Social causes, activism, and projects
Carlos: Joe, from the first time we had lunch together, I’ve been struck by one thing: like me, you really believe that you can make the world a better place. Am I right?
Joe: I plead guilty to that one.
Carlos: Maybe that’s one reason we hit it off so well from the beginning. But it’s one thing to believe we can make a difference and another thing to actually make a difference.
Joe: Agreed.
Okay readers, ready yourselves for another entry into the You Can’t Make This Stuff Up – Chronicles of the Asinine. Have an extra strength Excedrin or shot of Bourbon within reach. You may need it.
You see, before the ink was dry on recent news about the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, nitpickers from the peanut gallery began pointing blame to the latest boogey man…. “Woke.” “Woke” flooded the news recently, drowning out coverage of NCAAP basketball tourneys, Ukraine and pending indictments.
Continue reading ‘Woke’- an American threat? – by Terry Howard
The Under-Representation of Women at the Highest Levels of the Legal Profession The extent of gender diversity at the highest levels of the legal profession, is dismal.
I. BY THE NUMBERS: AT THE UPPER ECHELONS OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION, WHITE WOMEN ARE OUTNUMBERED BY MEN BY A FACTOR OF ALMOST AT LEAST 2 TO 1, AND THERE ARE NEARLY NO WOMEN OF COLOR AND LGBT+ WOMEN
Continue reading Where Are the Women’s Voices? – by Sheryl Axelrod
African American History (AAH) Celebrations for decades have been designated to the month of February, mostly. I remember when invited the very few African American Educators’ staff members and our high school’s English Department Chairperson this was two years after I was hired in the state of Connecticut and after my college graduation.
We staff members were well aware that no knowledge or acknowledgement of African American History lessons were being incorporated or extra-curriculum programs into our school’s educational classroom goals and activities.
Continue reading African American History Month – by Eva Jo (Saddler) Johnson
That’s the harrowing question that survivors of Tyre Nichols, a lanky 145 pound 29-year-old late – I repeat, late – father of a 4-year-old must answer. The other critical question is when will this senseless wiping out of Black people in America come to an end? Unfortunately, the answer to the latter question answers itself. You cannot erase history, can you?
So here we go again with another exhausting chapter in the convoluted history of race in the good ole USA. As the late civil rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer famously said, “we’re sick and tired of being sick and tired!”
Continue reading “What did I do wrong?” asked Tyre Nichols – by Terry Howard
Carlos: Tell me, Teri. How did you come up with the idea of teaching history through rock and roll music?
Teri: I’ve always loved music. From the time I became a history teacher in 1998, I thought of music whenever we reached the twentieth century. Then it hit me. Why not help students reconsider U.S. history by structuring a course around music? It worked.
Carlos: Well, if music works for teaching high school students, why not for diversity workshops, too?
Doggonit Ron DeSantis, so-called “governor” of the great state of Florida. You just can’t seem to let well enough alone, can you? Your obsessive thirst for power and a move to the White House knows no boundary. Here you go again with another asinine effort to “ban” something, this time the teaching of an AP African American History course to be taught in Florida public high schools.
Now if memory serves me correct, it was not that long ago when you got your jollies off by banning books and – the absurdity of all absurdities – banning the word “gay.” There’s something pathological sick about your weird penchant for banning stuff.
Continue reading Ron “The Banner” DeSantis! – by Terry Howard
Most public surveys about free speech and the First Amendment go something like this.
What gives? Aren’t these positions inconsistent? Yes, in the abstract or in the arcane world of constitutional interpretation. No, in the walk-around world where most people reside. Turns out most people like the idea of being protected from government interference with their use of speech. But they also like it when governments and private entities step in to mute certain categories of speech, categories that they might consider harmful, divisive, offensive, or misleading. The problem is that people do not agree on which speech categories should be banned. One person’s sense of truth telling is another person’s sense of disinformation.
Of all the times to learn that about antisemitic literature circulating in my city, the news reached me during the intermission of “Fiddler on the Roof.” It is a great show that captures a moment in time, combining the folklore of Sholom Aleichem, the imagery of Marc Chagall, and great music by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick to tell a story from the collective Jewish memory. As with true Jewish history, it includes the good and the bad parts of being Jewish. We love “Tradition,” but much of our tradition has been built under the weight of oppression. “Fiddler” does not ignore this as the Russian constable’s promise of a pogrom, a violent attack against Jewish communities, mostly in the Russian Empire. Like Chekov’s gun, the mention of a pogrom comes to fruition and disrupts the joyous wedding scene. Being that this is still musical comedy, the pogrom is sanitized: a few goose pillows are torn up, a table flipped over, and one wedding guest is beaten. There is just enough to suggest what really would have happened.
An informed viewer of the show knows it more likely looked like the description from Chayim Nachman Bialik’s poem, “The City of Slaughter,” written about the 1903 pogrom in Kishinev. Here are a few excerpts:
Continue reading Antisemitic Rhetoric on Chattanooga Campus – by Rabbi Craig Lewis
In early May of 2022, I noticed a couple of protestors yelling at the downtown traffic on my drive home. Ironically, I believe I was on my way home from grabbing boba with some friends to commemorate the end of our junior year of college. I was unable to make out what their signs or chants depicted nor did I have much interest. It wasn’t until a few hours later when my father texted me a link to a news story covering what would be known as the beginning of worldwide heartbreak: the leaked draft of the Supreme Court majority decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022) that would explicitly overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.
Continue reading The Heartbreak in Hanger Sales – by Samantha Belcher