I saw the fallout from Michael B. Jordan’s snub for best actor at the Critics’ Choice Awards. One social media post in particular caught my attention. That stuck with me because I remember being told as a kid and young adult that I had to be twice as good as white kids to get the opportunities and accolades that white kids got. I know many Black folks were told this growing up, only to realize that the reality is you push yourself to be twice as good, only to get half as much.

My Grandmom, “Sissy” (God rest her soul) used to have a saying for people who said something stupid—your grandmother probably said something similar also. When a person said something stupid she would say that they “don’t know their a** from a hole in the ground.” I chuckled every time she said it. She would laugh when she saw me laughing, and then we’d laugh hysterically together. Those were good times. In the words of my late grandmother, Elon Musk does not know his a** from a hole in the ground. He recently tweeted a video saying schools should teach about the role of Great Britain and the U.S. in ending enslavement saying, “Children should be proud that Whites in the West ended slavery worldwide, which had existed for thousands of years. Again, this man doesn’t know his a** from a hole in the ground.

I’ve been called an old soul. It’s likely due to my musical tastes. I love R&B, Funk, Jazz, and Fusion. That music was in my spirit and began to flourish as a teenager. But make no mistake, I am a child of hip hop. I am an ’80s baby, but most certainly a ’90s kid. The 90s were when I came of age. At the turn of the millennium, my Hip Hop consumption was defined to a tee. I loved extravagant, complex, and soulful beats. I loved beats fueled by samples, with clever, insightful lyrical content. As a result, one of my favorites was the Diplomats, aka Dipset. Cam’ron, Jim Jones, and Juelz Santana.

2025 marks the anniversaries of some of our most empowering moments as a people. It is the 160th anniversary of the passage of the 13th Amendment, which only partially abolished enslavement. Freedom fighters today continue to work to abolish prisons so that enslavement can truly be eradicated. 2025 also marks the 65th anniversary of the Greensboro, NC, student sit-ins and Ruby Bridges’ attendance at an all-white elementary school, and the 70th anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. 2025 also marks the anniversaries of some of the most challenging moments in our history. 70 years since the murder of Emmitt Till, and 60 years since the assassination of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz and Bloody Sunday. There’s another difficult moment in our collective history that “celebrates” an anniversary that we often fail to consider. That is the Berlin Conference held on November 11, 1884, better known as the “Scramble for Africa.”

Schools are more than just a place where students go to learn. They’re community anchors. Of course, their primary functions revolve around educational activities. Still, school buildings also house community gatherings of various sorts, community-wide celebrations, food pantries, after-school programs, community fundraisers, and open-gym nights to keep young people out of trouble.

Cell phones are a hot topic in education circles. Should they or shouldn’t they be banned in school? I can say that last school year, my students were distracted by them. My colleagues and I noticed that not banning cell phones enabled students to get distracted during classroom lessons. This was not due to misinformation or cyberbullying happening on social media. Rather they were constantly receiving notifications: texts from friends and family and some received phone calls during the school...

In Dr. Jarvis Givens’ book Fugitive Pedagogy: Carter G Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching, he details stories of Black teachers circumventing, what he called white surveillance. Black school teachers were often subordinate to white administrators who had a “curriculum” for Black children. Black or African history (told accurately) was not a part of the equation. However, Black teachers understood that Black children needed to know their history and see the truth within an anti-Black soc...

For Black parents, there’s a cultural cost associated with placing their child or children in schools where their peers don’t look like them, their teachers don’t look like them, their administrators don’t look like them, and the parents that are involved with the school and district don’t look like them. These schools are often well funded. Certainly, there are benefits to exposure and where resources are non-issue. African-American students can benefit from exposure to different people, cul...

On January 20, 2025, Martin Luther King Day no less, Donald Trump was inaugurated as president of the United States for the second time. I am sure that many people dreaded that day. I’m sure that many people wanted Kamala Harris to be the person inaugurated on that day. But the truth is that it is not to be her, but Donald Trump. Quite naturally several people are upset and frankly scared for what is on the horizon during the second Trump presidency. I would never disregard or ignore the real...

We need Black teachers. We also need Black administrators. The unfortunate truth is that the needs are competing not because of Black educators, but because of the white institutional spaces that control hiring. Black teachers represent only 6% of all teachers nationwide; Black male teachers, less than 2% of all teachers nationwide. However, the percentage of Black administrators nationwide is 10%. In my home state of New Jersey, Black teachers make up 6% of all teachers, yet 15% of all admin...

Recently, I attended back-to-school nights for my children at a middle school and elementary school in our district. In each school, I saw that most teachers were white women. As an educator and advocate, I know the national numbers; according to the National Center for Education Statistics, white women are 61% of teachers nationwide. Yet the demographics, when in my face, were hard to ignore. As part of back-to-school night, teachers share personal information about themselves to build relat...

A while ago, Philadelphia Inquirer education reporter, Melanie Burney, shed light on a truth many folks are already aware of: Black and Latino students are disproportionately suspended from public schools in New Jersey. Ms. Burney cites the New Jersey Department of Education’s report on Student Safety and Discipline. The report shows that New Jersey’s Black student suspension rate in the 2022-23 school year was 9%, whereas it was only 2.7% for white students. The Latino student suspension rat...

I am a boxing fan. Recently, Philadelphia’s own Jaron Ennis successfully defended his welterweight championship in the city. But who knew the undercard was this past weekend with two of Philly’s favorite centers, Jason Kelce and Joel Embiid with their separate fights… well maybe not fights. Maybe a scuffle or kerfuffle. Joel Embiid reportedly shoved Philadelphia Inquirer sports reporter Marcus Hayes for referencing his deceased brother and son in an article criticizing his lack of play this s...

Since 2000, every presidential election has been labeled the most consequential election of our lifetime. The 2000 presidential election was a hotly contested battle between George Bush and Al Gore. Florida was the state in question over uncounted ballots. At the time, the folks in charge of the election were Republicans, and the governor of the state was the Republican governor of the Republican candidate. I was a junior in high school and I remember the running joke among friends was wit...

Another Halloween has dawned upon us. Depending on how you look at it, Halloween a time for children of all ages to dress up and have fun collecting candy on a crisp fall evening or it can be a time for parents to regular a child’s sugar intake at the conclusion of trick-or-treating. Halloween may be considered the unofficial start of the holiday season or just another day on the calendar. At the very least, most Americans like Halloween. According to a 2021 poll, most Americans like Hallo...

It is often said that Blackness is not a monolith. This may be true about most things. But when it comes to soul music, we’re largely a homogeneous group. Soul music is who we are because the music speaks of the essence of the Black experience; how we live, love, and always look forward to a brighter day. On September 10, 2024, we learned that one of the mighty keepers of that tradition transitioned to an ancestor, and African America mourned. North Philadelphia’s Howard Stanley Beverly, affe...

I love my children—the children I helped create. They can be a handful, but I cannot imagine life without them. However, raising them in this world is stressful. Thankfully, I have a partner and we work together but even then, parenting remains stressful. It seemed like only other parents could validate this truth. Now, we have further validation from the U.S. Surgeon General. In August, United States Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy released a Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Mental Health...

Early in my teaching career, I was a push-in teacher. It wasn’t because of my content but more out of necessity. Space was often limited; I wasn’t a homeroom teacher. The idea of having my own classroom was really foreign to me. Last year was the first year I was given a classroom. I serve a dual role: teacher and director. I usually have my own office. However, because office space was limited, I was given a classroom. Since I teach, it made sense. Initially, I had to get used to having my o...

As an educator, I am privileged to work with Black students. Unfortunately, I was, more often than not, the only Black man teacher in those buildings where I taught. It’s a truth for most Black men teachers; we only comprise approximately 1.5% of teachers nationwide. However, that truth provided me with an insight into the experiences of Black and brown children with their white teachers, which sometimes mirrored my own experiences with some of my white teachers when in school.

The start of the new school year is an opportunity to establish new connections with a different set of students and start afresh. Starting fresh means applying the latest methods, teaching new lessons, and setting new goals. It also means establishing routines and ground rules to build a classroom culture that facilitates learning. Rules and routines are important and necessary: for classrooms and the school building. They keep the school flowing and they also keep students safe. However, he...