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NUYORICAN POETS CAFE

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  • The 2014 Grand Slam happens tomorrow!
  • U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey!
  • Salome: Voodoo Princess premieres!
  • Watch Mayweather's fight Saturday, during Banana Puddin' Jazz!
  • Our Summerstage show happens Aug 17!
Nuyorican Poets Cafe logo
 

This weekend, the Nuyo crowns a new Grand Slam Champion, premieres a sexy and sinful new theater production, hosts theU.S. Poet Laureate, screens Floyd Mayweather's boxing match and serves up jazz and Banana Puddin'!

Salome Voodoo Princess
     
Salome: Voodoo Princess premieres tomorrow (5/2)

The Nuyo & Rebel Theater Company present Salome: Da Voodoo Princess of Nawlins, adapted from Oscar Wilde's play by Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj. This contemporary version of Salome is gritty, funny, dark and sexy, infused with negro spirituals, hip hop dance and Louisiana Voodoo folk traditions. The play runs Thurs-Sun, May 2-25. Click here for tickets.   

Tonight: U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey headlines 
PEN World Voices May Day event  

The Nuyo and the PEN World Voices Festival present a May Day literary celebration that features U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey, Kenyan political cartoonist Gado, our own Mahogany L. Browne and Malcolm Wicks, participants from the Domestic Workers Union writing workshops and other artists who advocate for social change. For tickets, click here.
  
Saturday: Boxing by Mayweather and Jazz by Rome Neal    

This Saturday Night, watch Floyd Mayweather's boxing match (on our two-story screen!) during Rome Neal's Banana Puddin' Jazz Jam, featuring musicians Andre Chez Lewis, Jerome Jennings, Rodney James and Shawn Whitehorn Jr. Tix: $15 for the full evening or $10 for just the title fight.

The Nuyo plays Summerstage on August 17 

Join us on August 17 for an outdoor celebration of poetry and jazz when NYC's Summerstage series features the Nuyo. Check out the New York Times' article about Summerstage 2014, which gives us a shout-out.
  
Tickets are for our upcoming show with Tony winner Sarah Jones(5/28) are nearly sold out - get 'em while you can! 


The Nuyorican Poets Cafe is a charitable non-profit organization. Help us continue to provide affordable cultural programming and to serve students from low-income communities by making a tax-deductible donation.

Tickets and information for most shows are available atwww.nuyorican.org or by calling 212-780-9386. 
 
Our programs are supported in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, NYC Councilwoman Rosie Mendez, the Fund for the City of New York, the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City and the Manhattan Borough President.

 
Need the perfect present for a poet or a fan of the downtown arts scene? A year-long
Nuyorican Poets Cafe membership is only $60 (or $30 for students). Nuyo members receive discounts on admission to all events, as well as several free tickets and invites to special members-only events!
***** 
Don't miss our regular weekly events: Open Mic Mondays (every Monday at 9pm, all art forms welcome); the Slam Open (a competitive poetry open mic, every Wednesday at 9pm except the first Wednesday of the month); the Thursday Night Latin Jazz Jam (every Thursday at 9pm) and our Friday Night Poetry Slam (10pm every Friday).

Follow the Nuyo on Facebook or Twitter for event updates, news about our artists, submission opportunities and more. Further information about all of our shows can be found atwww.nuyorican.org.
 
Contact Information

The Nuyorican Poets Cafe
236 E 3rd Street
between Avenue B and C
New York, NY 10009
Info 212.505.8183
Fax 212.475.6541

The Cafe serves beer, wine, coffee, tea  and soft drinks but no food. All ages are welcome at events, but you must be over 21 w/ valid ID to drink.
______________________________
Out of respect for our artists, there is NO video or audio recording of events without prior written permission from Cafe management.
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The Cafe is wheelchair accessible, but we recommend that persons needing assistance call in advance so that we can be ready to assist you when you arrive

Furious flower Poetry Center

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FuriousFlowerlogo200px.jpg
RitaDovePoems200px.jpg
Dear Marvin,
 
In less than six months, fifty of the best established and emerging African American poets will convene at James Madison University along with hundreds of scholars and critics for a once-a-decade conference celebrating the power of the written word.
 
This conference "Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry" will make poetry accessible to a large and diverse audience while advancing the careers of emerging writers. Due to support from donors, most events are free and open to the public, allowing people from a range of background the opportunity to experience the power of a live reading.
 
In the words of Rita Dove, former U.S. Poet Laureate (1993-1995), "Furious Flower has been instrumental in helping African-American literature bloom like never before, thereby providing nothing less than a rejuvenation of literary creativity in the United States."
 
More than 30 poets have already accepted our invitation including Dove, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Marilyn Nelson. Please consider a financial contribution to ensure this important gathering of celebrated poets is successful.
 
Help us sustain our momentum. Your gift will be used to bring these celebrated poets to campus, increase accessibility with sign language interpretation, document the proceedings to create valuable educational material, and much more.
 
We invite you to reflect on where you see yourself being able to support this important conference. Following are key giving levels:
 
$100 -$199                           Foundation Member
$200 -$499                           Director's Circle 
$500 -$999                           Furious Flower Advocate
$1,000 -$2,999                     Furious Flower Laureate
$3,000 and more                  Furious Flower Visionary
 
While the levels above afford you certain recognition opportunities at the conference, please know that any amount you contribute will be gratefully accepted and appreciated.
 
Thank you in advance for your partnership in "seeding the future of African American poetry."
Give Now
Learn more about the 2014 Furious Flower Poetry Conference:www.furiousflower2014.com  
James Madison University

Theme song for the Black Arts Movement 27 City Tour: Wakeup Everybody

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 Plato Negro at his Academy of da Corner, 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland

















Renaissance of Imagination: 


A Review of Marvin X's Wisdom of Plato Negro, 


parables, fables

Marvin centers himself in his “classroom/clinic,” his “Academy of da Corner” at 14th and Broadway, Oakland, California. There he sells his “empowering books” and offers insight, advice to mothers (e.g., “Parable of the Woman at the Well,” 58), wives (e.g. “Parable of the Preacher’s Wife,” 29), and lovers. “Other than the white man, black men have no other pressing problem—maybe with another brother, but 90% of the brothers come to Plato with male/female problems” (“Parable of a Day in the Life of Plato Negro,” 148).-- from review by Rudolph Lewis



Review by Rudolph Lewis

For Marvin X, a founder and veteran of the Black Arts Movement of the late 60s/early 70s, we who strive for a rebirth of humanity must choose to be a mentor rather than a predator. “No matter what, I am essentially a teacher,” he lectured at California College of the Arts, where he was invited by poet devorah major. Marvin has taught at Fresno State University; San Francisco State University; UC-Berkeley and San Diego; University of Nevada, Reno; Mills College, Laney and Merritt Colleges in Oakland. But, Marvin warns, “The teacher must know . . . no matter how many years he gives of his soul, his mental genius is not wanted” (“Parable of the Poor Righteous Teacher,” 12).


Gov. Ronald Reagan ran him out of Fresno State University, 1969, with the help of the FBI’s Cointelpro which employed a hit man who sought him out after an agent provocateur murdered his choir director Winfred Streets, who died from a shotgun blast to the back (“Parable of American Gangsta J. Edgar Hoover,” 171).


Pressured out of black studies academia, Marvin contends such programs now attract “sellout” Negroes, or if such African American elites are sincere and dedicated and allowed to remain, many die early from “high blood pressure, depression, schizophrenia, paranoia.” One or more such conditions, he believes, brought on the early and unexpected deaths of poet June Jordan, scholars Barbara Christian, and Veve Clark at UC Berkeley and Sherley Ann Williams at UC San Diego (“Parable of Neocolonialism at UC Berkeley,” 115). There remain nevertheless many educated colored elite all too willing to put “a hood over the hood” and lullaby the masses with “Silent Night,” while “colonialism [is] playing possum” (“Parable of the Colored People,” 42).


In “Wisdom of Plato Negro,” Marvin teaches by stories, ancient devices of instruction that appeal to a non-literate as well as a semi-literate people. (Fables differ from parables only by their use of animal characters.)  The oldest existing genre of storytelling used long before the parables of Jesus or the fables of Aesop, they are excellent tools, in the hands of a skilled artist like Marvin X, in that he modifies the genre for a rebellious hip hop generation who drops out or are pushed out of repressive state sponsored public schools at a 50% clip. Marvin X is a master of these short short stories. Bibliographies, extended footnotes, indexes, formal argumentation, he knows, are of no use to the audience he seeks, that 95 percent that lives from paycheck to paycheck.


These moral oral forms (parables and fables), developed before the invention of writing, taught by indirection how to think and behave respecting the integrity of others. Marvin explained to his College of Arts audience, “This form [the parable] seems perfect for people with short attention span, the video generation . . .  The parable fits my moral or ethical prerogative, allowing my didacticism to run full range” (“Parable of a Day in the Life of Plato Negro,” 147). But we live in a more “hostile environment” than ancient people. Our non-urban ancestors were more in harmony with Nature than our global racialized, exploitive, militarized northern elite societies.


The American Negro or the North American African, as Marvin calls his people, is a modern/post-modern phenomenon, now mostly urbanized, and living in domestic war-zones for more than three centuries. Black codes have governed their speech and behavior; they have been terrorized generation to generation since the early 1700s, by patty rollers, night riders, lynchers, police and military forces, usually without relief by either local or federal governments, or sympathy from their white neighbors or fellow citizens, though they have bled in the wars of the colonies and the nation to establish and defend the American Republic. Their lives have been that of Sisyphus, rising hopes then a fall into utter despair. Such are the times we still live.


To further aide the inattentive reader, most of the 83 sections of this 195-page text begins with a black and white photo image. Although most of these parables were composed between January and April 2010, some were written earlier. A few were written in 2008 (e.g., “Parable of the Basket,” 109) during the election campaign, and a few in 2009 (“Parable of Grand Denial,” 153) after the installation of Barack Obama as president of the United States. Three of these short short stories—“Parable of the Man with a Gun in His Hand,” “Parable of the Lion,” and “Parable of the Man Who Wanted to Die”—were first published in the June 1970 issue of Black World. His classic “Fable of the Black Bird” (86) was written in 1968. The “Fable of the Elephant” (7) and the “Fable of Rooster and Hen” (97) are quite similar in form and style to the black bird fable.


Marvin’s traditional or “classic” parables and fables, written during the BAM period, differ from the ancient fables and parables, which were told in an oral setting within a rural community with some wise men available by a campfire or candle light to explain the story told. In written form the writer in some manner must explain or make the meaning evident, preferably without the mechanical explanation tacked on. That would be a bore and not quite as pleasing to a hip urban audience, as what has been achieved by Marvin’s improvisation on the genre.


Thus Marvin uses humor, sarcasm, irony, exaggerated and sometimes profane language of one sort or another to capture the inattentive reader’s attention. In the first parable, “Parable of Love” (2), Marvin explains, “every writer is duty bound to speak the language of his people, especially if he and his people are going through the process of decolonization from the culture of the oppressor.”  His parables are “highly political” and intended also as a kind of “spiritual counseling.” As he points out in “Parable of Imagination,” artists in their work must “search the consciousness for new ways of representing what lies in the depth of the soul and give creative expression to their findings” (160).


“Under the power of the devil,” our lives tell us a story we hardly understand, Marvin discovered from his teachers Sun Ra, Elijah Muhammad, and others. The church, the mosque, the temple do not provide the needed spiritual consciousness for out time. Nor do 19th century radical political ideologies. As Stokely Carmichael told us in 1969, ideologies like communism and socialism do not speak to our needs. They do not speak to the issue of race. We are a colonized people, he argued, whose institutions have been decimated, our language mocked (e.g. Bill Cosby), our culture when not yet appropriated and stolen called “tasteless” by black bourgeois agents or stooges (e.g., Jason Whitlock in his criticism of Serena Williams at Wimbledon doing a joyful jig after her victory and winning a gold medal).


In “Wisdom of Plato Negro,” Marvin X is about the work of decolonization, though BAM has been commodified as a tourist icon at academic conferences and in university syllabi. The “sacred” work of the artist remains. Its object is to “shatter lies and falsehoods to usher in a new birth of imagination for humanity” . . . to “promote economic progress and political unity” . . . to undermine “pride, arrogance, and self-importance” (160). Although he is critical of the black bourgeoisie, Marvin knows that they have skills our people need, that we must find a way to bring them home. They must  learn to have as much respect for the Mother Tongue as they have for the King’s English (“Parable of the Black Bourgeoisie,” 35).


“Wisdom of Plato Negro” deals not only with the political but also with the personal. That means he cannot live his life in an academic (or ivory) tower, or up in a mountain, writing and publishing books. In “Parable of the Man Who Left the Mountain,” written in 2008, he explains, “in the fourth quarter of my life, I can only attempt to finish the work of being active in the cause of racial justice, of using my pen to speak truth, to put my body in the battlefield for the freedom we all deserve” (45). 


Though he sees the problem as economic and political, one that keeps us poor and powerless, our oppression is “equally” one that creates “a spiritual disease or mental health issue.” (45). Racial supremacy for him not only affects the body or the potential to obtain wealth, it also affects the soul. It is at the heart of the drug war crisis. Black people seek to “medicate” themselves with drugs or the ideology of racial supremacy to find relief from the pain of racial oppression and the suppression of the imagination. Drugs and racial supremacy both are addictive and create dependency. In numerous instances, Marvin calls for moderation of desires and discipline, to “detox” from an addiction to racial supremacy and other “delusional thinking” (“Parable of Sobriety,” 177).


Marvin centers himself in his “classroom/clinic,” his “Academy of da Corner” at 14th and Broadway, Oakland, California. There he sells his “empowering books” and offers insight, advice to mothers (e.g., “Parable of the Woman at the Well,” 58), wives (e.g. “Parable of the Preacher’s Wife,” 29), and lovers. “Other than the white man, black men have no other pressing problem—maybe with another brother, but 90% of the brothers come to Plato with male/female problems” (“Parable of a Day in the Life of Plato Negro,” 148). In contrast to his street work, the racial experts seem rather lost. Marvin reports on a 2008 conference held in Oakland by the Association of Black Psychologists, which has a membership of 1,500 Afrocentric psychologists. Even the experts with two and three Ph.D., “victims of white witchcraft,” he discovered do not know how to heal the community. When leaders don’t know, “why not turn to the people?”  (“Parable of the Witch Doctor,” 24).


There is much more that can be gained from a slow reading of “Wisdom of Plato Negro” than what I have tried to recall in this short report. Marvin X writes about such topics as sexuality and creativity and their relationship, on war, the weather and global warming, and numerous other topics that all tie together if we desire to bring about a rebirth of humanity. This highly informative, insightful, and creative volume can be of service to the non-reader as well as students and seasoned scholars, if they want to be entertained or to heal their bodies and souls so that they can become mentors rather than predators.


“Wisdom of Plato Negro” ends with the “Parable of Desirelessness” (193), which mirrors the “Parable of Letting Go” (61). In the materialist culture of contemporary capitalism we are beset on all sides by “greed, lust, and conspicuous consumption.” There are a “billion illusions of the monkey mind” that lead nowhere other than an early death, suicide, or cowardly homicide. We all must “hold onto nothing but the rope of righteousness.” That will guide us along the straight path to full and permanent revolution and liberation.



Rudolph Lewis is the Founding Editor ChickenBones: A Journal / www.nathanielturner.com 
 .


Additional Notes by Rudolph Lewis on The Wisdom of Plato Negro


Thanks, Marvin, I am deep into the Parables. I am looking at the construction of the book. I see that you have shortened it. I found your parable of the lecture at the California College of Arts helpful in that it presented a brief response to what your parables are. I have taken about fives pages of notes, many come from Parable of Imagination. That was masterful in your insight into the role that the educational system play in the suppression and the oppression of those on the margins, particularly black youth.

I'll try to keep the review short (500 words or so) but we'll see. I am still making myself pregnant. I have been skipping about in the text, which may indeed be advantage for the reader you have in mind. But I wanted to see how you constructed the work. I see that most of the pieces were written between January and April of 2010. But you also have pieces from 2008 and 2009, and pieces published in 1970 and 1973. I do not know that you called them "parables" at the time.

I am still meditating on the whole notion of "parable" and "fable." I checked the dictionary definitions. I have yet to read the fables. I have read at least one of the dialogues. I will get to the one on "bitch" sometime tonight. I remember the parable of the man who talked to cows. That was indeed humorous.

In any case my present task is to finish reading the last four or five parables. I am now on the Hoover piece and your experience with the FBI. You are rare indeed: to have been steeped in all of that and lived to the tell tale, and to tell it as boldly as if you were still there. As Gore Vidal pointed out in writing his memoir, Memory is piled upon memory upon memory, and so we remember our memories for we tell them through filters of life, knowledge, and years and years of intellectual and other experiences.

But the thing is that so many who lived through the experiences of the 60s and 70s are living other lives, lives of the status quo, lives that they owe to the company store. You may in this incarnation of Marvin  be the only revolutionary of the 60s an 70s who is struggling as ever for a "revolution of conscious and society" in the present. I have looked at some of the material from the 50th anniversary of SNCC and other civil rights veteran. Their memories do not inform their present.

Of course, Julius Lester may be an exception. He was always a man of the Imagination. But I have not kept up with his novels. Some of them however seem quite to the point, though I do not know how he resolves the conflict that continues, or exactly who his audience is. As you may know he is now a Jew.

In any case, your Call for a Renaissance of the Imagination is exceedingly important. What seems most important is that you never cut yourself off from the lumpen (the dopefiends, the hustlers, the workers), those who have tragic relationships with their lovers and children, those who can’t afford a $100 an hour psychiatrist. It is indeed important that you point out the deficiency of health care in our communities and how everything is commodified in the interest of the few.

Your "classroom/clinic" has kept you grounded to the realities of racial oppression. Many racial activist have sold their souls and become wheeler/dealers of the powers that be. A few went into city and state government, like Marion Barry and courtland Cox, and Ivanhoe Donaldson, and Julian Bond and John Lewis. Many are union execs, and on the leash of their whites bosses. Union execs are part mafia/part political hacks of the Democratic Party. Obama can kill a million spy on hundreds of millions and they will die for Obama, rather than the common man, woman, and child. Of course, like any sane conscious person Obama is preferable to Romney and Tea Party. But to die for Obama is to lose the way of ethics in defense of humanity.

Well, what I am trying to say. I am deep into your Wisdom, in your thought, thinking and construction of a literary work that is quite post-modern, an interactive text that would not have been possible before the invention of the web, as indicated by your dialogues.

My only comparison to what you have done is Jerry Ward's "The Katrina Papers." Of course, his book is grounded by the destruction of an American city, New Orleans , and the tragic destruction of his own home and much of its contents, including papers, records, tapes and other personal items.

But of course, your work is grounded by your Academy of the Corner, and your daily contact with the ongoing tragedies of our people. Those stories are told in your parables. I thank God for a Marvin X, a Plato Negro.

I will try to have a review of the book by Wednesday.

Loving you madly, Rudy

Rudolph Lewis, Editor
ChickenBones: A Journal





Black Bird Press News & Review: Abstract for the Black Arts Movement 27 City Tour of the BAM Poet's Choir and Arkestra

Outta Town Blues

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Well 'm outta here baby
see you next time round
outta here baby
see you next time round
done spent all ma money
time to get outta town

tried to treat ya right
ya treated me right too
tried to treat ya right
ya treated me right too

see ya next time
gotta go do what a do

you treated me right baby
nothin to complain
ya treated me right baby
nothin ta compalin
when the city flooded
ya kept me out da rain.

--Marvin X
5/1/14

Philadelphia Poets Join the Black Arts Movement 27 City Tour

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Cities where North American Africans are in large numbers

RankCityAfrican-American Population Size (2010 Census)[1]Percentage African-American
1New York, New York MSA3,362,61617.8
2Atlanta, Georgia MSA1,772,56933.6
3Chicago, Illinois MSA1,721,57818.2
4Washington, District of Columbia (DC-MD-VA-WV) PMSA1,438,43625.8
5Philadelphia, Pennsylvania PMSA1,241,78020.8
6Miami, Florida PMSA1,169,18521.0
7Detroit, Michigan PMSA980,45122.8
8Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas PMSA961,87115.1
9Houston, Texas PMSA935,37115.9
10Los Angeles- Long Beach, California PMSA907,6187.1
11Baltimore, Maryland PMSA778,87928.7
12Memphis, Tennessee (TN-AR-MS) MSA601,04345.7
13Norfolk-Virginia Beach-Newport News, Virginia MSA522,40931.3
14St. Louis, Missouri (MO-IL) MSA516,44618.4
15Charlotte, North Carolina PMSA421,10524.0
16Cleveland-Lorain-Elyria, Ohio PMSA416,52820.1
17New Orleans, Louisiana PMSA397,09534.0
18Richmond-Petersburg, Virginia MSA375,42729.8
19San Francisco, California - Oakland - San JosePMSA363,9058.4
20Orlando, Florida MSA344,82016.2
21Boston, Massachusetts (MA-NHNECMA331,2927.3
22Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Florida MSA329,33411.8
23Riverside-San Bernardino, California PMSA322,4057.6
24Birmingham, Alabama MSA318,37328.2
25Jacksonville, Florida MSA292,88121.8
26Baton Rouge, Louisiana MSA285,91135.6
27Columbus, Ohio MSA273,56014.9
28Indianapolis, Indiana MSA263,37615.0
30Milwaukee-Waukesha, Wisconsin PMSA261,01016.8
29Nassau-Suffolk County, New York PMSA260 27310.88
30Jackson, Mississippi MSA257,02147.7
30Cincinnati, Ohio (OH-KY-IN) PMSA255,90512.0
31Columbia, South Carolina MSA255,10433.2
32Kansas City, Missouri (MO-KS) MSA254,50912.5
33Minneapolis-Saint Paul MSA243,4147.4
34Nashville, Tennessee MSA242,26415.2
35Raleigh-Cary, North Carolina MSA228,26820.2
36Phoenix, Arizona MSA207,7345.0
37Las Vegas, Nevada MSA204,37910.5
38Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania MSA196,7558.4
39Seattle, Washington MSA191,9675.6
40Greensboro-High Point, NC MSA184,73025.5
41San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, California PMSA158,2135.1


At the National Black Authors Tour awards ceremony last night, Philadelphia poets were honored for poetic excellence. Poet Lamont b. Steptoe was honored along with Special Guest Marvin X who invited the poets to join his Black Arts Movement 27 City Tour in honor of Amiri Baraka. In his remarks, Marvin X said, "There are enough poets here to start my vision of a 100 poet mass choir."

When Marvin told the Philly poets he may need to bring in some other poets, the poets shouted from the audience, "We can handle it, Marvin. We got it" Indeed, Marvin X enlisted National Black Authors Tour founder, Maurice Henderson to help produce the BAM tour. Greg Corbin of the Philadelphia Youth Poetry Project, will coordinate the youth poets on the BAM tour, along with Muhammida El Muhajir who will arrange panel discussion with Black Arts babies and Black Power babies. She produced Black Power Baby events in Brooklyn, New York and Philadelphia.


Of course the Queen Mother of the Black Arts Movement, Sonia Sanchez, has given her blessing to the BAM tour, but she told Marvin the same thing his daughter Muhammida told him, "Just the idea of a 27 city tour makes me tired." Marvin assured Sonia she would not be required to make all 27 cities.

Marvin also received tentative support from the Art Sanctuary. Executive Director, Valerie V. Gay, who said it is possible we can partnership with the BAM tour. The Art Sanctuary is having a month long celebration of Black writers. Marvin X may return before the month is out to participate, although he must get back to the Bay for the Malcolm X Jazz Festival, May 17. The BAM poets choir and Arkestra will participate.

Philadelphia pianist Alfie Pollitt and Marvin have longed to work together. Alfie has agreed to serve as music director. Alfie is currently music director for George Foxx who sings from the Teddy Pendergrass songbook. Don't be surprised if George Foxx doesn't join the BAM tour now that Marvin has made the 60s classic Wake Up Everybody the BAM tour theme song.






The Black Arts Movement 27 City Tour is ready to visit your city. For booking call: 510-200-4164.

Abstract for the Black Arts Movement 27 City Tour of the BAM Poets Choir and Arkestra


Abstract for the Black Arts Movement 27 City Tour


BAM Poets Choir & Arkestra performed at the Black Arts Movement Conference, University of California, Merced,

Feb 28--March 2, 2014 (produced by Kim McMillan and Marvin X)


Abstract




The mission of the Black Arts Movement’s 27 City Tour is to continue the cultural revolution we initiated during the 1960s.  This cultural revolution is still needed because for a variety of reasons the Black Arts Movement was aborted due to the radical nature of our task which was the liberation of our people in harmony with the political movement.  Today, the need to address the political condition is critical, yes, even with the election of a non-white president, though this president has done little to address non-white issues, especially the high unemployment of youth, the high incarceration rate of 2.4 million  and the deportation rate of two million so called illegal immigrants since President Obama took office.


But more than the political and economic situation is the cultural condition, the reactionary values in hip hop culture, especially unconscious rap poetry, and even the socalled conscious poetry is, in the words of my daughter, an expression of the pseudo conscious, for words are not followed by the right action. As we know, talk is cheap!


But most important is the overall lack of mental health wellness in our community nationwide, to say nothing of physical wellness. The high rate of homicide among young North American African men is symptomatic of a lack of manhood training or the infusion of traditional values that inspire and motivate people to be the best they can be, to give honor and respect to their elders and ancestors. 


The 50%  or more drop out rate of students in our schools is partly the result of our dire mental health condition. Alas, it is said not only is there a critical need for a positive curriculum and teachers with an undying love for our children, but the mental health condition of our children requires mental health counselors with radical  values of wellness  based on a holistic approach to solving our myriad psychosocial and economic issues.  We are dumbfounded to learn the USA  (Bush and Obama) promised the young men in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere (except in the USA) three items if they stop their violence and pledge allegiance to the constitution of their lands: education, jobs and housing. Why not offer education, jobs and housing for the boyz and girls ,  in the hood? The BAM tour will address some of these issues through the medium of art, i.e. poetry, drama, dance, music, graphics.


While art therapy has been used in traditional cultures, and was utilized in the Black Arts Movement, there must be a concerted effort to make use of art in the healing of our people. Throughout the years, we have seen the power of art in changing destructive personalities. We recall the production we did of Amiri Baraka’s play The Dutchman in Fresno CA. The local pimp loaned us  a wig for the female character Lula. When he viewed the play and saw her stab the young North American African male, Clay, this rocked the pimp’s world and he threw in his pimping towel, joined the Nation of Islam and eventually became an imam and made his haj or pilgrimage to Mecca. Thus we see the power of art to heal broken, self destructive and economically damaged personalities.


Many times we heard Amiri Baraka speak about the need to reach our people in the 27 major cities we inhabit—to reach out and touch them with healing Black Art that can restore our mental and physical wellness.  In honor of ancestor Amiri Baraka, we propose to conduct a 27 city tour with concerts and wellness workshops to aid in the recovery of ourselves. Our special focus shall be on young Black men, although we cannot  and will not ignore young black women, nor will we avoid adult and parental responsibility.


We estimate the overall budget for this project will be 2.7 million dollars at $100,000 per city, including  artist fees, promotion, advertisement, rental of venues, insurance, security, lodging, food and transportation. Since many of the Black Arts Movement workers are elders, the timeline would be at least three years to complete this project,  including planning and production.


BAM workers in each community will be recruited to participate and we would like to establish a BAM center in each city, no matter if it is a 50 seat theatre as Amiri Baraka suggested.  A staff of educators,  and mental and physical health workers must be a part of this project so that we more effectively deal with our wellness in a holistic manner.


Sincerely,


Marvin X, Project Director

The Black Arts Movement 27 City Tour

Philadelphia PA
4/23/14

510-200-4164


National Advisory Board Members (Drafted by Marvin X)


Mrs. Amina Baraka

Sonia Sanchez

Askia Toure

Haki Madhubuti

Mae Jackson

Rudolph Lewis

Maurice Henderson

Emory Douglas

Elena Seranno

Greg Morozumi

Woody King

Ted Wilson

Troy Johnson

Kalamu Ya Salaam

Eugene Redman

Kim McMillan

Ayodele Nzinga

Geoffery Grier

Nefertiti Jackmon

Muhammida El Muhajir

Jessica Care Moore

Paul Cobb

Conway Jones

John Burris

James Sweeney

Fahizah Alim

Nisa Ra

Aries Jordan

Sam Anderson

Dr. Montiero still fighting at Temple University, Philadelphia Pa

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Today at 9:03 AM
 

(photo: Dr. Monteiro teaching)


Kudos to videographer Ted Passon for crafting the video, to Mumia Abu-Jamal for the narration, and to Jamila K. Wilson for working up the Indiegogo fundraising site platform.  
Check out the dynamic new video fundraiser launched for the struggle for Dr. Anthony Monteiro. 
Thank you all, for signing the Call for Monteiro! Now let’s take this to The Chronicle for Higher Education, as we already have to the Philadelphia Tribune. Read on to see what we need and why we need it. Please forward this email to your colleagues and friends.
 "Tony Monteiro is an inspiration to all progressives who know him. His heart is as big as his brain. He deserves our support." Noel A. Cazenave professor of sociology, University of Connecticut
Dr. Anthony Monteiro’s struggle for reinstatement with tenure to Temple University's African American Studies Department has only grown stronger, his support spreading through the academic halls of the nation. The world and national support by educators in the Call for Monteiro has been extraordinary (read and sign-on to The Call here).
We are now ramping up the fund-raising campaign for Dr. Monteiro so that we can publicize the movement for him ever more broadly.
This struggle for Dr. Monteiro touches so many other issues alive in the institutions and communities in which we work. Let’s pull together to put the funds behind this movement.
We Need Your Help
We are seeking $20,000 to purchase ad space – a full page ad - in the The Chronicle of Higher Education. This will build support for Dr. Monteiro among students and faculty nationally and shine a glaring light on the current attacks to radical and progressive academics and scholar/activists by right-wing, neo-liberal policies that are destroying black, brown, and poor communities through tactics like gentrification. 
We need your support to help us purchase ad space in the Chronicle of Higher Education.  Any amount of money you are able to give would be greatly appreciated. Contribute now at the video fundraiser site.
We have had several national scholars "put their money where their mouth is," by contributing up to $200 to support this movement - can you match these? If not, please know that every contribution counts. If we can get a minimum of 500 people to contribute just $40 each, we’d reach our goal quickly. Let’s make it happen, with whatever donations you can make! Every donation will help us make our goal.
Join The Call – Stand with these Headline Signers:
Gerald Horne, Department of African American Studies, Univ. of Houston.  “We need to take a step back and recognize that the attack on Dr. Monteiro is a part of a larger attack upon the academy.  It is well recognized that one of the sanctuaries for radicals in the United States is the campus...As this country moves steadily to the right, the perception is that progressive forces on campuses need to be routed . . . To the extent that we don’t speak up for Tony Monteiro, professors like myself are only jeopardizing our own existence.”
Joy James, Williams College. “The role of the intellectual is that of the advocate: press forward, ask challenging questions, take difficult stances to protect the life of the critical mind as a political right. The case of Dr. Monteiro makes clear that the university has to decide whether it will become a managerial setting for conformity to state-corporate interests or whether it will respect its constituents, by recognizing their rights to think and teach, and to organize independently for a just world.”
Lemah R. Bonnick, Sociology, St. Mary’s University (London, England).
Dr. Monteiro, in binding his scholarship to exposing the global assault on human equality and justice, and the narrative which says to the marginalized there is no alternative to their suffering, helps to bring the voice of the community into the academy. In doing so, he seeks to expand the scope of the university as a public space where conceptions of the democratic good, are unbounded by the one percent’s narcissism, racism, class arrogance, misogyny and homophobia.”
Gary Y. Okihiro, Professor of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University.“In Philadelphia, where the bell of liberty hangs silent, Temple University reveals itself—in the case of Dr. Monteiro—as just another instrument of the state.  While ascribing to the universal "we the people," the US rendered the continent's indigenous peoples "aliens" on their land, and African Americans, three-fifths of "all persons." I reference history simply to point out the hypocrisy of the state and its instruments (the university) in their pronouncements of freedom and practices of Jim Crowism and bondage.”
David Roediger, Department of History, University of Illinois.“When administrators are able to rationalize the firing of an exemplary teacher, thinker, and organizer like Tony Monteiro with lectures on the difference between tenure-line and non-tenure-line appointments, they remind us of the urgency of fighting for the rights of the all of the untenured, the growing majority of those performing faculty labor.”
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Duke University, Sociology Department and Chair.
The firing of Dr. Monteiro at Temple is indicative of the racial moment we live. Cosmetic diversity has taken a hold in the academy, hence, black scholars who combine research and practice and whose work is oriented by the moral imperative of achieving racial justice are regarded as "partisan" and accused of playing the "race card." It is time for us to wake up and fight back. Fighting for the reinstatement of Dr. Monteiro is also fighting against neoliberal racism in the academy and in the nation. I stand in solidarity with Dr. Monteiro and join the call to extend him a tenure track position.”
Lewis R. Gordon, Professor of Philosophy, Africana Studies, Judaic Studies, U. Conn.
“As Frantz Fanon warned, one of the obscenities of colonialism, enslavement, and racism is the effort to produce the ‘happy slave.’ Black Studies, now also called African American and Africana Studies, is part of the struggle against that abomination.  Black radical thought challenges such oppressive systems with the revolutionary insight of truth, which has always threatened an academy invested in seeing otherwise.  Temple University’s refusal to renew the contracts of Dr. Anthony Monteiro and Dr. Ahmed Muhammad (Maxell Stanford, Jr.) is a terrible blow against this important mission.”
Cornel West, Professor of Philosophy, Union Theological Seminary/NYC.“Anthony Monteiro is one of our grand intellectual freedom fighters who works in the tradition of W.E.B. Dubois and C.L.R. James. I’m in his corner 120 percent. I’m so glad to see both his students, as well as the community, rise up and support Dr. Monteiro.”
Marc Lamont Hill, Journalism & Education, Columbia Univ./Teachers College.“This is about an increasingly corporatized Temple University, animated by the principles of profit making, privatization, and exploitation. Within this neo-liberal universe, knowledge production becomes a commodity rather than an end itself; faculty labor (including that of graduate students and adjuncts) is deskilled, casualized, and rendered disposable; and the surrounding Black, brown, and poor communities are valued only to the extent that they enable economic opportunism through land grabs, resource liquidation, and full-fledged gentrification.”

Black Bird Press News & Review: Rudolph Lewis Comments on Marvin X's Cleaver memoir


Black Bird Press News & Review: Eldridge Cleaver: My friend the Devil, A Memoir by Marvin X

Black Bird Press News & Review: The Public Career of Marvin X

Blue in Green by. Miles Davis

Oh the Kora: Toumani' and Sidiki Diabate'

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Toumani Diabaté and Sidiki Diabaté: Toumani & Sidiki review – virtuoso, upbeat kora duets

(World Circuit)
4 out of 5
Toumani and Sidiki Diabaté
Attacking, rhythmic playing and flurries of rapid-fire improvisation … Toumani and Sidiki Diabaté. Photograph: Youri Lenquette

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For many young Malians, Sidiki Diabaté is a hip-hop star, known for his work with the rapper Iba One. But he is also the son ofToumani Diabaté, the world's most versatile and celebrated kora player, and a griot who can trace his ancestry back through 71 generations of hereditary musicians. It was inevitable, then, that Sidiki should also be a kora player with an understanding of Mali's ancient music, but it was equally to be expected that he should develop a kora style of his own. On their debut album of kora duets, Toumani can be heard on the left, with Diabate, on the right, driving the music on withattacking, rhythmic playing and flurries of rapid-fire improvisation. It's a virtuoso, and mostly upbeat collaboration, but the best track is the one new composition, Lampedusa, a gently exquisite lament for African migrants who died trying to reach Europe.

Black Bird Press News & Review: Memorial Service for Judge Henry Ramsey, Jr., Saturday, May 3, 1-3pm, Wheeler Auditorium, UC Berkeley

Black Bird Press News & Review: Philadelphia Poets Join the Black Arts Movement 27 City Tour

Toumani Diabate plays the Kora

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The Kora taught me
listen Blues
eyes behind your head
behind heartthird eye listen
Blues beyond listen
Ali Farka played the Blues they sad
Ali said transcend America
go ten thousand years back
griot tell us stories of myth/ritual  and reality
let the Kora speak
let the Griot speak
it is the sweet music of a soul in peace
we sit at the tribal fire
we dance
Kora takes us there
men know they are men
they manhood train
women too
no struggle no fight
manhood ritual works
solid men stand tall
the women say
I hate a weak nigguh
women say
I hate a weak nigguh
young girls say the same
No man can miss the lesson
Manhood training
conquer the self
greatest Jihad
self
man in the mirror
what is your bliss?
Follow your bliss
Campbell said
marriage is the end of all things loving and proper 
job not enough
what is your mission
purpose
beyond 

money 
pussy 
\dope
greed 
lust 
jealousy 
envy
why do you desire my girl, woman, wife
get your own
I don't want your wife
I suspect she is not my kind anyway
too square
keep yo wife
I pray she keeps you
and yet as she says
you are not an entry level nigguh
you are a functional nigguh
you think I'm going to leave you
for some entry level nigguh
no way
nigguh
I wit ya to the end
wish ya would recover really
but
you are you
do yo thing
don't let me love you
don't let me hold you in honor and trust
I pray faya.
Go deep down into the purple funk
go there and be healed
face the pain
face rejection
father and motherly love
sisterly and broterly love


take the wood for the fire place
burn wood burn
burn my garbage burden on my back
destroyed my kingdom
took me from the Upper Room
to the dungeon
after all my labor under the sun
demons confounded me
demons were music in my ears
illusions convinced me
lies were truth
I am Othello
the devil whispers in my ear
I listen and I am destroyed.
--Marvin X
1/3/14

WAKE UP EVERYBODY - Original Version (Teddy Pendergrass, Harold Melvin &...

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This is the theme song of the Black Arts Movement 27 City tour with Marvin X and the Poets Choir and Arkestra. This song tells the essence of what the Black Arts Movement is about, then (1965 in Harlem, Amiri Baraka,). In  1966 San Francisco's Fillmore exploded  with Marvin X and Ed Bullins, Danny Glover, Vonetta McGee, et. al.



Wake Up Everybody says all things that were needed to be addressed then and now. BAM Master teacher Sun Ra said if you don't do the right thing, you can't go forward or backwards, you are stuck on stupid glue, with super glue on yo asses.



Don't be surprised if George Foxx who does the Teddy Pendergrass songbook appears on the BAM Tour.

Alfie Pollitt is the musical director  of the George Foxx Teddy Pendergrass show. And Alfie Pollitt is musical director of The Black Arts Movement 27 City Tour.  I wish somebody would hep me. I wish somebody would praise His Holy Name and all the saints and ancestors. Hotep! Amen, Amen. Amin,

Whiteness as Property--a symposium at UCLA School of Law, October 2-4, 2014

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Call for Proposals
Whiteness as Property
Eighth Critical Race Studies Symposium
UCLA School of Law
October 2-4, 2014
The Critical Race Studies program at the UCLA School of Law will hold its Eighth Symposium on October 2-4, 2014. This symposium will mark twenty years since Professor Cheryl I. Harris investigated the relationships between concepts of race and property and reflected on how rights in property are contingent on, intertwined with, and conflated with race. That investigation culminated in her groundbreaking article, Whiteness as Property (Harvard Law Review, 1993).
In 2014 we will re-visit the origins of Whiteness as Property as a theoretical frame and site of legal intervention and consider its still unfolding potential for unmasking subordination and provoking social change.
We are inviting submission of proposals. We encourage paper and panel proposals on a wide range of topics including, but not exclusively encompassing, the following:
• Whiteness as Property in relation to discourses about “post-racialism”
• Whiteness as Property and LGBT rights and litigation
• Whiteness as Property and the workplace
• Immigration reform and whiteness as property
• Whiteness as property and teaching pedagogy
• Whiteness as property and gender
• Whiteness as property and state surveillance
• Whiteness as property and gender
• Whiteness as property and the war against terrorism
• Whiteness as property and intergenerational wealth
• Whiteness as property and multiracial identity
To repeat: These themes do not exhaust possible panel or paper presentations. They are simply suggestive of topics that might be engaged.
Each proposal must include a cover page with paper titles, presenters, their affiliations, and a current email contact, along with a maximum two-page c.v. of each presenter. For individual papers, please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words. For panels, submit an overall abstract of no more than 500 words and individual paper descriptions of no more than 250 words each. Please submit materials via email to crs@law.ucla.edu with the subject line: CRS Symposium Proposal.
The deadline for submission is June 15, 2014. Scholars whose submissions are selected for the symposium will be notified no later than July 31, 2014. Submissions will be accepted on a rolling basis, so we highly encourage early submissions.

Order of Myth-Ritual Dance Drama: Marvin X & the Black Arts Movement Poets Choir and Arkestra, Malcolm X Jazz Festival, May 17, Oaklands

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 BAM Godfather Ancestor Amiri Baraka with bassist Henry Grimes. In honor of Baraka, Marvin X and bassist Henry Grimes performed together at New York University tribute to Jayne Cortez and Amiri Baraka, Feb 4, 2014.
 Sonia Sanchez, Queen Mother of the Black Arts Movement


 The Black Arts Movement Poets Choir & Arkestra, University of California, Merced, 2014

BAM Godfathers The Last Poets, Umar bin Hassan and Abiodun

 Marvin X and Poet Paradise Jah Love (You love everything about me but me!)


BAM Asian poet Genny Lim, Marshall Trammel on drums in b.g.


 Zena Allen on Kora

 Queen Tarika Lewis

 Black Arts West Theatre, 1966, musician Earl Davis

 Black Arts baby 2.0, Aries Jordan, poet

 Kalamu Chache'

Katiba Pittman

Linda Johnson, Raynertta Rayzetta, Val Serrart, Tumani

Marvin X and the Black Arts Movement  Poets Choir & Arkestra 27 City Tour in honor of Amiri Baraka


Malcolm X Jazz Festival, Oakland

May 17, 2014


Tentative Order of Service, untimed but 60 minute max


As-Salaam Alaikum

Words of meditation  Suzzette Celeste


Scene One


Woman on Cell Phone Scene


Order of Scene


Song I don’t know what you came to do….Mechelle LaChaux, Akestra join and Linda Johnson dancers,  Poets Choir join with response


I don’t know what you came to do but I came to praise His/Her name:

Jesus

Allah

Jah

Buddah

Marx/Lenin

Elijah

Garvey

Ida b. Wells

Malcolm

Betty

Sojourner

Harriet

Clara  Muhammad

Amiri Baraka




Marvin X reads Amiri Baraka poem DOPE


Ayodele Nzinga Woman on Cell Phone


Scene Two


Paradise Jah  Love

They Love Everything about you but  you  poem

Parable of Oscar Grant—Paradise ( optional, depending on time)


Scene 3


 Arkestra—Tacuma, Tarika, Earl Davis, Marshall, Zena (Zena solo leads to Marvin X)


Marvin X joins Zena  in a duet with  Again the Kora poem


Scene 4


Introduce Poets Choir for poem or two


Genny Lim

Ayodele Nzinga

Toreada

Avochja

Aries Jordan

Kalamu Chache’

Umar bin Hasan, optional but desired

Abiodun, optional but desired

Lakiba Pittman


Scene 5


Linda Johnson dancers present

Second Line processional to exit through the audience:  Dancers, musicians, poets




Black Bird Press News & Review: Race in America: The Grand Denial

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Black Bird Press News & Review: Race in America: The Grand Denial



The addiction to white supremacy is at the core of problems in American education, and it is pervasive in all other American institutions, e.g. professional athletics. Whether integrated or segregated, the curriculum is yet white supremacy. The teachers are certified to teach white supremacy values and thus all students are victims. And don't measure Black schools by white standards, try Chinese standards.



From Dr. Muhammad Ahmad: Black Edstats you can use

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Black EDSTATS You Can Use:

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BLACKOUT: Number of Black Students Accepted at the University of California, Berkeley Drops

Black Berkely students in 2010 protest racist policies in the
University of California System.
A silent protest held by the UC Berkeley black community in response to the acts that occurred at UCSD in February 2010.
April 29, 2014- jbhe.com

In the same week that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld state-imposed bans on race-sensitive admissions at public universities, the University of California system released data on acceptance rates for Black and other minorities students. In 1996, voters in California enacted a ban on the consideration of race in university admissions decisions. Earlier this year an effort to end the ban in the state legislature was shelved after objections were raised by the Asian-American community.

African Americans make up nearly 7 percent of the California population but are only 4.2 percent of all students from California admitted to the Class of 2018 at the nine undergraduate campuses in the system. This is an identical percentage from a year ago.

At the flagship campus of the University of California at Berkeley, 287 African American students from California were admitted to the freshman class, compared to 333 a year ago. Blacks make up 3.4 percent of all admitted students to the first-year class from California. A year ago, African Americans made up 3.6 percent of all students admitted to the entering class from California.

If we include students from out of state, 392 African Americans were admitted to the Class of 2018. This is down from 417 a year ago. African Americans are 3.2 percent of all admitted students to the freshman class, compared to 3.5 percent a year ago.

Berkely today: the Struggle Continues....
====================================================

Suburban NY Student Picks Yale Among All 8 Ivies


AP  | by FRANK ELTMAN

04/30/2014 

KWASI ENIN


MASTIC BEACH, N.Y. (AP) — Kwasi Enin is taking his brains to Yale.

In a move usually reserved for highly-recruited athletes, a suburban New York high school student who was accepted to all eight Ivy League schools announced Wednesday before a phalanx of national media cameras that he has decided to be a member of Yale University's Class of 2018.

He explained he had been thinking about Yale, but the clincher was a campus visit last week.

"I met geniuses from all across the world and everyone there was so friendly and inviting and the residential college system there is just wonderful for each student," the 17-year-old Shirley resident told reporters.

Enin, whose parents emigrated from Ghana in the 1980s, attracted national attention this spring after being accepted at all eight Ivies plus several New York state colleges. He made a cameo appearance on the "Late Show With David Letterman," and his accomplishment was the topic of a jibe during "Saturday Night Live's" Weekend Update segment.

On his application essay to the Ivy League schools, the Long Island teenager wrote passionately about his love for music, although his intention is to someday go to medical school and become a physician.

"Whenever I perform, whether as a bassist in Men's Doo Wop Group or as a violinist in a Chamber Ensemble, I become immersed in the conversations between performers and the audience," he said in the essay. "As I become lost in these conversations, I create blissful memories in which I am truly part of my community's culture and eventually its history."

He noted at Wednesday's press conference that he sensed that passion would be sated at Yale.

"I believe that their deep appreciation and love for music, like I have, was very critical for me deciding to go there," he told reporters.

Enin was joined at the press conference by his parents, Ebenezer and Doreen Enin, and his 14-year-old sister, Adwoa.

Ebenezer Enin said he and his wife have encouraged both of their children to excel in the classroom.

"I believe you can do better than him," he said he told his daughter.

Enin scored 2,250 out of 2,400 on his SAT. He was also accepted at Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania.
===============================================================

Brown V Board of Education 60 years Later...

Dear Friend of Rethinking Schools:

This year marks the 60th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, a landmark Supreme Court decision that called for the end of segregation in public schools.

Sadly, as we wrote in our special issue 10 years ago, we have not come far enough toward this goal. And in many ways we have slid backward.

Here are some fine articles from our archives that will help us examine where we've been and what we have left to do in our classrooms, neighborhoods, and society.

Brown 50 Years Later by the editors of Rethinking Schools
Why our society must work harder than ever to achieve the goals of equality and justice that drove the Civil Rights Movement.http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/18_03/brow183.shtml

Warriors Don't Cry: Brown Comes to Little Rock, by Linda Christensen
A role play exercise brings Melba Pattillo Beals' classic book about the Little Rock Nine to life for students.http://www.rethinkingschools.org/brown/warr183.shtml

Teaching Brown in Tuscaloosa, by Alison Schmitke
Learning about their community's civil rights history inspires students to action.http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/20_02/tusc202.shtml

Distorting the Civil Rights Legacy by Barbara Miner
How school-voucher supporters misuse the lessons of segregation to push their agenda.http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/18_03/kpsp183.shtml

Our Grandparents' Civil Rights Era by Willow McCormick
Second graders ask grandparents to write about their experiences during the Civil Rights Movement. The letters bring surprising wisdom— and some thought-provoking issues—to the classroom.http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/27_04/27_04_mccormick.shtml

It all started with these Kansas children....

These articles are free for our subscribers. Subscribe today to gain access.*

"Brown Kids Can't Be in Our Club" by Rita Tenorio
How to effectively raise issues of race with young children. http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/18_03/club183.shtml

Trayvon Martin and My Students: Writing toward justice by Linda Christensen
President Obama's speech about the Zimmerman acquittal in Trayvon Martin's murder—and Cornel West's response—are rich sources for students learning how to analyze, evaluate, and critique.http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/28_02/28_02_christensen.shtml

Schools More Separate: Consequences of a Decade of Resegregation, by Gary Orfield
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/16_01/Seg161.shtml

Reflections from a 'Deseg Baby' by Linda Mizell
Growing up in the segregated South meant listening to conversations about Brown and desegregation -- and hearing African Americans express some views you might not expect. http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/16_01/Seg161.shtml

*All subscribers enjoy access to our online archives. If you have a subscription, but are not sure how to activate your online account, please call customer service at 1-800-669-4192.

Kris Collett
Outreach/Marketing Director
================================================================

 

Condoleezza Rice backs out of Rutgers commencement



From Associated Press

FILE - In this March 15, 2014 file photo, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice peaks at the California Republican Party 2014 Spring Convention in Burlingame, Calif. Rice has decided against delivering the commencement address at Rutgers University following protests by some faculty and students over her role in the Iraq War. Rice said in a statement Saturday, May 3, 2014 that she informed Rutgers President Robert Barchi that she was declining the invitation. She said her involvement had "become a distraction for the university community" at a "time of joyous celebration for the graduates and their families." (AP Photo - Ben Margot)

May 03, 2014

 

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (AP) — Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has backed out of delivering the commencement address at Rutgers University following protests by some faculty and students over her role in the Iraq War.

Rice said in a statement Saturday that she informed Rutgers President Robert Barchi that she was declining the invitation to speak at the graduation.

"Commencement should be a time of joyous celebration for the graduates and their families," Rice said. "Rutgers' invitation to me to speak has become a distraction for the university community at this very special time."

The school's board of governors had voted to pay $35,000 to the former secretary of state under President George W. Bush and national security adviser for her appearance at the May 18 ceremony. Rutgers was also planning to bestow Rice with an honorary doctorate.

But some students and faculty at New Jersey's flagship university had protested, staging sit-ins and saying Rice bore some responsibility for the Iraq War as a member of the Bush administration. Barchi and other school leaders had resisted the calls to disinvite Rice, saying the university welcomes open discourse on controversial topics.

The news of Rice's decision came a day after Barchi spoke with students protesting Rice's planned speech and told them the board of governors would not rescind its invitation.

In her statement, Rice defended her record, saying that she was honored to serve her country and that she had "defended America's belief in free speech and the exchange of ideas." But she said she didn't want to detract from the spirit of the commencement ceremony.

Barchi said Saturday in a statement that Rutgers stands "fully behind the invitation" it issued to Rice. But he said school officials respect her decision.

"Now is the time to focus on our commencement, a day to celebrate the accomplishments and promising futures of our graduates," Barchi said.

The university said it would provide details in the coming days on who would replace Rice as commencement speaker. She is now a professor of political science at Stanford University.

==============================================================================

On the Brink in Brownsville


MAY 1, 2014 - nytimes.com


Shamir, center, at a playground at the Brownsville Houses. His friends, from left, are Nymo, Keston, Camron and Jeremiah. 
Credit Brenda Ann Kenneally for The New York Times


In a typical game of skelly, two children flick homemade plastic pucks into numbered squares drawn on the asphalt. It’s a quaint and simple contest — a mix between shooting marbles and playing shuffleboard — that New Yorkers have played for generations. On warm days in Brownsville, Brooklyn, when there is no school, teenage boys pour out of the housing projects to play. It’s a curious thing to see, boys their age, with the freedom to roam, so captivated by this elementary pastime. But there they sit, with new tattoos on their arms and new hair on their faces, channeling their energy into their fingers and thumbs.



There is not much else to do. Brownsville is just eight miles east of Manhattan’s southern tip — the Freedom Tower shimmers beyond the housing projects. But it can feel like a different city. Brownsville is one of New York’s poorest neighborhoods, with nearly 40 percent of people living below the poverty line. It has been that way for decades, even as lawmakers tried one anti-poverty program after another. Nearly half of those 16 and older are not in the labor force; thousands more are looking for work and unable to find it. A steady barrage of violence punctuates their idle hours. There were 72 shootings last year and 15 murders — in an area spanning about two square miles that many people never leave.



For the kids there, each day brings a chase for adventure through the neighborhood’s housing developments, which they see as a network of playgrounds. They walk to the playgrounds at the Van Dyke Houses. They walk to the playgrounds near the Langston Hughes Houses. They walk to the playgrounds at the Seth Low Houses. Along the way, the boys — and it is almost always boys — pass friends they have known forever, picking some up, dropping some off, asking each, “Where you going?” The subtext is clear: If there is something happening that is better than this, I want to know.



Among the walkers last summer was a 15-year-old named Shamir, who made the rounds with such abandon that his parents seldom knew where he was. He moved out of their apartment in July, after he and his older stepbrother got into a blowup over clothes (Shamir had sworn that he did not wear his stepbrother’s new shirt, until his stepbrother saw him wearing it in a photo on Facebook), and moved into an apartment with another of his brothers. The move took him from an area on the outer edge of Brownsville, where his parents had moved from the Van Dyke Houses, back to the heart of the projects, where he spent most of his childhood. There he woke up when he pleased, drank when he wanted and took girls back to his room when he could (after lots of flirting on Facebook).



Shamir liked watching playground fights, trading blows himself and running back and forth in the melees. Early in the summer, he fought a boy near the track in front of the elementary school. (“Remember that day, bro, when we had that brawl right here?” he told a friend later. “I had him under the car. Like, literally under the car.”) Another time, his group of friends beat up a boy on the other side of the neighborhood. The fights were part of a territorial feud, not over money or drugs but simply turf — one handful of housing developments versus another. A few years ago, one of Shamir’s friends was killed by boys from the rival group. Shamir said the killing was the first — the one that hardened the once-friendly rivalry — but wiser people with longer memories know better.



What comes after skelly does not look good. The boys’ immediate hope is to make life better by finding something to do to cut their boredom or by buying things — like Michael Jordan sneakers — that will win them admiration. A deeper yearning is to escape the neighborhood altogether. But both short-term and long-term goals require cash, which is in short supply.



Shamir has more than most. Both of his parents work and live in a nice apartment outside public housing. In the first two months of the summer, he had a part-time job that he got through the city. He also had a brother who made it out of the neighborhood looking out for him. Still, Shamir was far from content. He couldn’t seem to keep himself from testing danger in the projects, teetering between kids who had already committed serious crimes and people like his brother who made it out. At his age, both paths were still possible, but Brownsville’s darker corners suck up all but the most exceptional boys.



The skelly court closest to where Shamir lived over the summer was on a black expanse the size of a football field, with no cover from the sun. Cracks in the asphalt snaked 50 yards in one direction toward boys playing basketball and in another toward the handball court, where every day the same old man played opponents half his age. The entire area, which everyone calls 284 Park, or simply the 284, was a starting point for Shamir on his daily searches for stuff to do.



One August afternoon, he watched a group of friends play skelly. Two boys ran off toward the convenience store to steal the caps of milk jugs, which they used to make pucks for the game. They would leave the milk behind. Shamir called out after them, “Y’all is going to jaaaail,” before turning his attention back to the game. Eventually, he broke off with his friend, TyTy, and walked toward the playgrounds at the Van Dyke Houses, which everyone calls the South Side.



Shamir is about 5-foot-7, with sharp shoulders and a narrow frame. He has a soft face with thick eyebrows and a small gap in his front teeth. He asserts himself by talking, filling up empty moments by telling stories and cracking jokes — his mouth twisted into a smirk. It’s only when he’s quiet that he seems vulnerable. He is the youngest boy in a large family that is spread across several apartments in Brownsville; he has more half siblings from different mothers than he can quickly recall. His father works nights in a group home for men recently released from prison, and his stepmother prepares taxes. His mother died when he was young. Shamir seldom spoke of his family, with the exception of his brother Sonnie, who no longer lived in the neighborhood but had taken on the task of trying to guide him. Sonnie introduced me to Shamir and arranged for us to spend time together, because he wanted to expose his brother to an outsider, and he wanted an outsider to see in.


Shamir at home with his friends Tommy, left, and Jay, center.
Credit Brenda Ann Kenneally for The New York Times

The 284 and South Side playgrounds are connected by Mother Gaston Boulevard, a main drag where cops patrol and drunks make a clamor. The stroll from one to the other is itself a diversion, and Shamir and TyTy had a rambling conversation as they walked. “My friend got shot right there,” Shamir said in front of one building. “He got shot in his head.” Near another building he remembered a friend who was shot in his side. “Every time he laughs, he says it hurts.”



They passed police officers questioning a man, and Shamir remembered the time he was almost arrested, when he and TyTy were caught hopping a subway turnstile.



“TyTy! That day, boy, I could’ve ran, but I came back for you,” Shamir yelled.



“What day?” TyTy asked. TyTy and Shamir grew up in the same building, one floor apart. TyTy is more pensive than Shamir but still risible.



“We were by the train,” Shamir said. “And the cop came out.”



TyTy laughed. “He seen both of us,” he said. “He was gonna come get your ass and come back for me.” The officer cuffed them both before releasing them with a warning. “It was crazy, boy,” Shamir said.



More than anything they talked about fashion. “Aight, so who you think is the swaggiest in the game right now?” Shamir asked, prompting a long discussion of the best-dressed rappers.



“Name three people. No, name four people.” They ticked off several candidates, including Jim Jones, who Shamir said owned every designer belt in every color, including expensive ones by Hermès. Shamir said Hermès sells its belt buckles separately from its belts.



“The real Hermès, you have to buy the ‘H’ and the belt,” he said. “That’s like a stack and some change.”



TyTy asked, “You gotta buy the ‘H’ separate from the belt?”



“Go in the store, and they’ll show you that. And it come in some box.”



“The Hermès box,” TyTy said.



“Nobody in Brownsville is paying a thousand dollars and change for a belt,” Shamir said. “If you scam, it shouldn’t be a problem. But other than that, no.”



Scamming means depositing phony checks and then withdrawing the money the bank releases before the checks clear; you could usually make at least a couple of hundred dollars that way — and sometimes a couple of thousand. Shamir was one of the few who had a part-time job. He worked two or three mornings a week for the first two months of summer, doing paperwork at a day care center. He finished early enough in the day to hit the streets with his friends, often in a new pair of sneakers that cost him half his biweekly paycheck of $320.



After a few hours of walking, they ended up back at the skelly courts where they started. The temperature had dropped, an evening breeze blew and a light rain began to fall. They found shelter under some scaffolding across the street, and a few climbed the long steel tubes. They laughed and recited rap lyrics in unison, and a rainbow appeared above the elevated tracks.



(“Yo, I’m going to the end!” one said.) There was a hint of magic in the moment, not just because of the rainbow, but because of the simple pleasure they found in one another’s company.



The day was capped with a visit from a guy from the neighborhood called Wavey, who at 21 was a little older than the rest and whose mere presence brought excitement. Wavey is an amateur sketch comic who creates edgy skits and posts them on YouTube. He hopes to be among those the Internet propels to fame and riches. For a skit that Wavey filmed that day called “The ‘Hood Has Talent,” he wore a fake mustache and pretended to be a TV reporter interviewing a local hustler — the talent. Shamir’s friend, Siyah, an undersize 13-year-old, played the hustler. Among his many skills was dancing on the subway for spare change, which Siyah re-enacted for the camera and some boys near the Langston Hughes Houses. His dance moves were an explosion of knees and elbows, and after he finished, Shamir watched them again and again in slow motion on the camera’s viewfinder, until he was doubled over, cracking up.



Gerald Nelson is the police chief who supervises Brooklyn North, the area that includes Brownsville. With some pride, Nelson calls his command the most challenging in the city, in large part because of the crime in Brownsville, which he attributes overwhelmingly to boys and men between the ages of 15 and 25. He said the Police Department’s law-enforcement strategy was focused mostly on monitoring and disrupting the loosely affiliated groups of boys, or crews, as they call them, using social media, because the crews like to brag about their exploits on Facebook. Nelson distinguishes between boys he calls “young stallions,” who are at “that age” with hormones raging, toeing the line between right and wrong, and boys who at 14 or 15 have already been arrested several times for serious crimes. The department lets the young stallions roam, offering what access it can to outreach and mentoring programs. Nelson devotes much of his resources to the others. “If you didn’t see police contact, and you didn’t see stop-and-frisk, and you didn’t see them being collared, believe it or not, you are following the good kids,” Nelson said.



But being a good kid in Brownsville does not bring the same promise as being a good kid in other places. Nelson describes a neighborhood that is improving — crime is down 71 percent over the last two decades — and in that context, a kid like Shamir, who has not fallen into the system, is a symbol of progress. Still, he seemed adrift. Whenever I asked him what he wanted in the future, his answer was swift and certain: “To make it out of the hood. Get up out of here.” Yet he said he had no idea how to do that, even with his parents’ apartment outside the projects that he could call home.



Shamir’s older brother Sonnie, who is 33, made it out, and he was around Shamir’s age when he did. He eventually went to college and worked as a bank manager before establishing himself as a touring rap artist. Now he has an apartment in the suburbs.



Sonnie played in the same parks as Shamir, but in the ‘90s, when the drug trade in Brownsville was at its height. When he was 9 or 10, a man interrupted his skelly game and told him and his friends to run along. “He said it in a nice manner, like he was about to serve hot dogs and hamburgers or something,” Sonnie recalled. Instead, the man shot another man and walked off.



Sonnie has nostalgia for that time, even though there was more crime, because at least the violence was predictable; people were fighting over something — drug money — not fighting over nothing. To some extent, the drug dealers contained the collateral damage. They could still be heroes. They parked their cars on the street that runs along 284 Park in a display of their riches. It was the era of Mazda Millenias and Mitsubishi Diamantes. “You see people who have chains, cars or money or always come through with pretty girls, and you see the way everybody acts when this person comes around, and you’re like, ‘Oh, I want that,’ ” Sonnie said. “Because it’s a good feeling.”



He saved his allowance for months to buy a gold chain and gold fronts for his teeth. He used some of his money from a part-time job to buy marijuana that he sold at a profit to buy sneakers. But he also left the neighborhood every chance he got, for math and chess tournaments and basketball games, following the lead of his mother, who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees while working office jobs. He was the overachiever among his friends. “I was pretty much into the whole school thing,” he said.



When he was 15, his best friend stole a safe belonging to his best friend’s uncle. “He was like, ‘We’re going to buy sneakers every week!’ ” The uncle threatened to kill his nephew and all of his friends, including Sonnie, so Sonnie’s best friend killed the uncle. “For my mom, that was the last straw,” he said. She sent him to Virginia to live with his grandmother.


Shamir at the Brownsville Houses.
Credit Brenda Ann Kenneally for The New York Times

His main advice for Shamir is to leave the neighborhood at every opportunity. But Shamir is not as academically inclined as Sonnie. And when their grandmother offered to move Shamir down to Virginia, he did not like the idea. “It’s boring down there,” Shamir said. “I ain’t got time for that.”



On a hot day late in August, a group of boys gathered around a game of dice at 284 Park. Two played while a dozen others watched the mind-numbing routine: Blow on the dice, shake them and toss them, count your luck, exchange crumpled dollar bills and repeat. Shamir sat there on a bench with his face propped up on both hands, his gaze some place far off.



“You know what I want?” one boy broke in. “I want a whole bunch of shoe boxes straight up the wall like in the movies. And it be sneakers in the boxes. And they pull that one box, and the boxes don’t fall.” There was a hollow bounce of a ball over at the handball court. Farther off, the chime of an ice-cream truck. A police helicopter cut the air overhead.



They argued for several minutes about whether Gucci makes designer belts for children before Shamir walked off with his friend Keston on the usual pilgrimage toward the South Side.

“Yo, we didn’t get into it with Tilden in a mad long time,” Shamir said.



Keston, a somber boy with an air of forced confidence, agreed: “That’s what I’m saying. Our day be feeling mad boring.”



The Tilden Houses were just blocks from where they were walking, but their borders marked enemy territory. The boys who lived there, along with the boys living in the Marcus Garvey Houses, called themselves the Hood Starz. Shamir and his friends from the Langston Hughes Houses, the Seth Low Houses, the Brownsville Houses and the Van Dyke Houses called themselves the Wave Gang.



“Hell yeah,” Shamir said to Keston. “We were having those good brawls.”



“That’s a fact,” Keston said. “When you’re running back and forth, that is mad fun.”



Vincent Mattos, who for years organized basketball tournaments in the 284 and who knows most of the kids in the neighborhood, attributes much of the drama to boredom. “They sitting on they block with nothing else to do,” he said. “We done played skelly. We done played enough ball.” Most of the recreation centers in the neighborhood were closed during the summer; the one closest to where Shamir lived allowed kids from certain developments to enter only at certain times to try to avoid conflict, and more often than not, it was also closed. There is one place, the Brownsville Recreation Center, with its indoor pool, performance space and gym, that people point to as an example of good things happening in the community. But it’s on the other side of rival territory.



“That’s like a different world,” Mattos said. “They worry about the come-home. They in the gym, and somebody out of the other crew calls and says, ‘Let’s get him before he gets back to the projects side.’ ”



On their walk, Shamir and Keston started telling each other about dreams they’d had recently. Shamir said that in his dream, two boys from the Tilden Houses shared a meal with him in his apartment, a thought that astounded him. “I had a dream, too,” Keston said, so excited that he stumbled over his words. “I had a dream that everybody over here was linked up. We was going to the beach one day. We was in Tilden riding bikes. They ran up to me and said, ‘What up, bro?’ And I was like, ‘What the hell?’ ”



Dusk was approaching when they reached the edge of the South Side, and the shadows of the Van Dyke Houses leaned over the playground. Dozens of kids darted around in swarms. Shamir and Keston each paid a dollar for a frozen dessert. On a bench inside the park, a group of kids was handling a pellet gun that one took from an older sibling. It looked real.



“Why you bring that outside, boy?” Shamir asked, alarmed. “You’re supposed to bring it out when we beef with Tilden.” Then a call rang out across the playground, and all of the kids seemed to know at once that something worth seeing was happening. Over there? . . . Who? . . . Tina? . . . What she say? . . . Fight? Keston knew it was about him. And it had nothing to do with Tilden.

Tina was Keston’s ex-girlfriend. She sat at a concrete table across the park with a box of pizza and an orange soda, steely and quiet, even as a mass of noisy kids surrounded her. The news that attracted their attention was puerile: Tina said — or everyone thought she said — that Keston has a small penis. Fighting words.



Shamir took a seat on a table where he could see. Behind him, kids fanned out like spectators in an amphitheater, aiming their camera phones and egging on Keston and Tina, who circled each other in a swirl of nervousness and bravado.



The possibility that violence could spill out toward the mothers peering over baby strollers or the old ladies resting on benches did not quell what was becoming an electrified mob. Nor did the fact that the main attraction pitted one of the huskiest boys in the neighborhood against a girl. The fight was the most thrilling thing to happen in a long bore of a day.

Keston stood with his thumb inside the elastic waistband of his basketball shorts, threatening to yank down his pants and prove his manhood. “There are babies over here,” someone warned. Keston quickly decided that he would hit Tina rather than expose himself, and Tina, not much smaller than him in a camouflage T-shirt, stood there, planted, chin up and out, daring him to try.



“Punch me in my face,” she yelled, wagging her finger. “You really think I’m scared? Punch me in my face.” Keston bit his bottom lip, rocked between his heels and toes and clapped his hands.



Shamir, who was providing a running commentary, yelled, “Yo, he is gonna rock her!” Eventually a boy called Kool-Aid pushed the confrontation to its climax when he started counting backward from 10. Everyone joined in. “Ten, nine, eight. . . . “



Keston punched Tina when the countdown reached one. It was a powerful blow. Tina staggered for a few seconds and then ran after Keston swinging. But she was outmatched. Keston grabbed her face and hit her there several more times. When Tina tried to retreat, he stomped after her, flailing, and the crowd followed, ecstatic. After about a minute of madness, Tina walked out of the park. She did not appear injured.



After the fight, kids jumped up and down, cursing, laughing. “Yo, I got the best footage,” a boy called out. No one called the cops, and no cops walked by on patrol. Activity in the rest of park continued without disruption, as if the fight had not happened. The old ladies did not lift their noses from their books.



As the dust settled, Shamir sat at a park table with boys called Fifty and Snagz. These two held forth like wise men, explaining the ugliness we had all just seen, while Shamir mostly listened, a bit out of his depth.



“This is the realest hood, though,” Fifty said. “Van Dyke. Because this is the biggest project in Brownsville. It’s three parks in Van Dyke.”



“You got other places that’s live wires,” he said, naming housing developments. “Tilden is just a war zone.” He said the police could not stop the violence. “They already did what they can do. It’s never going to stop.”



Snagz said, “They growing up from little kids, and it keeps going.”



“From generation to generation to generation,” Fifty said.



I asked them if boys in the neighborhood often hit girls. “That was just one,” Fifty replied. “Times him by 37,000.” Shamir added casually that “girls get slapped every day.” The playgrounds were a place where watching a friend beat up a girl, brawling with the Tilden boys and playing a good game of skelly were all on the same level. And the boys accepted each as they came.

‘When you young, you love violence. ... When everybody gets older, they just start wanting to get money.’


Snagz said: “It’s crazy. When you young, you love violence. But as soon as you get older, start growing into your adult years, you get tired of that. I’m tired. I’m just trying to get money. When everybody gets older, they just start wanting to get money.” Snagz was 16.



Tina walked back into the park with her parents. Again there was a feeling that something bad was about to happen. “They ‘bout to beat you up,” Fifty sang in falsetto, elated. Keston, who had been pacing in a daze, refused to run.



Tina walked up to Keston swinging a knife. She scratched the surface of his skin, and his blood began to trickle. Tina’s mother approached next as if she was going to chastise Keston, but instead she sprayed him in the face with pepper spray. Tina’s family walked quickly to their car and sped off. Keston spent the next half an hour shirtless, leaning over the playground’s rainbow sprinkler, flushing his eyes and spitting. His older sister came to the park in a fury and threatened to send someone after Tina’s mother.



Shamir decided he had seen enough for the day and headed to his apartment to take a nap. “Yo, come wake me up,” he said to one of his friends. “Keep beating on the door if I don’t come right away.”



Mattos told me that in his estimation, there are a few different types of kids on the streets. There are the good kids, who are pulled into fights simply because of where they live. There are the ones he calls the generals (“the ones that are most boasty”), who are usually surrounded by a group of followers. “We try to redirect their generalship,” Mattos said. And there are the boys like Shamir, whom Mattos calls batteries. A battery is a kid who charges up another to do what he himself would not do. “He’s putting a battery in this person’s back,” Mattos said.



A few days after Keston and Tina fought at the South Side, Shamir and some friends walked by a neighborhood pharmacy where a teenage girl was arguing with her boyfriend on the sidewalk, and the boys goaded the boyfriend into slapping her.
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