The Adventures of a Digital Sensei
I was very honored to be featured in this award-winning documentary, and even more appreciative to be asked to participate in a panel discussion on the film. So if you are available, please watch VHS Massacre Too and the Q&A on May 15th at 4:00 p.m. EST during the Mid May Massacre (http://www.midmaymassacre.com). Did I mention that the event is free?
#vhsmassacre #vhsmassacretoo #midmaymassacre
This is one reason why I try not to argue with old friends. They have too much dirt on me from the days before social media existed. Out of the blue, my boy Stacy texted me the following pictures, circa 1992, when we were shopping my demo tape at the Jack the Rapper Conference in Atlanta. My kids saw this and thought it was hilarious. I guess Christmas came a few days late for them. Needless to say, it was a weird time for me. Corporate IT Specialist by day, aspiring Hip Hop artist by night. Batman wasn’t the only person with a dual identity.
https://www.reverbnation.com/jrockthedemonofthemic
The current social climate of the US has created an environment where it has become difficult to empathize with others different from ourselves. During the past year a web based mini documentary series on the unique lives of a number of people impacted by this racial empathy gap was filmed. The following presentation was an overview of the project and what was discovered as a result. The recording of the session on Project Empathy video series that I completed during my sabbatical leave was given to the LaGuardia community as a part of the United Wounds of America conference held a few weeks back.
Continue reading “Project Empathy: Overview of the Series”During my sabbatical year I was fortunate enough to secure an opportunity to serve as a Visiting Scholar at NYU’s Interactive Telecomunications Program. It was somewhat of a homecoming for me since this was the program that I graduated from nearly two decades earlier.
Continue reading “Visiting Scholar at NYU”The video above is from a 2014 panel group discussion I participated in on the subject of evaluating online instruction. I went back to look at the video after all of this time because college administrators recently featured in the news have mentioned the difficultly schools are having in shifting to a distance learning modality. We are three weeks into this semester and the one thing that I have realized about how High Education has responded to the COVID-19 impact on face to face instruction, is that we should have been better prepared.
Continue reading “Online teaching? We should have been better prepared.”At the beginning of every semester I help students prepare for their ongoing coursework by pointing them towards open source software and low cost equipment which they can use to build and create digital content.
Continue reading “The Digital Divide and Open Source Software”I suspect that like many people, I found myself rewatching the Black Panther over the weekend in the wake of the death of Chadwick Boseman. I find myself still impressed by the thought which went into developing this film. The combination of the superhero and afro-futurism genres was, and still is, a unique bit of filmmaking.
Continue reading “Unpacking the Black Panther”
It’s no accident that:
You learned about Helen Keller instead of W.E.B. DuBois.
You learned about the Watts and L.A. Riots, but not the Tulsa or Wilmington massacres.
You learned that George Washington’s dentures were made from wood, rather than the teeth from slaves.
You learned about black ghettos, but not about Black Wall Street.
You learned about the New Deal, but not “red lining.”
You learned about Tommie Smith’s fist in the air at the 1968 Olympics, but not that he was sent home the next day and stripped of his medals.
You learned about “black crime,” but white criminals were never lumped together and discussed in terms of their race.
You learned about “states rights” as the cause of the Civil War, but not that slavery was mentioned 80 times in the articles of secession.
Privilege is having history rewritten so that you don’t have to acknowledge uncomfortable facts.
Racism is perpetuated by people who refuse to learn or acknowledge this reality.
You have a choice.
