twisted around, pointing toward the fountain across the square. “In July of 1974, two gay men were beaten to death next to that fountain.”

Chris tried to pull his hand away. Marlowe held tightly for a moment longer, then gently released him. “But now I want you to see what happens when I do this.”

Marlowe slid out of his chair, got down on one knee, and offered Chris a small, velvet box.

Chris reached for the box, his hand shaking, tears filling his eyes.

The crowd around them erupted in applause.

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