Sunday, August 31, 2014

UPDATE: Krugman on "The Medicare Miracle" + Ferguson - it is really about WHITE rage by teacherken

Ferguson - it is really about WHITE rage:


Krugman on "The Medicare Miracle"
... a funny thing has happened: Health spending has slowed sharply, and it’s already well below projections made just a few years ago. The falloff has been especially pronounced in Medicare, which is spending $1,000 less per beneficiary than the Congressional Budget Office projected just four years ago. That is one key paragraph from this Paul Krugman column in Monday's New York Times.  As is ofte








White rage recurs in American history. It exploded after the Civil War, erupted again to undermine the Supreme Court’sBrown v. Board of Education decision and took on its latest incarnation with Barack Obama’s ascent to the White House. For every action of African American advancement, there’s a reaction, a backlash.
That is a key quote from Ferguson isn’t about black rage against cops. It’s white rage against progress., an op ed in today's Washington Post by Carol Anderson, an associate professor of African American studies and history at Emory University and a public voices fellow with the Op-Ed Project.
My sole purpose in posting this diary is to draw attention to that op ed.
I have little to add to her analysis, which is superb, which reminds us how often this has happened after what appears to be advances for African-Americans:
- post-Reconstruction with Southern states restricting and diminishing rights of Blacks
- Post -Brown with the Southern Manifesto
- post-2012 election of Obama with new efforts at voter suppression
There is more, much more in the history.
There is the economic impact of the Great Recession, which has fallen far more heavily on minority communities.
To which I would add the attacks on public schools, largely those that serve minorities, especially African-Americans (think Detroit or DC or Philadelphia or Camden or Newark).
Had I any doubt about the importance of this op-ed, it ended when I read the final two paragraphs, one long, one very brief, so below the fold I will end with those:
So when you think of Ferguson, don’t just think of black resentment at a criminal justice system that allows a white police officer to put six bullets into an unarmed black teen. 




Yet again a Saturday morning teaching reflection by teacherken
Yet again a Saturday morning teaching reflection: Yet again a Saturday morning teaching reflectionbyteacherkenFollow    18 Comments / 18 NewStudents began classes on Wednesday, so I am getting back into the rhythm that has been so much of a part of my life for the past two decades or so.  And is my wont I take some time on a Saturday morning before returning to the tasks associated with being a hi