The African American community needs to reconcile history with modern facts, data, and truth.

Haunted by the Past

African Americans have good reason to be skeptical of the medical profession. We have the night doctors’ legendary tales, those bogeymen of African American folklore, which included the needle men’s folklore and the black bottle men. Each of these stories deals with the attack on African Americans’ physical health, who in these urban legends were either poisoned, medically experimented on, or outright murdered. There is no doubt in my mind that each of these legends is based on fact. Health is not…

Almost 100 years ago, African American, Luther Boddy received notoriety for killing two white detectives in Harlem. Over 40,000 police were deployed in a massive three-state manhunt. A look behind the headlines reveals that Boddy faced the same problems that African Americans still face today.

“I cannot understand why some men, immediately on donning a police uniform, become instruments of horror and cruel methods.” Morris Koeing, Luther Boddy’s lawyer, 1922

Luther Boddy, an ex-convict who was known to police in Harlem, for several run-ins with the law, killed two White New York City Detectives, William H. Miller, and Francis J.M…

Private and government sectors have to step in and provide what our schools can’t.

BACKGROUND

The October 2020 Homeland Threat Assessment Report, prepared by the Department of Homeland Security’ stated cybersecurity is the number one threat facing America. This threat is ranked higher than economic security, terrorist threats, illegal immigration, and natural disasters. The cyber threat comes from Federal, state, local, tribal, territorial governments, and the private sector. Ransomware has doubled in the last two years. Additionally, cybercriminal activity was responsible for over 2.7 billion losses in 2018 and had been growing annually. …

Their machismo is confined to the studio.

Rappers and Trump have a lot in common. To their followers, they are tough, take no nonsense manly men! But that view does not extend to those outside their orbit. Thinking of Trump as a tough guy is laughable. I can’t imagine any universe where he would remotely be considered anything but a sniveling coward hiding behind money and power. Trump is at an age where the lines between males and females are blurred, and he comes across as an old angry woman. Rappers do not fare better. They only seem to be…

How COVID-19 is making me re-think my outlook on Education

Some of the things I’ve learned were predictable. Even though many schools have online learning instruction in place for certain classes, no school was prepared for the sudden and massive shift toward online learning. There were issues of computers, software, access, the learning curve for teachers and students. As we move on, it is essential to continue to build the online learning infrastructure. That means that we have to ensure we have the proper equipment, learning software, and teacher training.

We are forced to make reassessments to our content delivery…

Old-school methods still work to help students learn during online teaching.

A little over a decade ago, a biology teacher in the high school I taught at incorporated videos in her classroom. The videos were made by the teacher and included lessons for the week. Most of the videos were over an hour-long, almost the same length as the class at that time. When students arrived in class, they watched the videos or did the lessons and labs on the videos. The videos replaced the instructional duties of the teachers. She became more of a facilitator or maybe less. The…

Technology is moving ahead with or without us.

We are in the grips of a pandemic, and at this point, most of us will agree that we do not know if we are close to the end of the pandemic, or we may yet be approaching the middle. However, either way, the effects of the pandemic will stay with us long after it ends. Masks, fiberglass shields, disinfectant stations, distancing, and virtual stadium fans are a few of the things that will stick around for a long time. …

These books continue to inspire my writing

For the last few months, I have been working from home. And like so many others, this is a time that I am discovering new things about myself. During the pandemic, have I read more books and written more stories and articles than I have done in the past five years combined. Something funny has happened; for the first time, I have found my voice as far as writing.

It is not that I was using another voice. It was because I cared things in my writing that only hindered the process. I…