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Can Hip Hop Age Gracefully?
Although there is much debate about this, I prefer to believe that Hip Hop, as a tangible cadence for American ears, began in 1979 with DJ Lady B’s “To The Beat Y’All,” and Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight.” But as a culture, we can go way back to DJ Kool Herc, The Last Poets, and even Gill Scott-Heron. And if you really want to get technical about it, we can trace the beginnings of Hip Hop even farther with folks like Blowfly and Rudy Ray, and even as far back as the first West African Griots. For the moment at least, I’ll digress.
Fast-forward to today, and what we have for Hip Hop is a 31-year-old dude, living in his momma’s wood paneled basement, trying to act like he’s 17 and three-quarters. It’s a little disgraceful, and at some point Hip Hop has got to get a …
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You Get What You Vote For
In a letter dated just one week after Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler (D) announced that his state will start to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states; and one day after the neighboring District of Columbia joined five states in its own recognition of same-sex marital unions; Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli (R) urged colleges and universities in his state to end their policies banning discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.
In the letter, Cuccinelli wrote: I am aware that several Virginia colleges and universities have included ‘sexual orientation’ in there respective policies. Any college that has done so has acted without proper authority. Such invalid policies create, at a minimum, confusion about the law and, at worst, a litany of instances in which the schools operation would need to change in order to come into conformance. Accordingly, I would advise the …
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Valuing Failing Athletes Over Honor Students
Surely, low college graduation rates among athletes are not new developments in the culture of college-age athletics. As a society, we have long valued athletic prowess over academic genius, allowing any child with a hint of good eye-hand coordination to get away with the C- minimum in the name of the championship glory.
We’ve heard Secretary’s Duncan’s public scorn of the NCAA in clear print and in that racially ambiguous tone of voice of his. And we’ve read Roland Martin’s post of shame about NCAA graduation rates, affectionately entitled “NCAA Graduation Rates Should Make Us Mad Each March.” Nevertheless, we’re likely to get more of the same.
We’ve long allowed the exchange of trophies for passing grades—some unspeakable currency advancing an implicit educational economy of social promotion.
At our universities, athletic coaches remain among the highest paid, and athletes the carriers of the highest scholarships—large sums of gratitude we pretend …
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The School-To-Prison Pipeline
It is a chilly morning for the many students lining up at the front entrance of a local DC public middle school. A mother stands impatiently in line with her four-year-old son who seems eager to be free from his mother’s grasp. “I’m going to school with the big kids today mommy,” he says proudly without any modesty or inflection. She does not reply, but instead uses her eyes to chaperone the rambunctious six-graders playing an informal game of fist-abound shoulder and body tag.
One by one, a team of security guards armed with portable metal detecting wands, an x-ray scanner, and a large metal detector gives each student a half-minute to 2 minute security investigation. The guards confiscate glass bottles of juice found in backpacks, administer thorough body pat-downs, and use their wands to scan ponytails and ankles of unlaced timberland boots.
All of the students are in …
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Obama Signs Order that Undermines Historically Black Colleges
Last week, President Obama signed an executive order, throwing his administration’s increased support behind the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities—an initiative started originally by President Carter. The move comes just two weeks after black Civil Rights leaders met with the president to discuss solving a number of social and economic inequalities disproportionately impacting African-Americans.
The order appears to include a number of goodies for HBCUs, including about 100 million in the president’s FY 2011 budget for additional funding of the Federal Title III Strengthening HBCUs program—a 5% increase overall. It also includes more than 60 million for HBCU graduate programs and just over 20 million in investment in HBCU facilities. The majority of the money, just under 300 million, goes toward new loans for HBCU students in the 2011 fiscal year.
Overall, there can be no question that the president appears to have thrown a …
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