An excerpt form the Huffington Post -
What If We Loved Real HBCUs As Much As We Love Beyoncé’s?
By Taryn Finley
After one semester at my beloved HBCU, I recognized what I was missing when looking at my identity. Pre-Howard, I was conditioned to always juxtapose my blackness against the concept of whiteness, not fully understanding how powerful it is to appreciate my background outside the context of oppression. That limited me to a very narrow and monolithic view of what blackness can be.
Contrary to popular belief, HBCUs do prepare students for the real world, and they do a damn good job at it.
But black colleges show their students the beauty and expansiveness that blackness already is on its own. For me and others who shared this mindset, Howard, Spelman, Morehouse, NCAT, Hampton, Fisk and any of the more than 100 other HBCUs are pivotal. Not only do they center blackness in academia (even my math classes would turn into black history lessons at times), but they also provide spaces for their students to be fully embraced by faculty and their peers alike, fostering a sense of community and mentorship.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-finley-hbcu-beyonce_us_5ae0d38de4b04aa23f1eb5e3
Saturday, May 12, 2018
Deja Vu
An excerpt from Slate -
The Privilege of 911
White people should call the police less. Minorities should be able to call them more.
By HENRY GRABAR and MARK JOSEPH STERN
On Tuesday, a white graduate student at Yale called the police to report that one of her black classmates was napping in a dorm common area. The ensuing encounter between the police and the student, Lolade Siyonbola, who is getting a master’s degree in African studies, was captured in a video that has drawn national attention to the case.
It’s the latest in a string of recent incidents in which white Americans have called the police on their black neighbors for nothing at all: In Philadelphia, it was Starbucks while black. In Rialto, California, Airbnb while black. And in New Haven, Connecticut, trying to pull an all-nighter while black.
At the core of each incident is white Americans’ deep suspicion and mistrust of their black neighbors. The most infamous example of this dynamic occurred in Sanford, Florida, in February 2012, when neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman called the police on 17-year-old Trayvon Martin before stalking him, confronting him, and killing him. (The Sanford Police Department told Zimmerman not to follow Martin; Zimmerman was ultimately acquitted on charges of second-degree murder.) But more mundane displays of this regularly play out on forums like NextDoor, a website for neighborhood news and activism where interest gravitates, tabloid-style, towards perceived disorder and its perpetrators.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/05/in-america-calling-911-is-still-a-privilege-of-being-white.html
The Privilege of 911
White people should call the police less. Minorities should be able to call them more.
By HENRY GRABAR and MARK JOSEPH STERN
On Tuesday, a white graduate student at Yale called the police to report that one of her black classmates was napping in a dorm common area. The ensuing encounter between the police and the student, Lolade Siyonbola, who is getting a master’s degree in African studies, was captured in a video that has drawn national attention to the case.
It’s the latest in a string of recent incidents in which white Americans have called the police on their black neighbors for nothing at all: In Philadelphia, it was Starbucks while black. In Rialto, California, Airbnb while black. And in New Haven, Connecticut, trying to pull an all-nighter while black.
At the core of each incident is white Americans’ deep suspicion and mistrust of their black neighbors. The most infamous example of this dynamic occurred in Sanford, Florida, in February 2012, when neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman called the police on 17-year-old Trayvon Martin before stalking him, confronting him, and killing him. (The Sanford Police Department told Zimmerman not to follow Martin; Zimmerman was ultimately acquitted on charges of second-degree murder.) But more mundane displays of this regularly play out on forums like NextDoor, a website for neighborhood news and activism where interest gravitates, tabloid-style, towards perceived disorder and its perpetrators.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/05/in-america-calling-911-is-still-a-privilege-of-being-white.html
"Why Not You?"
An excerpt from People -
Melissa McCarthy Says These 3 Words from Her Parents Changed the Course of Her Life
By ALE RUSSIAN
The Life of the Party actress, 47, admits in PEOPLE’s latest cover story that her mother Sandy and her father Mike’s honesty when it came to their support shaped the way she looks at life. In fact, a three-word phrase they would repeat still rings true to her.
“‘Why not you?’ is an unbelievably great sentiment to give to a kid,” McCarthy tells PEOPLE in the new issue out Friday. “Not entitlement but instead: Work your butt off, and you have a decent chance at this. ‘Why not you?’ is an undervalued way of thinking.”
http://people.com/movies/melissa-mccarthy-says-these-3-words-from-her-parents-changed-the-course-of-her-life/
Melissa McCarthy Says These 3 Words from Her Parents Changed the Course of Her Life
By ALE RUSSIAN
The Life of the Party actress, 47, admits in PEOPLE’s latest cover story that her mother Sandy and her father Mike’s honesty when it came to their support shaped the way she looks at life. In fact, a three-word phrase they would repeat still rings true to her.
“‘Why not you?’ is an unbelievably great sentiment to give to a kid,” McCarthy tells PEOPLE in the new issue out Friday. “Not entitlement but instead: Work your butt off, and you have a decent chance at this. ‘Why not you?’ is an undervalued way of thinking.”
http://people.com/movies/melissa-mccarthy-says-these-3-words-from-her-parents-changed-the-course-of-her-life/
We're Stuck With This
An excerpt from the Huffington Post -
Der Spiegel Cover Portrays Trump As A Finger Flipping Off Europe
Time to join the resistance, German newsmagazine says, “against America.”
By Mary Papenfuss
Germany’s respected weekly news publication Der Spiegel doesn’t much care for Donald Trump. But after the U.S. president announced the nation is withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal, the magazine pulled out all the stops, portraying Trump on its cover as a blond-mopped middle finger flipping off all of Europe. “Goodbye, Europe!” says the digit.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/editorial-trump-deals-painful-blow-to-trans-atlantic-ties-a-1207260.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter#ref=rss
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/der-spiegel-trump-flipping-off-europe_us_5af65ba3e4b00d7e4c1ac5f5
Der Spiegel Cover Portrays Trump As A Finger Flipping Off Europe
Time to join the resistance, German newsmagazine says, “against America.”
By Mary Papenfuss
Germany’s respected weekly news publication Der Spiegel doesn’t much care for Donald Trump. But after the U.S. president announced the nation is withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal, the magazine pulled out all the stops, portraying Trump on its cover as a blond-mopped middle finger flipping off all of Europe. “Goodbye, Europe!” says the digit.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/editorial-trump-deals-painful-blow-to-trans-atlantic-ties-a-1207260.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter#ref=rss
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/der-spiegel-trump-flipping-off-europe_us_5af65ba3e4b00d7e4c1ac5f5
Friday, May 11, 2018
Places That Will Pay You to Live There
https://www.cnn.com/videos/cnnmoney/2018/05/10/six-places-will-pay-you-to-live-there-orig-me.cnn
Thursday, May 10, 2018
Does It Matter?
An excerpt from VerySmartBrothas -
Black Life, White Wife and the Art Caught in the Middle
By Panama Jackson
But there is a question that nags at me when it comes to dating and marrying outside your race (I’m not opposed to this, by the way; I’m the product of one of those unions): How much influence and impact does your spouse have on your work, especially when it’s couched in extreme racial observation and display?
Glover (and we can even throw Jordan Peele in here for now) work in a space that is heavily inspired by the world around him. It’s not a bird’s-eye view or navel-gazing; he’s doing very nuanced, informed and intentionally complex work about black culture. His show Atlanta, for instance, takes the black experience and shows it for all it can be.
~~~~~~~~~~
I wonder how those conversations about the execution of art that centers blackness and interacts with whiteness as, at times, a goofy, ignorant and uninformed barrier happen in Glover’s household. From personal experience with my white mother, I’ve had to defend blackness. I’ve had to point out things that I feel shouldn’t have to be pointed out. I indulged those conversations because it’s my mother. I imagine that a life partner would have to be indulged as well. And I know nothing of his partner at all (I haven’t so much as looked up her name), but I imagine that being with a creative means lots of conversations about art and the implications of it.
Am I to believe that he never uses her as a sounding board or asks her for her opinion? And if he does, how does that opinion seep into the art? Does it? I struggle with the idea that it doesn’t; that a person who works in such a racially rich context manages to create in a silo where the person he loves has no bearing on his creative decisions. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but your worldview is your worldview, and when you see something that is the opposite of your own, you are likely to question and offer an alternative view.
https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/black-life-white-wife-and-the-art-caught-in-the-middle-1825854549?utm_source=theroot_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2018-05-09
Black Life, White Wife and the Art Caught in the Middle
By Panama Jackson
But there is a question that nags at me when it comes to dating and marrying outside your race (I’m not opposed to this, by the way; I’m the product of one of those unions): How much influence and impact does your spouse have on your work, especially when it’s couched in extreme racial observation and display?
Glover (and we can even throw Jordan Peele in here for now) work in a space that is heavily inspired by the world around him. It’s not a bird’s-eye view or navel-gazing; he’s doing very nuanced, informed and intentionally complex work about black culture. His show Atlanta, for instance, takes the black experience and shows it for all it can be.
~~~~~~~~~~
I wonder how those conversations about the execution of art that centers blackness and interacts with whiteness as, at times, a goofy, ignorant and uninformed barrier happen in Glover’s household. From personal experience with my white mother, I’ve had to defend blackness. I’ve had to point out things that I feel shouldn’t have to be pointed out. I indulged those conversations because it’s my mother. I imagine that a life partner would have to be indulged as well. And I know nothing of his partner at all (I haven’t so much as looked up her name), but I imagine that being with a creative means lots of conversations about art and the implications of it.
Am I to believe that he never uses her as a sounding board or asks her for her opinion? And if he does, how does that opinion seep into the art? Does it? I struggle with the idea that it doesn’t; that a person who works in such a racially rich context manages to create in a silo where the person he loves has no bearing on his creative decisions. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but your worldview is your worldview, and when you see something that is the opposite of your own, you are likely to question and offer an alternative view.
https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/black-life-white-wife-and-the-art-caught-in-the-middle-1825854549?utm_source=theroot_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2018-05-09
If I had a Dime . . .
For every time this happens, I'd be rich.
A black Yale graduate student took a nap in her dorm's common room. So a white student called police
By Brandon Griggs,
A white person voices suspicions about an innocuous person of color. Police are summoned. And the encounter is posted on social media, sparking outrage about racial profiling.
In what is becoming an all-too familiar episode, a black Yale University graduate student was interrogated by campus police officers early Tuesday morning after a white student found her sleeping in a common room of their dorm and called police.
The black student, Lolade Siyonbola, posted two videos of the encounter to Facebook, where they have been widely viewed and drawn thousands of comments.
"I deserve to be here. I pay tuition like everybody else," an annoyed Siyonbola told responding officers in one video after they asked for her ID. "I'm not going to justify my existence here."
The incident is one of several in recent weeks in which police have been called on people of color for seemingly harmless acts. In one of the most recent, three black women were detained while leaving their California Airbnb after a neighbor called police, thinking they were burglars. Last month two black men were arrested at a Starbucks in Philadelphia after a manager called 911 on them because they didn't order anything.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/09/us/yale-student-napping-black-trnd/index.html
A black Yale graduate student took a nap in her dorm's common room. So a white student called police
By Brandon Griggs,
A white person voices suspicions about an innocuous person of color. Police are summoned. And the encounter is posted on social media, sparking outrage about racial profiling.
In what is becoming an all-too familiar episode, a black Yale University graduate student was interrogated by campus police officers early Tuesday morning after a white student found her sleeping in a common room of their dorm and called police.
The black student, Lolade Siyonbola, posted two videos of the encounter to Facebook, where they have been widely viewed and drawn thousands of comments.
"I deserve to be here. I pay tuition like everybody else," an annoyed Siyonbola told responding officers in one video after they asked for her ID. "I'm not going to justify my existence here."
The incident is one of several in recent weeks in which police have been called on people of color for seemingly harmless acts. In one of the most recent, three black women were detained while leaving their California Airbnb after a neighbor called police, thinking they were burglars. Last month two black men were arrested at a Starbucks in Philadelphia after a manager called 911 on them because they didn't order anything.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/09/us/yale-student-napping-black-trnd/index.html
Wednesday, May 9, 2018
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