Hosted by Frann Michel, this episode features segments on African films, on public schools in the the making of Black masculinity, and more.
In the aftermath of the midair crash over D.C on January 29, and Trump's racist response, Frann Michel looks back at the 1981 strike by PATCO, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization. This commentary considers the problems faced then and now by Air Traffic Controllers, the damaging legacy of Ronald Reagan's union-busting, lessons from the strike, and the importance of workers' exercise of collective power going forward.
Moussa Sène Absa at the Cascade Festival of African Films
This is the 35th year of the Cascade Festival of African Films hosted by Portland Community College with screenings and discussions scheduled Thursday through Saturday throughout the month of February. Jan Haaken talks with the internationally acclaimed Senegalese filmmaker Moussa Sène Absa who will be joining the festival for a special Retrospective of his work. They talk about the vision guiding his most recent film--Xalé-- in what Absa describes as a trilogy of films centered on defiant and richly drawn female protagonists. Absa will be present for the screening of Xalé at the Hollywood Theatre at 6:30 pm on Friday February 14th and for screenings of Tableau Ferraille and Madame Brouette on Saturday February 15th at the PCC Cascade Moriarty auditorium. All screenings are free and open to the public. Find out more about the African Film Festival at https://www.africanfilmfestival.org/
Public education for Black boys is often characterized as a school-to-prison pipeline. Why is it that these kids are so poorly served by our schools? Book Mole, Patricia Kullberg, reviews the ethnography, Bad Boys: Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity, by Portlander Ann Ferguson, Professor Emeritus of Afro-American Studies, Smith College. In her classic and ground-breaking text Ferguson reveals the mechanisms by which schools sort Black boys into a social hierarchy that exacerbates, rather than diminishes, the ill effects of a racist society. Rather than passive victims, however, the so-called bad boys devise strategies for negotiating and maneuvering within structures of power that enable them to preserve a sense of self-worth, as something other than man-boys headed for prison.