Academic Rants

 The recent announcement of Ice Cube's involvement with the Trump administration has created an uproar in the African American community. On the eve of the 2020 election, this discovery reveals that the Trump Administration has pulled out all of the stops trying to pry black voters from the Democratic Party. In the process, the Trump campaign has found a way to increase the wedges between rich and poor, educated and less educated, and the male, female and non-gendered. And the ensuing controversy overshadows several key elements. Foremost, Trump is willing to do anything to win, but he is just as willing to find a way to maintain white supremacy and white dominance in American society. Secondly, is that the ranks of African American leadership are more fragmented than they have been since the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. African Americans should not doubt that Donald Trump has again enabled white supremacists by furthering and creating new tensions within the black communit...

 As I write, the history wars are again being waged throughout the nation. And the losers are America's school children. After a year of praise, the 1619 Project a series of articles published by the New York Times is being turned into an educational curriculum. The 1619 Project is an attempt to reframe African American history through a black lens where African Americans are the central actors. The 1619 Project has come under criticism largely because it places slavery at the center of America's founding and as a root cause of the American Revolution. Several prominent American historians attacked the document in the spring, and the Trump administration attacked it over the summer.  In the meantime, a group of conservative blacks denounced the 1619 Project as racist. In turn they proposed a counter curriculum called the 1776 Project. This curriculum infuses positive black images into American history. It does not criticize America but revives the "melting pot" theor...

Since Labor Day, the Trump campaign has changed direction. It has decided that the president might need the support of some minorities to win re-election. The question is: how can you convince people to vote for a candidate who has often disrespected you or your racial group?  Apparently President Trump hopes that you won't notice or don't have any degree of racial solidarity. Luckily for him Asians, African Americans and Latinos are not singular monoliths.   Surveys and existing research suggests that Filipinos will vote Republican more than any Asian group. There are also some Southeast Asians, especially Indians, who are leaning Republican, and despite the increase of racial hostilities, there are still Chinese voters supporting a man who has called COVID 19 the "China Virus." However, the Trump team is banking most of its energies on African Americans and Latinos.  If Trump maintains or surpasses his 2016 percentage of the Black and Latinx vote, he might be succe...