I just came back from San Francisco, where I spent the last five days at the American Educational Research Association’s annual conference. Like every year, I navigated through a sea of presentations, speeches, and discussions designed to improve our understanding and practices of education. Although I encountered people who were doing interesting work, much of what I saw was far from groundbreaking. It reminded of the following quote from Stuart Hall, the greatest Black intellectual this side of W.E.B. Dubois:

Against the urgency of people dying in the streets, what in God’s name is the point of cultural studies? What is the point of the study of representations, if there is no response to the question of what you say to someone who wants to know if they should take a drug and if that means they’ll die two days later or a few months earlier? At that point, I think anybody who is into cultural studies seriously as an intellectual practice, must feel, on their pulse, its ephemerality, its insubstantiality, how little it registers, how little we’ve been able to change anything or get anybody to do anything. If you don’t feel that as one tension in the work that you are doing, theory has let you off the hook.

Like Hall, one of the great theorists of his generation, I’m not against theory. In fact, I spend much of my personal and professional life ensconced in it. Still, I sometimes worry that much of our intellectual practices serve only to keep us employed and do little to improve the human condition. Instead of informing social interventions, political struggle, or transformative education, much of the ink that we waste is spent dabbling in minutia.

Maybe I’m just irritable because of my long layover in Las Vegas or the fact that I left my half-finished Barry Bonds/BALCO book, along with unread copies of “Amerian Theocracy” and “Freakonomics, in the airport and returned to find that someone had stolen them (”Americans are anti-intellectual” my ass).
Either way, I want to send a shout out to all the people who do REAL work in the field: the teachers, social workers, activists, and public intellectuals who are struggling for the people by merging theory and practice.

According to attorneys for the Duke University lacrosse team, DNA tests have failed to implicate any of the team’s 46 White players who were tested.

While the prosecuter insists that he will continue with the prosecution, this does not bode well for him, as the absence of any DNA evidence seems to raise sufficient reasonable doubt. To be clear, I am not saying that the woman wasn’t raped. In fact, I strongly believe that she was. Still, this further complicates an already tricky situation.

Hopefully, this doesn’t get twisted into another Tawanna Brawley situation. If that happens, we will be able to easily sidestep necessary conversations, about race, class, gender, and sexuality. More important, we will not be able to find justice in the aftermath of this tragedy.

According to news reports, Iran has successfully enriched uranium for the first time. This is a HUGE first step toward the development of nuclear fuel.

Of course, the UN has demanded the the Iranian government stop immediately. Iran has rejected all demands on the grounds that it has the right to be among the “club of countries possessing nuclear technology.”

The White House has immediately responded by saying that Iran is moving in the wrong direction. If they continue the standoff, the U.S. has already indicated that further action wil be discussed with the U.N. security council.

I’m not sure how this will turn out, but I’m not optimistic.

Yet another senseless tragedy has struck the hip-hop community this year. Proof, a member of Eminem’s rap group D-12, was murdered early this morning at an after-hours night club on 8 mile road.

For the full story visit: http://www.allhiphop.com/hiphopnews/?ID=5552

Peace to his family, friends, and crew.

R.I.P Proof!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sherrill Turner lay on the ground suffering from an enlarged heart. Robert, her 5-year-old son, dialed 911 in order to get help for his ailing mother. According to phone records, the operator demanded that Robert put an adult on the phone. When he explained that he couldn’t, the operator promptly stated that she’d send the police and then hung up on him. No police arrived.

After waiting three hours, Robert called back and spoke to another operator. Instead of sending an ambulance, the following exchange occurred:

911 Operator: “911. What’s the problem?”
Robert: “My mom has passed out.”
911 Operator: “Where’s the grownups at?”
Robert: (Inaudible)
911 Operator: “Let me speak to her before I send the police over there.”
Robert: ["I tried to tell them she wouldn't talk," said Robert.]
911 Operator: “I don’t care. You shouldn’t be playing on the phone. Now put her on the phone before I send the police out there to knock on the door and you gonna be in trouble.”
Robert: “Ugh!” (Hangs up.)

Later on, a police car, not an ambulance, finally arrived. Unfortunately, given the limited window of time in which to treat enlarged hearts, Sherrill Turner died.

The operator who refused to send an ambulance has NOT BEEN FIRED because of her “years of service.”

I understand that operators deal with innumerable prank calls every day. I’m sure that the operator had no malicious intent. Still, this type of behavior is unacceptable and must be punished.