A few thoughts on Fidel

        Fidel Castro was a dictator who used intimidation and other terror techniques to get his way. There is no doubt that he committed some heinous crimes as any dictator would. To be honest, we rarely find in history that someone who wields absolute power leaves the office untainted. Comparing him to any President would be unfair. The President has two political bodies that exists to keep him from doing anything too tyrannical (and yet we still find horrible instances of Presidential overreach). Castro had no such check, given the haphazard nature of his ascension.
         But make no mistake: Castro was a symptom of the problem, not the root cause of distress in Cuba. What many of the Cubans who were exiled tend to leave out was how they were essentially benefiting from an incredibly stratified society. Certainly some Cubans were removed out of political malice in a way that is unacceptable, but there were many who left because the vast wealth they accumulated on the backs of an abused working class was going to be confiscated. As these revolutions tend to go, the rich don't fare well. While such violence is morally reprehensible, so is starvation and constant exhaustion. What I mean to say is the middle class and rich folk, who like to condemn Castro have no right. The notion that Cubans in the states depict an accurate depiction of him is false. These are those who did not thrive in his regime. It would be like asking the Japanese in the United States after internment what their thoughts were on the U.S. as an agent of moral good.
       As for Castro's socialist rhetoric, one must wonder what would have happened if the the United States hadn't thoroughly crippled its economy? People who claim Cuba is a failed socialist project have very little proof. Citing instances of poverty in Cuba is meaningless given that the United States essentially spent the past 40 to 50 years maintaining that poverty. Cuba's medical advances have been well documented and the fact that college is completely free to Cubans is also to be congratulated. The quality of these institutions is dubious, but the mere sentiment cannot be scoffed at by people from a country that essentially enslaves their citizens in perpetual debt when it comes to these very institutions.
    Castro is a controversial figure. I find that the one sided American propaganda given about him is not an accurate depiction. Even more interesting, is the question of whether America's embargo and international influence actually strengthened his hold in Cuba. What if America had simply allowed him to be, while also taking every opportunity to let Cuban citizens into the United States? We've seen instances of people using the money and influence they gain abroad to help affect change in their home country. That could have easily been the case in Cuba. And instead focusing on  a half caricature of the United States as a capitalist beast that intended to put a puppet government in Cuba; the Cubans may have focused on the deficiencies of their own leader. My point is that people are acting mighty new about Castro and Cuba. I know some of my friends have deep and bitter histories concerning this subject, but I wonder if their families were on the right side of history.
      As I think of being on the right side of history, I realize how economic stratification is often the true cause for political strife. Socialism addresses some of these issues, but even in socialist government we find inequality. Capitalism in its purest form actually addresses these issues as well. This is a completely rudimentary assessment of these sort of issues, but I feel socialism works best in a small localized government. Cuba was the perfect place for socialism. For huge conglomerates like Russia, China and the U.S., capitalism works best. 

Luke Cage's ending ruins the entire show

                  The first episode of Luke Cage had little to no action and I liked it that way. The exposition was rich with Harlem history as if Luke and Pops were speaking against a pervasive gang culture that still holds true in Black and Hispanic NYC today. As the show progresses, Luke becomes a symbol of African American excellence. One scene in particular stands out. When Cage is staring out at the Crispus Attucks complex, he lectures the young African American boy about the history of the N-word and the pride that comes with being a black man. These are subject matters I know very little about and don't feel equipped to discuss, but damn it's powerful. And just like that, in episode two,  I was committed to watching the show. I expected it to follow in the steps of Fruitvale Station by talking about inner city culture and conflict, while also appeasing a white voyeuristic audience. But it seems the latter part (and I believe to its detriment) of that demographic won out because the ending of the show exists merely to remind you its a marvel comic. The flurry of deaths and deep rooted corruption with an oversaturation of backstory and potential love interests muddle the amazing race/inner city work Luke Cage does/could do.
             

 On top of that, all that extra shit is god awful. Wildcard characters like Diamondback, who would have been served better by a slow drawn out reveal, are arbitrarily thrust into the action, completely making all former adversaries sort of meaningless. Luke's relationship with the wise Latina doctor, whose existence serves as a connecting thread for the extended Marvel universe, actually takes away from the Luke Cage universe. She could have been introduced at the end with all the other nonsense. We didn't need alien guns or any of that stuff in the middle of season 1. All we needed was The Wire-esque gang banging operations that are thwarted through a combination of the efforts of Luke and Misty. The symbolic power of an African American vigilante character, finally being able to put his differences aside when approached by a cop who is actually germane to the neighborhood she serves would provide an alternate template and narrative for the current hostilities we see today. Instead we get some weird ass vendetta that I didn't completely understand or bother to care about. There's still nuggets of a good show in the second and third act of Luke Cage. The back story concerning Cottonmouth and the blind rage over sexual assault were incredibly powerful (I felt the sexual assault mention was completely mishandled). Yet the moment the random lackey comes in and begins to steer Cottonmouth's cousin as if she had not been an established politician for years seemed unbelievable and frankly a bit unsettling. The house of cards built in the first act is destroyed far too quickly with little to no mourning period. The message is "all that stuff about race and culture that was just to cover our bases cause we're touching a minority super hero," now it's time to get to the real stuff. And I mean let's face it, the original source material, while progressive for its time, was still created by three white comic geeks who were far more wrapped up in universe building, than any facet of minority issues. 

How Teach for America perpetuates huge problems in education that no one actually talks about

                      The same thing seems to be said in education policy. We need to listen to teachers more. We need to work with schools to get better results. The paradigm has shifted from nationwide mandates to a more grassroots approach. And on paper Teach For America seems to engender this sort of thinking. In fact, the only way Teach for America comes anywhere near their mission statement is through this unspoken belief that if we send smart and successful kids into the education system, they will come out of it as potential stakeholders who will have a stronger grasp on the pulse of education later in life.
                    Too bad the reality is that these students go in as ignorant outsiders and leave as slightly less ignorant outsiders. Now to be fair, there are plenty of stellar recruits. For example, Teach For America has pushed to send people back to their old stomping grounds and the results are excellent. I've met amazing corp members (typically minorities), who go back to teach and were able to formulate sustainable solutions to problems that their schools faced. I also met clueless well intending corp members from big name West Coast schools, who hung out in NYC for two years and immediately jumped ship to Law school/Public Policy/ etc. with the belief that they were now qualified to fix the problems they saw.
            What I hate more than the grad schoolers are the friends I see creating start ups. It's amazing to me that many of them feel they've experienced enough teaching in two years to adequately give expertise to other schools. They create consulting firms, websites, technology, bullshit programs they have no proof of impact for and take advantage of the poorest school districts or at the very least siphon funds from the ultra wealthy. And if any of them can create a big enough following, Teach for America will parade them on their Facebook page. It's hard to be critical of a program who's attempting to help kids, but when they're doing it poorly and receiving funding from schools, then the highest level of scrutiny is warranted.
          Teach for America has always churned out a sea of ignorant reformers, they just usually took the road most traveled. Assistant Principals and Principals are saturated with Teach for America Alum who happened to be in the right place at the right time. News flash, failing schools have tons of overturn and while traditional teachers work hard to become good at teaching, the overachiever attitude that is so heavily recruited by TFA makes for the perfect candidate on paper to take administrative roles. The issue is a good administrator one does not make from looking like a good administrator. Yes, it's excellent to say you have a Harvard grad as your assistant principal, but I'd much rather have an incredibly experienced teacher who could actually provide solutions to the staff they'll have to oversee. Michelle Rhee is kind of the poster child for this. Her ineptitude has been chronicled extensively in Washington D.C. Fortunately, the media and I have no doubt, Teach For America, were on her side the entire way, creating a false image of success. However, data doesn't lie and the nature of her reform was not widely accepted at all. Yet we praise her as a fellow sister in the struggle for the Teach for America mission.
     I just don't buy it anymore. Every friend I see make a new company or become an assistant principal/department head in their school makes me cringe. I am not even able to hold a candle to the amazing teachers and administrators at my school. The thought that I could go to another school and implement their incredibly high standards is arrogant and foolish. It doesn't surprise me that the narrative we see with Teach for America people in education is often one short lived. "Reformers" rush in with lofty goals and inexperience to create a false illusion of strong culture and results. Then they hastily ditch the project before the house of cards begins tumbling down on the communities who desperately believed in their shelter. Are there exceptions to the rule? Of course, many. But we don't need Teach for America to facilitate exceptions.
       I've noticed that my blogs end in this negative fashion and people have often accused me of not providing solutions. But the truth is I have no desire to provide a solution to Teach for America. I find the corp to be part of the problem. I think the people working in the corp should consider leaving. I've met so many amazing minority educators working to support Teach for America. Why? Coalesce and try to get funding. Then hire me. I'll give you my solutions to the problem then.

Note: The real reason so many minorities work for places we don't full believe in is cause we're broke. It's hard out there for us. I feel that, so please don't take the ending of my blogpost as me getting at you.
          

You can't be an "intellectual" professional and be woke

         At my Alma Mater, a political organization decided to ask the incredibly biased question of whether the Black Live's Matter movement was good for race relations. The question itself sounds eerily similar to the criticisms levied by a tacit white population against the civil rights movement of the 1960s. However, the fact that neo-liberals are incredibly dense isn't news to me. What shocked me is when a well known social justice activist from my campus, who happened to be the co-founder of the organization, gave a defense of the organization's query. He argues that the mere act of questioning is not in itself harmful to the cause, but instead allows for frank discussion to be had. And part of me wanted to agree with him. As a former collegiate debater, I felt that the sparring matches of logic and evidence often provided a hidden truth talked about afterwards. Debaters, surprisingly enough, agree on quite a bit and the discussions that happened outside of the debate round were often the most illuminating discussions I had ever had the pleasure to listen/take part in. But even I knew that this was wrong.
          The decision for the Michigan Political Union to have a panel without a single representative from the movement was ignorant and disingenuous. Hearty debate occurs when both sides can be aptly represented. Furthermore, the question invites the sort of skepticism bred in the media concerning the movement. The general opinion of America is the movement essentially amounts to a bunch of pissed off black people who need to get over it. And that's putting American opinion mildly. Minority issues, by their very nature, are often misrepresented by organizations that cater to a "general audience." General often can be coded as white, wealthy, and male. The Michigan Political Union should have anticipated that the movement would take their query as a personal attack and instead of attempting to shut the movement out of the discussion, allow them to play an integral part. But it didn't. And in its mind it kept its puritanical approach to debate, when in actuality it reinforced institutional bias that often discredits minority voices simply because they are unpopular and grossly under researched.
        After looking at what I considered to be a gross injustice occurring at the political union, I was even more shocked to see this former activist defend them. As I said before, the debater in me believed in the therapeutic process of debate, but the minority in me knew too well that certain topics needed to be handled with care. The fact that this former activist had little to no criticism for his organization confirmed something I always secretly felt while living in the bubble of elite academia. I am a poser. He is a poser too. If you're living in a posh apartment in Bushwick, occasionally ordering chop cheeses, while also patronizing a wine and cheese bar right next to the bodega, then you're a poser too. Even as minorities, when we become disconnected from the struggles the majority of minorities face, then we begin to value bourgeois principles such as "intellectualism" over our own people. We don't realize that the intellectualism we have been fed subtly subverts our very existence, becoming in a way a new chain by which we are bound.
       I am guilty of this. My writing is often pretentious. I am blessed to work five days a week in a low income neighborhood so all my students and their families humble me and educate me. To all my friends working in Washington, Microsoft or what ever shining corporate tower on a hill, remember you are ignorant. So please save your deification of intellectualism for people like you because the poor do not have time for it. They know truths you are very much ignorant about. 

If you think the election is a situation of Lesser of Two evils, you're an idiot

                    I feel like this has been said a million times, so I won't belabor it.

1. If you think Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are both awful choices, you're probably a complete idiot.
         One is at worst, a mediocre choice. The other is completely awful.

2. If you think this because you supported Bernie Sanders, then you're just full of bullshit.

        Stop pretending you know or care about politics. You're probably as committed as the fools who supported Kony 2012.


That is all 

When Savage meets the alt-right

                    This was supposed to be a long rant about how much I hate privileged people. But I'll just make it simple:
I hate privileged people who think they are better because they are privileged. I fill up with schadenfreude when tragedy strikes these sort of individuals. If you think you're an alpha who can pull through anything, I truly hope you get a bat to the knee caps. That's all :D


Note: Tragedy can be awful sad. I'm putting up a hateful front in order to cope with the grossness these people exude. The reality is that if tragedy truly humbled one of these people and I were to deal with them directly, I would probably empathize. Of course if they go right back to their asshole ways, I'll be the one with the bat. 

The difference between Triggering and Toxic

                Trigger warnings are becoming the new thing to hate in the Social Justice community. So much so that even liberals are rising up against them as if they were actually the scourge of the first amendment the right loves to caricature them as. Apparently people who have an instructive knowledge surrounding psychology are also not fans of trigger warnings, seeing that some of them are willing to write heavily charged articles that pass off a series of presuppositions and errant psychology concepts as actual research. I am an adherent defender of trigger warnings, however even I see some cracks in the logic social justice community uses for trigger warnings and how differentiation could easily clear up a lot of misuse that trigger warnings have seen lately.
              First let's ask ourselves what is a trigger warning and why do we have them? Trigger warnings believe it or not have always existed. It's merely the precautionary dealing with a specific topic that allows someone who may have had experiences with the topic to either remove themselves from a potentially harmful situation or brace themselves for a period of vulnerability. Stripping away all the verbiage, it's a friendly heads up that you're going to be talking about something that might be painful for others to hear about. Many have considered it to be an unnecessary barrier to learning, but the reality is that someone who isn't ready to deal with a difficult topic really isn't going to receive the information well if forced to hear it in a compromised position. Furthermore, Trigger warnings do not bar people from receiving difficult information. In fact, one could argue they help people better receive difficult information. In the same way that it's not considered good practice to plunge someone back into their phobia for therapy, forcing someone to discuss rape/abuse/war without any warning is also unhelpful. Remember when there's a death in the family and you made sure not to bring up the person who died to the person that was closest to them? That's you employing the logic of a trigger warning. Eventually you will discuss that person with them, but instead of an awkward mention of their name followed by a fleeting look of despair, hoping that the other person doesn't respond in a volatile manner, you encroach the topic with care. That's what a trigger warning is. It's encroaching a topic with care.
           Hopefully you generally agree with my definition of a Trigger Warning. Now let's talk about what isn't triggering. Racist and sexist comments, especially microaggressions, tend not to be triggering. Now I say this with particular focus on magnitude. Someone discussing with me the overall trend of Puerto Ricans in poverty and ignorantly ascribing blame on Puerto Rico itself, while also absolving the United States of all responsibility is not triggering for me. It's obnoxious. And after minute 1, I get flustered. Minute 2 goes by and I begin to clench my fist. Finally, the person is on the floor with a bewildered look on their face as I begin to shout angrily about how they are ignorant and foolish and yada yada (probably, not, I fight with words and arguments, physical violence is reserved for a select few). The point is that trigger warnings are intended to protect us from a traumatic experience. Someone dropping ignorant bullshit on me is not traumatic. It's annoying. As these annoyances build up, it becomes an experience with a magnitude that could possibly be compared to that of a traumatic experience (honestly at that point the experiences are inextricably different, but let's roll with it). The point is that I don't need a trigger warning for your dumbass vote for Trump post.
        Now you might think that I basically gave carte blanche to all racists out there to post their ignorant shit online. I haven't. You see people who do shit like that are toxic. Toxicity is something we put up with all the time. We can't avoid it. People just like spewing their toxic shit because they're inconsiderate. Toxicity and trigger warnings are similar in that they become an issue when people are inconsiderate. Toxicity is a reality we have to live with. However, that doesn't mean we always need to put up with toxicity. We can always choose to walk away. No trigger warning prevents toxicity, it's just a build up of all the negative things in your life. From a friend who jokingly implies that you're not smart enough to achieve something because you're fat to a waiter who assumes you will tip poorly because you're black, toxic behavior is everywhere. Microaggressions are specific examples of toxic behavior, but an environment itself can be toxic. This is why safe spaces become necessary. If I have to live in an unhealthy environment because people refuse to change, I at least deserve a refuge. The notion that I'm trapping myself in an echo chamber is ridiculous. As I've said in previous posts, you cannot mute oppression, it's the dull hum that permeates through our lives.
       But the trend in the social justice community has been to conflate topics that are triggering and topics that are toxic. I find this to be inappropriate. Trigger warnings exist because they talk about incredibly intense and powerful experiences that could have an adverse affect on someone. Talk of microaggressions and toxicity, while not peaches and cream, do not have the same magnitude. The response someone might have to toxicity might be just as volatile as someone who is triggered, but that's usually due to an unhealthy build up and not a particular painful vein of memory that had been unexpectedly activated. It's important that when we tell someone to fuck off, we're giving them genuine reasons as to why (if you're bothering to explain at all, you don't have to).  When we mischaracterize "toxic" material as triggering, then the perception of trigger warnings being unreasonable becomes affirmed.


An afterword for the assholes. There may be some who read this and take from it that all topics dealing with racism and sexism are not triggering. This is incorrect. For example, and this is a particularly painful history for African Americans (notice how I trigger warned without the TW), discussions surrounding lynching can be triggering for those who have suffered violence due to hate crimes (or violence in general). One experience that I will never forget is when I went to a competition for Model UN and how I was accused of stealing stuff in a room where 4 guys were sleeping. As the only non- white/asian there it became completely clear what the selection criteria for the person's suspicion was. I asked him why he wasn't checking anyone else's area to which he replied " people like you tend to do this sort of thing." I spent the rest of the night on the phone with my father crying. What was even worse was how the higher ups in the organization brushed it off as a "boys will be boys" altercation. The point is that stories that reflect that particular experience might draw a strong and negative response from me. Cautioning me that it might be discussed actually gives me time to gain composure.