The Write Stuff

In the world of single parenting homework in my house can be lie pulling teeth from a rabid crocodile. In fact, while trying to negotiate with Red Chief about his writing in kindergarden, I've come up really short. As one who teaches the occasional English composition classes, for me the problem is especially perplexing. You see, as a Kindergardener, by the time they complete end of grade assessment, kids are expected to be at certain bench marks. For Red, writing a page in under 20 minutes represents achievement. For some reason, I can coach my students, but I cannot coach my child. On the day he was supposed to have his writing test, I'm told to go see the teacher because Red only wrote two lines in 30 minutes. For me, this sends up an alarm because two weeks earlier when we dealt with this episode, I had to sit with him at the school; and with me looking over his shoulder, he wrote. On the day of the actual test, when I learned about this, my reaction was typical: this boy is being stubborn. At the same time, I'm thinking the boy needs proper motivation. So I drive him to Best Buy and I'm not too happy with myself for what I'm about to do. I buckle under pressure.
Pleading with him, I tell him look, if you do good on the writing test tomorrow, I will start making arrangements to get you the video game you want for your birthday early. Note this damn video game system cost $300.00. Yep, I was that desperate. True to form, he excels on the writing test. I flatly elated because I knew my son could do it, but really, I'm giving him $300.00 for two pages of writing. Something about this just doesn't seem right, but a deal is a deal and so I was committed to buying a $300.00 video game. Enter the deal breaker. After a trip to the zoo, Red's class is given an impromptu writing assignment where they have to write about the zoo the next day. Red turns in a paper with two lines and cavalierly saunters to the teacher to deposit his masterpiece. The teacher tells Redmond this is only two lines. Big Red tells her unapologetically, the zoo is over. Not too thrilled with his retort, she tells him she's going to tell his father. He's like ok tell him. Needless to say when I heard about this, I was calling his actions, completely unacceptable. Note, I was using my doctor professorial language in front of the teachers. When I was telling his grandmother about it, I called the boy a 21st century version of Gary Coleman. I was not happy with him and needless to say, the video game was put on hold (thankfully). So tonight, in going through homework blues, again I had to deal with mild defiance. I refuse to spank my child over academic non compliance, but it does not mean I can't withhold privileges. So his favorite toy was taken away. As he came back in tears, I felt bad. I can teach adults (well, 18 year olds) but I can't teach my child; this is unreal. So enter empathy and strategy.
Red and I had a talk. I showed him some of the positives of writing. I showed him my dissertation (which he drew on), some newspaper writings, a national pop article, and most recently, a response I got from the President (though I believe it was his team of interns). I told him that writing represents power and can take you many places. When I shared with him the salutation, I said even the President of the United States calls me doctor. No I don't know what that means to him, but I hope that he will one day understand that writing is the gateway to bigger and better things.

Obama's Morehouse Exposition Speech

Ok so I've read the speech, now that I've heard the context, I think I'm still unchanged.. In fact as Obama was attempting to give the interpretation of "Excuses are tools of the....." I think that he failed to mention the disparate conditions which make the odds so insurmountable for African American men.  Its as though he completely forgot the "war on crime" and drug legislation that  contributed to countless African American men who comprise the prison industrial complex.  In reading this, with a critical gaze, it appears as though he is anti affirmative action and to be quite honest, oblivious to the class disparity which exists in our country.  I'm curious to know if there was an African American speech writer here because as he mentions Washington and DuBois, they clashed, furiously.  In fact Washington was known as the "The Great Accommodationist" who didn't challenge White Oppression..... Gotta give the president a thumbs down on his Black Experience graduation speech.  C- at best, but of course, I'm using my affirmative action curve.      
"I understand there’s a common fraternity creed here at Morehouse: “Excuses are tools of the incompetent used to build bridges to nowhere and monuments of nothingness.” Well, we’ve got no time for excuses. Not because the bitter legacy of slavery and segregation have vanished entirely; they have not. Not because racism and discrimination no longer exist; we know those are still out there. It’s just that in today’s hyperconnected, hypercompetitive world, with millions of young people from China and India and Brazil — many of whom started with a whole lot less than all of you did — all of them entering the global workforce alongside you, nobody is going to give you anything that you have not earned. (Applause.)
Nobody cares how tough your upbringing was. Nobody cares if you suffered some discrimination. And moreover, you have to remember that whatever you’ve gone through, it pales in comparison to the hardships previous generations endured — and they overcame them. And if they overcame them, you can overcome them, too. (Applause.)
You now hail from a lineage and legacy of immeasurably strong men — men who bore tremendous burdens and still laid the stones for the path on which we now walk. You wear the mantle of Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington, and Ralph Bunche and Langston Hughes, and George Washington Carver and Ralph Abernathy and Thurgood Marshall, and, yes, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. These men were many things to many people. And they knew full well the role that racism played in their lives. But when it came to their own accomplishments and sense of purpose, they had no time for excuses."

I heard it on the radio

I cannot and will not pretend to be a part of a "moral majority" that will police cultural tastes. I'm not in that class of folks. However, I do sincerely believe that there is a time and a place for everything.
I won't pretend to identify with everything that's played on mainstream black radio. In all honesty, what currently is popular is not essentially for me and my tastes. I'm not promoting Black Bourgeoisie elitism (snobbery), I'm just saying I've grown into another level of adulthood. There's Russell at 42 and Russell at 22. There's a 20 year difference. Case and point: circa 1991, there was BBD's "Do Me Baby" and "Poison." Politically, parentally, and academically, I don't align myself with that type of music anymore as it reflects quite a few things I'm counter to, despite the fact that I listened to it then. Do I think that free radio must be more cognizant to their audiences; absolutely. That said, where does the activism for change begin? Who among us is willing to challenge radio station PDs GMs and owners regarding drive time obscenity? Better yet, who among us is willing to petition the FCC to create broadcast policy that says there are certain hours that will be obscenity free on the radio, akin to the family viewing hour in television. But understand, regardless of laws on the books, they are only as good as those who choose to follow them.

Dead Giveaway: this ain't Shalamar

Dead Giveaway: I like that song by the 80s R&B trio Shalamar, but this is not about that. This is about Charles Ramsey, who may now have a mash up hit "Dead Giveaway."
Market driven media: this cat is good for ratings on multiple levels. He's Joe Everyman, albeit mashed up w- Amos and Andy and Sanford & Son. In this case, Ramsey is the story. He's unexpected "Easy Rollins" who stumbled up three missing white women and ushered them into safety. These women have been in captivity for 10 years. Nothing extremely heroic: Ramsey did what I hope many of us would do, examine a social frame, explore the problems, and eventually fix it. However with the culture of convergence, he's now become the newest African American Internet sensation. His interview has gone viral. Now he's in the ranks of Sweet Brown, the gay Black guy whose now straight and Ms. Kapowya, who says man them rocks was big. The common denominator I see as a Media Examined is that most of the folks who have the microphone and cameras really are not children of the Kerner Commission; they are white broadcasters and editors who have come out of lily white mass comm programs where the challenge of diversity or media literacy was never taken seriously. Entman and Rojecki talk about the politics of representation in Black Image in the White Mind. I think within the news cycle we live in, sensationalism brings in the cash. Not only are broadcast stations cashing in, but so too are would be record producers as they creatively take their sound bites and remix them if you will into catchy hooks. Sweet Brown who says, "ain't nobody got time for dat," and now Ramsey's "dead giveaway." It's quite interesting when we begin to analyze these themes beyond the tactile level. In the texts I've seen, there is a latent visualization of poverty, social neglect, and even "dysfunctionaliam" within the lower to underclass representations of African Americans at the center of sensationalistic news texts. Immediately what comes to mind is the text of the Cleveland bus driver and his infamous sound bite "you going to jail now!" right before he delivers the upper cut that was seen all around the world to an African American woman. What about the Black mall cop in Atlanta who tasered the belligerent Black mother in front of her kids. When I showed this to my students they were hysterical, but again going beneath the surface, the psychological effects of economic poverty are being played for ratings.
In matters of Black Sexual Politics
Ramsey normalizes the racial apartheid in this country in various levels. Not only does he normalize it but I think he reinforces it by saying a white woman running into the arms if a Black man is still considered forbidden, or in his language, dead giveaway. When we really break it down, he really articulates historical paradox which that African American men negotiate with in this country daily. We may never know his true motivations; was he disturbed to the point where he couldn't eat his hamburger in peace or did he see something and hear something that was beyond his "normal frame of reference" that something here isn't too normal? That is not a dead give away.