Since this blog is mostly about race, racism, and social policy, I need to insure that we are speaking the same language and discussing the same phenomenon. Please see my ten minute TEDx talk from 2014 at the following URL for background on my future discussions.
Last September, 107-year-old Mamie Kirkland returned to Ellisville, Mississippi, a town she left at seven years of age in 1915. Fleeing a lynch mob, Mamie’s father, Edward Lang, a laborer and aspiring minister, left town abruptly in the middle of the night with instructions for his wife to catch the train with their five children … [Read more…]
In the words of the late Maya Angelou, “when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” It is about time for African Americans to believe who former president Bill Clinton really is. In an encounter last month with Black Lives Matter activists in Philadelphia, Mr. Clinton refused to acknowledge the harm … [Read more…]
As the NCAA basketball tournaments drew to a close, ESPN presented a 90-minute special on the 1966 NCAA championship game between Kentucky and Texas Western. Texas Western, now the University of Texas at El Paso, started five black players and upset the highly favored Kentucky team. Since Texas Western started five blacks and their only … [Read more…]
Sports fans are in the midst of March Madness, the time of year of the exciting college basketball playoffs. So many games it is a mad time. Please excuse me while I discuss another particularly mad aspect of March Madness. March Madness is big business and everybody gets paid but the stars–the players, an economic … [Read more…]
One of the few Miss Americas that I paid attention to died last month at 87 years of age. She was Yolande Betbeze, who won the crown in 1950 and immediately stepped out of the box. She shocked the Miss America organizers when she refused to appear in a bathing suit for cheesecake photos, she … [Read more…]
Lead does serious harm to the neurological system of developing children. This harm continues for the rest of their lives as there is no cure for lead poisoning. There is only remediation, as happens in classrooms for children with learning and behavioral problems. Consequently, much more attention needs to be paid to the primary prevention … [Read more…]
Five weeks ago I attended an overflow event at Virginia Tech that featured professor of environmental engineering, Marc Edwards, and his students–the Flint Water Study Research Team, and also LeeAnne Walters, the Flint mother who asked professor Edwards to come test the Flint River water. The event was full of emotion, especially for an engineering … [Read more…]
As we end Black History Month I will make note of an exceptional African American I met four years ago. Charles Harrison, a retired industrial designer, was brought to Virginia Tech in observance of Black History Month by the Colleges of Engineering and Architecture and Design. He did workshops for students and offered a public … [Read more…]
See at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s76RrWiLWo8