[Xmca-l] Baltimore burns

Peter Farruggio pfarruggio@utpa.edu
Mon Apr 27 20:25:03 PDT 2015


Yes, Mike, life in the Empire. I don't know about CNN, but my wife had one of the network stations on the TV in a nearby room. I listened to the disgusting, biased coverage of Baltimore, as read straight off the police dept info feed. Lots of details about a handful of policemen injured ( a broken leg was mentioned), and the heroic efforts to rescue them from the angry mob, and oh, the horror! Etc A typical "the natives are restless" piece, with little emphasis on the fact that a young man was KILLED in police custody (with an 80% severed spine!!), for running away from a cop who was staring at him. 

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces+pfarruggio=utpa.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces+pfarruggio=utpa.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole
Sent: Monday, April 27, 2015 10:10 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Aeon article - School of Failure

Thanks for the link, Peter. I happened to drive past the "Harlem Kids Zone" building on 125th st today on my way out of the not so easy Apple, and was thinking about what a dismal program to be held up as "the solution," while 60 blocks south multibillionaires are occupying the highrises with a great view of the Park.

And as I write, the headline on CNN webnews "is Baltimore Burns" with nice yellow oranges visuals in the background, while a talented African American woman becomes the Attorney General.

Enough to stop and make one wonder.
mike

On Mon, Apr 27, 2015 at 7:24 PM, Peter Farruggio <pfarruggio@utpa.edu> wrote:
> Thanks for sharing this article. The author gives a personal description of the double-edged plight of Black folks in the US, oppressed by institutional racism and chronic poverty.  Working class African Americans, as expressed in the article, have been in a de facto economic Depression since the 1970s. This experience is happening to working class folks of all ethnicities now, especially since the bust of 2008.
>
> Inner city and barrio schools are horrible, due to deliberate 
> underfunding by conservative politicians since the 1970s. It's part of 
> the broader neoliberal program of austerity imposed worldwide by the 
> plutocrats (the so-called .01%)
>
> But talking about education and schools, the author gets it wrong when he admires the alleged "success" of plutocrat funded charter schools, like Geoffrey Canada's operation in Harlem. Like most such heavily financed charters, the administrators game the system with various maneuvers to appear much better than they are. For example, they teach to the test incessantly, and get rid of kids who can't keep up, to make their test score numbers look good.
>
> At least the author realizes that such school by school philanthropy can't overcome the overwhelming existence of poverty in Black neighborhoods.
>
> Here's Stephen Krashen talking about poverty, followed by a much better example of quality education for working class kids.
>
> Pete Farruggio, PhD
> Associate Professor, Bilingual Education University of Texas Pan 
> American
>
> http://www.joebower.org/2012/01/stephen-krashen-on-poverty-and-literac
> y.html
>
> http://www.missionhillschool.org/a-year-at-mission-hill/
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces+pfarruggio=utpa.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu 
> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces+pfarruggio=utpa.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf 
> Of Annalisa Aguilar
> Sent: Monday, April 27, 2015 12:28 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Aeon article - School of Failure
>
> Hi Everyone,
>
>
> This arrived in my in box today, thought I'd share:
>
> http://aeon.co/magazine/society/how-african-americans-get-schooled-for
> -failure/<http://aeon.co/magazine/society/how-african-americans-get-sc
> hooled-for-failure/?utm_source=Aeon+newsletter&utm_campaign=02111b1de0
> -Daily_newsletter_April_274_27_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82
> e59d-02111b1de0-68662025>
>
>
> by D. Watkins
>
> (4,000 words)
>
>
> an excerpt:
>
>
> 'There's a myth floating around that education is white culture, books are white culture,' said Eric Rice, an expert in urban education, when I went to visit him at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education this year. 'But African Americans have a long history of wanting education. The South had laws against teaching slaves to read, and people risked beatings and death trying to learn to read during slavery. There has always been a huge demand.'?
>
>
> My apologies for list members on lchc for my double posting.
>
>
> Kind regards,
>
>
> Annalisa
>



--
"Each new level of development is a new relevant context." C.H. Waddington




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