Academic Rants

  This is a map of Underground Railroad Routes. In many respects it could be a map of the Great Migration. Between the late 1820s and the 1860s, enslaved African Americans fled the South.  In the 1830s, the Underground Railroad was officially born and hundreds traveled northward towards midwestern or northeastern cities. Sometimes blacks had to go to Canada East or Canada West before finding safe havens. Note later in the Antebellum years, blacks fled west to Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas trying to escape the expansion of the slave trade. About 80 years later, some of the same routes were used to escape Jim Crow oppression. This time people used the actual railroads. They took trains northward and sometimes towards the west. These migrations continued into the post-war era leaving blacks in most northeastern, midwestern, and western cities. New York, Chicago, Washington, Detroit, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Pittsburgh became the major recipients of the first waves of black arriv...

     An Academic Divide: Navigating Truth in a Fractured America Far too often, I start my day reading electronic versions of NPR News, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. My reading habits clearly reflect an educational slant, a predisposition I trace not to my undergraduate or graduate studies, but to my elementary education. It was there, in elementary school, that we were introduced to The New York Times. This practice came with absorbing its "big words" and learning how to fold the oversized newspaper. Our teachers impressed upon us that educated people read The Times, while less educated individuals consumed The New York Daily News or The New York Post. However, while we were diligently reading The Times in school, our parents continued to get their information from the Daily News and the Post. In my household, it was uncommon to converse with elders about their sources of information or their social, pol...

  I took my essay, written and published on May 26th, and gave it to ChatGPT to edit. Within a minute it produced the following essay. It also offered guidance for strengthening my argument and tailoring it for a variety of audiences. Here is the final product. What do you think? Edited Essay: In 2015, Kendrick Lamar released his critically acclaimed album To Pimp A Butterfly . The cover featured a group of young Black men piled on the lawn in front of the White House. Beneath the crowd lay a knocked-out President—implied to be Obama. It struck me as strange that Lamar would criticize the first Black president, a hero in many households. It made me wonder: what would a contemporary protest album cover look like if it targeted the current administration? In our media-saturated world, politicians are not exempt from harsh criticism. The American public holds strong opinions and often attacks with impunity. Yet, as a nation, we remain divided on Donald Trump—as a businessman, a poli...

 In 2015, Kendrick Lamar released his critically acclaimed album "To Pimp A Butterfly".  The cover featured groups of young black men piled up in front of the White House. Beneath the pile was a knocked out President Obama. It always struck me strange that Lamar was criticizing the president when he was a hero in many households. I wonder what a contemporary protest album cover might look like if taking on the current administration. In our highly media centric world, politicians are not exempt from harsh criticism. The American public has strong opinions and they are willing to attack with impunity. Yet, as a nation we are divided on Donald Trump as a businessman, politician, and president. Mr. Trump doesn't shy away from a fight and he pushes back with sharp knives. Could this be why, in light of everything that he does, that President Trump is not subject to the same level of scrutiny given to other presidents and politicians? It's unimaginable but Donald Trump is ...

  January 20th is more than a month away and the Trumpsphere is back in full effect. 45/47 is dominating the airways more than ever before. It started with the proclamation that this was the greatest election victory ever (it wasn't) and that this was a mandate for the people that Trump was needed to save America (again)! It was followed up by some of the most amazing cabinet selections that would ever find their way into a history book. By modest estimations, the president-elect's cabinet was the wealthiest ever - worth hundreds of billions of dollars.  A week later, interviews on Face The Nation and Meet The Press revealed that the Trump team might have to dial down some of the campaign promises. Even the president-elect admitted that he might not be able to lower food and gas prices. Other Trump assurances about the economy, the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, the tariffs, and mass deportations have also started to unravel.  These events threw some moderates and m...

History teaches us that we can develop possible interpretations for historical events. Currently, three theories have emerged to explain the results of the 2024 presidential election. Often, we identify with causations or interpretations that look best or cause the least pain. As a result we may error in judgement. Such mistakes lead to a revisionist interpretation becoming the more dominant or more widely accepted viewpoint.   The first theory suggests an underestimation or a misreading of the strength of former President Trump and his MAGA movement. It argues that the MAGA secretly grew since 2021 and that more Americans embraced President Trump's policies. I find fault with this theory as it is underdeveloped and confusing. Numerically staunch MAGA has remained unchanged. It has never exceeded more than 35% of the Republican base. What did change is the empathy for the former president and a greater conversation on the border and prices, but neither of these issues necessar...