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Justspeak: (RE)Visioning a World without Violence Against Women

December 27, 2012
The senseless murder of 22-year-old Kasandra Perkins by her boyfriend, Kansas City Chief's linebacker Jovan Belcher, 25, and his subsequent suicide, is a double tragedy that highlights the degree to which domestic violence has permeated our culture. Perkins was also the mother of a three-month old daughter fathered by Belcher, and according to news reports, his mother and the child witnessed the murder. What is unique about this case is that most of the original media coverage focused on Belcher, the perpetrator—who, why, what? Questions about his motivations, state of mind, etc., pre-occupied the airways.

That is until some Black feminist women and (some feminist-leaning men) stepped in and said hey—this should not be about him, it should be about his victim. You haven't even mentioned her name.
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Original Posting: 21 Dec 2012, Insight News

Posted In : Policy Analysis 

 

Artspeak: Anthropology honors the mentoring legacy of Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole

December 13, 2012
This presentation was delivered at the annual meeting of the American Anthropology Association on November 15, 2012 in San Francisco, where several sessions and panels were held to honor Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole. She is best known as the only woman to have served as President of two historically Black women’s colleges—Spelman College in Atlanta, GA (1987-1997) and Bennett College for Women in Greensboro, NC (2003-2008). 

Upon retiring from Spelman, Dr. Cole went on to become an intellectual figure who crossed borders in three disciplines at Emory University as the Presidential Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Women’s Studies, and African-American Studies from which she retired with emerita status (1999-2002). She was recruited out of retirement and served as President of Bennett College for women from 2003-2008. “Sister Prez,” as Dr. Cole is affectionately known, does not do “retirement” well. In 2009, Cole, who in her own words “flunked retirement” once again, became the Director of the Smithsonian National Museum for African Art. 
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Original Posting: 07 Dec 2012, Insight News

Posted In : A Moment in Time 

 

A Farewell Requiem: Dr. Elvyn Jones-Dube

December 13, 2012
"I really have no regrets. I can go freely. There are things that I didn't accomplish that I wanted to but I have learned how to let go. I would have liked to have done more, and if I had more time, I would have done so." Dr. Elvyn Jones-Dube

Human beings, homo sapiens, or anthropology's political correct AMH (anatomically modern humans) are a unique species among mammals. We have culture, which according to my colleagues, has been our primary means of adaptation.

Through culture we have learned how to adapt to our environment by creating houses to shelter us from heat and cold, clothing to protect us from the elements as well as symbolize ideas of decency and propriety. We developed sun tan lotions to protect us from the sun and solar panels to harness the sun's power for energy. We created cooking to help us digest a variety of foods that contributed to our survival, and may have help trigger the development of our brain. And, we have created cultural rituals like marriage to facilitate the reproduction of the species and further social and economic relations.
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Original Posting: 21 Nov 2012, Insight News

Posted In : A Moment in Time 

 

Justspeak: Presidential slam dunk—Obama wins electoral landslide re-election

December 12, 2012
For the second time in this 21st century Barack Hussein Obama, the first Black President of the United States of America, has made history. He won his re-election by an electoral landslide. He beat the odds that predicted he would win the electoral vote but not the popular vote, and thereby further polarizing America.
Well, they were wrong. This incumbent president has won reelection with 50% of the people claiming President Barrack Hussein Obama as the person to lead them over the next four years. But the road ahead is a tough one.
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Original Posting, 07 Nov 2012

Posted In : Policy Analysis 

 

Justspeak: “Who Let the Dogs Out?” Romney and the Republican Party

December 12, 2012
Alexis Charles Henri Clérel de Tocqueville, Gunnar Myrdal, Governor Otto Kerner, Jr. What do they all have in common, besides being deceased and white men? Alexis de Tocqueville wrote Democracy in Americapublished in two volumes (1835 and 1840) in which he made observations about the impact of slavery on the newly-formed American society; Gunnar Myrdal ( a Swedish economist) wrote An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (1944) on U.S. race relations; and Governor Otto Kerner, Jr. was chair of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorder established by President Lyndon Johnson after the 1967 race riots. The Kerner Commission (as the report was called) prophesized "... Our nation is moving towards two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal."

In their critical analysis (beginning in the mid-19th century) of the most germane social problem facing the United States of America at the time they were writing, all concluded that America's racial division was its Achilles heel. That is to say, as Black intellectual and global activist, W.E.B. Du Bois so eloquently stated in his seminal 1903 book, The Souls of Black Folk, "...the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line."
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Original Posting: 05 Nov 2012, Insight News

Posted In : Policy Analysis 

 

President Obama: He got game!

December 12, 2012
Well if Stella could get her groove back, why not the President? We saw him in his "A" game mode during the second presidential debate. It was like Ali coming back at Frazier the third and final time around—"the thrilla in Manilla." What we saw was intellect unleashed—the thrilla in Hempstead, N.Y. Not quite as exotic, but it served its purpose. President Barack Hussain Obama, the incumbent, was on point—like Michael Jordan doing a slam dunk.

And what about Romney? He's still trying to sell the American people the Brooklyn Bridge. Or should I say a Shanghai bridge. His major point was that we need to crack down on China. Maybe, but is that the real issue? How do you recover from having dismissed 47% of the population, some of whom might have once been members of the middle-class or who have relatives who are in the middle class?
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Original Posting: 17 Oct 2012, Insight News 

Posted by Irma McClaurin. Posted In : Policy Analysis 

 
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