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MEDGAR EVERS COLLEGE 2018 BLACK HISTORY MONTH CALENDAR HIGHLIGHTS

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MEDGAR EVERS COLLEGE 2018 BLACK HISTORY MONTH CALENDAR HIGHLIGHTS

 

(January 30, 2018, Brooklyn, NY) – In honor of Black History Month, Medgar Evers College is proud to present an exciting array of events that aim to be both celebratory and informative.  The events include honoring an NAACP President, a Soul Food Festival sponsored by students and the English Department’s debut of a new literary magazine. Also, look for a Financial Literacy Seminar, a film about Historically Black Colleges, a conversation about the legacy of Frederick Douglass and a lecture on STEM and the African Diaspora. All events are free and open to the public.

 

 February 5, 2018, 11:30 AM — 12:30 PM

1638 Bedford Ave., Edison O. Jackson Auditorium

  1. Joy Williams, President of the Brooklyn Chapter of the NAACP, will be honored with the college’s Trailblazer Award and will hold a conversation with four MEC students. Question and Answer with audience follows.

February 6, 2018, 6:00 PM — 9:00 PM

1638 Bedford Ave., Edison O. Jackson Auditorium

Screening followed by panel discussion of renowned filmmaker Stanley Nelson’s new documentary, “Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Black Colleges and Universities”.  Free but RSVP needed: Miles@mec.cuny.edu

“Dollars and Sense Financial Literacy Seminar” with CUNY Creative Arts Team

      February 9, 2018, 12:00 PM — 2:00 PM

1638 Bedford Ave., Edison O. Jackson Auditorium

A “Dollars and Sense Financial Literacy Seminar” featuring skits by the City University of New York Creative Arts Team. A free, fun event that explores finance management and wealth accumulation.

THE FRANK RAGLAND MEMORIAL LECTURE: FROM THE CONGO TO HARVARD UNIVERSITY- STEM AND THE AFRICAN DIASPORA

February 21, 2018, 11:30 AM -1:00 PM

1638 Bedford Ave., Edison O. Jackson Auditorium

A lecture by Dr. Jonathan Mboyo Esole, a Congolese mathematician working on the geometry of string theory. He solved several important problems in mathematical physics and his work is supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF).

“The Crown Heights Review” Literary Journal to be launched

 February 21, 2018, 6:00 PM — 7:30 PM

1638 Bedford Ave., Edison O. Jackson Auditorium

 The new literary journal, “The Crown Heights Review” (for students and alumni), will be presented at a Black History Month program featuring Pulitzer prizewinner Tyehimba Jess, reading from his collection “Olio”.

 

A Celebration of the 2018 Frederick Douglass Bicentennial

February 26, 2018, 6:30 PM — 8:30 PM

1638 Bedford Ave., EOJ Auditorium

In honor of the bicentennial birthday of Frederick Douglass, the Center for Black Literature, in conjunction with AKILA WORKSONGS, will present a program featuring a talk with Lloyd Weaver, the great-great grandson of Douglass.  The program will also feature award-winning author and journalist Herb Boyd, who will provide a framework for the importance of the Douglass legacy in the age of Trump. The discussion moderator is Dr. Brenda M. Greene, Executive Director of the Center for Black Literature.

Soul Food Festival Presented by Office of Student Life & Development and Percy Sutton SEEK Program

February 28, 2018, 11:30 AM — 1:00 PM

1638 Bedford Ave., Lobby

  A free Soul Food Festival with music, dance and poetry featuring a sampling of dishes, reflecting the role of soul food for generations of African-Americans.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Netflix: Y’all Need to Chill—Part Two

Lisa Durden
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Netflix: Y’all Need to Chill—Part Two

By Lisa Durden

Let me set some of y’all Black folks all the way straight who feel like Mo’Nique needed to take the money and keep it moving. NO!! Hell to the Hell NO!! Yes, Lisa Durden would have grabbed that dough and ran. But my name ain’t Mo’Nique. Do you people realize that she is one of the most decorated comedians! She is one of the Queens of Comedy! No shade but let’s keep it real, whenever you think about the most successful woman comedian in the industry, the only name other than Whoopi Goldberg that comes to mind is Mo’Nique. Period! She was the lead actress in a hugely successful sitcom called “The Parkers” for five long years. Do you all realize what an accomplishment that is these days?? Just in case y’all have amnesia, in 2010, Mo’Nique won an Oscar at the 82nd Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actress for the box office smash “Precious”, which grossed over $47 million dollars domestically. Her awards game is sick; winning several NAACP Image Awards, a Critics Choice Award, a Golden Globe Award, a New York Film Critics Circle Award, a BAFTA Award, an Independent Spirit Award, a National Society of Film Critics Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a BET Award, a BET Comedy Award, an African-American Film Critics Association Award, and a Satellite Award, just to name a few. Mo’Nique is a living legend!!

And for you misinformed #MOTHERCLUCKERS who say, “What has Mo done lately??” Um, in May of 2017 she had a sold-out comedy show at the Apollo and in November 2016, she was the star of the low-budget smash hit movie “Almost Christmas”, that only cost $17 million dollars to make, but earned $42 million dollars domestically. Now when Netflix said Amy Schumer had a hit movie last summer, I’d like to know what movie they’re referring to. In May of 2017, only a short 6 months after Mo’Nique’s blockbuster film, Amy’s “so-called” hit movie “Snatched” was, in fact, a box office FLOP!! It cost a whopping $42 million dollars to make and it only grossed $46 million dollars domestically. So, when Netflix referred to that movie as their example for paying Amy more than Mo’Nique, they told on themselves!! It’s very clear that they offered Amy more not because she grosses more than Mo’Nique, but because she’s a white woman. So, YES, Mo’Nique deserved to get the same pay as Amy Schumer, Chris Rock and Dave Chapelle for her comedy special.

Black people who can fix their fingers to post or fix their mouth to say that Mo’Nique shouldn’t get equal pay for her comedy special leave me no choice but to think that you identify with the oppressor. That’s an unfortunate pathology that still exists in our community. I am soooo glad that my girl, comedian Wanda Sykes, stepped up on #Twitter to commend Mo’Nique for speaking out, saying that she was offended that Netflix offered her less than $500,000 and chose to take her business to Epix, where she would be appreciated. Good for Wanda.

Ooooo, I loved it when the outspoken Jada Pinkett-Smith joined the Mo’Nique Netflix debate. On #Twitter, in true Jada fashion, she set the haters all the way straight!! “You don’t have to like Mo’Nique’s approach. You don’t have to agree with her boycott, but don’t allow all of that to make you blind to the fact that nonwhite women and impoverished white women are underpaid, underrepresented and undervalued everywhere by everyone,” expressed Jayda. “As a community, we should be supporting the light she is shining on this truth.”

That’s the kind of sisterhood Black women must have if we are going to rise above the racial and gender pay gap. There is even exciting discussion around women telling each other what they make as a way to be aware of the pay disparities. I wholeheartedly agree with that movement.

Let me bottom line this for y’all. Everybody who is reading this article knows exactly what it feels like to be paid slave wages and asked to get over it, or to be glad to have a job, especially Black women. This is not just about Mo’Nique, Wanda Sykes, Taraji P. Henson, Kerry Washington, Viola Davis, Tracee Ellis-Ross or Gabrielle Union. Netflix is the smaller picture of the bigger picture to show how the pay gap is worse for Black women in all careers and jobs, and has been that way sense we entered the workforce. For every dollar a man makes, Black women make 63 cents. White women do face a pay gap as well, but they make 80 cents for every dollar that a man makes, which is substantially higher than African-American women. Simply put, Black women are often significantly underrepresented in leadership roles and positions of power to be able to make crucial decisions about hiring practices and who gets paid what. Therefore, I suggest that all of you negative Nelly’s root for women like the Mo’Niques of the world who ain’t “scurd” to push the pay envelop; she is the queen of #BlackGirlMagic, please “put some ‘respect’ on it”! When we start “making money moves” as Cardi B says, “Black Women Equal Pay Day” won’t just be a date on our calendars every July 31st, but Black women will one day hold the power positions needed to hire women; hence, helping to close the pay gap.

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Lisa Durden, TV personality and subject matter expert in the areas of pop culture, politics and social issues, who’s an “A-Plus Panel” Contributor at My9’s “Chasing News”. She also makes appearances on Dr. Oz, Pix11 Morning News, CT Style & Fox News Channel. Lisa’s voice is her activism! Twitter: @lisardurden

 

Scott Stringer’s Comptroller U: A Year of Free Workshops on M/WBE Access to City Contracts

Editor, Our Time Press
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Scott Stringer’s Comptroller U: A Year of Free Workshops on M/WBE Access to City Contracts

NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer announced a 2018 initiative to help Minority- and Women-owned Business Enterprises gain access toto city contracts known as “M/WBE University”, the yearlong series of workshops designed to help M/WBEs get certified with with the city, navigate the procurement process and gain access to government business.

While city agencies are making important strides in delivering contracts to M/WBEs, major gaps remain. Last year, the city awarded just over $1 billion in contracts to M/WBEs, which represent only 4.9 percent of all awards.

“Four years ago, we did something no one had before,” Comptroller Stringer said. “We started analyzing and holding agencies accountable for how – and to whom – it delivers contracts. Wesaw deep inequities and a playing field that was far from level. This is about fairness. M/WBE University is so important because these companies help to build real local wealth across all of our communities. If we’re going to have a true five-borough economy where everyone has a fair shot, we have to make sure our M/WBEs are successful.”

The yearlong series of workshops will, for the first time, bring in representatives from major companies like IBM, CDW and Ricoh Partners, as well as other businesses that contract with the city for legal, construction and accounting services. Along with opening the doors to city contracting, M/WBE University will provide businesses with opportunities in contracting directly with the comptroller’s office.

The list of workshops include: Doing Business with NYC as an IBM, CDW or Ricoh Partner on 2/23; Become a Prequalified NYC Auditor on 3/23; Capital, Bonds & Tax Breaks for Businesses Impacting NYC on 5/25; Doing Business with the Comptroller on 7/13; Prevailing Wage: What Your Business Needs to Know on 8/17 and The Future of M/WBEs in NYC on 12/14.

Workshops are limited to 75 people and will take place at the David N. Dinkins Manhattan Municipal Building, 1 Centre Street, Rm. 1005. Space is limited to 75 attendees for each workshop and registration is now open, so RSVP quickly if interested. Visit the Comptroller’s website at https://comptroller.nyc.gov/ and scroll down to News Updates on the home page to access the Eventbrite RSVP links. For questions, please diversity@comptroller.nyc.gov.

The Great American Contradiction

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The Great American Contradiction

We protest for peace, and then vote leaders into office who maintain perpetual war. We support animal rights while wearing leather shoes and eating a rib-eye steak. We live in a constant state of contradiction, our lives continuously straddling between that which we know to be true definitely, and that which we need to be true momentarily. It’s a simulation error, a flaw in our loop that enables us to be both victim and perpetrator, sympathizer and aggressor. So, yes, we are law-abiding citizens even though we constantly get speeding tickets. And, yes, we are against misogyny, but we still listen to R. Kelly. And as an individual, we admonish others when we witness them contradict themselves, only to be indignant and oblivious to our own contradictions.

America itself is a lesson in contradictions. Our history is full of inconsistency. English settlers arrived in the New World seeking freedom from persecution, and the result was the persecution and annihilation of the indigenous people of this land. Our Declaration of Independence, a document that states that all men are created equal, was written in 1776 at a time when Black slaves were treated as less than human. Most recently, we elected a president who lost by three million votes. And quite like the individual, our country ignores its own conflicting ideals while correcting and directing other nations towards democracy and freedom.

This week, Donald Trump delivered his first State of the Union Address. It was weird. It was like listening to a malcontent substitute teacher trying to discuss the class syllabus – you don’t want to be in the class, he doesn’t want to be in the class and he’s never even read the syllabus, so he’s misconstruing even the simplest concepts. I have never seen a State of the Union Address quite like that. He spoke about MS-13 as if they were ISIS. He spoke about ISIS as if they were eradicated. Then he said we should beef up our nuclear weaponry. Our country has almost 7,000 nuclear warheads, enough to blow the earth up into dust 700 times, and he wants to produce more. He read from his prompter with a monotonous drag that made it difficult to gauge his level of energy. Was he trying to be deliberate? Or did he need his reading glasses to see the words on the prompter? His speech was full of profiles of courage and light on analysis of nation, like a meat loaf that’s more bread crumbs than meat. And he clapped for himself and for others a lot, his meaty paws made an annoying slapping sound into his mic while he clapped. I tried to remember whether or not Obama used to clap during his speeches. If he did, it was done with far more grace and tact.

While speaking about his motion to name Jerusalem the capital of Israel, he referred to the nations that voted against that move, implying that they were not America’s friends. 128 nations voted against Trump’s motion. The UK, France, Germany and Spain all voted against it. Should we believe Trump in thinking that those nations are not our friends? The speech itself didn’t bother me though, I recognize who Trump is by now, a clumsy, belligerent man who loves power but doesn’t understand the beautiful responsibility in it, like a big doofy child that spends his day killing ants with his thumb just because he likes to see them die. What bothered me was the reaction of his audience, for it was they who offered resounding applause to some of the most idiotic statements a president could ever make. A more perfect union is impossible when politicians placate to party lines over serving the people. I found myself screaming at the telly, “You can’t be serious! You’re clapping for that nonsense?? Who are you people!” But I realize who they are and who we are. We are Americans, a nation conflicted with contradictions. We don’t do as we say. We don’t say what we mean. And we fight tyranny abroad, only to sit in a room, listen to the edict of tyranny and stand and applaud it. Shame on us!

Lack of Diversity in Specialized High Schools Exemplify Failure of Public Education in New York City

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Lack of Diversity in Specialized High Schools Exemplify Failure of Public Education in New York City

By Basir Mchawi

While the de Blasio Administration points to improved high school graduation rates as a measure of improved public schools, other statistics show exactly how bad the New York Public Schools have become. The residual educational damage done during the years of Michael Bloomberg will probably take decades to undo. One aspect of this dismal failure is the decreasing numbers of Black and Latino students attending the elite “specialized high schools”.

There are eight specialized high schools in New York City that require a special admissions test (The Specialized High School Admission Test –SHSAT) that is the sole admission criteria. These are Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Technical, Staten Island Technical, High School of American Studies at Lehman College, High School for Mathematics, Science and Engineering at City College, Brooklyn Latin and Queens High School at York College. Hunter College High School, also considered an elite public school, has its own exam. While the demographics at all of these schools reek of educational apartheid, I will focus on the three oldest and most prestigious: Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech.

Figures for 2016-2017, provided by the NYC Department of Education, shows that at Stuyvesant, with a student population of 3,365, there are only 52 Black students (1.5%) and 85 Latino/Hispanic students (2.5%). Bronx Science has a student population of 2,979, with 106 Black students (3.6%) and 182 Latino/Hispanic students (6.1%). Brooklyn Tech, which is a short walk away from Fort Greene projects, has a student population of 5,682, with 434 Black students (7.6%) and 416 Latino/Hispanic students (7.3%). These paltry numbers exist in a city where there is a student enrollment of 1,113,963, composed of 40.5% Hispanic/Latino students

27.1% Black, 15.5% Asian, 14.8% White and 2.1% “other” (NYC DOE 2015-2016). These figures are troubling for numerous reasons, but the most obvious is that the majority of students (Black and Latino) in New York City have little or no access to the best city schools. Ideally, the populations of the elite schools should mirror the demographics of the entire NYC school system. Over the last few years, there have been a number of unsatisfying solutions proposed to this issue of the lack of diversity in New York’s elite schools. Some call for abolishing the admissions test and replacing it with factors such as middle school grades and scores on standardized statewide tests. Another proposed solution is to accept the top ten percent of all middle school students into the specialized high schools. One of the problems with abandoning the SHSAT is that the three original specialized high schools (Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech) were established by New York State law. To abolish the exam would require legislative action in Albany.

One question that might be asked is, “Why should anyone be concerned about the number of Blacks and Latinos in the specialized high schools?” To understand the depth of the problem that the lack of diversity in the elite New York high schools represents, we must undertake a brief history lesson. Back in the early to mid-1960’s, I was part of a wave of young Black and Latino shock troops coming out of poverty, public housing and tenements whose purpose was to obliterate any and all educational obstacles. We excelled at school and test-taking. We kicked down educational barriers wherever they existed, hoping that there would be a stream of Black and Latino students who would follow our example and slip through the cracks our assault on the system had created. We took the specialized high school entrance exam and passed. We gained admission to Stuyvesant, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech, and for years, the number of Black and Latino students attending the elite schools increased. I have numbers of friends and associates who went to Stuyvesant, Science and Tech. My Bronx High School of Science yearbook from over 50 years ago shows more than 3.6% Black and Latino students in the graduating class! After graduation, many of us continued our quest by gaining admission to prestigious majority-white colleges and universities. When people talked about integration in those times, WE were integration. This group of “uppity” young Black/Latino young men and women was able to successfully compete anywhere at any time with anyone. Then something happened. Our young people seemed not so uppity and often not as ready to compete with others. Numbers that had risen, whether test scores or admissions to prestigious schools, leveled off and then began to decline. What happened? To provide practical solutions to the educational mess we all face, we have to consider what forces have sought to stop Black and Latino educational progress. Then we must develop a program to reverse some of the recent negative educational trends. In my next article, I will look at some new realities and come up with some solutions to this protracted educational decline.

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