Dr. Lester K. Spence

Effective immediately, my university is freezing salaries, canceling all searches, and cutting budgets 10%. I’ve talked about this before, thinking that perhaps Obama needed to include the type of cultural creative work in his stimulus package that FDR included in the New Deal. But at least two others have taken up the call. 

This is an excellent moment to begin to think about what we’re preparing PhDs for. And what universities need to be. 

But first, calm.

I’ve already listed some of the things I think Obama should pursue.

What are some things we can do here?

For those of us currently training graduate students we should begin to have either formal or informal conversations with them about what the future holds, and we need to be realistic here. Even the top tier schools aren’t going to be able to place every single student who wants a job. Students need to understand this without simultaneously approaching their studies and their fellow students in a cutthroat manner. 

We should also take this opportunity to figure out how we can serve much more of a public role than what we currently play. The idea of being a “public intellectual” has fallen into disfavor largely because of the paychecks individuals like Cornel West and Michael Eric Dyson routinely get speaking to “the public.” It’s become a marketing thing, used by some professors to augment their income and their presence/brand (in some cases significantly). Although I do believe that professors are going to have to do more work like this, I’m not talking about Dyson style public intellectual work but rather something different. Roland Fryer’s politics are not my own but he offers a potential model here.

Those are just two ideas. More?

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Adrienne Brown is hot like fire.

- We need ongoing supported focus on police brutality and accountability, even as we develop our own peace zones. It’s no longer sufficient to get furious when a civilian is killed by police, and maintain that fury until the officers are acquitted or resign. For the past 10 years it has been nearly impossible to get sustained support for this kind of work from the foundation world, so as organizers we have to sustain this work in other more community-based ways. I definitely want to shout out The Gathering, who have picked up this unpopular issue as it relates to juvenile justice, with the commitment of Harry Belafonte – they are joining the Oakland community for actions next week. I have also heard that Uhuru will be hosting a meeting tomorrow evening to discuss accountability and healing.

- we need to express our gratitude to groups like Community Justice Network for Youth (CJNY), who identified the gaping hole that exists in the non-profit and organizing community of Oakland in terms of police accountability work. CJNY stepped up in a major way for today’s nonviolent action, but they can’t maintain this effort on their own. Bay Area groups who focus their work on young people of color, this political moment needs you.

- And I know I am biased by the perspective of working at The Ruckus Society, but we need to engage in the deep training and skill development around pulling off large scale strategic direct actions. There are ways to pull together mass actions in a short time period that gain media, build the power of our positions, and help the community to see and understand the situation and how they can get involved.

More here. And here.

Over at ta-nahesi’s spot a group of folks have been questioning why black people don’t rail against black on black crime as much as they do against police crime. 

Maybe a year and some months ago, the then-outgoing Philadelphia Chief of Police asked that the organization 100 Black Men begin to police Philly streets, after a particularly vicious crime streak that left dozens of black youth murdered. The men were not to be paid, not to be armed, and only trained moderately. Some men jumped at the chance–black anti-crime rallies are the norm in black neighborhoods. This was my response. In a nutshell why should we put our lives on the line to do a job we pay taxes for, a service that we implicitly sign the social contract for?

I’ve got it–because in our case, the rights we have are not rights at all, but privileges that are given to us when we act right.

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(From Makani Themba-Nixon, director of The Praxis Project)

1. Digg the story so that the national media can pick up on it

2. Contact BART Director Carole Ward Allen and demand that 1) the officers involved be taken off duty without pay and charged and fully prosecuted; 2) there be an independent investigation of the shooting that includes a review of training and hiring practices; and 3) BART establish an independent residents’ review board for the police Call her at 510-464-6095 or email the BART Directors atBoardofDirectors@bart.gov

3. Call the BART police to complain about the officers’ conduct and demand immediate action: Internal Affairs: Sergeant David Chlebowski 510.464.7029,dchlebo@bart.gov; Chief of Police: Gary Gee 510.464.7022, ggee@bart.gov

Call them toll free at 877.679.7000 and press the last four digits of the phone number you wish to reach.

4. Talk it up on your blogs, networks and talk radio shows (call Michael Baisden 877-6BADBOY or Rev. Al, etc. to get this on the national radar)

5. Stay tuned for other actions, protests, etc., especially if you are in the Bay.

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 The New York Times features an article about the challenges the CBC faces in the upcoming term, what with a black President and all. The article has many of the challenges that journalistic accounts of black politics has–confusing age and ideology, ignoring the differences between black constituencies in favor of an approach that focuses on “respect”. The picture they chose to accompany the story speaks volumes.

Absolutely hilarious.

I want readers to do a favor for me. Add your favorite caption. And I’ll announce the winner in another post.

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The line of the last four months has been something like the following:

I’d never thought I’d live to see this happen.

Of course those of us in the states, and even outside, know what “this” means.

But what is going on is so much bigger. Hell I didn’t think I’d live to see the day I could hold a phone in my hand with 20,000 times the power of my Apple IIc…but there you have it.

I’ve been trying to bring together seemingly disparate pieces to question our new reality, to question its texture, its sound, its taste, its look. And I’m going to continue to do that.

I never expected to live to see 40. Not because of any Menace II Society like concern with my life. But because I was raised on a steady diet of science fiction novels, and B-movies. I couldn’t see beyond 32, because that was 2001.

And 2001 was the future. 

So the very idea of being 40 was foreign to me.

Yet and still here we are.

But the future is still there and waiting to be made. I took the title of this post from a fascinating interview with Kim Stanley Robinson. Here’s hoping we’ll all be here over course of 2009 to talk about the future together.

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