Hang low the mistletoe

My sister and I sometimes cheat and listen to this holiday classic early, but to be honest Donny Hathaway's "This Christmas" is truly a year round jam.

This tune is what Christmas is to me - wonderful memories of the magic my mother created for her girls every Christmas morning. The joy is renewed each year.

Spread Love, its the Brooklyn Way...

Brooklyn Girl
my theme song

Holidays in the Hood

special shouts to my Queens folk

All I want for Christmas...

Besides all expenses paid trips to Trinidad, Bahia and Ghana, what I would really like for Christmas is a copy of blackgenius, James Weldon Johnson's God's Trombones.
And then they laid hold on Simon,
Black Simon, yes, black Simon;
They put the cross on Simon,
And Simon bore the cross.

One of the most quietly beautiful verses. So hop on amazon.com and hook a sista up on the cheap

truly thankful

Thus begins my favorite time of year - Thanksgiving ushers in the time when I can start listening to Christmas carols unabashedly, thinking up what gifts I'm going to give to my loved ones (although in this economy its going to look mighty sparse under the tree), and looking back on where the year has taken me.
While my sister keeps on joking that this year is going be like Christmases of old: in the place of gifts we'll gather 'round the fire, fashion homemade gifts, go caroling, and *gasp* focus on the true meaning of the season - the birth of Christ.

I am truly Thankful for many things and even when it gets dark (but thankfully not as bad as it got for our American Indian brothers and sisters. They didn't realize that the feast with the Pilgrims was a one time deal) I can sit back and count the blessings.
So, in the spirit of the season, these are the things (silly and serious) that your favorite sis is thankful for in no particular order:

1) Netflix - who knew the word queue would take on such a deep meaning in my life? I look forward to checking my mail like no other

2) my adorable nephews - 1 year olds are hilarious

3) the older, not as cute members of my fam - they've known me my entire life and still manage to like me. On the real, a solid family is a gift from God.

4) good friends - aka my grading squad. Special shouts to Jess, my weekend scholarly warrior.

5) living in a nation in which a black man (yes, he IS black) can be elected to the highest office in the land 143 years after people who looked like him lived in bondage

6) my bomb apartment

7) Bed-Stuy - in the throes of gentrification a girl can still manage to get a small wonton soup and egg roll for $2.50.

8) Recession proof meals - The Chinese spot, a plain slice, a chicken patty and that good Foodtown card.

9) podcasts- makes my commutes far more enjoyable (and nerdy)

10) having a job! I can pay my bills on time, maintain a good credit score (I'm on my Suze Orman), and even when the kids are stressing me out lovely I get to sow good seed into good ground. And the minds of my little scholars are good ground.


I could marinate on all that I lack and all that I want, but I'd rather do like Adam Clayton Powell and "keep the faith baby". So instead of getting tight, embrace the spirit of the season and be thankful. Give thanks and praise, because if you have the ability to get on the computer, and read this little entry, you already have much to be thankful for.

welcome back

as if you needed more proof that the 90s were the "happy decade", here is your sunday cup of maxwell.

i'll be liming a fete with him tonight at his concert. taking it higher and higher. we welcome him back to the music scene with open arms.

life in marvelous times

i want my people to be free

Goodbye Mama Africa

Rest in Power Miriam Makeba

President-Elect Barack Obama

in our lifetime.

A new day

Don't be surprised if pictures of the President-Elect start popping up next to your Granny's framed photos of JFK, Martin and illustrations of the Lord with a fro

Riding High

As I walked to the A train this morning basking in a sense of national revival and reverence for the power of people ready for change I shared a great moment with a trash collector who when he peeped my Obama pin, scream out "OBAMA!" We quickly pumped our fists in the air in solidarity.
The spirit of the Lord was there.
I got to school and a student shared his excitement and I realized that all possibilities are truly open to that young man and his classmates. The glass ceiling has been shattered and now a child can reach up and reach high and claim their victory.

yet do I wonder

Jubilation could not describe the sense of wonder and joy I felt last night, when I heard the amazing news, the next President of our great nation would be Senator Barack Hussein Obama.

Hallelujah.

I dropped to my knees and thanked God for the new day he created in our country and in the world. Vindication for our ancestors, promise for my students, and a new reality for my nephews. What happened across this nation proves that America is still a nation of possibility, in which we constantly push for the promise of a better tomorrow.

We are blessed.

Know Hope

This is why I'll be pulling the lever for Senator Barack Obama.

the black beat 2.0

kicking beats across the colorline = blipster heaven

Am I White?

Of course not! But after a trip to Food Town with friends as I picked up some stuff for my housewarming, I kept getting teased for my "white" tastes. I guess brie and hummus isn't what's hot right now in the streets. Then upon taking a quiz by the makers of Stuff White People Like
I discovered that I'm 50% white based on my tastes and hobbies. My friend Andrei however, contends that the number is actually somewhere closer to 89%.
While the fact of my blackness is unquestionable, a sista does like indie bands like Wilco, the cult hit "Arrested Development", and reusable grocery bags. However, I think this makes me less "white" than transcendent in the spirit of none other than Senator Obama. Or to get less lofty, it simply reflects my '90s, multi-cultural childhood, with a group of friends that looked like the cast of "Ghostwriter". Moreover, Stuff White People Like is really more like, "Stuff, Young Urban Liberal Professionals Like".
So instead of hating on my crazy urbane tastes, recognize the blipster toughness. Real recognize real.

Respect due

I know that (most of) ya'll have already seent this joint, BUT each time I watch it remains as fresh and inspirational as it was when it first aired last Sunday.

To those of us who were ready to let ol' Colin go off into pasture, he wasn't gonna go down like that.
Its a new [political] season, indeed

Trying Times

These are the times that try a sister's soul...
The market is melting, and we all know that when the country catches a financial cold, people of color and the poor get pneumonia. The punditry keeps talking about Wall St. vs. Main Street, but what about whats going down on Malcolm X Blvd where the people live? Crown Fried Chicken can't sustain you forever, and the local check cash might shutter their doors. Then what?
Let me just try to do my job out here in the trenches, water the seeds and inspire them to be life-long students. The ivory tower always needs more inhabitants.

Help a Brother Out

How can you say no to that winning smile?
Helping this brother out for a few hours, after work, after school or on your precious weekends could mean a world of good for our nation. If you're like me then you probably get bombarded on the daily by email blasts from the good people at MoveOn, the Obama campaign and messages from his most visible surrogates. But, instead of quickly hitting delete, read through them once again, make your own coffee this week and donate your Starbucks cash to the campaign. Better yet, go to your momma house, where you can use her line for free and make some calls on the good Senator's behalf. You'll be so glad you did.
This is our moment, lets make it count and make the people proud by helping to get Brother Obama elected.
For more information on how to get involved in the campaign, check out http://action.barackobama.com/page/s/volunteer/

See you at the phone bank!

Got You All In Check

students be aware, I got ya'll all in check (education style) like this classic banger by Busta Bus

Love Light In Flight

Another superdope gem from the best who ever did it, Stevie Wonder(ful).

The lyrics are pure Sunday night.
Make me feel like paradise
Give me what I'm missing
Send me to the highest heights
Take me up and away

Who else but Stevie could get it right? Bad 80s clothing, set design and all.

better business boro

I'm living trendy on pennies. Now that I'm officially a working woman, with bills and taxes to prove it my finances are a constant worry. Teaching public school doesn't pay nearly as well as it should, and after coming out of a paycheck-less summer (TFA doesn't pay for its training Institute but it does offer up some start-up grants and loans), my money was particularly funny.

Things were looking a little dire for a while until my homegirl and I decided to go into business. As a cash-strapped grad student at NYU she understood the plight of the broke urbanette. So, being the enterprising young sisters that we are, we got to work, literally and made buttons.
We were slinging pins of positivity, after turning my apartment into a mini-sweatshop we took it too the streets and set up shop on my uncle's stoop and sold our wares. Standing out there in the hot sun, trying to look friendly and not too desperate, I suddenly felt an increased respect to all those brothers and sisters out there, peeling oranges, selling water, drawings and handbags. They're just trying to make an honest buck and I really can't knock their hustle. It's all part of that enterprising American spirit. My business partner and I did pretty well, selling much of our merchandise (the Obama pins were snapped up with the quickness). However, unlike many of the folks out there on the frontlines of the street corners across NYC we have choice. Selling our stuff on the street is a side job used to supplement our incomes and not the source of it.

We expect the folk to work, to pull their weight and earn their keep. But what happens when that old model of street hustling is fading? What comes in next? As Congress tries to get our nation though this economic purgatory, my folk on the street will be rolling up their stuff in their blankets and keep it moving. On to the next corner. Its a living, indeed.

Bodega

Although I'm lamping in the big BK and not the Boogie Down, real recognize real and the corner store/bodega has seen me through some times.

While I love grocery stores, stunting in Food Town, Wholefoods, and Trader Joe's is cool, the quarter waters, icees and hero sandwiches from the local bodega is a must.

Veep Status?

As Flav would say woooowwwwwwww

And as the kids on the block would say, Jack Cafferty just put Gov. Palin on blast.

A Taste of Bed-Stuy

So a sis has been MAD busy, watering the seeds (to the best of my ability, we just got textbooks, holla!). One thing that helps me cool out is strolling around my reclaimed 'hood, the Stuy.
Feels so good to be back, so take a little tour around my neighborhood and get a taste on why I love my home so much.
Running to the C train at 7:15 am is always a pleasure because I get to walk the same blocks my family has been stomping for 60 years.

Homecoming

Coming live from Bedford-Stuyvesant, the livest one. Yes, yes ya'll once again my bed is in the Stuy.
I've officially come home to my hood after spending many years in the lovely home my parents provided me with in Queens. And while Queens is the deal, I'm so over joyed to be back in the heart of the heart - Bed-Stuy where it all began. The neighborhood I grew up in, the one my mom was raised in, where my family put down their roots after their arrival from Trinidad.

The neighborhood I left as a kid is so different from the one I'm making my way in as a young woman - this place has white people riding bikes, instead of burnt out buildings. Cafes instead of crackheads. But the realness remains, and a good Crown Fried Chicken is never to hard to find.

That and this free public wi-fi is superbomb.

A homecoming indeeed.

Scheduling the Essentials

One of the things I miss the most from my pre-TFA days is sleep. At Amherst, I would sometimes sleep in till noon, then roll out of bed, pour a bowl of cereal, then roll back in to watch the Cosby Show. Those days are over.

These days my schedules look more like this:

alarm goes off at 6 am.
I actually wake up at 6:15
leave for the 7:18 train into the City
get coffee at 8
get to school at 8:20
clock in, prep, grade, teach, run around the school like mad until about 5:30 or 6
go to the TFA office to make copies upon copies because the kids STILL don't have books, leave for the train back home at 7:45 or 8:45 depending.
home by 8:30 if I'm lucky
eat, prep for the next day, do grad homework
Bed by 1, if I have my stuff together
rinse and repeat

Lets not even talk about the nights when I have class...
Real teachers (even first year novices like me) take plenty, plenty naps and drink their coffee strong and black.

Teacher Don't teach Me No Nonsense

The name Fela Kuti speaks for itself

The First Day

(This picture isn't of me, but rather of another positive young black woman)

I made it through my first day as a public school teacher. Amen

I have never been as exhausted, drained, stressed, or thirsty in my life (all that talking causes the scratchiest throat evar!). Then I had to drag my newly minted teacher-self uptown to the Bronx for my first day of grad school. Truly a day of firsts.

But it was a good day. The good Lord saw me through. I got through the papers, passes, difficult to pronounce names. In the words of one of my students -"The thing I look forward most to about school is: Getting ready for the great tomorrow."

The Next President

As I sat there, watching our next President (okay J, I'm ready to name and claim it) I realized, sitting there snuggled between my parents, with my nephew cuddled up on my mother's chest sleeping that that little boy has the possibility of inheriting a world in which the notion of a black President is normal. I was born only 21 years prior to my little nephews and yet, there worlds and the possibilities witnessed within the Obama candidacy are so vastly different than mine.
I just wish my grandmother was here to soak it all in and enjoy our nation coming into some of its full promise.
I am so proud to be an American right now and what my country in standing up to do.
I am so proud to be a young person, as my peers are being galvanized across the nation into political action and community service.
I am so proud to be a black American, and I know that my ancestors, our foremothers and forefathers are looking down on us as we move toward creating a truly more perfect union

Michelle's the ticket

Our sister Michelle

As I sit here, riveted by the television watching the Democratic National Convention on CNN, I know that Ida B. Wells, Fannie Lou Hamer, Coretta Scott King, Shirley Chisholm and my own beloved Granny are smiling down from heaven and sending a spirit of peace down to our future first lady Michelle Obama.

I know that it is her husband who is running for President and not her, but her presence on the stage - standing proud, strong, beautiful, intelligent fills me with a sort of unplaceable pride and gives me a feeling of joy and hope. During my freshman year, my momma would send me little care packages to lift my spirits when the burdens of being a young black woman at an elite college got a little too heavy. She would always include an inspirational note cards with dancing, smiling black women encouraging me to take heart and claim my inheritance of excellence. And while those cards put a smile on my face to know that at home, Mommy was holding me down in prayer I wasn't all too sure...

Then Michelle Obama comes on the scene; standing serenely next to Brother Barack; enduring the type of media scrutiny that has largely bypassed Cindy McCain; raising her girls and hopping all over the nation to campaign on her husband's behalf. All the while quietly helping to change conceptions of what black womanhood can mean. She has faced down all the attacks on her personality, background and statements with grace. She did not let the punditry turn her into a caricature of the ugly stereotype of the black woman - harsh, brash, angry. She was too smooth to go down like that.
Seeing a woman come from a background that is so similar to mine and other young sisters -proudly African American, highly educated and talented emboldens us. She is another positive reflection and I appreciate her calm presence in this circus of a campaign season.

I indeed speak her name and secretly wish I could cast a vote for Obama/Obama in November.

Stand and Deliver

They probably won't be making a movie about me and my students (and if they did I hope the trailer is a little more sleek then this joint), but as the first day of school gets closer I find myself trying to imagine what things are going to be like. What kinds of students will be sitting in my class? What kind of teacher will I be? Will it be obvious that I'm new to the game? I have no idea what to expect.
But I think if I can channel the vibe of Mr. Escalante of the movie then I'll be alright.

if only my life as a teacher would follow the same positive trajectory as a touching 80s movie.

funky fresh

stevie doing his thing on an old school sesame street episode. the 70s were too real.

Next Year in Accra!

When I was abroad in London I would meet students at SOAS or random folk in the street and they would inevitably ask me where I was from. And I thought the answer was obvious (by my hard/nasal American accent), and I'd tell them, the States. Then they would ask where I was really from. Thats when things got a little sticky and I'm stumble through an, "Uh ummm... Brooklyn, Trinidad and Panama are where my mama and daddy are from. But we were slaves. Well not me, but you know what I'm saying right?"

The perils of being New World black.

Then one of the security guards from my school who would always greet my friend by calling her an Ethiopian princess (although she ALWAYS let homeboy know she is Eritrean) asked me where I was from. As I stumbled through my answer, he told me that I looked Nigerian and from then on would call me a Nigerian princess. And I was well maybe, who knows? But I secretly relished being included in his daily greetings of all the African students, although I've never seen the shores of the motherland.
In fact, I know more young white Americans than black who have been blessed with the opportunity to go to Africa. And yes, I'm more than secretly jealous. There is something to be said of seeing a nation in which people with brown/black skin run tings. My homeboy Jason said it best, reflecting on his trip to Ghana - "There were black faces on the money!" Going back to Trinidad brings about some of those emotions, but I yearn for the day to actually go to Africa and see the place where my line started.

Young black Americans need our version of the Birthright trip that young Jewish students from throughout the diaspora are entitled to - a fully endowed trip to their homeland. Oprah, Skip Gates, Bob Johnson and all other wealthy Negroes need to get on board with my idea for a Sankofa trip, the black American version of the Birthright Israel trip. The devil is in the details though, who is eligible? where will they go? how will we figure out where people go, we were enslaved, we don't know where we're from?! Thats where technology comes in! Courtesy of a DNA test a la African American Lives, we will figure out were the majority of our ancestry is from (for my Caribbean folk things will get a lil hairy, but UWI has resources and archives).

I want to see Africa not just for the safaris, and the kente cloth - I could go to the Bronx Zoo and 125th for that. I want to see where the music I listen to is from, the roots of our worship, how we dress, walk, talk and eat the foods that we do. I want to see the diasporic connections. I want to see, live with my own eyes, that while I am from the United States and my parents from the Caribbean, that my journey started elsewhere.

Then we will go home again.

Or watch me turn out like some Skip Gates, with little traceable roots to Africa, resulting in a trip to Ireland.

My Granny

Disclaimer, this picture is just one that I liked and thought was cool, and not of my own Grandmother, Lucille.

For some reason, lately my granny Lucille (whom my sisters and cousins lovingly called Grandmother) has been on my mind quite a bit. So it is only right that I memorialize her via blog...

I know that everyone loves their grandma and thinks that she is the greatest - but I really, really loved my grandmother. And to those of you who haven't had the pleasure of meeting her, ya'll missed it - she was a firecracker. She was blunt and honest to a fault but you never doubted for a minute that she loved you and her occasional "constructive criticism" was only out of love. She helped raise my sisters and I taking us to Trinidad every year and dragging us all over the City. Our Friday afternoons together are some of my best memories - she would listen to whatever news I had and treat me like a little adult, while all the time having candy handy (to offset her terrible cooking I guess).

And her death 4 years ago in my freshman year is possibly the biggest loss I have endured in my life thus far. I didn't just loose a granny that November night back in 2004, I lost my second-mother, my best friend and my role model. She was and is my hero (next to mom dukes of course).
I could go on and on about how bomb she was - how she went back to college and got her degree in her 60s; how she was the most well traveled woman evar, globe trotting from here to China; how she would drag my sisters and I all over the city to the Bronx Zoo, Ellis Island, museums and free events of all sorts just to make sure our world was bigger than Bed-Stuy; and how she helped give me back my voice and beat stuttering by encouraging my love of music and singing. But that wouldn't even begin to fully do her justice, simply put she was the most gully person I've ever known and I miss her dearly every day.

I wish she was still here so that she could have read the thesis that was dedicated to her and watched me walk across that stage and get the degree she worked so hard to help me secure. I wish she was a phone call away so that whenever I get back from a trip we could chat about how no where even comes close to NYC. I wish she was here so that I could tell her about my new life as a teacher and have her tease me about my new professional role. But mostly I miss laying next to her on that big old bed, enjoying quite time as she calls me sugar dumpling. I would do anything if the good Lord were to allow me just few more minutes with her - we would meet in her kitchen and sit across from each other at the table over greasy Chinese from up the street and I would give her one last big hug and say, "See you later Grandmother, I love you. Thanks for helping to teach me how to be a woman."
I still say those things and many more to her, but only in my heart and mind. And while it hurts that she missing the realization of her dreams for me I know that God relays my messages for her.

Here's to you Grandmother and as is written on my dedication page of my senior thesis: "To the memory of my Grandmother, Lucille - I dedicate this thesis and my education to her."

the fact(s) of blackness

After watching this clip, from the bomb satire CB4 I was immediately reminded of my time at college and how righteously black(West Indian, Aframerican, pan-African, internationally African American) I felt. At first it was if just being there was like doing my bit to further DuBois dream. Then after my first semester of freshman year I learned that I would have to be a little more than just a black undergrad, I would have to become a (hood) scholar and work harder in order to go further to truly live the dream and come into my inheritance left to my by my Grandmother and the other immortal souls of those who've come before and made a way out of no way.

So basically my fact of blackness was never no secret. After reading a post from my homie's blog
about his own journey into race consciousness I realized a little more that "race" and how we identity it and how we see ourselves within its constructs depends almost entirely on whether you come from the majority or a minority group. When one is white, the concept of race is understood in kind of a vague way, perhaps not a primary identifying factor (I'm guessing here guys, so feel free to add yo' two cents). But for me, a black woman I've lived my race in ways that my white brothers and sisters haven't been asked to by and large.

Unlike my freshman year when I felt the need to almost perform my blackness - coming from high school in Harlem and a childhood in Bed-Stuy into the new reality of Amherst, Mass I wanted to prove my "authenticity". (Whatever the hell that was supposed to mean, but it looked like fresh kicks and a Northface or snorkel for my NY folk) But four years hence, mad black studies courses later and after vibing with black/brown folks in Brazil, Trinidad, London, Chicago, etc... I've come to believe the words of Ngugi wa Thiong'o (thanks for the book J) - to paraphrase from The Wizard of the Crow - the secret of black power is unity in blackness.

I gotta figure out a way to sneak in a little bit of Decolonizing the Mind in my classroom this fall.

summertime chi

I'm done with TFA's NYC Institute! And I can honestly say it was probably the most difficult thing I've ever done. Even the thesis. The fact was, I could've quit or gotten out of any of my previous responsibilities without much fallout however, as a summer school teacher, quitting was never an option. I never even considered it, and now that I'm done, I feel confident that I prepared my students as best I could for their Global History Regents next week. (I hope they remember the lesson I gave them where we made facebook pages for global leaders).

As a bit of a reprieve I decided to book a vacation to Chicago. Not much sun and surf, but I have a lot of friends here and the tickets were cheap. And now that I'm here, trying to figure out ways to hang out with the Obamas, Common and Kanye West my mind keeps imagining the fall, when I'm an "adult", leading my own classroom, being responsible for the education of children. I just graduated and already I'm being thrown into an unknown world, after being certain of my steps for so many years.
First there was doing well in middle school to get into a good high school, then working hard in high school to get into a good college (Amherst), then it was surviving college with good grades and a thesis in tow to get honors. And now I am to feign maturity in front of my kids. Show them that being black or Latino doesn't have to me academic ineptitude, while at the same time juggling a grad school course load. But its all been done before by others, so why not me?

Last night, sitting with my friend in her living room watching the commencement DVD, I realized that corny as it sounds, this really is the commencement of my life, things are getting started. But before I get down to it, there is still time to chill, and enjoy my little budget vacay and be with friends as we sit and guess what life will have in store for us.

some more school

There is so much to say about TFA's summer institute. There have been so many times that I wish I had the time to sit down at my trusty comp and write about all the things I've been learning and observing. But as I now know, teachers are always busy, and I've hardly had a chance to fully plan out my lessons as perfectly as I'd like no less blog and keep up with life in general.
But since institute is about to be a wrap this Friday, now is the time for reflection...
Teaching summer school has been the most difficult and rewarding thing I've ever done. I've always respected teachers (I was that kid in the classroom that wanted the kids to settle down, because I actually wanted to learn. In other words I was a lil nerd), but now that I'm actually leading classrooms, giving lessons, grading exams, and checking homework I realize that this profession is at once the most important and most under-appreciated. Teachers are expected to do so much (educate the populace) with so little (pay). And yet it is done, and we move on.
I get up early every morning, around 5ish, get on that bus at 6:15 and try my damnest to make sure my kids come away with something. I hope that they know how much I love them and believe in them and that my love of history rubs off on them just a little bit.

My kids come from the same parts of NYC as my own high school classmates, and sometimes roaming the halls gives me flashbacks to my days at APR (135th and St. Nicks, stand up!). A few years ago I was another public school kid in Harlem, just like them. And now I'm trying to familiarize them with the main aspects of WWII without the benefit of textbooks. Yes, its THAT real. Under the guise of meritocracy we say that all children can succeed. And that is certainly true, if indeed a true equal system were in place. One that at least gave my kids textbooks to take home. There are some things that even an Obama administration can't solve immediately.

But then there are the moments when I walk around my class and have one on one time with my students, and tell them to visualize their dream Regents score, writing them out on post-its and putting them on their t-shirts. Seeing them smile and realizing the possibility lets me know that there is no better way to begin my post-grad life.

(oh and the picture above is a shot of my high school, you betta act like you know!)

my first family

get these folks to the white house now!!!!!

Sending My Love

the odd thing about ending college is how fast life moves after commencement. two months ago i was still a coed, living in my amazing dorm room, taking my laptop to rao's (shouts to amherst and northampton!), and seeing some of my best friends basically whenever i pleased (well those who weren't buried in their theses, otherwise i would have to schedule a friendmeeting). our biggest worry was finishing finals on time and in one piece. now we gotta fret about lesson plans, LSAT/GRE/MCAT scores, malaria pills, and living in a totally new environment. the game has changed real quick.

i have folk leaving the otherland and going back to the motherland, heading back to the eternal caribbean, and globetrotting on watsons and other fellowships. so this one goes out to ya'll - all my people making their way into the big wide world. i'm sending all my love to you.

make the people and the ancestors proud. and i'll see you when you get back. in the meantime, here's looking forward to our reunion(s).

Nice White Lady

but real talk, a good teacher is a good teacher regardless of outer trappings. its just up to the instructor not to get caught up in their students supposed backgrounds and treat them as poor miscreants needing a savior.

black is black

Black Music Month is about to be a wrap, but that doesn't mean the party has to end. Keep the music blasting in the name of the founders of hip hop, jazz, soul, gospel, and rock n' roll.

People think they dis my person
By stating I'm darkly pack
I know this so I point at Q-Tip
And he states, 'Black is Black'...

Gangsta's Paradise (?)

On Sunday, June 22 I officially became part of Teach for America's 2008 NYC corps. And as I looked around the auditorium at St. John's University at the sea of eager and fresh faced newly minted college grads I wondered what the hell I was doing. Would I really be able to be a part of a group that for all of its best intentions reeks of noblesse oblige? Well since I'm down for educational equity (and am in need of a jawb) I'm in for the duration. But the 5 week training institute which is meant to be a crash course to prepare us to go into some of the most under-served schools in NYC is also going to be a social experiment for the 550 cohort (many of whom still think the City is as gully as it was in the 1970s and 1980s. This ain't the Wire).

I wonder if my fellow corps members fantasize about being a kind of Michelle Pfeiffer to their troubled inner-city black and Latino youth. Or maybe Hilary Swank's turn in "Freedom Writers" was more their fancy. You know, the unassuming white suburban teacher is the only one who can get through to the ghetto youth. They swoop in and give them something they never had - hope and in the end they choose the pen over the gun. Bamp. Either way, the story is tired. None of us know what the hell to expect or anticipate. The only thing I do know is that I hope my future students believe in me as much as I already believe in them.

I'm more of the Stand and Deliver school of model movie teachers anyway.

that swang

New.Jack.Swing
thank you Teddy Riley
(not sure if this particular song counts as such, but Blackstreet are the truth regardless of genre)

Irie

We here at Brooklyn Sis celebrate Black Music Month on the Diasporic tip so on that note Brother Bob provides another reason for Caribbean folk (and for the entire extended Diaspora fam) to be proud of our brethren

Sweet Love

Classic + True Soul = Anita Baker

keeping the spirit of black music month on the daily - June and beyond

Where the Daddies at?

Suffice it to say, growing up my friends and I often gasped in disbelief whenever we saw a father at a PTA meeting, choir concert or graduation. We often joked about our absentee fathers as we succeeded despite their lack of involvement.

It wasn't until college that the majority of my friends came from two-parent homes.

Many post-crack generation strivers like your Sis have benefited from myriad father figures, whether they be amazing stepdads (shouts to Pop), uncles, cousins, coaches, mentors, teachers. Yet even the best of mothers (like my own Mommy) need help. Why do we expect women, especially black women to do it alone without complaint, while absentee fathers are allowed to bounce when they choose and bask in the accolades when the children do right.

Its time for responsible leadership start at home, with present and involved fathers.

And to all those a bit peeved at Brother Obama for telling his people that we need to rebuild the infrastructure of our families, walk around the hood of your choice and take a casual poll of the kids posting a block to see how much of them will see Daddy when they get home. A love of one's people doesn't have to be an uncritical love.

Happy Father's Day Dr. Huxtable

As my sister and I reminisced on our childhood the other day, we realized that (quiet as it's kept) we learned much of what we know of how a healthy family is supposed to function from the Cosby Show. Say what you will about Bill today (I personally give him the George Schuyler Award for Telling black folk the truth they don't want to hear), but his show gave a generation of youth of color a mirror into a loving family atmosphere.

So here's to Cliff Huxtable in providing the nation with a different image of what black fatherhood could mean.

*special Father's Day go out to Pop, making him proud on commencement day, made my late nights spent in the library fade away*

June is...

june to me is the fulfillment of the promise of summer. and although i'm a child of the caribbean, i could do without the stifling humidity that engulfs nyc this time of year, i do love the ever present block parties, cook outs, and soul music blaring out of souped up cars.

Donnie's 911, is a throwb(l)ack to the honey dipped soul of Donny Hathaway with a healthy dose of social conciousness sprinkled within. Get hip to it

quarter life crisis (?)

These past few weeks have hit me with a peculiar kind of ennui. I keep on going back to my old Amherst email account, reading old messages that people have sent me, looking at old pictures from my time spent at college, vacations, study abroad and those amazingly random nights where your friends are the most important people in your life. I'm pretty nostalgic for the past that has yet to become a distant memory. I only graduated this past May. I still slip up and say that I attend Amherst. But I wonder if I'm slipping into the grey area of a quarter-life crisis. Whatever that term really means.

The days right after commencement were particularly hard, as it sunk in that the folks that I shared 3 1/2 years of my life with wouldn't be living with me anymore. The real world doesn't come with palatial dorms and a meal plan the way college did. But then, I began rediscovering NYC, not as an intransigent college kid, but as a real New Yorker. And seeing my fam on the regular is a nice change from getting voice mails informing me of the latest birth in the familia.

After being a student for so long, its a weird thing to switch identities. Even weirder is the knowledge that when I put on my cap and gown and received my cane I left my childhood behind (for real, regardless of the fact that I'm now a resident of my childhood home). Or maybe after 16 of being a student, I'm given to too much self-analysis.

I'm just waiting for my world to morph into a 21st century version of Living Single
Good friends. Good careers. Great brownstone = all the undergrad fun minus the awkwardness

the first pound

Cannot wait to see this again in November.

Look What God Has Made

Forty years hence, the dream of equality has been realized (in part), our nation has a black Democratic nominee.
I am in shock. But I am also audaciously hopeful that the United States, 140 years after the days of slavery and the failures of Reconstruction, 40 years after the Movement, and 2o years after the failed policies of Reaganomics that we can indeed have a President of color. We have gone from non-citizens to full citizens, representing a major political party on the cusp of representing the nation. And if Brother Obama was to take it, the face of our nation would change, into one that embraces the idea of a citizen of color leading in the most important office in the land and on the geopolitical stage.

It truly feels like the culmination of what our ancestors and leaders fought for. Yes, we still need to keep on climbing and keep on agitating for and end to the economic and race-based ills that effect our brothers and sisters everyday. But its a new season. A change is in the air.

Now get them checks out and donate to make a change at barackobama.com

Happy Black Music Month ya'll

Jilly from Philly.
nuff said.

Lean on Me (for some knowledge)

"Lean on Me" has got to be one of the better 1980s inspirational teacher movies. My favorite scene has to be the one in which Charmaine from Cosby Show/A Different World fame announces that " We don't want a good principle, we want Mr. Clark!". Hopefully my future students will feel the same way about me (but consider me a good teacher as well). I'll be teaching for America and if I can get my kids to join me in a sing-a-long from time to time they'll knock out those Regents exams.

I got my OJ Check

In the aftermath of the OJ Simpson trial way back in the 90s, Chris Rock mentioned that black people were too happy over the verdict and white people too mad. Our folk were shouting out: "We won, we won!". Meanwhile we didn't get our OJ checks in the mail.

Well America, our time has come. The Economic Stimulus Plan of 2008 has sent out millions of dollars in the mail to the American people in an effort to jolt the economy (or forget about high gas prices, the prohibitive costs of health care, the Iraq War, whatevs).

Now that we've finally got our OJ checks I hope the people use them to pay the light bill or to pay down that credit card instead of copping some rims.

commencing

All of my energies for the past 4 years were building up towards the culmination of a 2 and a half hour ceremony that took place on Sunday, May 25th, 2008. Commencement. The beginning. And not to be hackneyed (but isn't the use of cliche what graduation is all about?) but its like the beginning of the end: the end of my undergraduate career; the end of my (prolonged) childhood; the end of my life in Western Massachusetts. But Commencement is so appropriately named, its the beginning of so many new things: my "adult" life, my status as a post-grad, my entry into the working world (lawd hab mercy).

I'll miss Amherst. We had a love/hate relationship. But I'll miss living with some of my closet friends, the meal plan, the classes, the professors, the free gym membership, the view over Memorial Hill. It wasn't the ideal experience, but it was home. And you take home with the good and the bad.

I have no clue what to expect from these next two years - I'll be teaching lil scholars in the NYC public schools until I bounce to get my grad school on. Hopefully I'll be able to impart some of what I learned to the kiddies.


I can't wait for homecoming...

wishing well

Not all of us have forgotten about you Terence Trent D'Arby.

You'll always be more than a Prince knock-off that bore an eerie resemblance to Milli Vanilli. Brother could sang and dance.
*snaps*

Answering the Call

Former North Carolina (throw ya' hands up) Senator John Edwards is officially cosigning on Brother Barry's candidacy and endorsing him for the Democratic Presidential nomination. John Edwards is the real deal Holyfield and if Brother Obama wasn't running I'd be riding with old dude. Can anyone say Veep?
Or at least Attorney General?
The goal of an Obama Administration starting next January is looking more and more tangible each day.
Its a new season...

Vote Obama by TISA

Why does Barry have so many dope endorsement songs?

I'll always love my momma

While my childhood wasn't as hardknock as Tupac's I still give much praise and admiration to my own Mommy.

I wish everyone was lucky enough to have a moms as wonderful as she.

Thank ya' CNN

One of the positives from being glued to CNN all day erryday for their never ending election coverage is tuning into the fineness that is anchor TJ Holmes.

i'm out for presidents to represent me (pt 2)

After Barry's big win in North Carolina (throw ya hands up) and managing to virtually tie with HRC in Indiana, you would think that this long primary would be a done deal and we could get to the business of making sure Sen. McCain don't get no where near the White House come November. Well clearly, we're all wrong and although HRC is behind in everything needed to cinch the nod - pledged delegates, popular vote, money to fund this never ending campaign... Ol' girl still insists that she has the broad base of support needed to win the general campaign.

Who is part of this broad base of support? Well, according to Hill her wide base can be defined as thus: "I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. She then went on to offer up an Associated Press article as evidence "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."

This wide appeal sounds more like "white appeal". As her chances of winning the Dem nod in any honest and fair get smaller and smaller she resorts more and more to race-baiting. It's a joke. Her hubby went from the first "black" (or sax playing, barbecue loving, philandering, down home) President to a blustery angry old white man. She went from slapping skins with Marian Wright Edelman to getting Civil Rights OGs to sell out their legacies for a piece of the Clinton pie.

How did Brother Obama go from not being black enough, to being so black he went to a church lead by an angry black militant, to an elitist, to someone who was too out of touch (ie, black) to win the support of her base (aka white folks)? I call shenanigans.

I'm just waiting for her to tell me or at least Wolf Blitzer how the federal government is gonna pay for this gas tax holiday and how the candidates intend on addressing our crumbling school system, national infrastructure, and booming prison population. You know, the issues.

A Change is Gonna Come

Funky Divas

early 90s swag

i'm out for presidents to represent me

After the latest round of primaries in Indiana and North Carolina (throw ya' hands up), I have a case of acute campaign fatigue. How long has this been going on? Its been on and poppin' since Super Tuesday (aka my birthday), Feb 5th! Its May! How many states do we have? You know when Guam is in play during the nomination process that we're in it for the long haul.

Although I'm tired of the constant mudslinging, hearing Rev. Wright talk greasy about whatever is getting on his nerves, and CNN's endless promises that the next primary will end this thing and give the Democratic party a nominee, I must say I can't give this primary up. It's like the candy you used to buy from your local bodega: it might have been sitting behind that little glass case for months (or years) but you still buy it anyway, and bite into its sticky/sweet cavity inducing core.

But really HRC, time to bow out gracefully. Give our nation the chance to vote a black man into the highest office in our land. Or is folk too nervous that if that day ever comes, and Brother Obama is doing the cupid shuffle at the inaugural ball that black people might really be free? In the name of Fredrick Douglass I dream of that world.

knock em' out the box

Its about to go down - I'm about to defend my senior thesis to the Black Studies department at Amherst. After 8 months of work, its about to officially be a wrap.
Hopefully after dropping science about pan-Africanity in a New World context, as specifically revealed in the political action of the black residents of Bed-Stuy, their will be a little astrix next to my name at graduation, showing that I'm with honors.

911 is a joke

Before Flavor Flav sold his pride and soul completely, the brother was actually socially conscious. And its only right in the wake of the lack of justice given the verdict of the Sean Bell trial in which the officers responsible for shooting an unarmed young man 51 times walks free. Is it an issue of racism solely? No, things are way too complicated as two of Sean's assailants were black officers. But one thing is sure, the brutal force used by police on too many of our brothers and sisters is out of hand. And until we can feel completely safe with them patrolling our streets instead of acting like overseers on the plantation we will not be completely free. I look forward to the day when mothers and fathers do not have to instruct their children on the "proper" behavior expected of them when stopped by a cop. Of when an officer is walking the beat I don't feel even slightly nervous. Of when the blue wall of silence is shattered and broken for ever.

getting green in the ghetto

Yesterday, April 22 was Earth Day, an observance born out of the various social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. While most folk were glued to CNN watching the results of the Pennsylvania primary (or the reality tv show du jour), my political/primary fatigue allowed me to marinate on what it means to be green. Excuse the rhyme.

I've thought of myself as a fledging environmentalist since I was a little kid. Growing up in Brooklyn, going to school in Harlem and driving to my parents home in Queens I've seen the terrible effects of not-so-benign neglect on the part of our local government in regards to pollution. The streets were ALWAYS littered with old bags of 25 cent chips, chicken wings, and gum (so many of my sneakers were ruined by stepping on a freshly spat out wad of WinterFresh). Why didn't we seem to care that our homes resembled a garbage can? And why has the environmentalist movement failed to inspire folks in the hood? I'm not really sure. Perhaps people are turned off by the crunchy kids in hemp ponchos that try to get you to donate money to Greenpeace on the street.

However issues of sustainability effect us the most. Children in the inner-city are disproportionately effected by asthma due in large part to highly polluted air and the presence of other allergens. Bus depots, landfills, and factories that pump out sludge are usually in our backyards. America's poorest neighborhoods are also its most polluted.
Or to kick it on the celestial tip - the God that created the heavens and the earths is mad at YOU for throwing your Popeyes chicken boxes out the car window. We are to be stewards of the earth.
So get hip to environmentalism, and make black green.

don't call it a come back

Don't call it a comeback
I been here for years
Rockin my peers and puttin suckas in fear
Makin the tears rain down like a MON-soon
Listen to the bass go BOOM
Explosion, overpowerin
Over the competition, I'm towerin
Wreckin shop, when I drop these lyrics that'll make you call the cops
Don't you dare stare, you betta move
Don't ever compare
Me to the rest that'll all get sliced and diced
Competition's payin the price

- "Mama said knock you out", LL Cool J


Its been a long time coming, but finally on April 14th, 2008, I submitted to the Black Studies department of Amherst College my senior honors thesis - "All o' We is One: Black Political Empowerment and Community Building in Bedford-Stuyvesant. After murking that beast, I'm feeling like a 21st century, female remix of Ralph Ellison. Not because I produced a work of genius (that's for my thesis readers to decide), but rather because I managed to read hundreds of books, articles and newspapers, laid up in my blackademic stance. Ever the hood scholar, I managed to open up my work with a Biggie quote (inquire within as to which one it was).

But now its a wrap, so back to regularly scheduled blogging.

A More Perfect Union

The vocalization of the hope and the dream...

dolla(r)s fo(r) schola(r)s

For the next few weeks I'll be full on thesis mode as the finished product is due the first week of April. And thanks to the good people at Amherst College, I'll be able to finish my joint with some much needed research funds for interviews and travel costs.
Wish me luck as I try to pull a blackademic miracle and get my Arturo Schomberg research steez on and complete a senior project that does my hood the justice and honor it deserves.

Open letter to Maxwell

The run up the Super Tuesday redux, March 4th, has me pretty anxious about the new twists this campaign may take. So, in this spirit, I'm sending out an open letter to one of my favorite singers, Maxwell. Hey, Obama does need to add some new songs to his campaign play list.



I'm just going to come on out and say it- Maxwell, I miss you. I miss you and I miss turning on the radio and hearing good music. I ain't talking about the canned tunes that come to us courtesy of the slick productions of Timbo, et, al. I'm talking about, the type of music that takes you back to that high school crush, that family cookout, or drives around Brooklyn in the summer.

I still love Urban Hang Suite. Sumthin' Sumthin' is still my jam. So please stop teasing us, and drop the new album. I'm tired of visiting your Myspace page only to be disappointed that you STILL haven't given us new songs to enjoy while we wait for the B44. Jill Scott and Erykah Badu can't do it their own you know.

And when you finally decide to come back (and I'm hoping its soon), bring D'Angelo with you.

We Are The Ones

will.i.am has done it again and Brother Obama continues to benefit from the free press. They have even managed to slide in muchos Latinos, in a not so discrete move to get them to divorce themselves from the Clintons. I see you John Leguizamo y George Lopez.
If you look beyond Zoe Kravitz's busted haircut the video is inspiring. Even your cynical Brooklyn Sistren has to sit back in wonder at how one US Senator has become such a lightening rod for change.

So please call and email any friends and family you have in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont and use your powers of persuasion to get them to vote Obama on March 4th.

Bedford-Stuyvesant the livest one

Biggie said it best...

And as my homegirl Lenore says, sometimes I wake up thankful I was born in Brooklyn in the 1980s. Let me take that one step further though - writing this thesis on the Stuy has made me fall deeper in love with my hood. Where else can you find a Marcus Garvey and a Malcolm X Blvd?

Here's to you Bed-Stuy

Dick Gregory from the State of the Black Union

Dick Gregory puts in down.

cuba si

The original thuggish ruggish bone has officially resigned from his post as Presidente of Cuba.
While one may not totally cosign with his politics, the man did have staying power.
Here's hoping this will open up the channels of communication between the US and Cuba giving us more access to the island that isn't directly related to cigars and the Buena Vista Social Club.

29 days

Its been a long time coming...

Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope! In the end, that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation. A belief in things not seen. A belief that there are better days ahead.
--Barack Obama, 2004 DNC keynote address

Cornel West speaks of a love ethic which has kept black folk in this country not just alive but has enabled us to retain our hope in the unseen. And thats what I celebrate during Black History Month: that while living and struggling in the hell that was American slavery (and yes, you betta believe I'm including what went down in the Black Atlantic of the Caribbean and Latin America), the purgatory of Jim (and Jane ) Crow, and dealing with racial terrorism of all kinds from all fronts, our freedom never rested on governmental definitions. Rather, our forefathers and mothers knew that true freedom lie in how they viewed themselves in the eyes of the God. The struggle was simply one of recognition - to get to state on the same page, the goal was to hip the government that no man could take away their God-given humanity.

But beyond all that, to think that all those people, the ones we name and remember and those that fell off the pages of history's footnotes loved us and their country so much to risk damn near everything moves me, confounds me and pushes me to keep it moving. This is for them.

Paper Planes

I'm fly like paper...

M.I.A + Bed-Stuy = the rebirth of cool

In Case you missed it

So in light of Sen. Obama's (or as we like to call him Barry) sweep of the post- Super Tuesday February primaries, its high time we get to know more about his leading lady - Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama (too Chi-town)

We all know that the day that our favorite Senator gets inaugurated into office we will all view our nation a lil differently. Little black and brown kids can actually aspire to high public office without getting the side-eye from well meaning adults, letting them know of the glass ceiling. All will not be perfect, racism and all the other isms will still be in full effect (it will take a social revolution to change all that 400+ of institutionalized mess). But even within all this having a woman of color as First lady will (hopefully) smash a multitude of stereotypical views of black women - her place in society, her femininity, her womanhood, etc...

Here's to the hottest chick in the game

Ready Or Not

lets take a break from the constant politicking for a minute and check the timeless rhymes of the Fugees.

I must confess, my destiny's manifest

Its on

Here's a message from my favorite Chi-town Sis regarding a NY Times article she forwarded me

billary ain't playin nice. sowing racial division among blacks and latinos. we see u billary.
check the article below (courtesy of the New York Times)

Next Up for the Democrats: Civil War

By Frank Rich

WHAT if a presidential candidate held what she billed as “the largest, most interactive town hall in political history” on national television, and no one noticed?

The untold story in the run-up to Super Tuesday was Hillary Clinton’s elaborate live prime-time special the night before the vote. Presiding from a studio in New York, the candidate took questions from audiences in 21 other cities. She had plugged the event four days earlier in the last gasp of her debate with Barack Obama and paid a small fortune for it: an hour of time on the Hallmark Channel plus satellite TV hookups for the assemblies of supporters stretching from coast to coast.

The same news media that constantly revisited the Oprah-Caroline-Maria rally in California ignored “Voices Across America: A National Town Hall.” The Clinton campaign would no doubt attribute this to press bias, but it scrupulously designed the event to avoid making news. Like the scripted "Ask President Bush" sessions during the 2004 campaign, this town hall seemed to unfold in Stepford. The anodyne questions (“What else would you do to help take care of our veterans?”) merely cued up laundry lists of talking points. Some in attendance appeared to trance out.

But I’m glad I watched every minute, right up until Mrs. Clinton was abruptly cut off in midsentence so Hallmark could resume its previously scheduled programming (a movie promising “A Season for Miracles,” aptly enough). However boring, this show was a dramatic encapsulation of how a once-invincible candidate ended up in a dead heat, crippled by poll-tested corporate packaging that markets her as a synthetic product leeched of most human qualities. What’s more, it offered a naked preview of how nastily the Clintons will fight, whatever the collateral damage to the Democratic Party, in the endgame to come.

For a campaign that began with tightly monitored Web "chats" and then planted questions at its earlier town-hall meetings, a Bush-style pseudo-event like the Hallmark special is nothing new, of course. What’s remarkable is that instead of learning from these mistakes, Mrs. Clinton’s handlers keep doubling down.

Less than two weeks ago she was airlifted into her own, less effective version of “Mission Accomplished.” Instead of declaring faux victory in Iraq, she starred in a made-for-television rally declaring faux victory in a Florida primary that was held in defiance of party rules, involved no campaigning and awarded no delegates. As Andrea Mitchell of NBC News said, it was “the Potemkin village of victory celebrations.”

The Hallmark show, enacted on an anachronistic studio set that looked like a deliberate throwback to the good old days of 1992, was equally desperate. If the point was to generate donations or excitement, the effect was the reverse. A campaign operative, speaking on MSNBC, claimed that 250,000 viewers had seen an online incarnation of the event in addition to “who knows how many” Hallmark channel viewers. Who knows, indeed? What we do know is that by then the “Yes We Can” Obama video fronted by the hip-hop vocalist will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas had been averaging roughly a million YouTube views a day. (Cost to the Obama campaign: zero.)

Two days after her town-hall extravaganza, Mrs. Clinton revealed the $5 million loan she had made to her own campaign to survive a month in which the Obama operation had raised $32 million to her $13.5 million. That poignant confession led to a spike in contributions that Mr. Obama also topped. Though Tuesday was largely a draw in popular votes and delegates, every other indicator, from the candidates’ real and virtual crowds to hard cash, points to a steadily widening Obama-Clinton gap. The Clinton campaign might be an imploding Potemkin village itself were it not for the fungible profits from Bill Clinton’s murky post-presidency business deals. (The Clintons, unlike Mr. Obama, have not released their income-tax returns.)

The campaign’s other most potent form of currency remains its thick deck of race cards. This was all too apparent in the Hallmark show. In its carefully calibrated cross section of geographically and demographically diverse cast members — young, old, one gay man, one vet, two union members — African-Americans were reduced to also-rans. One black woman, the former TV correspondent Carole Simpson, was given the servile role of the meeting’s nominal moderator, Ed McMahon to Mrs. Clinton’s top banana. Scattered black faces could be seen in the audience. But in the entire televised hour, there was not a single African-American questioner, whether to toss a softball or ask about the Clintons’ own recent misadventures in racial politics.

Hillary Clinton leading Mr. Obama among African-American Democrats by a margin of 62 percent to 34 percent. But once black voters met Mr. Obama and started to gravitate toward him, Bill Clinton and the campaign’s other surrogates stopped caring about what African-Americans thought. In an effort to scare off white voters, Mr. Obama was ghettoized as a cocaine user (by the chief Clinton strategist, Mark PennThe Clinton camp does not leave such matters to chance. This decision was a cold, political cost-benefit calculus. In October, seven months after the two candidates’ dueling church perorations in Selma, USA Today found among others), “the black candidate” (as Clinton strategists told the Associated Press) and Jesse Jackson redux (by Mr. Clinton himself).

The result? Black America has largely deserted the Clintons. In her California primary victory, Mrs. Clinton drew only 19 percent of the black vote. The campaign saw this coming and so saw no percentage in bestowing precious minutes of prime-time television on African-American queries.

That time went instead to the Hispanic population that was still in play in Super Tuesday’s voting in the West. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles had a cameo, and one of the satellite meetings was held in the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s smart politics, especially since Mr. Obama has been behind the curve in wooing this constituency.

But the wholesale substitution of Hispanics for blacks on the Hallmark show is tainted by a creepy racial back story. Last month a Hispanic pollster employed by the Clinton campaign pitted the two groups against each other by telling The New Yorker that Hispanic voters have “not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates.” Mrs. Clinton then seconded the motion by telling Tim Russert in a debate that her pollster was “making a historical statement.”

It wasn’t an accurate statement, historical or otherwise. It was a lie, and a bigoted lie at that, given that it branded Hispanics, a group as heterogeneous as any other, as monolithic racists. As the columnist Gregory Rodriquez pointed out in The Los Angeles Times, all three black members of Congress in that city won in heavily Latino districts; black mayors as various as David Dinkins in New York in the 1980s and Ron Kirk in Dallas in the 1990s received more than 70 percent of the Hispanic vote. The real point of the Clinton campaign’s decision to sow misinformation and racial division, Mr. Rodriguez concluded, was to “undermine one of Obama’s central selling points, that he can build bridges and unite Americans of all types.”

If that was the intent, it didn’t work. Mrs. Clinton did pile up her expected large margin among Latino voters in California. But her tight grip on that electorate is loosening. Mr. Obama, who captured only 26 percent of Hispanic voters in Nevada last month, did better than that in every state on Tuesday, reaching 41 percent in Arizona and 53 percent in Connecticut. Meanwhile, the Clinton campaign’s attempt to drive white voters away from Mr. Obama by playing the race card has backfired. His white vote tally rises every week. Though Mrs. Clinton won California by almost 10 percentage points, among whites she beat Mr. Obama by only 3 points.

The question now is how much more racial friction the Clinton campaign will gin up if its Hispanic support starts to erode in Texas, whose March 4 vote it sees as its latest firewall. Clearly it will stop at little. That’s why you now hear Clinton operatives talk ever more brazenly about trying to reverse party rulings so that they can hijack 366 ghost delegates from Florida and the other rogue primary, Michigan, where Mr. Obama wasn’t even on the ballot. So much for Mrs. Clinton’s assurance on New Hampshire Public Radio last fall that it didn’t matter if she alone kept her name on the Michigan ballot because the vote “is not going to count for anything.”

Last month, two eminent African-American historians who have served in government, Mary Frances Berry (in the Carter and Clinton years) and Roger Wilkins (in the Johnson administration), wrote Howard Dean, the Democrats’ chairman, to warn him of the perils of that credentials fight. Last week, Mr. Dean became sufficiently alarmed to propose brokering an “arrangement” if a clear-cut victory by one candidate hasn’t rendered the issue moot by the spring. But does anyone seriously believe that Howard Dean can deter a Clinton combine so ruthless that it risked shredding three decades of mutual affection with black America to win a primary?

A race-tinged brawl at the convention, some nine weeks before Election Day, will not be a Hallmark moment. As Mr. Wilkins reiterated to me last week, it will be a flashback to the Democratic civil war of 1968, a suicide for the party no matter which victor ends up holding the rancid spoils.

building our world anew

If we could accept ourselves as we are, we might bring new life to the Western achievements, and transform them. The price of this transformation is the unconditional freedom of the Negro; it is not too much to say that he, who has been so long rejected, must now be embraced. --James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

In celebration of Black History Month, February 2008, PBS will broadcast a lineup of new and encore presentations honoring and exploring African-American history.

Henry Louis Gates Jr. is joined by Maya Angelou, Morgan Freeman, Tina Turner and other prominent African Americans in AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES 2, a sequel to the series The New York Times called "the most exciting and stirring documentary on any subject to appear on television in a long time." Other program highlights include PRINCE AMONG SLAVES, a documentary about an African prince who was enslaved in Mississippi for 40 years before finally achieving freedom; and INDEPENDENT LENS "Banished," the story of three counties that forcefully banished African-American families from their towns 100 years ago.

Also new in February: an examination of the Tuskegee Airmen in RED TAIL REBORN; LEGACY: BEING BLACK IN AMERICA, which features an intriguing discussion of race consciousness, integration and equity in the U.S. today; and AN EVENING WITH QUINCY JONES, a rare look into the life of the music mogul.

The groundbreaking second season of EYES ON THE PRIZE also airs during Black History Month on PBS. EYES ON THE PRIZE II returns to TV for the first time since the mid-1990s. Other encore presentations include the first season of EYES ON THE PRIZE; SLAVERY AND THE MAKING OF AMERICA; season one of AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES; and INDEPENDENT LENS "Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes."

BROADCAST PREMIERES

AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES 2

Wednesdays, February 6-13, 2008, 9:00-11:00 p.m. ET

AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES again journeys deep into the African-American experience to unearth the triumphs and tragedies within the family histories of an all-new group of renowned participants. Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. returns as series host. In HD where available.

INDEPENDENT LENS "Banished"

Tuesday, February 19, 2008, 10:00-11:30 p.m. ET

This is the story of three counties that forcefully banished African American families from their towns 100 years ago — and the descendents who return to learn a shocking history. Co-production of ITVS in association with NBPC. By Marco Williams. http://www.pbs.org/independentlens

AN EVENING WITH QUINCY JONES

February 2008 (check local listings)

A rare look into the life of music mogul Quincy Jones, this one-hour interview was taped in Washington, DC, in front of an audience. Gwen Ifill interviews and hosts the star-studded evening, which features live performances by Lesley Gore, BeBe Winans, James Ingram, Bobby McFerrin and Herbie Hancock.

LEGACY: BEING BLACK IN AMERICA

February 2008 (check local listings)

In January 2007, a special tribute dinner was held in Washington, DC, to honor the Civil Rights generation. Attended by 18 celebrated African Americans from business, politics, academia, media and the arts, the dinner proved to be an intriguing discussion of race consciousness, integration and equity in the U.S. today.

RED TAIL REBORN

February 2008 (check local listings)

RED TAIL REBORN is the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American fighter pilots of World War II, and of those who sacrificed to tell the Airmen's forgotten tale.

ENCORE PROGRAMMING

SLAVERY AND THE MAKING OF AMERICA (Repeat)
Fridays, January 11-February 1, 2008, 10:00-11:00 p.m. ET
This groundbreaking series chronicles the institution of American slavery from its origins in 1619 — when English settlers in Virginia purchased 20 Africans from Dutch traders — through the arrival of the first 11 slaves in the northern colonies (in Dutch New Amsterdam), the American Revolution, the Civil War, the adoption of the 13th Amendment and Reconstruction. Morgan Freeman narrates. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: EYES ON THE PRIZE (Repeat)

February 2008 (check local listings)

The groundbreaking documentary series examining America's civil rights years returns to public television as part of AMERICAN EXPERIENCE. Covering the period from the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi, and the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott through school desegregation, the march from Selma to Montgomery and the Voting Rights Act, EYES ON THE PRIZE is considered the definitive history of this formative time in the nation's life. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/

EYES ON THE PRIZE II, A SPECIAL PRESENTATION OF AMERICAN EXPERIENCE (Repeat)

February 2008 (check local listings)

Nearly two decades after its 1990 premiere, the groundbreaking second season of EYES ON THE PRIZE returns to PBS as a special presentation of AMERICAN EXPERIENCE in February 2008 in honor of Black History Month. The series documents the journey of black Americans seeking justice, power and identity, from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, and shows the profound effect this movement had on all Americans. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/

FANNIE LOU HAMER: COURAGE AND FAITH (Repeat)

February 2008 (check local listings)

Using archival footage and interviews with those who knew her well and were affected by her actions, this program chronicles the extraordinary life of Fannie Lou Hamer and introduces her to a new, younger generation. Mrs. Hamer attended the 1964 Democratic National Convention as a member of the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party and challenged the all-white Mississippi delegation.

INDEPENDENT LENS "Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes" (Repeat)

February 2008 (check local listings)

This film takes an in-depth look at machismo in rap music and hip-hop culture — where creative genius, poetic beauty and mad beats collide with misogyny, violence and homophobia. By Byron Hurt. http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/hiphop/

SHARED HISTORY (Repeat)

February 2008 (check local listings)

SHARED HISTORY is the intimate story of the relationship between two families whose connection was forged in slavery and has endured to the present. The filmmaker, the great-great-granddaughter of a slave owner, and Rhonda Kearse, a descendant of one of the enslaved families, seek to understand and reconcile the reality of slavery with the shared lives and affections between the families.

SISTERS OF SELMA: BEARING WITNESS FOR CHANGE (Repeat)

February 2008 (check local listings)

This program is an unabashedly spiritual take on the Selma, Alabama, voting rights marches of 1965 from some of its unsung foot soldiers – Catholic nuns. Following the violence of "Bloody Sunday," sisters from around the country answered Dr. Martin Luther King's call to join the protests in Selma.

THE STORY OF OSCAR BROWN JR. (Repeat)

February 2008 (check local listings)

This documentary focuses on Chicago native Oscar Brown Jr.'s work as a writer and performer for more than half a century.

Carter G. Woodson once said, "Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history". So this Black History Month lets take ourselves as seriously as our forefathers and mothers who bleed for our freedom and learn our history and build our world anew.