P.O.V.: Traces of the Trade | PBS

Film shows how North profited from slavery

JOANNE OSTROW; The Denver Post
Last updated: June 23rd, 2008 01:23 AM (PDT)

Katrina Browne’s wealthy Rhode Island clan has a secret. The well-mannered Yankees would rather not speak of it, but their forefathers were perhaps America’s biggest slave-trading dynasty.
After introducing her ancestors via distinguished-looking oil paintings in the family mansion, now a museum, Browne sets out to retrace the physical route and the rocky emotional terrain of how her forefathers built their fortune.

The journey – from tearful soul-searching to squirming at the dinner table when confronted with the family’s obvious elitism – makes for a stunning documentary.

“Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North,” airing Tuesday on PBS’ “P.O.V.,” is eye-opening and important, digging deeper than what may be comfortable into what stands in the way of race relations in this country.

The filmmaker, Browne, is a seventh-generation descendant of Mark Anthony DeWolf, the family’s first slave trader. From 1769 to 1820, the DeWolfs trafficked in human beings as part of what was know as the “Triangle Trade.”

They sailed their ships from Bristol, R.I., to West Africa with rum to trade for African men, women and children. Captives were taken to plantations that the DeWolfs owned in Cuba or were sold at auction in Havana or Charleston, S.C. The proceeds bought sugar and molasses in Cuba, which were shipped to the family-owned rum distilleries in Bristol.

Rum traded for slaves, slaves traded for sugar, sugar used to make rum.

Over the generations, the family owned 47 ships that transported thousands of chained Africans across the Middle Passage into slavery. By the end of his life, James DeWolf was reportedly the second-richest man in the United States. He was also a U.S. senator who was granted political appointments and other favors from none other than Thomas Jefferson.

The film upends stereotypical notions about the American North fighting for abolition while slaves toiled away down South. Browne documents how crucial the slave trade was to New England for more than 200 years.

Individual homes may have acquired one or two slaves, as opposed to the masses on plantations in the South, but the textile mills, banks and insurance companies in the North were built on profits from the slave trade.

The documentary, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, follows 10 of DeWolf’s descendants (ages 32-71, ranging from sisters to seventh cousins) as they retrace the steps of the Triangle Trade: the DeWolf mansion in Bristol, slave forts on the coast of Ghana and the ruins of a family plantation in Cuba.

Family archives document various trades: In one entry, nine slaves (one woman and eight men) were swapped for “tobacco, rum, hats, bread, mackerel.” James DeWolf once gave his wife two African children, a boy and a girl, as a Christmas present.

Back home, Browne delves into questions of repair: How do the sins of the fathers weigh on the sons and daughters; what should be done about it? Are financial reparations due, and what spiritual/emotional work is owed, as well?

The film was nine years in the making and ought to spark conversations on race for at least that long. “Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North” airs as part of “P.O.V.”


When: 10 p.m. Tuesday

Where: KCTS, Channel 9

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The Red Pill

Short documentary film on the history of the shadow government within the United States and their role in the 9/11 attacks.

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Jeremiah Wright NAACP Dinner Full Speech April 27, 2008

OBM: Great speach.....The Rev. Jeremiah Wright delivered an unapologetic speech on Sunday, alternately fiery and humorous as he defended the preaching that has taken center stage in the presidential campaign.

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Homosexuality Explained in 17min.

Is homosexuality genetic, or is it something people choose? What if it's neither! Dr. Julie Harren, a Licensed Marriage and Family ... all » Therapist in private practice in Palm Beach, Florida, discusses the meaning and causes of homosexuality. Dr. Harren is also an Assistant Professor of Psychology in the Graduate Counseling Psychology program at Palm Beach Atlantic University. Dr. Harren speaks in churches in churches, schools, and other settings on the topic of homosexuality.

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Bill Moyers Journal on Race, Part 1, with former Senator Fred Harris (3/28/08)

OBM: Part 1 of this (GREAT) show, which focuses on racism over the years, giving a history whites would all do well to familiarize themselves with. One of the few real attempts that the U.S. government made to really look at and learn the destructive power of their racism. Unfortunately it came only after wide spread violence and years of horrible poverty. The problem is that after white people looked at what they had created as a country they quickly began to reinstitute the racist laws and practices that continued these problems during the Reagan years. I am a beneficiary of the racism atonement programs that were started after the Kerner report. My father was able to get a family sustaining wage job and our family flourished. My siblings I and received a much superior education than our parents. Being the youngest I received the best education of my siblings. Because of our education, free lunch programs, and even bussing (which became assimilation programs that I oppose) we all have been able to more easily build professional careers and maintain financial stability with our families. My point...while slow...the racial atonement programs did work and instead of ending them they should of continued and be enhanced, and not have been eliminated or become under funded, corruptly managed, or hollow political campaign speak.

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Chicago school starts financial education early

Starting in first grade, classes are given $20,000 to invest

The Associated Press
updated 4:55 p.m. ET, Sun., March. 9, 2008

CHICAGO - Like their peers elsewhere, the students at a one-of-a-kind public elementary school on the South Side of Chicago are dazzled by pop-culture stars — Beyonce and Common, Kanye West and Lil' Wayne, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade.

Listen closely to the hallway chatter at Ariel Community Academy, though, and you may hear unexpected references to uncool dudes like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. After all, these kids have their portfolios to worry about.

The Ariel school is an experiment in financial literacy with real-life oomph: Each incoming first-grade class gets $20,000 that the children ultimately get to pick stocks for and manage. The goal is to add an I — investing — to the three R's, according John Rogers Jr., chairman and chief executive of Ariel Capital Management, the Chicago-based money management firm that established the school in 1996.

At a time when pensions are being phased out and people must rely more on their own investment smarts, Rogers thinks saving and investment should be an integral part of the curriculum at schools across the country.

"It's important to have all the reading and writing and arithmetic skill sets, but we can't think of anything else more important than to be able to be financially viable and competent as you start to build your working career," he said.

Experts say easy credit, aggressive marketing and the dizzying array of financial products and cashless spending options have led many American consumers astray, making it more essential than ever for kids to learn about money.

Iowa State University professor Tahira Hira, a member of the newly formed President's Advisory Council on Financial Literacy, is among those advocating that personal finance be required teaching at every elementary school.

"People who were brought up with some lesson in saving or borrowing act differently than those who weren't," Hira said. Opening bank accounts for children, buying them stock in a fast-food company or the company that makes their favorite toy, teaching them to spend some, save some and give some away when they receive cash as a gift — "our research shows that all those things do matter," she said.

The Ariel school's success can't be fully judged until its first graduates, now juniors in high school, make their own mark. But high math test scores give it a blue chip reputation and some cachet for its students in a mostly black, high-poverty area.

When eighth grader Victoria Bills talks about investments with her friends, for example, "They're like, 'Oh Victoria, that's like so cool!'" she said. "They're like, 'I want to go to that school.'"

That's music to the ears of the 49-year-old Rogers, who has long put a special emphasis on trying to encourage other African-Americans to save and invest more.

A South Side native, Rogers first got enthused about investing at age 12 when his father began buying him different stocks every birthday and Christmas.

After graduating from Princeton, where he was captain of the basketball team, he started Ariel when he was 24 with his own savings and investments begged from friends and family. Today, it has more than $13 billion under management in three mutual funds and separate accounts for 89 institutional clients. Rogers is also a close adviser to Sen. Barack Obama, who lives just five blocks down the street from the school in the Kenwood neighborhood.

Inspired by a symposium he attended on financial literacy in the mid-1990s, Rogers had Ariel team with fellow Chicago investment firm John Nuveen & Co. to fund the innovative school program.

The concept is simple: Ariel's experts manage a $20,000 portfolio for each class until sixth grade, briefing them regularly along the way, and then begin turning over the decisions to the children. Upon graduation from eighth grade, each class returns the initial investment amount to the school for another first-grade class and donates, invests or pockets the profits.


After giving half the gains to community charity programs or school initiatives, each student can then take the rest in cash or invest it in a Section 529 college savings plan, in which case they are given an additional $1,000. Last year, 80 percent of graduates invested their 150 shares in a 529.

The financial focus extends well beyond the portfolio at a school where hallways are named after Wall Street and other marketplaces, and students announce the latest business news twice daily over the PA system.

Financial concepts are woven into the curriculum, with first graders learning about core economic principles, for example, while eighth graders put together their own business plans. All 440 students are offered free tutoring from Ariel's professionals on Saturdays, and the older kids have the chance to hear analyst presentations and attend meetings at McDonald's Corp., where Rogers sits on the board of directors.

There's nothing dry about such schooling to these kids, according to Connie Moran, the school's director of financial education.

"When I say we're going to talk about money today, they don't go 'Eeeeewww' like some kids might," said Moran, a former bond analyst. "It's like saying we're going to recess — that's never a problem."

Moran said her students soak up financial information like sponges. Besides, she noted, "We don't wait until our students are 16 to teach them how to read. Why wait until they're 16 to teach them how to manage a bank account?"

Twice a week or so, junior boards of directors elected by the seventh and eighth grades gather around a table under a giant mural depicting a bull and bear to discuss their class holdings.

With the whack of a gavel one recent day, they were off and running. The lively discussion touched on everything from the merits of the maker of Ugg boots to their tendency to load up on tech stocks to whether they should profit from companies that make weapons used in the war in Iraq.

Student Jordan Lillybridge likes sitting in the boardroom.

"It gives me an opportunity to express my opinion on which stock we should pick — especially me and Sony, because I am a big fan of Sony," said Lillybridge, who is 12. "Also Panera Bread."

Bills, too, revels in the whole experience, keeping tabs on financial news and monitoring her class' stocks at home.

"When I go to this school I actually feel special, because I'm learning things that most kids probably wouldn't even learn," she said, adding that she hopes to make enough in the market to help her mom.

Rogers, whose company spends nearly $1 million a year on the school, would love to see it churn out future portfolio managers, accountants and investment bankers. But for now he finds it "absolutely thrilling" just to sit in on the children's discussions about stocks.

Nurturing their education and watching them grow up and have fun with the stock market, he said, is "one of the greatest feelings in the world."

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NEA Kids Book List of 100 Titles About African American Heritage

NEA List
A celebration of heritage, tradition, and achievement
Timed to coincide with Black History Month, the National Education Association (NEA) has released a comprehensive reading list of 100 titles that celebrate African American heritage, tradition, and achievement. NEA President Reg Weaver says, "Taken together, these titles provide an overview of the civil rights movement and its leaders, as well as the trials, triumphs, and traditions of a heritage that has played -- and continues to play -- a vital role in our nation's history."

A. Philip Randolph: Union Leader and Civil Rights Crusader (African-American Biographies) by Catherine Reef. (Grades 5-8)

The Adventures of Midnight Son by Denise Lewis Patrick. (Grades 4-8)

All Night, All Day: A Child's First Book of African American Spirituals by Ashley Bryan (All grades)

Almost to Freedom by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson (Grades 1-4)

Arthur Ashe by Caroline Evensen Lazo (Grades 5-8)

Aunt Clara Brown, Official Pioneer by Linda Lowery (Grades 2-4)

One More Valley, One More Hill: The Story of Aunt Clara Brown by Linda Lowery (Grades 6 and up)

Aunt Flossie's Hats (and Crab Cakes Later) by James Ransome (Grades K-3)

Bigmama's by Donald Crews (Grades PreK-2)

The Black Cowboys by Gina De Angelis (Grades 5-8)

The Black Snowman by Phil Mendez (Grades 3-5)

Black Wheels by Michael Halperin (Grades 8 and up)

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (Grades 11 and up)

Booker T. Washington: A Modern Moses by Lois P. Nicholson (Grades 4-7)

Born in Sin by Evelyn Coleman (Grades 7 and up)

Brown Honey in Broomwheat Tea by Joyce Carol Thomas (All grades)

Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis (Grades 4-7)

Carter G. Woodson: The Man Who Put "Black" in American History by James Haskins (Grades 4-6)

Carver: A Life in Poems by Marilyn Nelson (Grades 6 and up)

Cassie's Word Quilt Faith Ringgold (Grades PreK-K)

Champion: The Story of Muhammad Ali by James Haskins (Grades 3-6)

The Color Purple by Alice Walker (Grades 10 and up)

Conjure Times: Black Magicians in America by James Haskins and Kathleen Benson (Grades 6 and up)

Don't Say Ain't by Irene Smalls (Grades 2-4)

Ellington Was Not a Street by Ntozake Shange (All grades)

Escape from Slavery: The True Story of My Ten Years in Captivity and My Journey to Freedom in America by Francis Bok (Grades 8 and up)

Especially Heroes by Virginia L. Kroll (Grades 3-5)

The Fire Next Time by James A. Baldwin (Grades 10 and up)

Fishing Day by Andrea Davis Pinkney (Grades K-3).

Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule by Harriett Gillem Robinet (Grades 4-7)

Frederick Douglass: Leader against Slavery Patricia and Fredrick McKissack (Grades 1-4)

Freedom River by Doreen Rappaport (Grades 2-5)

Freedom Roads: Searching for the Underground Railroad Joyce Hansen and Gary McGowan (Grades 5-9)

Goin' Someplace Special by Pat McKissack (Grades 2-5)

Hold Fast to Dreams by Andrea Davis Pinkney (Grades 5 and up)

Hush by Jacqueline Woodson (Grades 7 and up)

I Dream of Trains by Angela Johnson (Grades PreK-2)

I Love My Hair by Natasha Anastasia Tarpley (Grades PreK-2)

Ida B. Wells: Mother of the Civil Rights Movement by Dennis Brindell Fradin and Judith Bloom Fradin (Grades 5 and up)

In Daddy's Arms I Am Tall: African Americans Celebrating Fathers illustrated by Javaka Steptoe (Grades 3 and up)

In My Momma's Kitchen by Jerdine Nolan (Grades K-3)

In the Land of Words: New and Selected Poems by Eloise Greenfield (Grades 2-6)

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (Grades 11 and up)

Juneteenth: A Celebration of Freedom by Charles A. Taylor (Grades 4-7)

Kings and Queens of West Africa by Sylviane Anna Diouf (Grades 4-7)

The Land by Mildred D. Taylor (Grades 6 and up)

A Lesson for Martin Luther King Jr. by Denise Lewis Patrick (Grades K-2)

Like Sisters on the Homefront Rita Williams-Garcia (Grades 8 and up)

Lookin' for Bird in the Big City by Robert Burleigh (Grades 1-3)

Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in America by Nathan McCall (Grades 10 and up)

Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary by Walter Dean Myers (Grades 5 and up)

Mansa Musa by Khephra Burns (Grades 3-6)

Martin's Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by Doreen Rappaport (Grades PreK-3)

Masai and I by Virginia Kroll (Grades 2-4)

Me and Uncle Romie: A Story Inspired by the Life and Art of Romare Bearden by Claire Hartfield. (Grades 1-4)

The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter G. Woodson (Grades 11 and up)

Money Hungry by Sharon G. Flake (Grades 7-9)

More than Anything Else by Marie Bradby (Grades K-3)

Native Son by Richard Wright (Grades 11 and up)

A Negro Explorer at the North Pole by Matthew A. Henson (Grades 8 and up)

Night Golf by William Miller (Grades 2-4)

Oh Lord, I Wish I Was a Buzzard by Polly Greenberg (Grades PreK-K)

Only Passing Through: The Story of Sojourner Truth by Anne Rockwell (Grades 2-5)

Papa's Mark by Gwendolyn Battle-Lavert (Grades 1-3)

Pass it on: African-American Poetry for Children edited by Wade Hudson (Grades K-5)

The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales by Virginia Hamilton (All grades)

Phenomenal Woman: Four Poems Celebrating Women by Maya Angelou (Grades 8 and up)

Pictures for Miss Josie by Sandra Belton (Grades K-4)

Rap a Tap Tap: Here's Bojangles-Think of That by Leo and Diane Dillon.(Grades PreK-2)

The Return of Gabriel by John Armistead (Grades 5-8)

Richard Wright and the Library Card by William Miller (Grades 2-5)

Rock of Ages : A Tribute to the Black Church by Tonya Bolden (Grades K-3)

Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley (Grades 11 and up)

Separate but Not Equal: The Dream and the Struggle by James Haskins (Grades 7 and up)

Seven Spools of Thread: A Kwanzaa Story by Angela Shelf Medearis (Grades 2-5)

Something Beautiful by Sharon Dennis Wyeth (Grades 2-4)

The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. DuBois (Grades 10 and up)

Sounder by William H. Armstrong (Grades 4-7)

Stealing Freedom by Elisa Carbone (Grades 6-10)

A Strong Right Arm: The Story of Mamie "Peanut" Johnson by Michelle Y. Green (Grades 4-7)

Sukey and the Mermaid by Robert D. San Souci (Grades K-3)

Summer Snow: Reflections from a Black Daughter of the South by Trudier Harris (Grades 11 and up)

Sunday Week by Dinah Johnson. Henry Holt, 1999 (Grades PreK-2)

Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt by Deborah Hopkinson (Grades K-3)

Taking Liberty: The Story of Oney Judge, George Washington's Runaway Slave by Ann Rinaldi (Grades 6 and up)

Talkin' About Bessie by Nikki Grimes (Grades 3-6)

Talking With Tebé: Clementine Hunter, Memory Artist by Mary E. Lyons (Grades 5 and up)

Tambourine Moon by Joy Jones (Grades K-2)

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (Grades 11 and up)

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (Grades 10 and up)

Through My Eyes: The Autobiography of Ruby Bridges by Ruby Bridges (Grades 4 and up)

To Be a Slave by Julius Lester (Grades 5 and up)

Tree of Hope by Amy Littlesugar (Grades K-3)

Twelve Travelers, Twenty Horses by Harriette Gillem Robinet (Grades 5-7)

Uncle Jed's Barbershop by Margaree King Mitchell (Grades PreK-3)

Virgie Goes to School With Us Boys by Elizabeth Fitzgerald Howard (Grades 2-5)

Vision of Beauty: the Story of Sarah Breedlove Walker by Kathryn Lasky (Grades 3-6)

Visiting Langston by Willie Perdomo (Grades 2-4)

The Watsons Go To Birmingham- 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis (Grades 4-7)

When Marian Sang: The True Recital of Marian Anderson by Pam Munoz Ryan (Grades K-3)

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High School Track Star Disqualified from Meet Because of Muslim Clothing

By Adam Howard, AlterNet
Posted on January 17, 2008, Printed on January 18, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/www.alternet.org/74165/
This is ridiculous, bigoted insanity. When is it ever going to stop?

A Muslim DC high school track star competed with no trouble Wednesday, despite a speed suit that covers her head, neck and ankles, in deference to her faith.

On Saturday, Juashaunna Kelly was disqualified at a Montgomery County meet because she declined to change it. That's created a nationwide controversy on the internet, some of it vicious and filled with hate.

The 17 year old Gatorade Athlete of the Year took to the track this time with a huge smile instead of tears. The head of the DC Interscholastic Athletic Association told her it was fine to run in the multi-colored speed suit that serves as her Muslim headcovering when she competes.

"I'm not going to let no one stop me from competing," says the Roosevelt High School senior. "I'm just going to use what I have and go out there and do my best."


On Saturday, officials at the prestigious Montgomery Invitational told Kelly that the custom made outfit in her school colors violates the rules of the national athletic federation.

But DC officials said at the DC Invitational Wednesday that the national rules are just guidelines.

You can tell from this story and from this video that Ms. Kelly is a strong, proud and decent young person and I applaud her for sticking by her principles but it still saddens me that she has to and that she's been abused in this way. Apparently now both Juashaunna's family and the track meet director have been the subjects of hate and threat filled emails. The situation as of right now has not been resolved. Check out the video to your right for more.

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McDonald's ads hit new low

McDonald's, the clever folks behind the living billboard in Chicago that spelled out "Fresh Salads" with 16 different kinds of live, growing lettuce, has launched a different kind of advertising campaign.

This one can be seen on children's report cards.

If I couldn't see the image (left), I wouldn't believe it. But last week, students in Seminole County, Florida apparently received their report cards in envelopes adorned with Ronald McDonald promising a free Happy Meal to students with good grades, behavior or attendance, according to The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, a consumer advocacy group that works to protect children from the harmful effects of marketing.

The advertisement appears on report card envelopes for students in kindergarten through 5th grade. The envelopes are used to transport report cards to and from home throughout the school year, says the CCFC.

McDonald's picked up the $1,600 for printing costs associated with producing the report cards for the 27,000 students according to Adweek. But promoting Happy Meals flies in the face of McDonald's promise to only advertise its healthier options to children younger than 12 and to stop advertising all food or beverage products in elementary schools.

Yes, Happy Meals now might include milk and apple slices, but kids really want the cheeseburgers, French fries, and soft drinks. "Happy Meals featured on the report card can contain as many 710 calories, 28 grams of fat, or 35 grams of sugar," according to the CCFC.

I'm not sure who has hit a new low: McDonald's or the school district, which has said it will continue to run the McDonald's ads on report cards for the rest of the year and take the ONE COMPLAINT by a parent into consideration for next year.

Just one complaint? What are these parents thinking? It's fine if you want to reward your kid's good grades with fast food. This is America, after all. But whether it's Pizza Hut or McDonald's, advertisements for junk food have no place on a report card or its envelope in the same way that fast food has no business inside a school cafeteria.

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Calif. School Targets Mexican Students

Dec 31 03:39 PM US/Eastern
By ELLIOT SPAGAT
Associated Press Writer

CALEXICO, Calif. (AP) - Children are more likely to shield their faces than to smile when Daniel Santillan points his camera.
Santillan's photos aren't for any picture album or yearbook—they help prove that Mexican youngsters are illegally attending public schools in this California border community.

With too many students and too few classrooms, Calexico school officials took the unusual step of hiring someone to photograph children and document the offenders. Santillan snaps pictures at the city's downtown border crossing and shares the images with school principals, who use them as evidence to kick out those living in Mexico.

Since he started the job two years ago, the number of students in the Calexico school system has fallen 5 percent, from 9,600 to 9,100, while the city's population grew about 3 percent.

"The community asked us to do this, and we responded," school board President Enrique Alvarado said. "Once it starts to affect you personally, when your daughter gets bumped to another school, then our residents start complaining."

Every day along the 1,952-mile border, children from Mexico cross into the United States and attend public schools. No one keeps statistics on how many.

Citizenship isn't the issue for school officials; district residency is.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled illegal immigrants have a right to an education, so schools don't ask about immigration status. But citizens and illegal immigrants alike can't falsely claim residency in a school district.

OBM: This is sickening...How about these cowards go to the employers of the parrents of these so-called illegal children and take pictures of them. Then take those pictures to so-called american law enforcement and ask for them to be arrested. Then futher, post the pictures of these american law breakers all over the internet. I wounder...if american criminals would stop being alloud to extort hispanics for cheep/slave labor, would this issue resolve itself. I sorry...I forgot....wealthy and mostly white americans are neveramnd have never been guilty of anything.

Enforcement of residency requirements varies widely along the border. Some schools do little to verify where children live beyond checking leases or utility bills, while others dispatch officials to homes when suspicions are raised.

Jesus Gandara, superintendent of the Sweetwater district, with 44,000 students along San Diego's border with Mexico, said tracking children at the border goes too far. "If you do that, you're playing immigration agent," he said.

The El Paso Independent School District in Texas sends employees to homes when suspicions are raised. But spokesman Luis Villalobos said photographing students at the border would be a monumental, unproductive effort.

That's not the thinking in Calexico, a city 120 miles east of San Diego that has seen its population double to 38,000 since 1990. A steel fence along the border separates Calexico from Mexicali, an industrial city of about 750,000 that sends shoppers and farm laborers to California.

Calexico's rapid growth outstripped school resources, resulting in overcrowding and prompting demands that Mexican interlopers be ousted. Taxpayers complained their children were bused across town because neighborhood schools were full, even after Calexico voters approved a $30 million construction measure in 2004. Portable classrooms proliferated.

The 62-year-old Santillan (pronounced sahn-tee-YAHN) was hired in He is an unlikely enforcer. Posters of Cesar Chavez and Che Guevara adorn the walls of his ranch-style home. The Vietnam War veteran and labor activist is an outspoken advocate of amnesty for illegal immigrants and fills water jugs in the desert for Mexicans who trek across the border illegally.

He parks his old Toyota Echo at the border two or three mornings a week, often in a handicapped spot that his bad knees allow him to occupy. He photographs some of the hundreds of students who exit the inspection building and walk to class.

Some hide their faces when they see his 6-foot-5, 310-pound frame. Sometimes he follows students to school.

Many of the students know him. Others in town are not always sure what he is up to. A new police officer once ran his name through a database of sex offenders. A talk-radio host warned listeners that an odd- looking man at the border might be looking for children to kidnap.

Some students taunt him. Friends have called him a hypocrite. Santillan reminds them that he is only enforcing school residency rules, not immigration laws. Still, he says, "You've got to have hell of a tough skin."

The California native also visits addresses listed on student enrollment forms, knocking on doors as late as 9 p.m. and introducing himself in Spanish.

One crisp December morning, he went to three homes before dawn, carrying a clipboard with several pages of students suspected of living in Mexico. A woman who opened her door at 6:30 a.m. said her niece no longer lives with her. At another home, a woman said her niece moved last month.

Many Calexico residents support the crackdown.

Fernando Torres, a former mayor, was upset when the district said his grandchildren would have to transfer because there was no room in their neighborhood school. "It's not right" for U.S. taxpayers to build classrooms for Mexican residents, he said. The district eventually relented.

School board member Eduardo Rivera estimates there are still 250 to 400 students from Mexico attending Calexico's schools.

"It's a continual struggle," Rivera said. "You have people who are determined to continue sending their kids over here."

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George Carlin: education and the owners of America

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The CFR controls American media

Who runs your major media?

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Bronx resident creates Afrocentric puzzles to teach children about culture

Monday, October 29th 2007, 4:00 AM

Kevin Dunn is a puzzling guy.

The 52-year-old Bronx resident and father of five creates Afrocentric crossword and word-search puzzles to teach children young and old about African and African-American culture and history.

Marketed under the "Puzzles For Us ... the puzzles with a purpose" label, Dunn's puzzles have started appearing in New York City public school classrooms - a nice turn of events, since that's where the first one appeared more than 15 years ago.

He's also under contract to create puzzles for both the American Civil Liberties Union - on racial profiling - and the legendary Apollo Theater.

"I call these cultural entertainment," Dunn said. "The idea is to whet people's appetites so they want to know more." Though schoolchildren are the target audience, the scholarship behind each puzzle is more college-level. Dunn's puzzle clues are taken from history, culture and popular culture; solutions to one puzzle include a speech by Sioux Chief Sitting Bull, ancient Egyptian ethics and an award-winning recording by local radio personality Gary Byrd.

Dunn was born and raised in Brooklyn. His mother, Juanita Francis, was a seamstress, and his father, Silas, was a longshoreman with an interesting history of his own - he was once offered a spot on a Negro Baseball League team but had to turn it down because his mother didn't like the idea of her son playing baseball on Sunday.

Dunn is a data programmer and a former after-school counselor who also ran a computer club for students.

He created his first crossword puzzle in 1991 as a way to help his stepdaughter Ebony learn more about history. His other children are stepdaughter Latoya, and sons Jisun and Lordikim. Another son, Ikim, died in 2001.

"I was really trying to find something for the kid to do, besides watch television," Dunn said. "I wanted to get her interested in finding out more about her history."

His daughter took the puzzle to her junior high school, where approving teachers made sure it found its way to the principal, who copied it and distributed it across the school.

"They asked me if I could make more of them," Dunn said. "I told them I'd make more, since it gave me something to do."

Dunn had created three puzzles when his sister Zenola Smalls told him he was onto something.

"She convinced me to go out on the street and sell them," he said.

He put them in a little booklet and stood - rather tentatively - in front of the old Mays Department Store on Fulton St.

"I didn't want any of my friends to see me," he said. "But then a couple of pretty girls came by, and I thought maybe it wasn't so bad after all."

Dunn found himself energized by the favorable public reaction to his puzzles. He kept creating them - "I spent a lot of time at the New York Public Library and at the Schomburg [Center for Research in Black Culture]," he said.

By 2001, Dunn had a collection of puzzles and was looking for ways to expand his business. He turned to Project Enterprise, a nonprofit with offices in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx that provides advice and seed money to budding entrepreneurs looking to get businesses off the ground.

That group helped Dunn launch "Invision Publications" his puzzle-making company. Last month, Dunn was named Project Enterprise's 2007 Entrepreneur of the Year.

Public school teachers can order his puzzles from the Education Department's Web site, www.shopdoe.com.

Others can get it from www.puzzlesforus.com, or by calling (718) 538-6102.

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KKK Fliers Prompt Concern At Indy High School

Wed Oct 10, 7:19 AM ET
Hundreds of fliers promoting a "KKK revival" were found blowing around the campus of Arsenal Tech High School on Monday, school officials said Tuesday.

Officials said the fliers urged people to attend a rally at the school, in the 1500 block of East Michigan Street, on Halloween.

Indianapolis Public Schools officials said that staff members tracked down as many fliers as they could, but that students saw some of the messages.

"It looked like somebody created it with a marker and it said at the top 'KKK,'" said Adrian Kelly, a student at Tech.

The poorly penned, handwritten pages are filled with racial slurs and messages of hate toward black and Hispanic students, including swastikas.

"It just said that all the 'N' word and all the border hoppers are going to get killed on Oct. 31," said Tech student Keshia Cook.

Officials said they don't believe the threats are credible and are investigating the incident as a prank.

Authorities also don't think students were involved because the fliers were dropped off at the front gate.

"It was more offensive ... to think there was a hate group on campus or ... coming onto the campus to terrorize our students," said Robert Huggins, the school's vice principal.

School officials said they are working with the Indianapolis Metro Police Department to find those responsible for the flier and promised that any student found to have been involved will be expelled and arrested.

"They are utilizing the services of our criminal intelligence branch. They have put out some feelers in the neighborhood ... trying to get some additional information about who may be behind this," said IMPD Sgt. Paul Thompson.

In a news release Tuesday, IPS said that anyone who tries to disrupt the school on Oct. 31 or any other day will face arrest.

"The distribution of this flier is a disgusting display of racism and hatred," said Sarah Bogard, campus administrator. "Our students of all races and backgrounds will continue to find the Tech campus welcoming, safe and committed to providing them the best education possible."

Parents were notified by telephone message Tuesday about the incident and the school's response. Police will have a larger presence at the school on Halloween.

Hate crime charges could be filed in the case if authorities determine who is behind the fliers.

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john mellencamp - Jena

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School Security Guards Beat Teen over Cake Spill

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It all started with a piece of birthday cake, but it ended up with a high school girl being beaten and expelled. The incident, which occurred last week at Knight High School in Palmdale, was caught on a cell phone camera. Michael Brownlee was live in Palmdale with what the girl and her mother plan to do now. (more)
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Comedy: Bush displaying that education works

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School discipline tougher on African Americans

By Howard Witt
Tribune senior correspondent
September 25, 2007
AUSTIN, Texas

In the average New Jersey public school, African-American students are almost 60 times as likely as white students to be expelled for serious disciplinary infractions.

In Minnesota, black students are suspended 6 times as often as whites.

In Iowa, blacks make up just 5 percent of the statewide public school enrollment but account for 22 percent of the students who get suspended.

Fifty years after federal troops escorted nine black students through the doors of an all-white high school in Little Rock, Ark., in a landmark school integration struggle, America's public schools remain as unequal as they have ever been when measured in terms of disciplinary sanctions such as suspensions and expulsions, according to little-noticed data collected by the U.S. Department of Education for the 2004-2005 school year.

In every state but Idaho, a Tribune analysis of the data shows, black students are being suspended in numbers greater than would be expected from their proportion of the student population. In 21 states—Illinois among them—that disproportionality is so pronounced that the percentage of black suspensions is more than double their percentage of the student body. And on average across the nation, black students are suspended and expelled at nearly three times the rate of white students.

No other ethnic group is disciplined at such a high rate, the federal data show. Hispanic students are suspended and expelled in almost direct proportion to their populations, while white and Asian students are disciplined far less.

Yet black students are no more likely to misbehave than other students from the same social and economic environments, research studies have found. Some impoverished black children grow up in troubled neighborhoods and come from broken families, leaving them less equipped to conform to behavioral expectations in school. While such socioeconomic factors contribute to the disproportionate discipline rates, researchers say that poverty alone cannot explain the disparities. "There simply isn't any support for the notion that, given the same set of circumstances, African-American kids act out to a greater degree than other kids," said Russell Skiba, a professor of educational psychology at Indiana University whose research focuses on race and discipline issues in public schools. "In fact, the data indicate that African-American students are punished more severely for the same offense, so clearly something else is going on. We can call it structural inequity or we can call it institutional racism."

Academic researchers have been quietly collecting evidence of such race-based disciplinary disparities for more than 25 years. Yet the phenomenon remains largely obscured from public view by the popular emphasis on "zero tolerance" crackdowns, which are supposed to deliver equally harsh punishments based on a student's infraction, not skin color.

That's not what the data say is happening. Yet the federal Education Department's Office of Civil Rights, which is charged with investigating allegations of discriminatory discipline policies in the nation's public schools, has opened just one such probe in the past three years. Officials declined requests to explain why.

There's more at stake than just a few bad marks in a student's school record. Studies show that a history of school suspensions or expulsions is a strong predictor of future trouble with the law—and the first step on what civil rights leaders have described as a "school-to-prison pipeline" for black youths, who represent 16 percent of U.S. adolescents but 38 percent of those incarcerated in youth prisons.

Relatively few school districts scattered across the country have begun to acknowledge the issue of racial disparities in discipline and tried to do something about it.

In Austin, after administrators discovered that black youths accounted for 14 percent of the school district's population but 37 percent of the students sent to punitive alternative schools, they introduced a program in some schools based on encouraging positive student behaviors rather than punishing negative ones.

At one school, Pickle Elementary, which serves mostly Hispanic and black students, the results were dramatic—disciplinary referrals dropped from 520 in 2001-2002 to just 20 last year.

"I am not going to give up on a child and suspend him or send him to an alternative school," said Julie Pryor, who was the principal of the school when the behavioral program was implemented and is now a district administrator. "Washing our hands of a child will never change his behavior, it just makes it worse. These are children. It's up to us to be creative to find ways to help them behave."

But academic experts say many more school administrators, when confronted with data showing disparate rates of discipline for minority students, react like officials in the small east Texas town of Paris and strenuously deny accusations of racial discrimination.

Paris is the sole school district in the nation currently under investigation by the federal Education Department to determine whether higher discipline rates for black students there constitute institutionalized discrimination. The probe has been under way for more than a year.

"The school district has been a leader and very progressive when it comes to race relations," Dennis Eichelbaum, the attorney for the Paris Independent School District, said in an interview earlier this year.

That perspective is not shared by the families of many of Paris' black students, who make up 40 percent of the school district's nearly 4,000 students.

"They say there's no racism here, but if you go inside a school and look in the room where they send the kids for detention, almost all the faces are black," said Brenda Cherry, a Paris civil rights activist who assembled some of the complaints that sparked the federal investigation. "Unless black people are just a bad race of people, something is wrong here."

Exactly why black students across the nation are suspended and expelled more frequently than children of other races is a question that continues to perplex sociologists.

Socioeconomic factors are certainly at play, researchers believe.

"Studies of school suspension have consistently documented disproportionality by socioeconomic status. Students who receive free school lunch are at increased risk for school suspension," according to "The Color of Discipline," a 2000 study by Skiba and other researchers in Indiana and Nebraska. Another study concluded that "students whose fathers did not have a full-time job were significantly more likely to be suspended than students whose fathers were employed full time."

But those studies and others have repeatedly found that racial factors are even more important.

"Poor home environment does carry over into the school environment," said Skiba, who is widely regarded as the nation's foremost authority on school discipline and race. "But middle-class and upper-class black students are also being disciplined more often than their white peers. Skin color in itself is a part of this function."

Some experts point to cultural miscommunications between black students and white teachers, who fill 83 percent of the nation's teaching ranks. In fact, the Tribune analysis found, some of the highest rates of racially disproportionate discipline are found in states with the lowest minority populations, where the disconnect between white teachers and black students is potentially the greatest.

"White teachers feel more threatened by boys of color," said Isela Gutierrez, a juvenile justice expert at the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, a watchdog and policy group. "They are viewed as disruptive. What might be their more assertive way of asking a question, for example, is viewed as popping off at the mouth."

Nor has the decline of court-ordered integration across the nation and the gradual resegregation of urban schools in recent decades made much difference in disciplinary rates. Even in urban schools where most of the students are black, black youths are still disciplined out of proportion to their population, the data show. In Washington, D.C., for example, black students are 84 percent of the public school population but 97 percent of the students who are suspended. Other researchers believe that zero-tolerance policies, which encourage teachers and administrators to crack down on even minor, non-violent misbehavior, are exacerbating racial disparities. Some states, such as Texas, are so zealous that they have criminalized many school infractions, saddling tens of thousands of students with misdemeanor criminal records for offenses such as swearing or disrupting class.

The school security climate, in turn, can reinforce race-based expectations about which students are most likely to require discipline.

"Most suburban schools, where the students are more likely to be white, purchase security equipment that is meant to protect children—for example, hand scanners that make sure that the parent/guardian picking up the child is legitimate," said Ronnie Casella, an expert on the criminalization of student behavior at Central Connecticut State University. "In contrast, urban schools choose equipment such as metal detectors and surveillance cameras that are meant to catch youths committing crimes."

The new behavioral program being tried in Austin, and some 6,500 schools nationwide, seeks to turn zero tolerance on its head in a bid to slash the number of suspensions, expulsions and other punishments meted out by teachers.

Called "Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports," the intensive regimen requires a commitment from an entire school, including training of students in the behaviors that are expected of them and re-education of teachers and administrators in the use of positive motivational techniques.

The interactions of individual teachers with their students are minutely scrutinized by a team of experts to pinpoint communication breakdowns, and specialized counseling teams are deployed to work with students who present the most serious discipline issues so that classroom teachers are not left to deal with the problems on their own.

"Most schools use a get-tough, punish-the-kids kind of perspective, which results in the kinds of racial disciplinary disparities we see across the country," said George Sugai, a professor of education at the University of Connecticut who helped create the positive behavioral program. "We come at it from the other perspective: If you teach kids the behaviors that are expected, you have a greater likelihood of success. It's really more about changing how adults interact with kids than it is about changing the kids."

Schools like Pickle Elementary in Austin that are using the positive behavioral program often report sharp reductions in their disciplinary referrals. But Skiba, who is currently studying the effectiveness of the program, cautions that it does not always eliminate racial disparities.

"They've been very successful at reducing rates of suspension and expulsion while making schools function more effectively," Skiba said of the schools using the program. "But if you look at the data by race, what you find is that some discrepancies still exist. It's not enough to put this program in place and say, 'We are happy to reduce our rates of suspension,' because what we might have done is reduce our white suspensions and increase our African-American suspensions. There's just no silver bullet for this problem."

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Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than ... all » undermining it. With ample anecdotes and witty asides, Robinson points out the many ways our schools fail to recognize -- much less cultivate -- the talents of many brilliant people. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says. The universality of his message is evidenced by its rampant popularity online. A typical review: "If you have not yet seen Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk, please stop whatever you're doing and watch it now." «

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Why was the Student Tasered at UF

In this full version see and here what the controlled media/government did not show you.

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