The week of Oct. 27 – Oct. 31 has by far been the busiest academically do far. Three papers were due this week. “How they fought back: An analysis of how African Americans critically responded to their condition during slavery,” in Gates/Higginbotham; “A Look at Black Face and Minstralcy,” in Carpio’s Humor class; and an analysis on the realisms and exaggerations in Spike Lee’s School Daze, for Jeyifo’s class. I have been swamped all week. I write for a living and can crank out a 40-inch story on deadline in my sleep. But it has been nearly 20 years since Dr. Phyllis Lotchin at NCCU taught me how to write a college term paper. Now, I am so rusty that I spent most of my time coming up with a thesis statement, followed by what I hope is thoughtful and meaningful analysis. I am anxious to see how I did on the papers and I will post them when I get them back.
The Roots is Coming
Last week I sent a note out to the Nieman Fellows letting them know that I was going to see the Legendary Roots crew Thursday night in Worchester and I would order tickets for anybody who wanted to go. I love the Roots and I think I might have seen them in concert more times than I have seen Prince, but I gotta confirm that. Tangelique didn’t want to go. She is apparently tired of The Roots. Go figure. Critic and hip-hop head Chris Vognar, who actually told me about the concert, couldn’t go. Margie’s mom was in town. Carla said she would go if Bebe Winan opened for them, which I took as a no. Julie wanted to go, but she was making a speech. Hannah Allam was down and agreed to drive. My man Thabo, who listened to a lot of American hip-hop in South Africa was down as well. He had heard of the Roots, but was not immediately familiar with their work. The final ticket would go to Kalpana Jain, our fellow from New Delhi. Kalpana had never been to a hip-hop concert. To put it in context, when we went whale watching, I gave her and Haili Cao, our Chinese fellow, a crash course on Marvin Gaye. On the drive to Worchester, I told her about ?uestlove, Black Thought, Kamal, Hub (who is not in the band anymore), Knuckles and the great Captain Kirk Douglass. I kept my eye on her at the show and Hannah made sure she stayed by her side. The Roots were in rare form as usual. Black Thought was on point and the band was tight. But the second half of the show, influenced by Kirk, had a heavy rock influence. Kirk is the best touring guitar player touring right now. I saw him do, Dylan’s, “Masters of War,” at a concert once and he brought the house down. The rock section actually started with the classic “You Got Me.” Without female accompaniment, Kirk usually sings the chorus, usually reserved for Badu or Jill Scott – which is cool. Then in break, Kirk launches into Guns & Roses “Sweet Child of Mind.” It was mind blowing and I envisioned how it must have been to witness Chuck Berry or Hendrix. Kalpana too was blown away by the artistry of Kirk and the whole performance of the Roots. On my to do list is to make her a Roots CD.
Guess who’s coming to lunch?
Me and Anna Deavere Smith at the Lippmann House
One of the great things about the Nieman Foundation and Harvard in general is that everyone eventually makes it on campus. We get emails every day it seems about some event or speaker on campus. Donna Brazile and Desmond Tutu? Didn’t have time to see them. Actually, I didn’t even know about Tutu until I saw South African Nieman Fellow Thabo Lesilo who was showing me photos he took when they went out to dinner the night before. U.N. Secretary General. Fred Thompson. Andre Previn. The list goes on and on. I did see Al Gore deliver a major environmental speech in the outdoor Tercentenary Theater, between Widener and Memorial Church. We have also had a host of stars come to the Lippmann House to address the Niemans directly, including; Maxine Isaacs, who was Walter Mondale’s press secretary during his 1984 run against Reagan; Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, the author of “Well-behaved Women Seldom Make History;” Andrew Kohut, President of the Pew Research Center; Three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Stanley Forman, who shot, “ The Soiling of Old Glory,” (which happened right here in Boston); Presidential advisor and CNN star David Gergen; and former presidential candidate Thomas J. Vilsack. One of our best events was a lunch with actress Anna Deavere Smith, who was in town for an amazing performance of her one-woman show, “Let Me Down Easy.” If she comes to your town, go. At lunch, she shared with us her motivations and about how her works relates to journalism. I have always been a fan of her television and movie work and it was a pleasure to meet such a lovely woman. Can’t wait to see who visits us next.
Of Whales & Cobblers
Tangelique at the Farm
This is obviously the first time I have lived in New England. For background, I was born in Brooklyn. Raised in Rocky Mount, N.C. Went to college in Durham. Had my first job in White Plains and my latest in Atlanta. So, during my year hear, the plan is to see as much of New England as possible. Nieman Fellow Margie Mason organized a fabulous Whale Watching trip, where we ventured 23 miles out into the Atlantic. We saw about five whales and I took some nice shots. One couple of whales fully breached, but I missed it both times. Too fast. Last weekend, we all went to a farm, which was essentially an old New England village. Got to see a blacksmith, a cobbler, ride a stagecoach, that kind of stuff. Nice Sunday afternoon. Hopefully, we will see more soon.
Classes
Classes
Maybe I enjoy pain. Or I am trying to make up for what I didn’t do at NCCU.
But I am taking six classes, four days a week. Mondays – Gates/Higginbotham and Shelby; Tuesday Carpio twice and O’Donovan; It slows down a little bit on Wednesday with just Gates/Higginbotham; before picking up again on Thursday, with Carpio once, O’Donovan and Biodun Jeyifo. Thursday is also diverse in times. One class is 90 minutes. Another an hour. And still another 2.5 hours. And none of them ever let us out early.
Aside from the classes, I also have 3 sections, which are smaller, more detailed classes taught by Teaching Fellows. The sections are for Gates/Higginbotham; Carpio’s Humor class and the Spike Lee class. Carpio also holds a Wednesday night viewing from 7 p.m. until 9 p.m. So to recap, 6 classes, 3 sections and 1 viewing. It is a miracle that I ever make it to Yoga.
Oh, and this doesn’t include the obligations I have for the Nieman Foundation. Soundings on Monday nights; Seminars on Wednesdays; and Shop Talks on Fridays. I swear, if I didn’t have my calender on my brand new iPhone, which is phat by the way, I wouldn’t know if I were coming or going.
Shopping Season
Now, it is starting to get scary.
Class shopping has started and it is something I am totally unfamiliar with. Basically, students put together a list of classes that they might be interested in and duck and out of them throughout the week. Essentially, the professor is auditioning for the students. Of course, there are some classes that students have to take, but shopping kind of gives students power, as well as flexibility to chart their own academic career. A teacher is too boring or hard? Drop it and go somewhere else. But it also has limits. There are some classes that have set admission requirements or set size limits. There are several classes limited to about 10 or 15 students. Several popular classes, especially in Kennedy, are standing room only until enough people drop or get in off of the waiting list. One class, Justice, admits 1,000 students. As Nieman Fellows, for the most part, if there was a waiting list or a class-size limit, we would get left out.
Throughout orientation, former fellows encouraged us to send emails to each of the professors whose classes we were interested in taking. I sent probably a dozen emails and was welcomed in each class I applied for. But I also ventured out to meet some of the professors. As part of my Nieman application, I plan on studying the history and future of historically black colleges, many of my classes – at least for the first semester – would deal with black culture. So, I along with fellows Chris Vogner, Thaba Lesilo and Affiliate Marvin Black (a professional basketball player, married to Fellow Hannah Allam) paid a visit to the W.E.B. DuBois Institute and the African-American Studies Department, since we all had interest in studying black culture.
Vera, the executive director of the DuBois Institute, eagerly gave us a tour of the facility and introduced us to her Fellows. Skip Gates, the dean of the Institute was not around, but she introduced us to the pre-imminent sociologist William Julius Wilson. He came to the door of his office and said hello. At first it seemed like we had interrupted his work, but when he found out that we were journalists, he launched into a 20 minute lecture about the election. It was awesome. At the time, Obama was kind of struggling with his message and Wilson was fearful that he might lose the election – despite what the polls were saying. He concluded that if Obama lost, he was moving to Thailand. Then, he invited us to take his class next semester, and went back to work. It was amazing.
We next visited the African-American Studies Department. We just missed Jamaica Kincaid, but ran into philosophy Tommie Shelby, author of “We Who Are Dark: The Philosophical Foundations of Black Solidarity,”
He was mad cool. FAMU graduate.
We left both departments with a clear sense of being welcomed with open arms. And we have all been regulars at all of their social events. I think I shopped about 10 classes. But some didn’t work. I wanted to take a speech class, but, as an auditor, I would not have been able to make speeches, so I didn’t see the point. Some classes were just too crowded. In the end, I settled on six classes. My Fellow Niemans think I am crazy. Perhaps they are right.
Classes –
As it turned out, with my focus being on HBCUs, all of my classes this semester revolve around some aspect of black culture. None of the classes, even indirectly look at education. But in my opinion, they each offer a differenct aspect on the need for HBCUs and the forces that helped create and sustain them, from slavery to today. All of the classes have given me great context.
So here is what I am taking. I’ll go into further detail throughout the year.
1. Black Nationalism: This is the class taught by Tommie Shelby that looks at how the black nationalists voice evolved over history. We are reading and studying folks like David Walker, Martin Delaney, DuBois, Maria Stewart, Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X. Tons of reading.
2. African and African American Studies 10: Taught by two legends, Henry Louis Gates and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham. This class is amazing. Gates and Higginbotham alternate the class lectures. Gates might lecture on Monday about “Who’s your Daddy,” which touched on aspects of the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.” And Higginbotham will come back on Wednesday with a lecture about nation building and Pan-Africanism the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Both are brilliant and rely on different styles. Higginbotham is more serious and scholarly. Gates is just as scholarly, but injects vasts amounts of humor. He is also not afraid to call his Teaching Fellow, “Negro,” in the great tradition of black signifying. It is the only class I have ever taken where the professors are actually given a round of applause after the lecture is over. But the highlight of the class is the back and forth between the two, who are obviously dear friends. They often take opposing sides of an argument to get a certain point across and will literally debate each other. Lets take Gates’ lecture on “What is in a name” as an example. He went through all of the debates about what black people have been called, what they call themselves and what they should be called. He concluded that regardless of what black people call themselves, it doesn’t matter until the crime rate goes down, the amount of men attending college increases, etc… Basically, until black folks get their acts together, names don’t matter. We clapped and got ready to pack up and leave. But Higginbotham vehemently disagreed with his whole argument. She said that each name that black folks ( I use black in the generic sense) used in the past, was because of hard-earned stuggles. So to go from Nigger to Negro to Colored to Black each represented something that should not be discounted. She came up in a period when it was very important to be identified as black and to be identified as black in the 60s and 70s was a monumental achievement that meant something to her. They couldn’t come to terms by the end of class and continued their conversation as they walked to their offices. Gates identifies himself as African-American by the way, partly because of his love for and travels throughout the continent. Higginbotham, who Gates’ claimed once sported a huge Afro, is black.
3. Black Humor: Performance, Art, and Literature: Taught by Glendia Carpio, author of Laughing Fit to Kill, which features a nearly naked photo of Richard Pryor on the cover. Like the cover, I have quickly realized that I can’t look at Pryor or any other comedian the same way after this class. Tangelique is also taking this class with me, which is mad cool.
4. African-American Literature to the 1920s: This is another class taught by Carpio, which traces black lit from folktales and spirituals to James Weldon Johnson’s, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, which ushered in the black renisannce. My one regret is that Carpio is not teaching her black Renisannce class next semester, so I guess I am on my own.
5. African American History from the Slave Trade to 1900: Taught by Susan O’ Donovan, author of “Becoming Free in the Cotton South,” and one of the most popular history professors on campus.
6. Please, Wake Up! – Race, Gender, Class and Ethnicity in the Early Films of Spike Lee: This is one of the first course I identified as being interested when I got to Harvard. Biodun Jeyifo, teaches the course, which is more than I expected. Aside from studying Spike’s films, of which I am a student of, we are also looking at film theory and motivations. Who ever thought about associating the writings of Franz Fanon to “School Daze.”
Something about tubs, swimming and the Library
More Orientation (Sept. 1 – Sept 12)
The more time we spend on campus, the more we learn – even before we entered a classroom. No wonder we need three weeks of orientation, but I wonder if that was enough. We visited several schools on campus – officially or unofficially – including the business school, design school, divinity school, Kennedy School of Government, Law School and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Throughout the visits, we heard one familiar refrain, “every tub on its own bottom,” which, according to the Harvard Guide means, “used to describe the decentralized organization and financial arrangement of Harvard’s principal academic units: nine faculties overseeing Harvard’s 12 schools and colleges and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Each unit is headed by a Dean, who is appointed by the President, and each is directly responsible for its own finances and organization. The University administration supports the activities of the academic units and other operations on a University-wide basis.”
That means in laymans terms that every department is responsible for itself. The business school raises money for the business school. The med school for the med school and so on. And trust me, it is a lot. Which is why the business school, on its own can have a campus bigger than half of the country’s HBCUs and its own $3 billion endowment. I also got, in visiting the schools, a great sense of accomplishment and excellence. Each one, by their own account, is doing the most exciting work on campus. Each one, by their own account, is the finest school in the world, with the best resources, students and faculty. One of the Kennedy School’s biggest “concerns?”
Which faculty members will leave to work for an Obama Administration if the Democrat wins the White House.
We also spent some time learning about the Harvard Library system. There are some 100 libraries on campus. Most of us will use either Lamont, the 24-hour library or the massive Widener Library. Widener has an interesting history. It opened in 1915 in honor of Harry Elkins Widener, a 1907 Harvard grad and book lover. Harry died on the Titanic and his mother donated $3.5 million to build a library in his name. Legend has it that as part of the donation, Mrs. Elkins required that every student of Harvard know how to swim so as not to suffer the fate of poor Harry. At least that is what those kids on the Harvard Tour told us. Harvard did at once require all students to learn how to swim, but it had nothing to do with Harry. It was later overturned anyway because of ADA concerns. Regardless, I am taking a swim class next semester.
