The US is technically celebrating its 247th year (which is teeny-tiny compared to the 12,000 yrs of history in my DNA). Nonetheless here it is, after 247 years as a settler-colonial experiment. I use the word 'experiment' because its exceptionalism is a delusion, its meritocracy is a fallacy, and racialized…

Before we badger a child whom we perceive as impertinent or defiant by asking, "what's wrong with you?" ... it would be prudent to transmogrify the aforementioned question and instead ask: "What happened to you?" From a healing-centered and trauma-informed lens, youth exist in relation to ancestral/epigenetic, social-emotional/psychological, and material/systemic weight that bears down on their sense of self.

The decision by the US Supreme Court to prohibit the use of race as a factor in college admissions constitutes a major setback for higher education and for our democracy. …

How can we reform a system that was historically founded (in 1852) for the purpose of oppressing children, preventing critical thinking and engineering a more obedient citizenry? How can we reform a system where, in 2014, children need a doctor’s note to go to the bathroom when needed, a federal…

Academic Imperialism & Inoculating Spaces of Black Excellence by Arash Daneshzadeh On its semiotic face, colonialism denies the oppressed an opportunity to express an acutely fundamental and primordial human impulse — curiosity. There is a widening disequilibrium between Euro-colonial definitions of achievement and definitions synthesized by students themselves. There are…

“Mother’s History (an Egyptian forgotten)” — I didn’t need Sterling or Bill Maher to figure out they still hate us and we’re socially scarred. No matter the status, origins never escape us. Stars disgrace us. Nihilism sedates us. Politicians tear the concrete, and uproot pipelines to replace us. Jim Crow claims to be virtually gone, systems like branches with old roots, but they still sort us and eradicate curious mind-states.

Some Thoughts on Luke Cage Abridged Review: Things I liked about Luke Cage -Immutable Soundtrack (“Bulletproof Love” by Method Man was heat) -Vintage and visually humanizing Cinematography -Allusions to Iconic as well as Some Less Magnified Black Organizers/Poets (love me some Walter Mosley, and we have the same solar return)/Musicians/Politicians embedded throughout…

“Against All Odds”: Education, Race, and Chess RZA playing International Master the late Emory Tate, Jr. Photo: Eric Arnold Against All Odds: Education, Race, and Chess by Adisa Banjoko and Arash Daneshzadeh | special to NewBlackMan (in Exile) Teaching students, “The World Is Yours” A few years ago, I was…

Illusory Protection: Education & The Prison Industrial Complex Illusory Protection: Education & The Prison Industrial Complex by Arash Daneshzadeh and Adisa Banjoko | special to NewBlackMan (in Exile) “He confused science fiction with science facts, He couldn’t separate the block, from recorded tracks” — GZA, Illusory Protection In 2006, I…