News & Commentary
Hearing Thunder with Harriet Tubman: Reaping the Harvests of History
March 15, 2012To talk of Harriet Tubman is to speak of one of those special persons who serve as sacred sources and cultural anchors of our expansive self-understanding and whose lives are the precious and heavy metal and material out of which history and hope are hammered. In this month of remembrance and special honor of our foremothers, Black History Month II—Women Focus, let us pay rightful hommage to her on March 10, her Day of Remembrance set aside by our shared home state of Maryland. Let us raise and praise her in her righteous names: Whirlwind rider, who saw the lightning, heard the thunder, felt the rain and reaped the harvest. High-rising light in the night, showing the way and will to freedom. Tall- stander, standing up and speaking freedom in the midst of fear and silence. Line- crosser, unlimited by boundaries and unbound by borders. Way-opener, who crossed the rising
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Why I left My College
March 12, 2012 When I went to Bennett College for Women in 2007, I declared that I was “on fire” for the institution. I still am. And I also yield to the biblical verse that says for everything there is a season, a time for everything unto heaven. I had a season to build four buildings in four years, to increase enrollment, to influence curriculum shifts, and to assemble an awesome senior team, to engage with most of my students, and to influence young lives. I also managed the development of a new strategic plan, and I’ve been privileged to be a national Bennett brand advocate. I’ve maintained a speaking schedule partly because it enhances Bennett’s visibility, and wherever I go, I meet potential students, parents, and others, that want to engage me in Bennett matters.
I most value the ways we have looked at our campus foci – entrepreneurship, leadership, global studies …
Celebrating Black Women’s History: Achievements, Strengths and Struggles
March 6, 2012As we mark this year’s Black History Month II: Women Focus, we will again pay rightful homage to the pioneers, heroines, and way-makers who made ways out of no- way, who opened up ways for so many others, breaking down barriers, crossing boundaries, creating and increasing opportunities for women and girls, and others marginalized and excluded, and making great sacrifices and strides in the service of women, our people and humankind. But as we celebrate Black women in their most awesome and expansive meaning, one of our most difficult and de- manding challenges and tasks is to balance our stress on achievements and strengths with the urgent and unavoidable need for continuing struggle. For in spite of their extraordinary achievements and demonstrated strengths, the struggle does and must continue to decisively end the inequalities, injustices and unfreedom that Black and other women still suffer throughout the world.
Thus, we are
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A Quiet Voice Stilled
For someone who made history as his state’s first African-American to serve in Congress and developed an international reputation for his work in support of Africa, Donald Payne was a pretty unassuming man. He didn’t have the flash of a Charlie Rangel or the fire of a Maxine Waters, but he held himself with a quiet dignity that made you respect him even if you disagreed with him on an issue. It is what set Rep. Donald Payne apart and it is what many will remember him for when they reflect on his life and achievements.
This morning the 77 year-old Payne lost his battle with colon cancer and passed away in hospice care. The congressman had returned to New Jersey on Friday and was rushed to a hospital outside Newark as his condition worsened. Rep. Payne served the 10th congressional district in New Jersey for 23 years and at…
Black History, Red Tails & Tuskegee: Critical Conversations ‘Bout Ourselves
February 25, 2012No matter what we think, say or write about the movie Red Tails, about its message, meaning, worthiness or weight, the discussion is ultimately and unavoidably about us, about how we perceive and understand ourselves, what we accept as real and rightful representations of us, and how we read and relate to the historical and current lived experience and initiatives of our lives in the context of both oppression and “constrained freedom.” Now, to define freedom here as constrained is, of necessity, to recognize the limitations, especially of race, class and sex (gender) placed on us, even the most “privileged” among us, and its effect, not only on how we assert ourselves, but also and particularly, how we understand ourselves.
It is important at the outset to note that the discourse that has emerged around the release of this movie demonstrates again how we have come to discuss our history …
False Prophets
February 22, 2012Franklin Graham and the hate behind the southern evangelical Christian brand.…
Defeating HIV / AIDS: The Perpetual Achievement of the Impossible
February 21, 2012By Dr. Maulana Karenga
As we marked this National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, we could not avoid noticing that the issue of HIV/AIDS has become less urgent on the country’s agenda, that one of the once most vocal and active racial groups now has sufficient government monies, medicines and means to move on to advocate for other things, while real and potential Black victims are left to fend for themselves and make do or die on the remaining meager resources. For this is the way power and race work in this country and the world, in spite of self-deluding post-racial prattle and misconceptions about negotiation instead of struggle, and transactional trade without the power of an engaged people.
Indeed, it is the way the imperial and powerful imposed the category of “race” as opposed to “people” on us and the world, assigning peoples different human worth and social status and …
HELP ME SOMEBODY
I still have not gone to see the movie, The Help. I read the book and that was enough for me. I read a book where a white women fully engaged herself in cultural appropriation, putting 21st century voices into 1960s throats. Which black women, in 1960, would have said that black men left their families like trash by the side of the road? Maybe a 21st century feminist would have voiced such sentiments, but a sixties sister? Hardly.
Speaking of hardly, my opinion hardly matters. There is rich discussion among African American women about the movie, the book, and the reality. I just want to remind my sisters that in 1940 seventy percent of us were maids, or private household workers. I want to remind us that even those of us who had advanced degrees worked some time as a maid. I want folks to remember the …
False Prophets
February 20, 2012…
The Women in Black History
February 16, 2012I am grateful and appreciative of Dr. Carter G. Woodson, the man who claimed Negro History Week, which later changed to Black History Month. From a week to a month, but we need to rock the year, every year, because there are so many opportunities to celebrate Black History. The organization that Dr. Woodson founded, the Association for the Study of African American Life and Heritage (ASAALH) organizes a theme each year, and this year the theme is women.
Part of me fusses. Gender needs always to be threaded through conversations about the African American experience. When we think of history, men’s names drip off our lips – Frederick Douglass, martin Luther king. Much less frequently do we think of women like Ida B. Wells, Dr. Sadie Alexander, Mary Ellen Pleasants, Fannie Lou Hamer, so many others. Yet these women are the marrow of the bone of our history. These …
- Remembering the 1992 L.A. Revolt: A Calculated Cautiousness
May 5, 2012 - Repairing and Remaking the World: An Environmental Vision of Justice
April 21, 2012 - Notes from the Battlefield: Trayvon, Strategy and Struggle
April 14, 2012 - King and Our Moral Mission: Transforming Ourselves and the World
April 10, 2012 - For Trayvon and Our People: Radical Racial and Social Justice
March 30, 2012 - Institutionalizing the Afrocentric Initiative: Securing A Centered Way Forward
March 23, 2012 - Hearing Thunder with Harriet Tubman: Reaping the Harvests of History
March 15, 2012 - Celebrating Black Women’s History: Achievements, Strengths and Struggles
March 6, 2012 - Black History, Red Tails & Tuskegee: Critical Conversations ‘Bout Ourselves
February 25, 2012 - Defeating HIV / AIDS: The Perpetual Achievement of the Impossible
February 21, 2012
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