Discussions of Pop Culture

The video for Taylor Swift’s new song, “Wildest Dreams,” conjures up a colonial-era Africa of magnificent landscapes, beautiful animals — and virtually no black Africans.

Here are some facts for Swift and her team: Colonialism was neither romantic nor beautiful. It was exploitative and brutal. The legacy of colonialism still lives quite loudly to this day. Scholars have argued that poor economic performance, weak property rights and tribal tensions across the continent can be traced to colonial strategies. So can other woes. In a place full of devastation and lawlessness, diseases spreads like wildfire, conflict breaks out and dictators grab power.

Taylor Swift Is Dreaming Of A Very White Africa

I get paid $44,000 a year, give or take, which is actually higher than many districts in my area. 

Assume, for a moment, that my job was…just babysitting. (It’s not, of course, but let’s assume.) And Let’s assume that I’m a REALLY REALLY cheap babysitter. Let’s say I charge $5 an hour per kid. Below minimum wage. 

Let’s ASSUME that I’m only at school from 8am to 4pm. (I’m not. I’m really there from 7 to at LEAST 5, sometimes later, but we’ll assume.) So 8 hours a day, per kid. 

Let’s ASSUME that I have an average of 25 kids in my room at a time. (I don’t. Last year my largest class was 29 students. The Science teachers regularly had in the mid 30s. But we’re assuming)

Let’s say that the only days I actually get paid are days when there are children in the classroom- 180. (Not including staff development or summer training or work I do on the weekends.) 

$5 and hour X 8 hours a  day x 25 kids at a time x 180 days in a year = $180,000

If I got paid $5 per hour per kid to baby sit, I should get $180,000.

I get $44,000. 

Years of discriminatory policies that favored white men at the expense of the common good have created stunning disparities that persist to this day.

Though many Americans favor an approach to equality that stands for “giving everyone an equal chance,” the realities of inheritance, neighborhood segregation and outright discrimination make such meritocratic ideals suspect. (This meritocracy myth is akin to insisting, as 19th century political economist Henry George once noted, “that each should swim for himself in crossing a river, ignoring the fact that some had been artificially provided with corks and other artificially loaded with lead.”) A new study by Mariko Chang shows just how deep those wealth gaps remain today.

Sandra Bland was stopped Friday by authorities in Waller County, Texas for a traffic violation. In a video of her arrest, while being forcibly held face down, Ms. Bland can clearly be heard saying to the officer, “You just slammed my head into the ground. Do you not even care about that?” As she’s being picked up off the ground and placed into the police vehicle, Ms. Bland can be heard again, this time thanking the person recording the video, saying, “Thank you for recording.” 

Bland was arrested and booked on “assault of a public servant” charges.

A police statement says the following Monday morning Ms. Bland was released on a $5,000 bond, and was subsequently “found dead” by a female jailer who was “worried” about her recreation time. Waller County Sheriff Glenn Smith claims this was a case of self-inflicted asphyxiation. An autopsy performed Tuesday showed Bland’s death “has been classified as a suicide, with the cause of death (listed as) hanging,” according to Tricia Bentley, a spokeswoman for the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences in Houston.

Hanged. Suicide. A young 28-year old woman who was moving to Texas to begin working her dream job suddenly decided to commit suicide, supposedly because of a small traffic infraction? 

Ms. Bland’s friends and family feel that the police’s story doesn’t add up. For one thing, the odd quickness with which everything seemed to escalate seems off. In a matter of 72 hours Bland went from being pulled over for a minor traffic violation, to being arrested for assaulting a cop, and then to killing herself, according to the police’s story. There’s also the fact that Bland is black, and Waller county has a history of discriminatory law enforcement behavior.

The police are lying again. 

Perhaps not surprisingly, grad students tend to take on more debt when going into fields where the pay is higher.

Students studying medicine and law typically borrow more than a hundred thousand dollars to get through school, and many go on to high-paying careers.

At the other end of the spectrum, many PhD students wind up in academia. Most get grants and subsidies — and the majority don’t have to borrow any money at all to get through grad school.

Medicine, Law, Business: Which Grad Students Borrow The Most?

June 22 - College Hills Seventh Day Adventist Church, Knoxville, Tenn.

June 23 - God’s Power Church of Christ in Macon, Ga.

June 24 - Briar Creek Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C

June 24 - Fruitland Presbyterian Church, in Gibson County, Ten (waiting for the fire investigation to rule this fire as arson)

June 26 - Glover Grover Baptist Church, in Warrenville, S.C

3 Black Churches burnt in North Carolina, Georgia and S.Carolina in the past 5 days.

I AM SO BLOODY FURIOUS:

Three-year-old Aboriginal girl left in tears after she is racially abused by a grown woman for wearing her favourite Frozen costume

Samara Muir, 3, had dressed up as Queen Elsa from Disney film Frozen

The little girl wore the outfit to a Disney event in Melbourne

She was racially abused by a mother and her two daughters

‘Black is ugly’ the three-year-old was told by one of the other girls

Samara was so upset she would not go to her Aboriginal dance class