With little surprise to most Black Americans, once again another celebrity managed to allow the word "nigger" to slip out of their mouth in the public domain. As a nation still trapped in illusions of race and one that rejects notions of the prevalence of racism, most media outlets and mainstream social pundits, prefer to use the euphemism, "the N word," when discussing who is allowed and not allowed to use the term "nigger" in public spaces and discourse. However, it is about time we stop being timid about the word nigger, in order to grapple with its real consequences and significance to most Americans. In the past few years, at least four public personalities have accidently spoken the word, "nigger," publicly.

 Images of Black women have been used to sell everything from makeup and beauty products to sex. In the postmodern, one is even likely to see images of Black women spanning the spectrum from Hollywood stars to public politicians. Despite most of the positive images representing the range of Black women’s lives and physical traits, there is still not enough images in mainstream culture that represent the everyday realities of Black women and girls. For every Black woman that a young Black girl views in the mainstream media, there are hundreds more images of White women and girls. Ironically, human beings have evolved and survived to adapt to environments through visual stimulation that led to physical adaptations in the environment.

After listening to and reading the latest news media, one must ask sooner or later, if young Black women are the new endangered species.

RAIN (A poem inspired by the violence in Chicago)

I wish it would rain for 40 days.

I wish the killing ends in Chicago.

I wish young brothers would stop killing each other.

I wish sisters would close their legs to false love.

I wish sisters would open their eyes to self-empowerment.

In this entry, I would like to address a blog entry that was posted by a veteran teacher, who has traveled abroad and extensively within the U.S. l.It is the following quote by the author that I would like to directly address: See orginal blog.
High-performing schools (and districts) get far too much credit for what they do, and low-performing schools get far too much blame (Mori, 2009).

  In 2007, media mogul, Oprah Winfrey, went public and announced the opening of her 40 million dollar leadership academy school for girls. To qualify to attend the state of the art school, located outside of Johannesburg, South Africa, students had to identify as low-income and have above average grades in school. Potential students also underwent an application process, academic testing and an evaluation process that accessed their potential leadership skills (Harpo Studios, 2008). Reportedly, not only do the young women at the leadership academy supposedly receive a state of the art education, but their living quarters are also adorned with a yoga studio, beauty salon, and indoor and outdoor theaters (Givhan, 2007). Besides being identified as one of the wealthiest women in the world, Oprah Winfrey is one of the richest African Americans (Goldman, 2008). The intent of this discussion is not to discuss the hard earned success of Ms.

Currently I am in the middle of constructing a new syllabus for a new group of students. Yes, I am the type to change my syllabus every academic year, sometimes even each semester. I guess I am a "reflective practitioner" or I simply realize that once again I set out to accomplish too much. Nevertheless, I needed to blog today, because I have so much anxiety about approaching another school year, with a new group of students. I can't help but reflect back on an article that I co-authored with Dawn Williams (Howard University) titled The burden of teaching teachers. In brief, in the article we discussed the challenges we faced teaching young majority white female pre-service teachers, whom were mostly from suburban communities.

I am feel so humbled to be a part of an intellectual, creative, and active community space where I can wear my many identities. Thank you Shirley and Joe. You both have been my colleagues/advocates/mentors/muses, when I seem to need that extra whisper in my ear most. Now, that I have paid homage...Is it just me or is the assaults and microaggressions coming more frequently in the academy?