[Data from 2007] Last week, the parents (about 25) in the Parent Café that my organization facilitates at one of the West Oakland (low income, predominantly black) elementary schools initiated a campaign for parents to be hired in the school as teaching assistants. There are several reasons why this is a powerful proposal: By providing employment, this program addresses the primary cause of lower student performance: poverty. The more money your family has the better you will do in school. It will cut child-adult ratio in half, doubling the amount of personal attention the students receive. Children can get the […]

I feel like too many people on my FB feed just aren’t getting it. Oh, they were all for Bernie when he was winning. But damn, he didn’t win. Really? What Bernie has done, is doing, is building the largest progressive movement in years. He showed us it was possible to get big money out of politics. What? I know on some level it’s unfortunate, but movements need leaders. Lenin. Mao. Castro. Mandela. King. Malcolm X. Huey. Bernie is right up there. Black Lives Matter is the exception that proves the rule, whatever that means, having three leaders, Alicia, Opal, […]

Here is the Black History presentation we made to the West Oakland Black and Yemeni parents last week. Someone would read one of the vignettes and then we would do a 3 minute each way dyad, where the parents took turns listening to each other, a good way to deal with material that’s on the heavy side. ONE THIRTEENTH AMMENDMENT (1865)  Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Section 2. Congress shall have power to […]

Black Leadership Matters – Guest blog by Juana Bordas  Black History Month is a time to reflect, learn, and celebrate the countless contributions African Americans have made to our country – a time to recommit to the work of Civil Rights and Community Engagement.  We must remember that Black History month is necessary because their journeys and contributions were excluded from the “American story”. Respecting and integrating the history of African Americans, however, should be continuous and not limited to one month! One crucial step is incorporating Black Leadership principles into our organizations and society. We begin by acknowledging the last year of […]

I had the privilege of attending the San Miguel Writer’s Conference in Mexico this week, the final keynote of which was given by Naomi Klein, Canadian author of “This Changes Everything” and “The Shock Doctrine.” She acknowledged that since Trump’s victory, we will need to focus on playing defense for a while, but that we should do so in the context of a powerfully humane vision of the future, exemplified by the Leap Manifesto, reprinted below. Clearly the manifesto was written for Canada, but, with an additional focus on Black and Latino communities, could be adopted for the movement in […]

Let’s not channel “irrational exuberance” over our victory in the 9th Circuit re the Muslim Ban. Yes, it was beautiful. Yes, it was totally predictable. 45 doesn’t care if the courts approve his plan or not. To 45, it’s all about building the movement. His governing style is to throw shit against the wall and see what sticks. His political style is to keep throwing his carnivorous base chunks of red meat. 45 is a symptom of the imminent collapse of capitalism. The concentration of wealth is systemic, another symptom of the collapse. No society can survive the levels of […]

THAT’S ME IN THE MIDDLE I’m not going to mince words here. The people who are fomenting “violence” at various anti-Trump rallies are police agents, witting or unwitting. Some of them may be well-intentioned. I get it that what we’re seeing is not violence. Violence is killing people, which the other side does on an hourly basis. But vandalism is adventurist and provocative, and will get our people killed. We are up against the most powerful military machine the world has ever seen with the capacity to destroy life on the planet as we know it many times over. In […]

Embed from Getty Images Sorry to tell you I told you so, but I told you so. https://henryhitz.com/be-prepared/. Being right is small consolation for what’s happening. The man is channeling Hitler. Blitzkrieg. His governing style is: Throw shit against the wall and see what sticks. He doesn’t care if some of his edicts are overturned by the courts. That will give him an excuse to “reform” the courts. Remember, Hitler did not need to fire a single judge. One huge advantage we have over the German people in the thirties: we have seen this scenario before. I’ve been reading Elie […]

Dialectics in action. Thesis: Trumps inauguration. Antithesis:  the Women’s March, uniting millions against Trump’s bigotry. What turned out today was the coalition against Trump that we need. The scramble then becomes who will lead this coalition, the Bernie progressives or the neoliberals. The progressives definitely have the momentum right now, a huge coup for Bernie to get appointed to Senate leadership in alliance with Schumer. Plus he’s more all over the news than he was when he was running for president. We haven’t heard about the DNC chair business for a while, not a good sign. It looked like Ellison […]

I was a college dropout in 1963, at home from my failed effort to become a bum when I watched the “I have a dream” speech. I cried my eyes out. There was something so righteous about this movement, so emphatically clear in its justice. You were for black people, you supported the movement, or you were a racist dog. I broke with King like other (ultra) leftists did when he failed to embrace Black Power and cringed as people increasingly moved toward Malcolm’s “any means necessary.” Most black people simply supported both approaches, understanding that the disagreement was largely […]