Steve is Keepin' It Real

My favorite quote this morning comes courtesy of NPR's Morning Edition. Steve, I was thinking the same thing. Thank you for asking...


Juan: Obama struggled to get the support of blue collar workers?
Steve : When you are talking about blue collar workers, do you mean white working class workers?
Juan Williams: You put it so bluntly Steve.

Dominican FINALLY Makes Appearance on Ugly Betty

For real, ya’ll. During the season finale of Ugly Betty, the love interest of Hilda, Betty’s older sister, gave her a necklace with a pendant made of Dominican amber. It was the first time, despite the show’s setting being New York City, that there was any representation of some tangible element of something that is Caribbean Latino on the show. This isn’t to say that cultural elements of the Spanish speaking Caribbean are missing from the show; these elements that are precisely used to emphasize the family’s Latino background. For instance, reggeatón is used between scenes; and somehow, Betty can dance salsa although very few Mexicans I have met in the U.S. can; etc.

However, never in the show do we see people from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, and other Caribbean portions of Latin America. If this is NYC, where are these folks? I was hoping the show would help the mainstream public understand the diversity of Latino community in the United States that are highly touted within the community and suddenly swept under the rug when not politically convenient. The fact that Betty’s family is a Mexican family in New York City is itself fodder for other important subjects such as the changing demographic trends of Latinos in NYC (although Betty’s family has been there for almost 30 years). Even in Queens, known for its high concentration of Columbians, Ecuadorians and Dominicans, we are left to search harder for these people than I ever did for Waldo. ¿Dónde está mi gente?

Then again, that may be too much to ask my favorite television. Then again, perhaps groundbreaking doesn’t exactly have the same meaning in TV land.

Popular Memory Watch

 After examining artist Lei Yixin's proposed rendering of Martin Luther King, jr. for a new DC memorial (at left), the US Commission of Fine Arts concluded that the  planned sculpture would be too "confrontational" and that it "reflects a genre of sculpture that has recently been pulled down in other countries." The commission recommended a "softening of Dr. King." 

If you aren't already shaking with rage about this shameless attempt to completely erase the legacy of the civil rights and antiwar movements, read this essay by Ibram Rogers, who was on NPR today patiently explaining Lei Yixin's choice while old white people called in and said things like, "You're too young to remember--he was never confrontational." Also, "People are never just their ideologies," and "Maybe if they raised his chin a little, he would look more peaceful." The callers also helpfully clarified the panel's comments by pointing out that the Chinese artist's sculpture reminded them of Stalin and Mao statues. 

I'm so angry, I can't write anymore.

Voting?…I Am Gonna Need To See Some ID

What the fuck? I cannot believe the Supreme Court has just ruled to uphold state laws requiring voters to provide a valid photo ID in order to be allowed to vote. According to the majority opinion (Scalia, Alito, Thomas, Stevens, Roberts, and Kennedy) making such demands on voters does not interfere with the voting process. I can imagine this “minor” detail affecting people’s ability to even register to vote. Voter registration drives will now have to concern themselves not only with registering new voters, but also with disseminating information on how folks can get a valid ID in order to vote. I did not have a valid photo ID until well into my 18th birthday and that was because I had to open up a bank account. I can tell you that it was an ordeal, which included two trips to the DMV in Harlem, waiting in line for five hours on each occasion. In addition to the elderly and poor people, whom critics of the ruling cite as being disproportionately impacting, I would like to also add geographic considerations: people living in urban areas. Growing up in NYC, there was no need to have a drivers license. Driving is only something I learned while living in Providence. I'm sure that rural voters also face similar hurdles, if not worse hurdles, considering our current lack of investment in our public transportation infrastructures. Anyway, I registered to vote on the day I turned 18. Looking back it was good to know that the process did not seem as hassle-prone as it looks like it is becoming.

Keepin’ the Capitalism Alive

Recently, this savage detective has been learning a lot about the experiences of prisoners behind bars. For instance, according to one of the inmates, prisoners usually need money after they are arrested to purchase items while behind bars. The anonymous’ source provided me with a receipt of items purchased behind bars. The shopping list reads like items advertised to college students living in college dorms: flip flops, socks, raisin bran cereal, a jar of peanut butter, instant rice, shampoo, conditioner, nail clippers, pilot pens, etc. Oh yeah, and popcorn.

Prisoners can get a pair of Nike sneakers for $59.80. One plantain cost $1.00. Damn, you can buy 8 of those for a dollar uptown!

It is good to know that inmates will still know how to participate in the mainstream economy once they get out from behind bars. But, I ask myself, why do prisoners have to buy stuff? Don’t we spend about $30,000 for every person who is locked up?

A baffled detective.

Does Ed Matter?

I am always hesitant to write postings about education for multiple reasons. For one, I spend my days grappling with state educational policies supportive of college preparation and improving the graduation rates of low-income, first-generation and students of color. Secondly, I believe the tool of education is marginal in bringing about short-term social change, as a change in improving worker’s wages, or guaranteeing citizens free healthcare. In fact, most of the arguments supportive of education are mainly concerned with its potential to bring about long-term social equality, rather than any short-term tangential results. However, I believe there are short-term benefits to education that are vital to the well being (socially, psychically, and economical) of the individual. the education of It is this unique characteristic of education that make it difficult to determine

The limits of these perspectives are evident in two op-eds focused on the “crisis” in education and featured in the New York Times this past week. Although I believe overall educational opportunities are diminishing by the minute, I put crisis in quotations to emphasize how the nature of the educational “crisis” has historically affected inner cities and rural communities disproportionately.

In the first article to appear this week, Bob Herbert rightly acknowledges how the U.S. needs to invest in the educational infrastructure. Herbert’s evidence of the broken U.S. education system is the current high school dropout rate and the growing ignorance among young people. In fact, the test of ignorance comes from students’ lack of rote memorization of U.S. historical facts, such as not knowing that the Bill of Rights guarantees the separation of church and state. I don’t know if this has many short-term implications considering that young people are growing up in a time where these two divisions are blurred. This might be a reflection of our contemporary political climate.

By using knowledge of U.S. historical fact to test the state of our educational system, Herbert is in essence evoking the notion of education as a nation-building project, which forges a common understanding of democratic principles. I believe this is where the short-term potential of education is apparent; in its ability to muster.

Edward B. Fiske’s op-ed piece Friday morning provides a summary of the lasting legacy of a nation at risk is the advent of ed-reform upon ed-reform. Of course, the thought that education reforms are relatively new phenomena is false. The entire 20th century witnessed the expansion of compulsory education in the U.S., and multiple thoughts as to the purpose of education and which populations are to be served by the system.
I appreciate Fiske’s piece for what Herbert’s article ignores, namely that rote memorization is not indicative of the quality of an education system. This is exactly what is our current experience under NCLB.

Both authors differ in how they treat our current economic downturn in relationship to educational opportunities. Herbert relies on the threat of international economic competition to garner reader empathy and action. Subsequently, it plays on American \ fears of losing its economic dominance in the world. Erroneously, I would say that
Herbert is mistaken. A college degree is not crucial for a middle class lifestyle, but that a master’s degree is the only guarantee of it.

It's not a house party in Providence, but...

It was a few years ago Janet and I learned that Junot Diaz had made appearances at certain house parties thrown by Brown students in Providence, but had never made any sort of public appearance on the campus.  Naturally, then, when I heard the Pulitzer news, I couldn't help but wonder if he'd returned to his old stomping grounds to celebrate.  In fact, I was going to post something snarky about it here, but life got busy and, well, then I came across an excerpt from an email he wrote to Gregory Cowles at the Times.

So, while Dominican intellectuals everywhere celebrate this victory by yelling even louder at their professors to include all two Dominican-written books on their Latino lit syllabi (Drown being the other), Junot wandered back from the banks of the Hackensack to his bucolic Perth Amboy home to sit with a baby on his lap and reminisce with his mother.  Who knew he had it in him to be so whimsical?  

And who knew he could write an entire paragraph without cussing?