Have you heard about “microaggressions” that come in the form of “microassaults” and “microinsults” and “microinvalidations?” You may not know those totems of pain by their formal names, but I’m certain, at times in your life, you’ve felt their sting and, perhaps, even employed a few of them.
Continue reading → Microaggressions: Microassaults, Microinsults and Microinvalidations
Every plan has a hole. Every ship has a leak. Every internet session is insecure. These are the new universal writs of living in the new ancient world. I learned that lesson in an especially troubling manner that forced me, in an instant, to reassess my role in the world as a Midwestern White Man teaching at-risk minority undergraduate students at a major New York City university.
I thought the assignment was simple and universally understood. I’d used a similar teaching plan at other universities with great success; but, in reflection, I realize most of those successes were found in mainstream classrooms with well-schooled students who were taught that learning was a priority in the home.
In my new teaching role in the inner city, many of these students working on a B.A. did not come from the same font of mandatory educational opportunities. They scraped by to earn understanding. They fought for what they grasped while others around them had learning handed to them.
There was a great divide of the mind and cultural experience that I quickly had to bridge or the entire end of the semester was at risk of failing, and the blame would solely be mine as the instructor for not being able to quickly re-adjust and move the field lines to be fair to my students so they could find success.
Continue reading → Lost in Cultural Translation: Aesop’s Fables, Fairy Tales and Disney Movies
We have a gun problem in the USA — and our children are paying the price for our metal obsession with their lives and futures. In the first days of September 2013, the headlines screamed with blood and unnecessary pain.
I don’t even need to argue the bullet points that guns are a menace in the public square. The news of the day provides simple enough, and predictable enough, facts of what happened.
Continue reading → Winning the Gun Game by Outgunning the Gunners
If we need more evidence the world is imploding on its own good misdeeds, we need look no further than the weight of the ridiculousness that the Urban Dictionary is now being used in courts of law to define colloquial phrases and to help educate judges and juries as to “meaning in the street.”
How did we become a nation of frightened followers? Has the American state become so repressive and anti-progressive that we are all now doomed to live under irrational, invasive, public, TSA searches at airports and howling mobs at home as the boot of the national government crushes against our necks in the name of our own good safety?
Continue reading → The United States of Cowardice: Why We Cling to Authoritarianism
Health Affairs recently released a disturbing and disparaging report concerning the health and wellbeing of minority children in America:
Bethesda, MD — Almost 17 percent of black children and 20.5 percent of Latino children in the United States live in “double jeopardy,” meaning that they live in both poor families and poor neighborhoods, according to research released today in the March/April issue of the journal Health Affairs.
In contrast, only 1.4 percent of white children live in double jeopardy. According to researchers, the type of neighborhood one lives in plays a significant role in racial and ethnic health disparities. In addition, poor white children are more likely than poor black or Latino children to live in better neighborhoods.
A typical poor white child lives in a neighborhood where the poverty rate is 13.6 percent, while a typical poor black child lives in a neighborhood where the poverty level is nearly 30 percent.
A typical poor Latino child lives in a neighborhood where the poverty rate is 26 percent. Segregated, disadvantaged neighborhoods affect health in the following ways:
· By limiting economic advancement for minorities because of poor education, limited job opportunities, and a poor return on housing investment.
· By exposing minorities to violent crime, environmental hazards, poor municipal services, and a lack of grocery stores and healthy food options.
· By leading to segregated health care settings with poorer-quality health care.
If you change the label of a concept, is the context forming the underlying concept changed as well — or is the concept always the same no matter the name?
Continue reading → Does Changing the Label Change the Context?
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