How to Grieve and Dream at the Same Time

This week’s vlog follows me through a day of workshop with the inimitable Bhanu Kapil.  Bhanu Kapil is a conceptual poet who recently worked for 15 years at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. Sponsored by the Pulitzer Arts Center, this day long experience for metro area poets was na...

Why Don’t We Crave to See the Families of the Murdered Policemen in Dallas Forgive Micah Johnson?

As the country continues to grapple with the racialized gun violence of the past weeks, several issues of comparison can be explored and discussed.   This is a thought experiment. I have taken an article titled, “Families of Charleston Shooting Victims: “We Forgive You” written by Inae Oh ...

#StrikeForBlackLives: A Nationwide Job Walk-Off By Black Labor

  “Hamilton” isn’t the first play written by a writer of color that casts black and brown Americans in the roles of white Americans. 50 years earlier, Douglas Turner Ward wrote “A Day of Absence.” The play, with a role made famous by Ossie Davis, features a black cast playing white people in whit...

Good Beats and Good Eats

Today we went “crate digging.”  The students in me and Dj Goce’s group all piled into taxis and went to the town center. There was an open air market where used books and used vinyl was being sold. This process has been really pleasurable and improvisational. The students then went on pick sampl...

Your Blues is Like Mine

I have been collaborating with a Macedonian hiphop Dj and producer named Goce (pronounced GO SEE AH). He began to talk about why hip hop was resonant with him and Macedonian people. He sees hip hop as a dissident art, as he came into consciousness of it in 1989 when socially conscious groups like...

The Number One Reason the Orlando Shooter was not a “Deranged Loner, and Why We’re More Like Him Than Not

        Almost as soon as the Orlando shooter was identified, he began to be described as a “loner.” This description is often used to describe the personality of mass shooters. If we look back at the headlines surrounding many of the men who perpetrate mass shootings, the descriptor, “lone...

“Are We Being Transparent?” The Top 5 Questions Every College or University Should be Asking Itself (Part 5 of a 5 Part Series)

Last week, while answering the question: “With Whom Must We Collaborate?” I responded by using the five levels of learning (Bloom’s Taxonomy) to move to a deeper commitment to a collaborative Diversity and Inclusion plan.   For this final week of the series, I’m answering the question: ...

“With Whom Should We Collaborate?” The Top 5 Questions Every College or University Should be Asking Itself (Part 4 of a 5 Part Series)

Last week, while answering the question: “Whom must we hire?” I talked about the ways organizations can revise their job announcements or admissions requirements to ensure a more diverse applicant pool.   This week I’m answering the question: “With whom must we collaborate?”   Collabora...