Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 991

Trailer: Rap and Religion: Understanding the Gangsta's God by Ebony Utley

Trailer for Rap and Religion: Understanding the Gangsta's God , a book by Dr. Ebony A. Utley. For more information visit RapandReligion.com

Edited by Steven Butler
Music by Robert Nelson III and Rey K

Christopher Emdin: 5 Reasons Why Romney's Urban Education Plan Is Disastrous

5 Reasons Why Romney's Urban Education Plan Is Disastrous by Christopher Emdin | HuffPost BlackVoices
In his most recent comments about education in the United States, and in a sampling of the rhetoric that will soon come from both parties as the presidential debates loom over the horizon, republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney pronounced that inequity in education is "the civil rights issue of our era." This statement is an echo of the sentiments expressed by President Obama a year ago when he also said that "[education] is the civil rights issue of our time." 
This positioning of educational inequities as a civil rights issue has been a part of the discourse for decades among educational researchers and experts lamenting the increasing educational gaps among youth from different race and class backgrounds. However, the most recent publicizing of these civil rights issues, and their visibility in the political sphere warrants some attention.
Last week, Mitt Romney released a paper outlining his education plans, and then visited a charter school in West Philadelphia, populated by urban youth of color, to tout his new message of civil rights in education for those who have been "denied an education" in urban schools.
As Romney walked the halls of the urban charter school, met with students and teachers, and provided sound bytes from his new education proposal, it became clear that there are certain messages about his urban education plan that those of us with a vested interest in the education of urban youth must pay attention to. This was made even more clear as he repeated these points during a number of speaking engagements where African-American and Latino voters gathered.
1) "As president, I'm going to give the parents of every low-income and special needs student the chance to choose where their child goes to school."
Romney's blind support of charter schools is indicative of a greater societal problem. The reality is that just because a school has their students in uniforms doesn't mean they're doing any better than neighboring public schools. The question of why charter and private schools are being endorsed so heavily should be paramount among those who have a vested interest in urban education. 
Is the intent to send a message about the fact that all public schools are bad and all alternatives that have roots/connections to privatization are good? If all public schools are indeed bad, what does that say about all the students in these schools and how they are viewed by politicians? Is there any truth to the fact that parents will have unlimited school options or are they limited to a "choice" of privately funded or charters that are often unproven as far as student success is concerned and are often experiments in how to engage urban youth? What implications does traveling hours away from their home have on youth, especially when they end up the only person of color in a school with affluent classmates who often don't want them there to begin with? Are they viewed as "the bad kid from public school"? 
Urban educators who ask these questions are NOT against ALL charter/private schools. In fact, I am not. However, I am against a narrative that is supported by a political campaign that presents public schools as beyond repair and charters/private schools as the only viable alternatives. 
2) "For a single mom living in a shelter with a couple of kids -- those kids are at an enormous disadvantage... trying to help move people to understand, you know, getting married and having families where there's a mom and a dad together has a big impact."

The statement above was made during a speech where Romney advocated for teaching youth who attend schools in impoverished neighborhoods about the benefits of two-parent families. While this may seem like a good idea by many, the assumption that socioeconomically disadvantaged populations choose to have children out of wedlock, and need to be taught to want the "traditional American family" with a "mom and dad" is problematic. First, it does not consider the larger societal biases that result in higher arrests for black/brown males that overwhelmingly affects sustaining "traditional" families in these communities. Furthermore, it does not consider the different models for family that are, and can be, perfectly functional.

3) "... it's not the classroom size that drives the success of school systems." 
The statement above has been repeated in many different forms by Romney in defense of his belief that classroom size is not a factor in student success. In his reasoning, he mentions education systems across the globe that have huge class sizes and still manage to be successful. This certainly does not mean that we should make our classes bigger or consider class size a non-factor in education achievement. It's important to consider that the private schools that Romney attended, and the ones his children attend, have small class sizes.
In essence, the Romney campaign is saying that class sizes in public schools can be as large as possible, while those in private schools will remain small. Both kinds of schools will then be compared to each other. This appears to be a deliberate effort to sabotage certain schools, and sends a strong underlying message that blindly supports a privatization of schools.

4) "... if school was a business"

Recent speeches by Romney have discussed his new education plan by making problematic comparisons between education and running a business. This has been a piece of much recent rhetoric on education which suggests that students are products to be manufactured, that teachers are workers that can and should be replaced by less expensive ones if possible, that schools should be for-profit enterprises, and that the entire enterprise can be led by business managers. Each of these notions does not consider that education is completely different from a business. Students are human beings and teachers are experts who develop their skills over time and should be compensated accordingly. A school's main goal should be should meet the students individual needs, not to make a profit. Most importantly, those who lead schools MUST have experience in education.

5) "Eliminate unnecessary certification requirements that discourage new teachers."

In any profession where people have the responsibility to give care to others, it is imperative that those who have this charge are properly certified for their job. The suggestion that teacher certification examinations should be eliminated, essentially means that the Romney camp believes that anyone can walk into a school, and begin teaching students. 
In public schools, it is imperative that teachers receive certification. In many cases, they must continually take classes, have at least a master's degree in their field, and take ongoing courses that include topics such as identifying child abuse while also improving their content knowledge. In many charter and private schools, teachers do not necessarily have to be certified. The hiring of non-certified teachers allows the institutions that hire them to pay low salaries (based on their lack of experience), and in the case of for-profit schools, increase their financial bottom line. This stance takes no consideration for the effects that poorly trained teachers have on student outcomes. 
Romney's "A Chance for Every Child" is no different that Bush's "No Child Left Behind." Both phrases tug at the heartstrings of the public, but the initiatives themselves are poorly constructed, laden with misconceptions about the nature of teaching and learning. This plan has no respect for teachers and public schools and treat the most vulnerable of our youth like commodities to be assessed, tested, and sold to private companies. Perhaps the real civil rights issue of our time is the politics of rhetoric, and the way that slick political campaigns function to demonize urban youth, pretend to extend a hand via privatization of schools, and concurrently ensures that the needs of urban youth are not met in the schools they are currently in.
***
Urban Education Expert, Dr. Christopher Emdin, is a Professor at Columbia University Teachers College and is the Director of Secondary School Initiatives at the Urban Science Education Center in New York. He holds a Ph.D. in Urban Education. Dr. Emdin has taught middle school science and mathematics, high school physics and chemistry, and was the chair of science departments in New York City public schools. Emdin is the author of Urban Science Education for the Hip-hop Generation .

Saturday Edition | Keeping Up Appearances: The Myth of the “Inner City”

Saturday Edition Keeping Up Appearances: The Myth of the “Inner City” by John (J.D.) Roberts  | special to NewBlackMan
On a recent trip back from a Hampton Roads vacation, I saw a black family setting up a barbeque on their rural front lawn in Snow Hill, Maryland.  They seemed to have it all; a nice pleasant house, a green front lawn, an open porch, and a (seemingly) happy tight-knit family.  I had not really given this scene much thought until a few weeks after I had gotten home from this vacation.  I saw a few news stories discussing the plight of an “inner city” school somewhere in the U.S., which then made me question what the term “inner city” really meant.  The term “inner city” is a relic of American history, transformed/remixed to denote two things: dysfunction and a place where people of color live.  It is a loaded term, filled with bullsh*t, and we as thinking acting caring Americans should reject it every time we hear it. 
I chose the term bullsh*t purposefully here to illustrate a point.  In Harry G. Frankfurt’s philosophy text On Bullsh*t, the meaning of the word bullsh*t gets explored to its fullest extent.  When Frankfurt discusses bullsh*t’s relation to humbug, he uses a scenario of the orator discussing the Founding Fathers at a July 4thcelebration.  In Frankfurt’s case study, the orator’s glowing prose about the Founding Fathers did not have basis in knowledge or factual accuracy, but rooted itself in what the orator wanted the crowd to think about him and his patriotism.The “inner city” allows the listener/reader to imagine whatever/wherever they like, no matter how loaded and nebulous the term actually is.  “Inner city” describes a place in seemingly precise geographic terms, but is also used to describe groups of people, certain aspects of culture, or activities as well.  It means everything and nothing; it allows the purveyor and audience’s perceptions of the word to be vague, but it is never used to describe one place: poor and working class white urban spaces.      
The “inner city’s” identity as “not white” is not the only concern.  Barring stories of miraculous salvation and escape, when was the last time a newspaper printed a positive story about the “inner city” (“Inner city Philadelphia: What a Great Place To Raise a Family”)?  They have not because there are supposedly no good stories coming out of the “inner city” without intervention from outside.  When was the last time a poor white urban space was called the “inner city” (Bostonians who are familiar with Charlestown can hopefully give me an amen here)?  The term “inner city” almost begs for a ridiculous Seinfeldian comedy routine asking something like, “Where does the inner city end and the outer city begin?” 
This line of thinking eventually leads to the second reason why the term “inner city” should be considered bullsh*t: the term is incredibly concerned with sincerity.  As Frankfurt states in his text, in our postmodern world, feigning sincerity has replaced the quest for correctness.White flight out of urban spaces after World War II is a well known phenomenon, (and I will not cover it too deeply here) but this flight is important to note as a product of older historical undercurrents and social thought.  Automobility and America’s Interstate Highway System allowed (primarily) white Americans to flee America’s cities to live in newly created suburbs with their families and drive to work in the increasingly abandoned cities.  The urge to flee these urban settings has always been a part of America’s history though.  Early in its history, New York City symbolized the filth, depravity, decay, crime and sickening conditions early cities generally had to offer. 
By the 1830s, New York City was a city that could not offer its citizens adequate water resources, sanitation, or health care, and did not believe it had a duty to as a city.  By the 1850s and 1860s, people such as Charles Loring Brace started promoting the health benefits of rural living, sometimes nefariously/forcibly moving children out of cities and into the country through his Children’s Aid Society.  These relocated children worked on the farms of rural (white) foster families in an effort to promote clean living, work, and a healthy lifestyle.  According to Brace and the majority of his contemporaries, the city was a corrupting element, particularly to children. 
Books such as Herbert Asbury’s retrospective book The Gangs of New York surveyed not only the crime-ridden streets of New York City in the 19th century, but also the disgusting, unhealthy and putrid conditions people lived in.  Designers such as Frederick Law Olmsted not only designed Central Park, but planned suburbs as well to provide spaces for people to leave the unhealthy living of urban communities.  They hoped that trees, greenscapes and rural air would revive the spirit and lives of (white) Americans. 
Moving forward to the beginning of the post World War II flights out of cities by whites, authors like Mickey Spillane created characters such as Mike Hammer, a hard boiled private investigator that cleaned the urban streets of scum and vice with his Colt 45.  American culture has continually inculcated in its citizenry from the very beginning that urban living is unhealthy, unnatural and creates pathology.
So with this historical background in place, we now return to the term “inner city.”  People of color in America, particularly Black Americans, have become inextricably linked to the term, which also inherently links blackness in general to the so-called “inner city.”  Since the city has also traditionally symbolized dysfunction and unhealthy living, blackness, by its connection with the term “inner city” has become intertwined with dysfunction in America.    This subtle intertwining of racial identity with geography and living space can obviously be carried even further to examine the much used (often hated) term “ghetto,” which has and still could fill many tomes with its interrogation, investigation, and inquiry.  Additionally, by extension, terms like “urban radio” have replaced the term “black radio” that prevailed in the 1960s through the 1980s, further essentializing blackness with urbanity.    
This is not to say blackness or Latino identity are never connected to rural living, but often, those connections to rurality are also portrayed negatively, spelling rural poverty in the Deep South for Black Americans, or in the case of Latinos, agricultural work on the West Coast.  Media depictions of rural blackness in America often follow these tropes, rarely straying to depict a well-rounded rural blackness (Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins), or the impressive ranch holdings of some Latinos in the Western U.S. 
I am not saying that Black Americans should listen to Arrested Development and head down to Tennessee.  I am not saying people of color should eschew their urban environs.  What I am saying though is all Americans should recognize the power of terms like “inner city” because these terms are incredibly powerful forms of bullsh*t.  They essentialize groups of people.  They help create dominant narratives.  They influence economic, political, social and security decisions regarding groups of people.  At the “speed of stereotype,” groups of people are generalized, rationalized and have decisions made for them based on false assumptions derived from loaded words and terms.  These terms help institute phony social contracts based on feigned sincerity and false compassion, which then lulls people into a sense of cooperation and participation in their own oppression and subjugation.  This is why words matter. 
We must reject bullsh*t at every turn because it breeds complacency and subtly encourages cooperation with oppressive state agendas and the status quo.  I would argue there is no “inner city,” and we should allow no bullsh*t term to replace its role as a placeholder for geographically-oriented racism and oppression.  Furthermore, the rural black family I saw in Snow Hill, Maryland deserves to represent the rich complex tapestry of blackness just as much as the black family from Brooklyn, Houston, Atlanta, or Chicago does in the minds, media, and cultural representations of America.
***           John (J.D.) Roberts is a PhD student in the History Dept at UMass-Amherst. He focuses on drug trafficking history in Latin America, but has researched and written on a wide array of issues globally, particularly globalization and illegality.

The Obama Effect on Marriage Equality

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

James Braxton Peterson (Lehigh University); Joe Watkins Discuss Marriage Equality on The Ed Show with guest host Michael Eric Dyson.

Trailer: Django Unchained w/ Jamie Foxx

Watch the first, full-length teaser trailer for Django Unchained, the new film by Quentin Tarantino, in theaters Christmas 2012.

"5 Broken Cameras": Home Videos Evolve Into Film on Palestinian Resistance to Israeli Wall

DemocracyNow.org 
The award-winning new documentary, "Five Broken Cameras," tells the story of a Palestinian farmer who got a video camera to record his son's childhood, but ended up documenting the growth of the resistance movement to the Israeli separation wall in the West Bank village of Bil'in. The film shows the non-violent tactics used by residents of Bil'in as they join with international and Israeli activists to protest the wall's construction and confront Israeli soldiers. We speak with the film's directors Emad Burnat, a Palestinian, and Guy Davidi, an Israeli.

Black Enterprise Talks with Terence Blanchard, Musical Director of A Street Car Named Desire

BEMultiMedia
 
Noted composer Terence Blanchard speaks on his musical direction for A Streetcar Named Desire.

Natasha Trethewey Named New U.S. Poet Laureate

#DukeMotown: This Old Heart of Mine/Get Ready

The Life & Music of Motown | Duke University, Spring 2012

Final Presentations
Professors Anthony Kelley & Mark Anthony Neal

Monica & the Mediocres: "This Old Heart of Mine/Get Ready"

Resistance to NYPD's "Stop-and-Frisk" Policy Comes to DC as Lawmakers, Groups Urge DOJ Probe

DemocracyNow 
Dozens of New York lawmakers and several advocacy groups are convening on Capitol Hill today to call on the Justice Department to investigate the New York City Police Department's controversial "stop-and-frisk" policies. Last year the NYPD stopped, frisked and interrogated people nearly 700,000 times -- mostly black and Latino men. In all, there were more stops of young African-American men than the total of population of that group in the city. "This is not about criminals -- this is about a generation that has been criminalized, targeted and brutalized by the police," says organizer Jamel Mims, a victim of stop-and-frisk. We're also joined by NAACP President Benjamin Jealous, who is helping to organize a silent march against racial profiling in New York City on Father's Day, June 17. "This is the biggest, most aggressive racial profiling problem that we have in this country, and it just has to be stopped," Jealous says.