As a historian, a classroom teacher, and aware person I cannot tabulate the amount of time I have spent trying to convince white people that racism exists. I am a white enough person that I had to be educated – but luckily that intervention happened at a young enough stage of development that it became…
Category: public service announcements
all too often I am simply preaching to the choir
but every choir is made up of single voices
so I like to add my own tone
days without capitalism
The fireworks display I’ve watched for many years are made by guys from the neighborhood. The soundtrack to my holiday is blasted from family sound systems. The landscape is families taking over sidewalks and streets to host events for communal celebration. Cars are used to block of intersections so that streets can be filled with…
inoculation to the prescient future
As a child my grandparents gave me $25 for Hanukkah and $50 for my birthday, every year from the age of six to sixteen. Only once did I spend any of that money, $15 for a Barbie car, but every other check was deposited directly into my own savings account at the Bank. I still…
is scraps all we have left
I have been trapped between worlds my whole life. Born at the the cusp of the 80s, but not an 80s child enough to remember the real cartoon, the height of Hip-Hop, Michael Jackson before the molestation charges. I was born between two countries, with two languages and two passports. Growing up with enough money…
#horoscopesforanewreality
Monday March 27: Remember when a plate of food is spilled on you just be grateful it wasn’t rotten. Tuesday March 28: Someday you will look back on this moment and laugh; that moment just isn’t today. Wednesday March 29: You can be content when you’re dead. – My Dad’s life philosophy Thursday March 30:…
Speaking to white Europeans tries all my patience. After only a few minutes they launch into broad, generalized statements about hating the United States. I predict each of their points: fat, stupid, banks, capitalist pigs, racism, McDonalds, GMOs, no welfare, no healthcare – really you like it? I would add specifics and subtleties if the conversations ever…
Culture and our salvation by Terry Marshall & Aisha Shillingford
https://medium.com/@mischiefisintelligent/culture-and-our-salvation-b152b04626c8#.uucf2ix8r please please check out this extraordinary thesis about social change
Do you want to be opinionated or do you want to be strategic?
Initial assessment, bleak realities, and beautiful strategies. We are gifted now to have multi-generational people, willing and able, to do the work of resisting oppression. We have people who were part of The Black Panthers and SNCC, we have anti-war and anti-nuclear activists from the Cold War, we have Latin American struggles for self-determination, we…
man and his best friend
Someday I hope that I can experience the kind of dedication and sincere love that a man has for his penis. After seeing Louis C.K. live tonight I am overwhelmed by how much he likes to talk about his penis. And even young babies love to play with their penis – they pull at it,…
yell in the face of treacherous, ugly underwater hidden beasts that rule our society
What strikes me on a daily basis is how much I relied on my role as a teacher to cement my sense of a purpose in this world; that is what I miss the most about teaching. Under the blanket of paperwork, bureaucracy, media criticism, district policies obeyed or ignored, I could always point to…
things you could do instead of watching the presidential debates
It may seem odd for a history teachers to advocate abstinence from watching a historic event, but the value of such mainstay political events has become diluted. Radio hosts, college professors, authors. pundits, historians, past and present politicians dissect every word said and unsaid. The lives of the candidates is no longer kept under wraps,…
OITNB – Season 4 – how may we repent
I postponed watching this latest season of Orange is the New Black because at the end of last season the plot established the role of private prisons, taking over the establishment where the women live in the series, the last scene has the women exuberant in a brief freedom facilitated through a hole in the…
collective failure 