2014 The Summer of Discontent

The Revolution will not be Televised

2014 the Summer of Discontent

You will not be able to stay at home and play with your video games, my brother

You will not be able to download the latest porno flick and simply lose yourself

You will not be able to roll up a blunt and poor a glass of Ciroc

Text your boo thang and let her know you’ll be through in 45 minutes

Because the revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be brought to you by Puffy/P-Diddy or any other hip-hop artist

Or will be hosted by DJ Drama

The revolution will not show you pictures of Obama with cool shades on dapping up Jay-Z and Beyonce with Michelle standing off in the cut nodding here head to “Partition”

The Revolution will not be televised

The revolution will not be brought to you via satellite in HD with subtext and a Spanish interpreter and will not have guest appearances by Kevin Hart or a tribute to T.D Jakes or a special appearance by Rev Al or Jessie

The revolution will not get you to Heaven but will accept your contributions.

The revolution will not make you popular

The revolution will not make you slimmer if you commit to a plan of 5 days a week and 2 hours a night, Family.

There will be no post of you taking a selfie next to a burnt out storefront or an overturned vehicle for anyone to like on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

There won’t be any Google analytics to help you get to the top of a web page or trending topics for you to Tweet

The revolution will not be televised.

There won’t be a Happy Hour with a roped off VIP and bottle services or valet to park your car, Uber and Lift won’t be available to drop you off.  You won’t be able to use acronyms like lol, lmao or ijs to describe the time you are having to your BMF or BFF.

The revolution will not be televised.

Real Housewives of Atlanta, Love and Hip Hop or Scandal wont be so damn relevant because it won’t matter who slept with who or who got shot.

Folks will be rioting in the streets because they will know the names of who got shot (Michael Brown, Timothy Stansbury, Oscar Grant, Aaron Campbell, Alonzo Ashley, Wendell Allen, Eric Garner, Jonathan Ferrell, Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis) - the pain and the blood will be more real than any housewife in Atlanta and the love will be so deep that not to start a revolution will be the least of the scandals that people will be worried about.

There will be no Fox News commentary to slant the views of what went on or Don Lemon to tell the world they called me the N word and no hash tag to start a trend or motherly looking white women to say it could have been my child.

The theme song won’t be “Happy” or contain folks singing and dancing with smiles on their faces, instead James Brown’s the “Big Payback” or Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” might be playing in the background

The Revolution will not be televised

The Revolution will not return right after a message about

Christian Singles or E-Harmony.

You wont have to listen out for jingles that say they would like to buy the world a Coke and fill it with perfect harmony or even tell you to have a Coke and a smile.  It won’t contain the most interesting man in the world, but might have images of angry people both black and white

The Revolution won’t be safer in a Subaru or in the suburbs or allow you time to comparative shopping for his and her matching Glocs

The Revolution will put you in the front seat and disrupt all your creature comforts.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,

will not be televised, will not be televised.

The revolution will be no re-run family;

The revolution will be live.

Dr. Irvin PeDro Cohen

A Nonpolitical Poverty Conversation

I recently read an article published by the Heritage Foundation (http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/09/understanding-poverty-in-the-united-states-surprising-facts-about-americas-poor) regarding poverty and came away with how subjective poverty is based upon the individual’s social lens. I read this article not only as a practitioner, but also as someone who has an academic interest in the subject matter as well.  Therefore, the following is my reaction to the information I read. 

The term poverty as the authors’ uses it is subjective when the idea of what it means to be poor in this country is far more complex.  Simply put poverty in the U.S. can have negligible and legal consequences that do not exist in other countries.  Therefore, to look at poverty through the lens of the nightly news and a late night infomercial and determine what passes for acceptable poverty levels domestically are rather shortsighted, if not naïve. 

It seems to me that the authors’ define poor simply in terms of access to goods and services.  However, at the very onset of the article they acknowledge that the cost of goods goes down considerably following a products introduction into the marketplace.  Therefore, cost and access are relative depending upon where we are in the products market cycle. 

The authors identified a combination of at least 10 of the following items as an example of an improved lifestyle that contradicted what “liberals” define as poor.  As if to say if you own any of the 10 you are no longer poor, you simply lack comforts.  The list are as follows:

• ·      Microwave Oven
• ·      Air Conditioner
• ·      Car or Truck
• ·      VCR
• ·      DVD Player
• ·      Cable or Satellite TV
• ·      Cell Phone
• ·      Video Game
• ·      Personal Computer
• ·      Internet Service
• ·      Dishwasher
• ·      Stereo
• ·      Big Screen TV or LCD
• ·      Video Recorder

Going back to an earlier point depending on where the product is in its life cycle consumers can obtain the aforementioned at relatively inexpensive prices.  Case and point with a microwave oven.  You can purchase one for as low as $38.00 from Wal-Mart brand new.  Also, both a DVD Player and a VCR can be purchased for basically the same price with the later not available in some cases.  

Also, you would be hard pressed to find any well meaning, social conscious advocate to consider items like cars and trucks, personal computers and internet service as examples of “luxury” items. 

Depending on the city access to adequate transportation is absolutely vital in terms of functionality.  In Jacksonville, FL dependable transportation can be the difference between employability and being unemployed because of our lack of investment in an adequate public transportation system.  Furthermore, the suburbanization of job opportunities makes access to a car far more important to those who live in core communities than it ever has been in our country.   The lack of investment made in core communities regarding jobs and the infrastructure associated with jobs continues to be a leading indicator regarding generational poverty, which leads me to my next point and that being technology.

Technology or lack thereof can be a major factor in terms of lifting up or keeping people in generational poverty.  I would question if the authors have ever had to fill out any public assistance forms.  To merely apply for “help” requires you to have online access.  Given the Internet as an access point to even get services I would question if you could still consider a computer or the Internet as a “luxury” amenity.   In some cases it is actually a cheaper proposition to access services online because of the fees associated with talking to a live a person.  Therefore, creating a codependency on the part of poor people who cannot afford to be with or without ample technology. 

Computer and Internet access is all-together a different story when it comes to children, particularly children from poverty stricken families.  Research is very clear regarding technology and child development, those who have access achieve and those who don’t simply fall behind.  Furthermore, given our country’s propensity for testing technology is simply a must have access.  In the State of FL starting this year certain aspects of the statewide assessment will be done solely online.  Can you imagine being a student who only has access to a computer in school or at the neighborhood library, who by the way have limited access and only allows you up to an hour per session?  This is not to even mention that here in Jacksonville the library and its hours are the 1^st targets for cuts in at least the last 2 different mayor’s budget.     

The final category in which I take particular issue with is the authors’ lack thereof “evidence” regarding poverty-induced malnutrition.  They suggest that overconsumption of calories is a major problem within the U.S. in general and not germane to poor communities.  As evidence the authors’ sited the nutriment intake of adult women in the upper middle class as resembling that of poor women and suggesting the same evidence was consistent across the board despite the ethnic or gender subset.  However, the one glaring issue that is overlooked is choice.  The lower subsets of people have very little choice based upon access.  In poorer communities’ access to healthier food options is limited at best and simply not available worst case creating terms like “food desert,” which mean an urban area in which it is difficult to buy affordable or good-quality fresh food.  Therefore, foods that are high in calories become part of an unhealthy diet out of necessity rather than a life style choice.  All of this combined leads to run away medical bills, which can have a crippling effect even on the best-managed households. 

What this article does is it makes the issue of poverty simply an issue of choice, particularly regarding marriage and work ethic.  I have coined this the  “urbanization of poverty,” which means if poor inner city black and brown people would simply make better choices socially, get married and get jobs their social and economic condition would change. This approach not only simplifies poverty to fit in a nice explanative social commentary box, but it also adds a level of racial stereotyping while ignoring the social conditions that create poverty.  At the same time it further de-humanizes people based upon the idea that somehow poor people, particularly those from inner city communities’ somehow make poor decisions, don’t get married, have out of wedlock children as a result of some cultural norm and neither have the aptitude or attitude to work.  However, all of those statements are over generalizations and inaccurate regarding poor people.

Finally, what I do know as a practitioner first and an academician second is poverty is less about choice, although it does play a small part, but more about the environmental circumstances that create the conditions that lead to poverty.  And it is those environmental circumstances, which are created through the vessel of public policy that allows politicians and policy makers the ability to inflict their social will. 

No one wakes up in the morning and decides that today is a great day to be poor.  Nor do they wake up and decide that I want to be educated in the worst schools, or eat the unhealthiest foods and find a job that’s the furthest away from my home.  However, this is the reality many poor people find themselves in yet the expectation is to somehow simply pull yourself up by your bootstraps and make it without any social safety nets. 

That’s My Truth and I AM Sticking to it….

I AM

Dr. Irvin PeDro Cohen

Schools to Prison Pipeline

Last night I was part of a forum that discussed the school to prison pipeline and amongst the many issue that resonated with me the one that particularly struck a chord was how adult solutions have crept into child/adolescent behaviors.  When I hear adults using terms like “tough on crime” and “zero tolerance” I cringe because what that symbolizes to me is adult concerns have superseded the mistakes that young people often make on their way to being responsible adults.

Part of being young and an even bigger part of the learning process is to be afforded the opportunity to make mistakes, but now mistakes have consequences that can cost you a lifetime of opportunities.  That experiment with marijuana or that fight with your now best friend can result in adult consequences that at 16 you never knew would impact you for the rest of your life. 

That being said what’s even bigger for me and a point that I think is often overlooked is our acceptance of the prison culture that has now impacted our school system.  What I mean by this is, anyone would be hard pressed to distinguish the difference between what is a school and what is a detention center (i.e. metal detectors, surveillance cameras, uniformed students, and armed security guards).  Therefore, it could be easily assumed given the aforementioned we are conditioning students for what may be their ultimate fate.  And if you live in a public housing complex and attend an urban school then your home environment reinforces the idea. 

Sometimes I wonder if the gates were put up to keep crime out or keep our ass in….

                                                                                       -Cell Therapy (Cello Green/Goodie Mo)

What’s of further concern to me is our resolve to ignore or at the very least our unwillingness to discuss how the historical framework by which the public school system was formed and its history of delivering particular populations to low wage jobs. Thereby, ignore the consequences when those opportunities where no longer available or shipped to China the same populations became and are still becoming fuel for the criminal justice engine.  There again helping us to become the world’s leader in incarceration.

Another point that I have come to believe is that the school to prison pipeline is just one cog in a complex wheel.  What I mean by that is you cannot deny the relationship between our insatiable appetite for test data and how that impacts the relationship between schools and prisons.  Yet we continue to invest more and more into systems of testing and those schools who have done poorly and the children that attend them become the fuel for our incarceration engine.  Simply look at the correlation between testing data and the decision to build prisons.

The research is clear regarding schools that have the highest rate of teacher turnover, the highest rate of new teachers, the highest rate of discipline issues and are located in most cases poor neighborhoods and have high incarceration rates.   Therefore, prison or some level of criminal justice system contact becomes almost an inevitable fate for children living in them.

Finally its not that I personally believe in some nefarious plot by school systems to send young people to prison.  I do however, question are we prepared to change the system that fosters a school to prison pipeline especially when there is an entire economic system tied to it. 

That’s My Truth and I AM Sticking to It…

Dr. Irvin PeDro Cohen

I Got A Story To Tell

It is a commonly accepted truth in real estate that location is everything.  However, for many students living in the urban core that widely accepted truth can serve as a barrier to them maximizing their full potential.  Far too often issues associated with abject poverty thwart student achievement and ultimately morph into crime and violence.  This is not to say that poverty is a catch all excuse for low student achievement and the wide spread violence that has engulfed many of our urban communities. 

The New Town Success Zone is slowly and deliberately developing into a testimony to what can be done when a comprehensive focus to student achievement is taken with their built environment as the center point.  Far too often student achievement is relegated to what happens inside of the school without much consideration to what is happening outside of the school thus leaving teachers as social interpreters in a maze they are not equipped to navigate much less understand.  Therefore, the narrative of who and what a community is often defined by letter grades without consideration for the social factors a community muchless the children that live in those communities are dealing with. 

In the case of the New Town Success Zone all of those things are considered and the results are a 94% promotion rate of children who are actively involved in the afterschool programs and an overall grade point average of 3.10 for 3^rd graders, but more importantly the Success Zone has seen a decrease in numbers of violent incidents.   The aforementioned points are not to suggest New Town as a community is a panacea (New Town is still a food and financial desert and has a high rate of poverty), but it is to suggest full consideration is given to the built environment and how those factors impact student achievement.

We cannot continue to idly sit back and hope that student achievement will somehow get better in light of the social conditions many students find themselves in.  Fore it is many of those social conditions that often trump the learning that is supposed to occur within the classroom.   It is not a debatable fact that learning does not occur when students are hungry, homeless, sick or just been involved or witnessed an act of violence. 

The work of the New Town Success Zone represents a comprehensive, all hands on deck, radical approach to student success through the lens of built environmental change and although we are not where we want to be as a body of work we are not where we were.  However, the success of our neighborhood students says that we might just be onto something.

That's My Truth and I AM Sticking to it.

I AM...

Dr. Irvin PeDro Cohen

Executive Director

New Town Success Zone

I AM Not a Cause

Lately I have found myself feeling some kind of way regarding this national movement that sees Black men and boys in some sort of perpetual victimhood state that requires saving.  I firmly believe that my ability to be employed, not incarcerated and educated at a relatively high level has NOTHING to do with my perspective or my condition.  Rather in my mind it has everything to do with my belief that I AM the captain of my fate and the master of my soul.  This is also not to say that I have not experienced the opposite of any of the above.  Furthermore, I am not constantly reminded about the social implication my race and gender can have regardless of my accomplishments. 

This notion that I am destined to a state of indefinite victimhood based upon my race and gender I am having a difficult time accepting.  The consistent preaching and teaching Black boys and men to see themselves as victims further emasculates the same population in which so many are interested in empowering.  Are their unique challenges that Black men and boys face relative to structural and institutional racism ABSOLUTELY YES.  But this engrained idea that I am somehow powerless in the process to affect change and subsequently impact my own outcome makes me an active participant in my own oppression.  To suggest that Black men and boys somehow must contort themselves in order to avail themselves to success and avoid adversity ignores truly who one is destined to be and places ultimate power in the hands of someone else. 

The above statement does not ignore the accommodations one must make in order to get from point A to point B, but I contend those are just not germane to race and or gender.  People like what they like and are comfortable with what they are familiar with.  Someone’s lack of discovery is their own limited thinking not some reflection of who and what I am.  The economics though of me owning that deficit changes the paradigm and thus has created a movement with saving my peers and I at its core.   

I nor any of the African-American men I know (from ALL economic and social realms) have a desire to be paraded through folk’s mental and social consciousness by the very same entities that have failed us (education, criminal justice and religious).  All of the aforementioned hands are dirty in terms of creating the conditions that have lead to the state of Black men and boys.  However, to have all coalesced and leading a campaign of redemption suggests a sense of innocence that absolves them of their role in the conditions they have created.   Each has to make amends for their role in the deconstruction of Black men and boys before they can be authenticated as true change agents.

Finally, the campaigns that suggest Black men and boys need to be saved, helped, etc never actualizes the who and what from which Black men and boys need to be saved from and what we need help doing.  This glaring oversight in my opinion further institutionalizes Black men and boys to a system of care that has always proven itself to be elusive at worst and insufficient at best.  Indefinite help creates dependency and elusive help is a lie and I am not interested in either.   

That’s my Truth and I AM sticking to it.

I AM

Dr. Irvin PeDro Cohen

"Change" and not the Kind in Your Pocket

In preparation for an upcoming talk I reflected upon some of the greatest challenges impacting communities like the one I work with.  While the challenges are many ranging from systemic poverty to structural racism, access to affordable healthcare to, violence the most underrated yet highly impactful is resistance to change.  Although you might not agree I would offer that change alone might not be highly impactful it’s the subsequent action or lack thereof that falls upon the perpetrator that has the ability to both serve as liberator and oppressor.

Action relative to change within communities that are impacted by negative social factors has the ability to move the social dial by simply making the participant do something different.  While I would again say there are many social factors that add to one’s situation it’s the repetitive behavior of doing what one has always done that leads to the same outcomes.  By the very definition of change at least another possible outcome is available.  Therefore, converting victim to liberated simply by a change in action. 

Within my daily work it’s amazing how something as simple as water versus juice or the attainment of a GED can have a ripple effect that not only impacts internal family bonds, but communal bonds as well.  Either of the aforementioned forces a different conversation whether its health or educationally related.  The close ties found in most urban centers makes the change previously mentioned impactful no matter if it’s in the house or on the sidewalk outside the house.  The change and impact is still real nonetheless. 

However, for most people living in urban centers the historical reference by which change is often thwarted finds a way to bind the people who can least afford to be stagnant socially, spiritually or morally to outcomes that don’t serve them or their families any good.  It is my opinion it is this same inaction that makes them an active participant in their own oppression by simply doing what they have always done.  I would go further to suggest that remedies to what ails struggling communities often times are bogged down in piles of mistrust based upon new solutions not looking and feeling like what members of the impacted communities are used to.  Therefore, recycled ideas being offered by recycled people with the same outcomes come and go and come again with nothing new being offered.

It’s amazing how “back in the day “ or grandma’s lived experience can serve as a strategic reference point and a strategic stopping point all at the same time. This is not to say either is bad, but it is to say both have their place.  However, as it relates to some particularly those living in urban centers both can serve as social, spiritual and moral shackles. 

Finally, this is not an attempt to blame those in struggling communities that are lost in nostalgia nor is it to say all change is good.  What it is meant to suggest is that through a different lens or reference point, change happens and when change happens the gift of discovery is unwrapped and when that happens true learning occurs.    At that point informed decisions can be made based upon fact and not antidotal information passed down and around.  

That’s My Truth and I AM Sticking To It.

I AM

Dr. Irvin PeDro Cohen

Cash Rules Everything Around Me

Let me be the first to say pardon me if I don’t get all hot and bothered if the NBA bans an 80 year old white man from sitting in the VIP (courtside seats) and forcing him to make upwards of 500 million dollars (estimated profit if he is forced to sell the team) in the process.  This is not to say that I don’t find Donald Sterling’s comments any less vile than the next person, I do however understand that Viagra, mixed with old man insecurities, young girlfriends and a LA legend name Magic Johnson can bring out the worse in any man, especially one that’s 80.  I would even venture to say that had Magic Johnson been Justin Beiber the rant would have simply moved from racism to ageism because of all of the aforementioned.  Any man staring those types of odds in the face, youth, wealth and comparable resources is bound to lose his composure and say things that can get him in trouble and I assure you the same would be true if the surname was Ms. Sterling or Ms. Jackson as well.

However, that is not the reason for this post.  What I find more appalling and more deserving for discussion in particular from African Americans is the fact that Donald Sterling was set to receive not his first, but second lifetime achievement award from the NAACP.  Not only was this not his first rant about African Americans, but he had a court settlement and other allegations to suggest that he felt less than positive about African American, yet he had received an award for his contribution to the Los Angles African American community and the NAACP.  My question is what does this say about us?  What does this say about the organizations we hold so near and dear?  And finally what does this say about their (Los Angles NAACP) ability to fight on behalf of African Americans when you are prepared to honor a man who thinks so little of the folks you claim to serve and represent?

What it says to me is cash is king and you can ultimately buy/contribute your way to good graces within our community.  While Los Angles may be the scene for this drama, across the country those who write checks or bring political appeal have silenced those organizations that were founded with the mission of serving/fighting particularly for African American causes. Entire communities and families have been eradicated right under their noses by public policies that have all but ensured a permanent underclass and those that were steering those policies or financing the same people are lauded for their  “contribution” to African American issues.  

While the blame does not solely lie at the feet of people like Donald Sterling it lies within us as a community and our lack of investment in causes or organizations that serve our own good.  We rather invest in rims and tires or homes that we can’t afford or Bishop/Pastor/Apostle new whatever church/car, etc.  Thus leaving those same organizations begging from people or companies that don’t have our best interest at heart.   Therefore, it should not surprise anyone when the hand or hands that feed you slap you.

Donald Sterling is just the latest, but he is not the only one who writes a check yet feels some kind of way about those who cash it.  However, until we as a community are prepared to invest in causes and organizations that reflect our own best interest and have earthly outcomes attached to it we will continue to eat and celebrate the hand that both feeds and bites us.

This is my truth and I AM sticking to it…

Dr. Irvin PeDro Cohen

Financial Member of the NAACP