2010 Census: Checking the Box...Which One?

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

It's amazing how the things we discuss in class always are in the news!
When it comes to the Census...how do we define ourselves? Which box do people check? Watch the vids that were in the news 3/31. One is about biracial students from WA. The other is about confusion on filling out the Census forms. So interesting!

An Inside Look into Deportation

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Here's a video I came across that outlines the deportation process. It's a tad long, but it really gives you the inside perspective, like real footage. What are your thoughts? Especially, when you listen to the interview-ees and their experiences, what do you think?

*Note: the video might not play or it might play slowly; it was on the msnbc website (3/29).

Who's White?

By LINDA GORDON

Published: March 25, 2010

Nell Irvin Painter’s title, “The History of White People,” is a provocation in several ways: it’s monumental in sweep, and its absurd grandiosity should call to mind the fact that writing a “History of Black People” might seem perfectly reasonable to white people. But the title is literally accurate, because the book traces characterizations of the lighter-skinned people we call white today, starting with the ancient Scythians. For those who have not yet registered how much these characterizations have changed, let me assure you that sensory observation was not the basis of racial nomenclature.

Some ancient descriptions did note color, as when the ancient Greeks recognized that their “barbaric” northern neighbors, Scythians and Celts, had lighter skin than Greeks considered normal. Most ancient peoples defined population differences culturally, not physically, and often regarded lighter people as less civilized. Centuries later, European travel writers regarded the light-skinned Circassians, a k a Caucasians, as people best fit only for slavery, yet at the same time labeled Circassian slave women the epitome of beauty. Exoticizing and sexualizing women of allegedly inferior “races” has a long and continuous history in racial thought; it’s just that today they are usually darker-skinned women.

“Whiteness studies” have so proliferated in the last two decades that historians might be forgiven a yawn in response to being told that racial divisions are fundamentally arbitrary, and that deciding who is white has been not only fluid but also heavily influenced by class and culture. In some Latin American countries, for example, the term blanquearse, to bleach oneself, is used to mean moving upward in class status. But this concept — the social and cultural construction of race over time — remains harder for many people to understand than, say, the notion that gender is a social and cultural construction, unlike sex. As recently as 10 years ago, some of my undergraduate students at the University of Wisconsin heard my explanations of critical race theory as a denial of observable physical differences.

The modern intellectual history of whiteness began among the 18th-century German scholars who invented racial “science.” Johann Joachim Winckelmann made the ancient Greeks his models of beauty by imagining them white-skinned; he may even have suppressed his own (correct) suspicion that their statues, though copied by the Romans in white marble, had originally been painted. The Dutchman Petrus Camper calculated the proportions and angles of the ideal face and skull, and produced a scale that awarded a perfect rating to the head of a Greek god and ranked Europeans as the runners-up, earning 80 out of 100. The Englishman Charles White collected skulls that he arranged from lowest to highest degree of perfection. He did not think he was seeing the gradual improvement of the human species, but assumed rather the polygenesis theory: the different races arose from separate divine ­creations and were designed with a range of quality.

The modern concept of a Caucasian race, which students my age were taught in school, came from Johann Friedrich Blumenbach of Göttingen, the most influential of this generation of race scholars. Switching from skulls to skin, he divided humans into five races by color — white, yellow, copper, tawny, and tawny-black to jet-black — but he ascribed these differences to climate. Still convinced that people of the Caucasus were the paragons of beauty, he placed residents of North Africa and India in the Caucasian category, sliding into a linguistic analysis based on the common derivation of Indo-European languages. That category, Painter notes, soon slipped free of any geographic or linguistic moorings and became a quasi-­scientific term for a race known as “white.”

Some great American heroes, notably Thomas Jefferson and Ralph Waldo Emerson, absorbed Blumenbach’s influence but relabeled the categories of white superiority. They adopted the Saxons as their ideal, imagining Americans as direct and unalloyed descendants of the English, later including the Germans. In general, Western labels for racial superiority moved thus: Caucasian → Saxon → Teutonic → Nordic → Aryan → white/Anglo.

The spread of evolutionary theory required a series of theoretical shifts, to cope with changing understandings of what is heritable. When hereditary thought produced eugenics, the effort to breed superior human beings, it relied mostly on inaccurate genetics. Nevertheless, eugenic “science” became authoritative from the late 19th century through the 1930s. Eugenics gave rise to laws in at least 30 states authorizing forced sterilization of the ostensibly feeble-minded and the hereditarily criminal. Painter cites an estimate of 65,000 sterilized against their will by 1968, after which a combined feminist and civil rights campaign succeeded in radically restricting forced sterilization. While blacks and American Indians were disproportionately victimized, intelligence testing added many immigrants and others of “inferior stock,” predominantly Appalachian whites, to the rolls of the surgically sterilized.

In the long run, the project of measuring “intelligence” probably did more than eugenics to stigmatize and hold back the nonwhite. Researchers gave I.Q. tests to 1,750,000 recruits in World War I and found that the average mental age, for those 18 and over, was 13.08 years. That experiment in mass testing failed owing to the Army’s insistence that even the lowest ranked usually became model soldiers. But I.Q. testing achieved success in driving the anti-immigration movement. The tests allowed calibrated rankings of Americans of different ancestries — the English at the top, Poles on the bottom. Returning to head measurements, other researchers computed with new categories the proportion of different “blood” in people of different races: Belgians were 60 percent Nordic (the superior European race) and 40 percent Alpine, while the Irish were 30 percent Nordic and 70 percent Mediterranean (the inferior European race). Sometimes politics produced immediate changes in these supposedly objective findings: World War I caused the downgrading of Germans from heavily Nordic to heavily Alpine.

Rankings of intelligence and beauty supported escalating anti-Catholicism and ­anti-Semitism in early-20th-century America. Both prejudices racialized non-Protestant groups. But Painter ­misses some crucial regional differences. While Jews and Italians were nonwhite in the East, they had long been white in San Francisco, where the racial “inferiors” were the Chinese. Although the United States census categorized ­Mexican-Americans as white through 1930, census enumerators in the Southwest, working from a different racial under­standing, ignored those instructions and marked them “M” for Mexican.

In the same period, anarchist or socialist beliefs became a sign of racial inferiority, a premise strengthened by the presence of many immigrants and Jews among early-20th-century radicals. Whiteness thus became a method of stigmatizing dissenting ideas, a marker of ideological respectability; Painter should have investigated this phenomenon further. Also missing from the book is an analysis of the all-important question: Who benefits and how from the imprimatur of whiteness? Political elites and employers of low-wage labor, to choose just two groups, actively policed the boundaries of whiteness.

(full article at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/books/review/Gordon-t.html?pagewanted=1)

This book review had a lot of interesting information. With all this talk of whites vs. others, it's enlightening to study what it really means to be "white". It reminded me a lot of this past week's town meeting where someone brought up Race: the Power of an Illusion because in reality, race is nothing more than a definition we use for hierarchical purposes.

Is the Emphasis on a Colorblind Society an Answer to Racism?

After leaving class today, I felt more confused than convinced about the town meeting discussion.

I can see the differing viewpoints and agree with aspects of both of them.

I feel that it is wonderfully enlightening when those of differing cultures allow outsiders to experience their culture--however, not all cultures are this way. Some call for acceptance, but then openly discriminate against outsiders. Perhaps this is a cause as to why racism occurs--people aren't allowed to understand cultures because they are not part of the particular ethnic group.

That being said, one of the main questions I would pose to the readers of this blog is that, if colorblindness isn't an answer to racism, and if we should respect and celebrate all cultures, how exactly would we do this?

Take, for instance, a member of a culture where women are seen as subordinate to men. In order to respect this culture's views, should all women be fired from certain positions?

Or, for instance, cases of what is considered appropriate dress for differing sexes...In one area on my mission, there were a large number of African refugees--and for the women, it was not a big deal to breast feed in front of strangers without covering themselves, etc. Personally, I'm glad that this isn't the case in the U.S. very often!

In addition, after talking with the professor who was visiting and hearing his thoughts that perhaps we could draw from the positive/good aspects of certain cultures and celebrate those aspects, I simply wonder who would be determining what was a positive aspect and what wasn't...Some Native Americans feel that peyote, a key principle in the Native American Church, is useful, and culturally necessary...However, there is a large contingency which dispute the use of peyote among Native Americans who are actually part of the culture...therefore, there is no outside dominate society instructing them on what they can or cannot do--the debate is amongst themselves.

So if we emphasize celebrating differences, how would this be done? And which aspects of the cultures we celebrate should we actually celebrate, and which aspects should still be repressed?

One last example, since I am most familiar with Native American culture, I'll draw from that. While on my mission, we would often be invited to sundance. Being instructed by the mission president not to partake in this--if you look into it more, you can understand why--we abstained...However, we were perfectly okay to go to wacipi's/pow wows, give-aways, etc...Perhaps a similar consideration can be taken in certain Polynesian culture with kava-kava, or even Brazilian culture with their highly caffeinated drink (I forget the name right now)...

Simply put, there are aspects of every culture which some consider good and some consider bad, even among each respective cultural groups members...So, in order to celebrate and respect differing cultures, how can we do this?

Thoughts?

Article on Necessity of Racial Profiling from the BYU Political Review

Racial Profiling: The Solution to Airport Security

Written by Ryan Burningham

On Christmas Day, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab stuffed his underwear with explosives and boarded an Airbus A330 in Amsterdam with 289 other passengers. By the time the plane reached Detroit, a single terrorist had nearly killed 300 civilians in yet another attack on an airplane over American soil. Despite heavy, invasive airport security, the passengers were saved only by a slight malfunction in the explosive and the would-be bomber’s own incompetence, which illustrated an uncomfortable yet inevitable conclusion: despite its efforts at obtaining security through overseas operations, the United States has failed to establish adequate security measures at home. The Department of Homeland Security’s same-day response was predictable and warranted: institute new, more thorough, and more invasive security measures to prevent similar attacks in the future. Leaked to the public by an anonymous TSA worker, TSA Security Directive SD-1544-09-06 instructed TSA personnel to immediately institute a series of heightened security measures, including the following: thorough pat-downs of all passengers before boarding, inspection of all personal property to be brought aboard the plane, restricting passengers to their seats for one hour after takeoff and one hour before landing, disabling all passenger communications systems (internet, on-board phones, etc.), and prohibiting passengers from having any blankets, pillows, or personal belongings on their laps for the final hour of the flight. Though the directive was obviously a response to the attack on Christmas (it was issued that very day, and many of its measures address Mutallab’s method), none of these draconian additions to already invasive airport security would have prevented the December 25 attempt, which makes them worthless in deterring future attempts of the same sort. Consider each of the measures individually: Thorough pat-downs of all passengers before boarding could not conceivably include the pelvic region of the body, where Mutallab’s explosive device was located. Inspection of all personal property to be brought aboard the plane (with an emphasis on liquids and syringes) would not detect liquids (like the acid Mutallab used as the catalyst in his explosive device) hidden on the passengers in areas not subject to pat-downs. Restricting passengers to their seats after takeoff and before landing would limit the scope and media coverage of terrorist attacks (planes brought down from the sky by an internal explosion would be less likely to land in larger, more populated cities), but with enormous passenger capacities on modern jets, one downed plane would still result in hundreds of deaths—a wild success for Al-Qaeda. Disabling passenger communication systems would further inhibit potential attackers from identifying cities or landmarks on the ground over which to detonate a device and would slightly limit the possibility of simultaneous attacks, but still does nothing to prevent an attack from occurring. And finally, prohibiting passengers from having blankets, pillows, or other personal belongings on their laps prior to landing would prevent attackers from surreptitiously activating explosives like PETN just before landing, but would not prevent the same activation at any other point in the flight. In short, none of the measures instituted the day of the attack would necessarily have prevented the attack had they been instituted the day before. Until now, the Department of Homeland Security and TSA have prevented attacks on airplanes in America by instituting increasingly invasive security measures. Without strip-searching every passenger, however, the PETN underwear bomb will continue to go undetected in most circumstances. Consequently, Americans face an unfortunate dilemma of priorities: should we continue to sacrifice personal privacy, convenience, and dignity in the name of American security? In a war with no rules, where would-be attackers make weapons of their shoes and underwear, there has been one glaringly obvious (but under-recognized) congruency among airplane attacks: every attack on commercial airliners in America in the last two decades has been committed by foreign-born, middle-aged Muslim men with the same eye, skin, and hair color. To effectively prevent terrorist attacks on American airliners, the Department of Homeland Security needs to utilize its greatest advantage in the war on terror: a homogenous enemy. But Americans cringe at the very thought of racial, sexual, or religious discrimination in any form. The mere suggestion of profiling foreign-born Muslims calls up images of southern segregation and internment camps for Japanese-Americans. The simple truth, however, is that 40-year-old American-born mothers of three do not fit the established profile of an airplane hijacker or bomber. Obviously, TSA’s standard airport security and technology are still unable to prevent terrorist attacks that could easily kill hundreds of American civilians. If Americans want a better solution, they need to be willing to consider and implement alternatives to traditional airport screening. A simple modification of security procedures—subjecting foreign-born, middle-aged Muslim men to increased scrutiny—would be much more effective in preventing terrorist attacks than the entire list of heightened security measures issued in December. What I am suggesting is not a perfect solution—such profiling cannot stop all conceivable terrorist attacks. It would, however, force organizations like Al Qaeda to recruit from the ranks of white, elderly, Christian, American-born women—an exceptionally difficult task. Though unsavory, racial profiling represents an effective option for alleviating the current airport security dilemma. Until another more viable and equally effective solution can be identified, Americans must consider its merits. I just want to get people to comment on the blog because if you can't find multiple points to critique in this article after taking this course for over half a semester then you shouldn't pass the class. So show what you know and see if we can get a discussion going related to this topic and how it relates to class and a Multicultural America.

No Prom for Homosexuals

http://www.ivillage.com/gay-teen-ellen-prom-scholarship-constance-mcmillen/1-a-125240

TV Personality Ellen Degeneres has stepped in to help a Mississippian teenager in her quest for equal rights for homosexuals. Constance McMillen has been urging her high school principal to allow her and her girlfriend to attend prom together. The school denied her this privilege so she took it up with the ACLU to help her fight this battle. The school was so outraged that they canceled the prom for the entire high school.

Ellen Degeneres, an active gay rights advocate, has helped out Ms. McMillen with a $30,000 for her support in gay rights.

How much longer is it going to take this country to realize how damaging it is to refuse equal rights to all? I am against gay marriage, but it is devastating to this country when we treat others that are different with such disdain.

Native American and Sports Mascots

I have some Native American friends at BYU and one of them started a discussion about Indian mascots throughout the country in her facebook account. There are people who argue that having such mascots is actually helpful to promote the tribes around the US, and another way to provide them with some money that comes from using their name for a team. However, most Native Americans would see this as derogatory and offensive to their cultures. One person asked, what would happen if a football team used an African American person or tribe as a mascot? Surely there would be controversy, and they would immediatly be cataloged as racist. Why is it different for Native Americans?

This is a short part of a documentary called "In whose honor" that I found very interesting. I hope you like it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVo0fuspW3M

Here's an interesting article I found online. My image of Disney just dropped 10 knotches.

The 9 Most Racist Disney Characters

By Ben Joseph,CRACKED Staff Nov 16, 2007 1,217,832 views

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These old Disney movies are a little bit like your aging Uncle Frank. Honestly, he means well when he points out that Will Smith is "well-spoken." It's just that he, like the assemblage of clips below, dates from a time when people were unfairly characterized by their ethnic background (the acceptable methods are, of course, religion, geography, sexual preference and income).

#9.

The Merchant from Aladdin

The opening musical sequence from the hugely popular 1992 animated film had to be edited due to protest from Arab-American groups for saying about the Middle East what most of us were merely thinking.

Lesson Learned:
The Middle East is a barren wasteland where the justice system runs on a clear and simple limb-removal policy.

Best (Worst?) Moment:
"Where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face" is the offending line, which was changed on the DVD to the much less provocative "Where it's flat and immense and the heat is intense." Whatever. Our question: In a city full of Arabic men and women, where the hell does a midwestern-accented, white piece of cornbread like Aladdin come from? Here he is next to the more, um, ethnic looking villain, Jafar.

#8.

Sebastian from The Little Mermaid

In this 1989 film, a Jamaican-sounding crab teaches Ariel that life is better "Under the Sea," because underwater you don't have to get a job.

Lesson Learned:

Up on the shore they work all day
Out in the sun they slave away
While we devotin'
Full time to floatin'
Under the sea!

Are we reading too much into it? Do you see anything wrong with how they've drawn "the duke of soul" at 1:57?

Still too subtle? How about at 2:01 when the "blackfish" appears?

Best (Worst?) Moment:
As far as Disney movies go, you've got two choices: unforgivably offensive and just slightly racially insensitive. Sebastian definitely falls into the latter category. So while making Sebastian a charming, party-loving stereotype is a baby step forward for Disney, it's still a stumble backwards for civil rights.

#7.

The Crows from Dumbo

In this 1941 classic, Dumbo the flying elephant runs into a band of jive-talking black crows who sing, "I'd be done see'n about everything/when I see an elephant fly!"

Lesson Learned:
Come on, blackbirds acting in a manner stereotypically assigned to African-Americans isn't that offensive. At least they didn't just get some white guy to do his best "black voice." Oh, really? They did? And, they called the lead character "Jim Crow?" Um, hey, look over there! It's a convincing, logical end to this argument!

Best (Worst?) Moment:
So many too choose from. The crows are very specifically depicted as poor and uneducated. They're constantly smoking; they wear pimptastic hats; and they're experts on all things "fly," so it's really a team effort contributing to the general minstrel-show feel to the whole number. You could pretty much pause this video at any second and use it as evidence in your hate-crime lawsuit against Disney.

For its time, though, the portrayal of the crows was almost progressive. The crows band together and help Dumbo learn to fly, so they're counted among the heroes of the film. Remember, this was just a couple of years after somebody introduced a bill to outlaw lynching and congress voted it down. So, you know, you take what you can get.

#6.

King Louie from The Jungle Book

Having outgrown the crude portrayal of African-Americans as black crows, in 1967 Disney decides to portray them as monkeys instead.

Lesson Learned:
All animals in the jungle speak in proper British accents. Except, of course, for the jive-talking, gibberish-spouting monkeys. Did we mention they desperately want to become "real people?"

Best (Worst?) Moment:
Fine, so an ape singing, "I wanna be like you" might be a little subtle, in a "we own multiple copies of Catcher in the Rye" conspiracy theory kind of way. Still, considering the author of the The Jungle Book also thought up "the white man's burden", we don't think it's too much of a stretch.

#5.

The Siamese Twin Gang from Chip n' Dale Rescue Rangers

Overt racism against African-Americans was obviously intolerable by the time this Chip n' Dale series began in 1989. Overt racism against Asians, luckily, was still on the table.

Lesson Learned:
Even as criminals, Asian-Americans immigrants, represented here by a gang of cats, have become integral parts of American culture. Kidding! They own a laundromat, run an illegal, basement gambling operation and speak in horribly mangled "Engrish." It's like a designer of World War II propaganda posters accidentally quantum leaped into the body of a late '80s cartoon writer.

The video becomes cringe-worthy about six minutes in:

Best (Worst?) Moment:
The Siamese Cats sell their karate expert Juice Lee, a Japanese fighting fish, for a suitcase full of dead fish. If you can't find something offensive in that sentence, congratulations. You're a cyborg.

#4.

Sunflower the Centaur from Fantasia

Of all the items on this list, this is the one Disney has tried the hardest to make us forget.

Lesson Learned:
Even in Fantasia's beautiful, magical landscape, African centaurs are hoof-polishing handmaidens for prettier, Aryan centaurs. Also, 1940 was a great year to be a centaur fetishist and/or Don Imus.

Best (Worst?) Moment:
It was insulting enough for Disney to include the smiling servant stereotype to begin with, but, to make matters worse, they started categorically denying Sunflower's existence with the Fantasia re-release in 1960. How does that possibly make things better? "No, you misunderstand. In our perfect, Fantasia world, Africans aren't servants. They don't fucking exist."

#3.

The Indians from Peter Pan

In this charming musical number, the "Red Man" explains his people's history and culture.

Lesson Learned:
Why do Native Americans ask you "how?" According to the song, it's because the Native American always thirsts for knowledge. OK, that's not so bad, we guess. What gives the Native Americans their distinctive coloring? The song says a long time ago, a Native American blushed red when he kissed a girl, and, as science dictates, it's been part of their race's genetic make up since. You see, there had to be some kind of event to change their skin from the normal, human color of "white."

Best (Worst?) Moment:
It's a tie between Tiger Lilly's traditional Native American hussy dance, and the number of times Native American's misogynistic tendencies are played for laughs (hint: It's more than three!)

#2.

Uncle Remus from Song of the South

The tales of Br'er Rabbit are relayed by kindly old Uncle Remus, a black man happily working on a plantation in the post-Civil War South. Disney has never released this one on home video, for some reason.

Lesson Learned:
The late 1800s were a great time to be African-American and possibly on acid.

Best (Worst?) Moment:
Less eerie than any imaginary singing birds is what's not in the film. It's as if someone made a children's musical about Jews in post-World War II Germany that had a number titled "Hey! Nothing Bad Has Happened to Us, Ever." Also failing to reach the screen: When the movie had its world premiere in 1946 in Atlanta, James Baskett, the actor who played Remus, was not allowed to attend. Zip-a-dee-doo-dah!

#1.

Thursday from Mickey Mouse and the Boy Thursday (Book)

In this forgotten Mickey Mouse book from 1948, Mickey gets a crate full of West African bananas, and finds an African inside instead! Ha!" The savage soon is confused by Mickey's human lifestyle and commits acts of random violence.

Lesson Learned:
"What's the deal with Africans? If they're not trying to eat it or throw a spear at it, they're worshiping it as a some sort of tribal deity, am I right?"

Best (Worst?) Moment:
Where to begin? The book compiles almost every offensive preconception of Africa lurking in the American subconscious.

Some choice quotes:

"Well, well." Mickey laughed ... "So I'm supposed to be your governess and nursemaid, and you can't even talk!"

"Let me see. A genuine African native," Mickey murmured. "Perhaps I should start showing him off."

Perhaps the most depressing part is that this was somebody's idea of tolerance, back in the ideallic '40s:

"Poor little guy! He just makes mistakes. He doesn't know any better. I'll just have to be patient and teach him the right way to do things," said Mickey.

You may also enjoy Ben Joseph's 10 Most Ridiculous Overseas Rip-Offs of American Films.

Inner City School Gets 100% of Its Black Men in to College

I saw this article and it made me think about today's debate about affirmative action. Did this school succeed because they gave they kids more resources or did it succeed because it got the kids to be more motivated? It certainly seems to push the importance of the motivation they installed in the kids, which would go towards the argument against affirmative action. There is also the issue of just having a better environment, and having the kids be surrounded by others who are all college-bound...

Inner City School Gets 100% of Its Black Men in to College

By Boyce Watkins, PhD on Mar 9th 2010 12:22AM
Filed under: News, Politics, Race and Civil Rights

Comments (125)

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There is one public, all-male, all–African American high school in the city of Chicago called "The Urban Prep Academy for Young Men," located in Englewood. The school recently got the attention of Mayor Richard Daley and Chicago Public Schools Chief Ron Huberman, when they were able to get all of their 107 seniors accepted in to 72 different colleges across the country.

Huberman had this to say:

"All of you in the senior class have shown that what matters is perseverance, what matters is focus, what matters is having a dream and following that dream."

I spoke with Evan Lewis, the school's Vice President for Institutional Advancement. He argues that getting the students in to college is not the only goal, but that getting them through college is what matters.

"We are not just committed to getting our students through high school, we are committed to getting them through college. We are going to be a constant presence in their lives and give them the support that a lot of folks don't have when they go to college."

The school has a very strict dress code, consisting of black blazers, khaki pants and a red tie. The red tie is swapped out for a gold one once the student is accepted in to college. When one student, Rayvaughn Hines, was asked which college he was accepted to, he said, "Do you want me to name them all?"

Hines, a student who once thought college wasn't made for him, has chosen to become a Morehouse man. He cherished the moment when he switched out his red tie for a gold one.

"I wanted to take my time, because I was just so proud of myself," he said. "I wanted everyone to see me put it on."

Urban Prep has a unique set of hurdles. It is in a troubled part of the city, and only 4 percent of the incoming freshmen could read at grade level. With hard work and persistence, the students who could not read at grade level four years ago are now on their way to college.

"I never had a doubt that we would achieve this goal," said Tim King, the school's founder and CEO. "Every single person we hired knew from the day one that this is what we do: We get our kids in to college."

From the day the students enter high school, they are prepared for the next step. They have a college counselor from day one, and their first field trip is a visit to Northwestern University. Their school day is longer than that of students who attend other schools. The school's voice mail has a student saying, "I am college bound," before the caller is able to dial an extension.

"These are the same guys who would have gone to traditional high schools and not enrolled in college had they not gone to Urban prep," said Vice President Lewis. "It's not rocket science. We work really hard and work really long hours. When you do that, you start to see results. We've instilled in them a belief in themselves and their ability and the willingness to do what it takes in order to be successful."

It was hard to write about Urban Prep without my eyes filling with tears. When I think back to my days as a high school student, when I truly believed that I wasn't smart enough to go to college, I become petrified. The memories frighten me, because I almost missed out on the chance to become Dr. Boyce Watkins. When someone kills your spirit and willingness to try, they have given a death sentence to your destiny.

What is also interesting is that Urban Prep is proving a critical truth that I've been screaming to my students for the past 17 years: When black males put the same intensity into academic achievement that we put into dribbling basketballs and throwing footballs, we are truly phenomenal. The young men at Urban Prep will have longer, more financially-rewarding careers than they would have had by pursuing their hoop dreams at the expense of everything else. They will also be well-positioned to be effective and relevant leaders in the 21st century. Being a great athlete can make you powerful, but being a great thinker makes you EMPOWERED. Power without empowerment is a recipe for social impotence (when's the last time you saw an athlete stand up for any kind of progressive social cause?)

Urban Prep certainly scores one point for charter schools. At the same time, PresidentBarack Obama has a unique opportunity to learn lessons from Urban Prep and apply those lessons to every single school in the country. Urban Prep Academy should be given a massive budget to replicate its activities, since it has clearly shown a recipe for success. Additionally, the model of Urban Prep should be applied across the nation, because they are reminding us that when adults create an environment conducive for success, the children in that environment will always rise to the occasion.

You can watch the Urban Prep's 2009 Convocation below and get a whiff of the spirit and dedication they are bestowing on their students. I'm sure it will touch you and remind you that we are all capable of greatness. Show this to your children, show this to your neighborhood kids. Urban Prep Academy is breaking mental barriers and prescribed capabilities with each graduate they usher in to this big, bold world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drSHoHywakc&feature=player_embedded