“All the problems started when they took prayer out of the schools!” Perhaps you have heard people voice this statement when trying to explain the problems of public education within the Afrikan in America context. Perhaps it’s a statement that you have expressed or believe yourself. While it’s debatable that the prohibition against prayer...
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This week I’ve devoted much of my energy to a pretty spirited discussion via Facebook about Governor O’Malley’s plans to build a prison for youth in East Baltimore. The $104 million prison would be dedicated to youth being charged as adults. For many years, I’ve stood in solidarity with many others in publicly denouncing...
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When you take a nearly 90% African American student population and you willfully ignore their culture while subjecting them to a European-American educational setting you set them up for psychological enslavement. The African student population is not permitted to engage in the process of knowing themselves, the story of their people on the map...
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The history of African Americans does not begin with slavery. However, that’s what African American students are likely to believe while matriculating through many of this nation’s public schools. Their miseducation instills in them the view that they are an inferior people whose historical heritage starts in slavery. Their miseducation proliferates while at the...
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In C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence Mamiya’s classic work on the Black Church, they rightly describe the character and nature of the “Black sacred cosmos.” Much more than just casual weekend activity or flippant denominational recognition; Christianity for practicing African Americans is so interwoven into personal and social identity that it’s hard just to...
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I’d like to publicly express my prayers and condolences to Mr. Marshall “Eddie” Conway and family in light of the passing of his mother. Mr. Conway is Maryland’s longest serving political prisoner incarcerated 40 years ago while serving in Baltimore’s Black Panther Party. Activists and concerned citizens from Baltimore have been contacting the appropriate...
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What the Arizona Public School System’s ban of ethnic studies does is expose crucial questions about authority and autonomy as it relates to the public education system. The crucial question is: Who should control the educational direction, content, and implementation of education? Who should be trusted to mold the minds of today’s students? That...
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I wasn’t in my door 1 hour before gunshots rang out in my neighborhood. Fresh back in town from a short family vacation to celebrate my milestone birthday, I was hoping to ease back into city life. At least looking forward to a lazy, uneventful Saturday afternoon/evening before the bells of Sunday morning started...
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SOURCE: NPR Legendary civil rights leader Dr. Dorothy Height, who spent most of her life battling for the empowerment of women and African Americans, died Tuesday. She was 98. A winner of the Congressional Gold Medal, Height had the ear of U.S. presidents from Dwight Eisenhower to Barack Obama. In 1963, she was the...
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I read an article yesterday in The Baltimore Sun entitled, “Activist walks away from Baltimore’s Middle East.” The article almost reads like a depressing obituary for Save Middle East Action Coalition (SMEAC). This excerpt, written by one of SMEAC’s former Executive Directors, gives some perspective on this remarkable organization: Save Middle East Action Committee...
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