Beef

I like most young African American scholars grew up admiring Cornel West and his scholarly aptitude and his unrelenting commitment to stand in the face of the Ivory Tower and boldly and openly criticize it.  Therefore, the public lambasting of arguably one of the GREATEST academicians in our lifetime is a tad bit disheartening.  While I do agree some of his public criticism of the President has come off as petty and small and his self-anointment of himself in the vain of Dr. King and Jesus Christ is a bit modern day “preacherish" to me.  However, I do think his lifetime social and academic deposits specifically warrant him a level of respect and far exceed any withdrawals he can make at this point.   

   

Has Dr. West lost a step academically maybe, but so have Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods.  What I mean by this is we all hit a point where we are not what we used to be and intellectuals are no different, but to have your intellectual credentials questioned simply because you choose to be unafraid in your questioning or critique of the President is small in my opinion.  Furthermore, there has only been one person to date with the feat of walking on water and to openly criticize the President when the larger African American community feels we are in the mist of it happening again (walking on water that is) takes courage.  But again going against the collective grain is never popular nor is it easy ask any African-American Republican. 

Is Dr. West bitter as Dr. Dyson attest maybe, but age, vitality and the consciousness of one’s own mortality and awareness regarding all of the things you did or did not do has a way of making us all a little testy.   Is he searching for the limelight that he once use to own exclusively due to his academic credentials, maybe so, but so is Al Sharpton relative to his space and countless others.  In my own personal space I was called a whipper snapper and grass hopper when I challenged an elder. 

If there is any light that can be shined down upon this situation it is that the African-American is by no means a homogenious community.  Two, we all don’t think President Obama is Little Baby Jesus and are afraid to be critical of him even though it may get shrouded in pettiness.  Three and probably most important to me is there are African-American men in our community who have academic merit.  We are not all limited in our aspirations and for some their aspiration extends to be public intellectuals.  Four and the one that I hope my pistol packing, driveby shooting, beef having young brothers see is that there can be beef where no one dies a physical death or add to the prison population. 

That’s My Truth and I am sticking to it…

I AM

Dr. Irvin PeDro Cohen

                                                                                               

The New Normal

In preparation for an upcoming talk to some young men I thought about how the paradigm for normalcy has been shifted for young boys of color.  What I mean by that is I personally don’t think there is anything abnormal about being educated, not incarcerated, having a job (non-athletic or non-entertainer) or better yet being socially responsible.  Yet somehow this narrative puts me and many of my peers in elite status.  Although, I do recognize that only about 20% of African Americans hold college degrees and to go even deeper less than 1% have a doctorate degree, but this message is not solely about academic credentials.  I also am keenly aware of the urban myth regarding black men and prison.

Urban Myth

There are more black men in prison than in college…

If I were to reflect just upon my social circle both now as an adult and when I was a kid I would venture to say I know more dudes who became truck drivers, longshoremen, work at the Post Office or are school teachers in some capacity than I do in jail, the league (NFL or NBA) or in the studio with Rick Ross, Kanye or Jay Z.  However, the launchpad to a quality life has been co-opted to the two aforementioned entry points (sports or entertainment) and anything short represent failure.  What this further suggests to me is the perceived economic windfall that comes from such career pursuits trumps any focus on real world options that may allow many of our boys to evolve into to functional young men much less feel good and optimistic about being something other than a ball player or a hot rapper. 

The all in approach of sports leave many young men of color degreeless and broken economically without a functional skill that’s applicable to the real world and the repercussions of the music game I would offer are even worse. The requisite narrative in order to be considered “hot” and even get a semblance of attention requires you to profess to a lifestyle that goes counterproductive to the greater good of any potential beneficiary of your success (see Bobby Shmurda).    

What we have to do is say to young boys of color your ability to drain a 3, fly through the air and dunk, catch a pass or run like the wind are quite limiting relative to the totality of your life and this is just a moment and skill set in time.  Therefore, use that skill as the jump off to educate yourself and develop options.

And to those young boys of color who see their microphone proficiency as their gateway from the mean streets of wherever they come from they have to be reminded that there is no romanticism in the conditions that create oppression. 

You know it's hard out here for a pimp
When he tryin' to get this money for the rent
For the Cadillacs and gas money spent

Three Six Mafia

Their words have become antiseptic to a harsh reality that allows the struggles of many to go unnoticed or at the most taken for granted.  Furthermore, those very same words normalize the hurt and pain relative to premature death and prison and ain't nothing normal about that.  Matter of fact your narrative has evolved through your lyrical experiences (both real and imaginary) created an entire industrial complex that thrives upon your destruction.

There is NOTHING wrong with being able to fix, analyze or develop things, nor is there anything wrong with driving a truck or any of the other honorable professions that allow you to be free physically and mentally of harm.  Matter of fact I would say that’s more normal than anything.

Shout out to all the dudes working normal jobs…

That’s My Truth and I am Sticking To It…

I AM

Dr. Irvin PeDro Cohen      

A Heavy Heart and a Little Headiness

In this season of giving thanks and for all intents and purposes of good cheer I find myself both with a heavy heart and feeling a little headiness.  Heavy hearted for the fact that another African American male has died at the hands of a known assailant and yet no one is to be held accountable for his death. 

Heavy hearted because no matter if you know the victim or not as an African American male you carry the weight of his death as if it was your own or one of an immediate member of your family.  Heavy hearted because with every instance of such public deaths a portion of you dies and yet you are still conscious enough to ask yourself why and what can be done to prevent such occurrences from happening again.  However, in those instances I remember Emmitt Till, Johnny Mae Chappell and Fred Hampton and the countless others that died the same kinds of public deaths only to have their perpetrators go knowingly free. 

Heavy hearted because you want to believe in those who have sworn to protect and serve and in a system of laws.  Yet the realty is you know that our lighter shade of brown brethren don’t die because of loose cigarettes, loud music, whistling at women of a different race or simply walking through neighborhoods at night with nothing more than Skittles and ice tea. 

Hang ups, let downs

Bad breaks, set backs

Natural fact is

I can't pay my taxes

Oh, make me wanna holler

And throw up both my hands

Yea, it makes me wanna holler

And throw up both my hands

Crime is increasing

Trigger happy policing

                                  Marvin Gaye

Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)

The headiness I feel is paralyzing because as a conscious African American male you want to over stand because to understand may cause you to miss something that can be the difference between life and death.   Therefore, you relive both your youth and your present for instances when you could have been a cautionary tale about what can happen when you forget the rules of code switching.  And you immediately account for the young African American males you are responsible for to make sure that you have taught them the rules of engagement. 

There is a level of headiness as you try to find a plausible escape for the emotions that you feel when your entire humanity has been reduce to a hash tag that simply says black lives matter.  However, the moment I have to remind you of my humanity as a man, in particular an African American man is the moment I have lost because it gives you the right to not see me as human and therefore my right to exist becomes a matter of your judgment.

That’s My Truth and I AM Sticking to It

I AM

Dr. Irvin PeDro Cohen

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