Hope for Languished Lives

From Behind Bars, a Rap Artist Challenges a Culture of Injustice

Richie Reseda wrote and produced an entire album while serving his sentence. by Tasbeeh Herwees

An excerpt - 

At a dark, red-hued club in downtown Los Angeles, a couple dozen people are gathered to celebrate local rapper Richie Reseda, who is marking his 24th birthday by dropping his debut album. Dark velvet curtains are drawn over the windows of the club, and guests settle into black leather seating, drinks in hand. Onstage, the DJ, wearing a t-shirt that reads “Assata Is Welcome Here,” plays Kendrick Lamar and Janelle Monae, warming up the crowd for the main event. This is Reseda’s opportunity to share his album, Forgotten But Not Gone, with an intimate assembly of friends, family and colleagues. Only the young rapper isn’t here. He’s in prison.

Reseda produced much of his album with the help of Damon Turner, founder of the label GREEDY CITY, from the penitentiary where he is serving the fifth year of a 10-year sentence. He recorded verses over the prison phones with Turner, who executive produced and released the album under his label. After GOOD wrote about the release of Reseda’s first single this past summer, he says prison authorities searched his cell, looking for recording devices or mobile phones.

When Reseda does finally appear at his own party, it is as a disembodied voice. His words, from a prison phone call recorded prior to the event, emerge from the speakers. “Everyone who is supporting this by coming to the function …” he says, his voice trailing off. “This is honestly a dream come true for me.”

The complete album, released last week, is a clarion call for the Black Lives Matter movement, a 14-track record that name-checks Michael Brown and Renisha McBride, and condemns police brutality. Forgotten But Not Gone is a significant addition to the catalog of protest music and art that has emerged in the wake of the uprisings in Ferguson and Baltimore, a soundtrack to the struggle against state violence and mass incarceration. But as an autobiographical work, it provides insight into the ways in which institutionalized inequality manifests in the day-to-day lives of people in the U.S.

http://magazine.good.is/features/richie-reseda-forgotten-but-not-gone?utm_source=thedailygood&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailygood

Reader Response

From The Atlantic Daily - (Bold is mine)

READER RESPONSE

This reader is shocked by the protests on the University of Missouri campus, which led to university president Tim Wolfe’s resignation:

Maybe this is the real Ferguson effect: People who have been coached up and primed to believe that they are victims, who want to be a part of some kind of important historical movement, to the point that they’re seeking confrontation over essentially nothing.

A couple of people supposedly said mean things, one of them on campus and one of them not on campus, none of them backed with any kind of evidence. A group of students confront the university president, obviously looking for offense, and find it by simply misrepresenting what he says to them—something that he pretty clearly anticipated with his answer. For this, he MUST be fired.

Another reader responds:

This is the Ferguson Effect. However, contrary to your reader, minority students have in fact been “coached up and primed” to believe that their daily victimhood is not worth protest. They have been “coached up and primed” that when presented with the opportunity to become educated, one should simply be happy to be in school, getting an education to better self and community. To me, these students and professors at the University of Missouri have rejected this complicity in an oppressive system and are now demonstrating a new active mentality growing in the public consciousness. This is a loud signal that a climate of quiet racism will no longer be ignored as accepted background noise only heard by the few. Now it will be confronted like the issue it is—loud, frustrating, complicated, and tragic.

So this is not the story of a poor administrator being unfairly persecuted; this is a story of a pained population finally being fairly heard.

Read more perspectives, and share your own, here.

It's All About the Benjamins

From The Washington Post - 

How the Missouri football team just took down its university president

An excerpt - 

First, the team is the public face of the student body. Any number of people who live in the state but don't have relatives in the University of Missouri system likely know student-athletes by name. Butler did a good job of making his concerns known, but having students already known and respected by the community make a similar argument lowers the bar for sympathy to the cause.

Second, the team leveraged pressure on an immediate timeline. Next Saturday, the Missouri Tigers are scheduled to play the Brigham Young Cougars. As Saturday neared, the school was under increasing pressure to resolve the dispute as public attention to the conflict continued to grow. Butler's threat was more dire, of course, but its duration was unclear.

Third, the team's protest threatened immediate economic damage to the university. This is perhaps the biggest issue at play. A contract between Missouri and BYU obtained by the Kansas City Star reveals that cancellation on the part of the Tigers would result in a $1 million fine to be paid to BYU within 30 days of the cancellation.

What's particularly interesting is that the $1 million fine is a flat sum set because "actual damages — including those relating to public relations, radio and television broadcasts, lost profits, and other consequential damages — would be difficult or impossible to calculate," in the words of the agreement. Which is almost certainly true.

According to data compiled by USA Today, Missouri's athletic program generated $83.7 million in revenue last year, on $80.2 million in cost — a net of $3.5 million in profit. That's a lot of money — but it's actually fairly low for a public university. Of the 225 Division I schools that have an obligation to release that data, Missouri ranks 32nd in revenue. The top five schools are Oregon, Texas, Michigan, Alabama and Ohio State — which saw a combined $172.3 million in profit on $813 million in revenue.

That's the fourth point: There's huge long-term economic power in college football programs. The Tigers aren't having a great season, at 4-5 after four straight losses. They're still in contention for one of college football's countless bowl games, assuming they close the season strong. If they did make a bowl, the school would get some amount of money as a bonus. Last year, schools that played in even the least-known games got six-figure payouts.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/11/09/missouri-football-players-and-the-untapped-political-power-of-the-college-student-athlete/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Vox%20Sentences%2011.9.15&utm_term=Vox%20Newsletter%20All

Bow Tie Fever

Wonder Lee's Upcycled Bow Ties -  Back by popular demand (or because I dig bow ties)

http://wonderlee123.storenvy.com/products/?page=1

A Powerful Lesson

Michael Smith:  "This is how you represent a university."

h/t - Ben

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=espn:14090511

Wise Beyond His Years

High Schooler With Cancer Delivers Inspiring Speech About Living Fully

"None of us get out of life alive, so be gallant, be great, be gracious, and be grateful for the opportunities you have."

Dominique MosbergenSenior Writer, The Huffington Post

Posted: 11/09/2015 03:00 AM EST | Edited: 3 hours ago

"None of us get out of life alive, so be gallant, be great, be gracious, and be grateful for the opportunities you have." 

Those were the poignant, emotional words uttered by 18-year-old Jake Bailey, a cancer patient who left his hospital bed last week so he could deliver an inspiring message to his classmates.

Bailey is the senior monitor, similar to a student body president, at Christchurch Boys' High School in New Zealand. Last Wednesday, the young man was meant to give a speech at an awards ceremony for graduating seniors at his school. Just the week before, however, he was diagnosed with Burkitts non-Hodgkins lymphoma, an aggressive form of cancer.

Doctors said that without treatment, he’d only have weeks to live. They also told him that he definitely wouldn’t be able to attend the ceremony to give his speech.

Bailey, however, defied their expectations.

Sitting in a wheelchair, the high school senior, who has been in the hospital undergoing treatment, didn’t just attend the event; he also got to share the speech he’d prepared with his classmates and friends. 

In it, he thanked mentors, teachers and parents on behalf of his graduating class, and reflected on the experiences and friendships they’d enjoyed in their years in school.

He also shared the story of his uncle, Ross Bailey, a world-renowned surgeon who had performed New Zealand’s first kidney transplant and who had drowned unexpectedly during a holiday in Sri Lanka.

His uncle had "sought higher things," said Bailey. "He dared to make a difference."

"Moral strength is about making a conscious decision to be a person who doesn't give up when it would be easy to, to be lesser because the journey is less arduous," the young man told the audience.

Bailey ended his speech by encouraging his classmates to seize the day.

"The future is truly in our hands. Forget about having long-term dreams. Let's be passionately dedicated to the pursuit of short-term goals. Micro-ambitious," the high schooler said. "Work with pride on what is in front of us. We don't know where we might end up. Or when it might end up." 

At the end of Bailey’s speech, the audience leapt to its feet to give him a standing ovation.

His classmates then performed a spontaneous haka, a traditional ancestral dance, to honor him. An overwhelmed Bailey mouthed "thank you" to his friends, his eyes wet with tears.

On Sunday, the headmaster of Christchurch Boys’ High School, Nic Hill, said that Bailey’s "courage has been an inspiration" not just to the school, but "to the wider community and even internationally."

"I couldn’t have more respect for Jake as a leader and someone who has inspired people throughout the world," Hill wrote on Facebook. "Jake’s many attributes will help him through this battle and we’ll be with him every step of the way."

According to U.S. National Library of Medicine, Burkitt lymphoma is a "very fast growing form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma." More than half of patients with the disease can be treated with intensive chemotherapy. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jack-bailey-cancer-speech_5640446de4b0411d307180fa

Malcolm X: Speeches and Interviews (1960-65)

History omitted.

James Baldwin Debates William F. Buckley (1965)

Watch this.  It's an hour well spent.

How To Fry An Egg

From  The Huffington Post - (click on the picture to see the video)

This Is The ONLY Way You Should Be Frying Your Eggs

Your breakfast won't know what hit it.

James CaveLifestyle Staff Writer, The Huffington Post

Posted: 11/06/2015 04:17 PM EST

Just when you thought eggs couldn't be any more incredible or edible, a video emerges forth from the Internet ready to scramble your whole belief system.

And as if to vouch for its significance, the video below was posted to Instagram by not one celebrity chef, but three -- Anthony Bourdain, Eric Ripert and Jose Andres -- all claiming it as the singular way to fry an egg.

It's called the Olive Oil Fried Egg, and a representative told HuffPost that it's served at many of Andres' restaurants as it's his favorite way to fry an egg.

The three aforementioned chefs were in Puerto Rico participating in the first annual Dorado Beach Culinary Getaway, where Bourdain, Ripert, Andres and Jose Enrique show off their best tricks.

To do this one, Andres lays a cracked egg into a saute pan that's been drizzled with four tablespoons of olive oil and brought up to medium-high heat. He then tips the pan so that the oil pools together at the edge of the pan, and spoons the oil over the yolk until the egg is fried into a crisp roll.

He demonstrated it for the New York Times a few years ago and explained that he'd been trying to find the best way to fry an egg "my whole life." He loves this method due to "the humbleness of the dish. Why do you need to do anything more complex?”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/how-to-fry-eggs-jose-andres_563d0a68e4b0411d3071074a

Using Rap as a Tool to Educate

From The Root - 

Rapper Jahi Educates in the Classroom and From Behind the Mic

The front man for the second coming of rap group Public Enemy, PE 2.0, is also an educator of young black boys in Oakland, Calif.

An excerpt - 

The Root: I am curious about how your two lives—artist and educator—intersect. How did you come to the African-American Male Achievement program?

Jahi: Well, I was rocking with KRS-One one night in San Francisco, and after the concert, me and a brother named Chris Chatmon were together, and he was like, "You gotta meet this brother." So KRS-One and I met. I told him I was back in Oakland but had been helping sites and community centers and a school down the street from my house. He started laughing. I said, "What's funny?" He said, "My kids go to that school and that's the school where we want to pioneer AAMA." AAMA was not in middle schools; they were only in high schools at the time. Two weeks later, I was pioneering it in middle schools. Been doing it for six years now.

It's the first organization in the U.S. that serves black males in a public school system. We offer grades for our class. It's not an after-school program, it's not an extra pullout. You can take it as an elective credit; it's called "Mastering our Cultural Identity," and if you're in elementary school, you get a grade as well.

TR: How did the program come about?

J: In 2010 the superintendent was Tony Smith, a white man who called out structural racism in the Oakland Unified School District. It was probably one of the most courageous things that could have happened. Then he created this Office of African-American Male Achievement. It was an office of one—with just Chris Chatmon. He was told, "Don't quit your day job, it's not gonna work, there's no way you're gonna be able to serve black boys only."

One of our methodologies is using targeted universalism, a concept introduced by a U.C. Berkeley professor. [A targeted universal strategy is one that is inclusive of the needs of both the dominant and the marginal group, but pays particular attention to the situation of the marginal group.] Chapman did a listening campaign to try to figure out what were the big problems.

What we found was that young black boys did not feel loved, appreciated or safe in public schools. They felt targeted, criminalized and devalued. We had to figure out something, almost like an inoculation—like, what can we give them right now?

That's how the manhood program started. We went from year 1, with a few facilitators in a few schools to now, here we are year 6, with our Kephra curriculum, and it follows California standards and Common Core. All of our facilitators are certified teachers. We are in the forefront in the national academic discourse in how do you serve black boys with a public school education.

TR: Black male teachers are teaching exclusively black boys. What does it look like on a typical day?

J: We actually recruited and retained African-American males to come in and run a 10-month marathon of being a teacher in a different kind of way. We call our students "kings." If you continue to call a young black boy a king, you will see transformation. We operate out of a position of love. We operate out of an asset-based model.

Public schools across the nation, by and large, are operating out of a deficit model. When it comes to black boys, it's what we don't have, what we didn't show up with. What we need. So this comes from an asset-based model. Our kings have innate greatness. We don't have to give them anything. We just have to provide the platform for that to be able to come out in a loving and safe environment. There's also advanced academic discourse. We fill in the gaps about black history and also prior to slavery. They can take revolutionary literature instead of English. Reading Malcolm X, Dr. John Henrik Clarke, Asa Hilliard, Ivan Van Sertima.

We are recruiting and hand-picking brothers to be teachers. We have a 90 percent retention rate for teachers, which is better than the entire Oakland Unified School District. They have a teacher shortage. So part of it is buy-in. Do you really want to make a change in your neighborhood?

The level of maturity and personal belief and self-efficacy and advocacy in them is amazing. They know how to show up. Transformed how they relate to their families and communities. Take trips around the nation to speak about what they do. That's been life changing. This year, students won $16,000 in scholarships to college.

http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2015/11/rapper_jahi_educates_in_the_classroom_and_from_behind_the_mic.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content%26

Joe's Version

No Thanks. I Got This.

Real Time with Bill Maher: New Rules – November 6, 2015 (HBO)

YUCK!

I love coffee, but I'm not a coffee fanatic.  As I've shared recently, you can't find brewed American coffee here, so I've learned to love instant coffee.

No eye rolling allowed coffee snobs!

You, too, would learn very quickly how to enjoy this instant brew if that was your only choice.

Anyway, some folks have come up with another way to consume coffee - a gummy bear like cube.

Can't say I'd run and try these.

What do you think?

Blue-Eyed Soul Singing Honky Tonk

I've always liked country music, even though many of the good 'ol boys who sing it leave a lot to be desired.  I can probably blame this affinity on Texas, too.

The thing is, I think country music is one of the best genres when it comes to telling a story in 3-4 minutes.

Check out this duet below singing "Drink You Away," which is technically not country, but it fits right in with the twangy crowd.

He's the Epitome of Resiliency

This is a wonderful article about an unlikely kid who grew up to play in the NFL.

Interestingly, he has ties to Sacramento.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/08/sports/football/lorenzo-mauldin-new-york-jets-keeps-bouncing-back.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=Moth-Visible&module=inside-nyt-region&region=inside-nyt-region&WT.nav=inside-nyt-region&_r=0

Lessons In Equal Pay From Kids

Amazing Eggshell Carvings

From The Daily Good - 

Former Prisoner Depicts Life Behind Bars With Astonishing Eggshell Carvings

by Rafi Schwartz

Artist Gil Batle had spent more than two decades of his 53 years shuffling through California’s penal system, including prison time spent in San Quentin, Jamestown, and Chuckawalla Valley for a variety of nonviolent offenses. There, his natural artistic ability was put to use drawing and tattooing—skills that served Batle well by impressing his fellow inmates. Now free, Batle has been documenting his experience behind bars in a series of pieces done in a medium as delicate and fragile as prison life can be hard and unyielding: eggshells. 

http://magazine.good.is/articles/eggshell-prison-art-gil-batle?utm_source=thedailygood&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailygood

Doing the Right Thing

DADDY DON'T GO TRAILER from Pureland Pictures on Vimeo.

Experience Cuba in 360-degrees (English)

http://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/cuba360/?csp=travel