Lincoln Heights

The Atlantic published an article titled "What Happened to Lincoln Heights" that explores the loss of population, tax base, and hope of the Cincinnati suburb that I've come to know as I teach students from there.

The article is interesting enough, but there's so much more information and history along those lines in the book Fly in the Ointment: school segregation desegregation in the Ohio Valley. The book isn't perfectly written, but it was hugely informative for me in learning about the history of Lincoln Heights.

That special project

I have a new book to read this weekend: The Great Black Hope: a true football story of miracles, faith and hope (Volume 1) by Constance Kluesener Gorman.

See, I taught with Constance Kluesener Gorman at Princeton for a half dozen years before her contract was nonrenewed and she was sent packing. In those half dozen years she treated our secretaries like crap (observed by me), set a student on fire by running a half dozen hot plates at full blast with no experiments to heat up her room (second hand but confirmed by the then-Principal), wore some outstanding denim skirts (terrifyingly observed by me), called WLW to complain that she had to take down a cut Christmas tree from her classroom (rumored), and told me flatly that she was supposed to have my job as honors/AP chemistry teacher because she was hired first.

When Connie left PHS, she told a department member that we would hear from her, that she was working on a big - but secret - project that would later bring her back into the spotlight. I don't know that today's blog topic is that big, secret project, but it'something.

See, Connie seems to have written a book, The Great Black Hope. Lucky for us the book's subject, Tony Daniels, is a former student and spouse of a current Princeton teacher, so I - and Calen - got a casual mention that Connie's new book (assumedly her first and only) is out and ready to read. 

Feel free to give it a read, folks, and enjoy the readings from Constance Gorman...

Constance Kluesener Gorman is a Christian mystic who has been favored with the gifts of prophecy, healing, miracles and private revelation from God. She is also former business owner and product development chemist, who received a calling to participate in the education sector. She is currently a private tutor, but also occasionally teaches business, chemistry and mathematic classes at local universities in Greater Cincinnati. She holds a B.A. in Chemistry from Miami University, an M.B.A. from the University of Cincinnati and a B.S. in Education from the McGregor School at Antioch University. Although Constance has been published as a writer in technical journals and other print media relating to her business career, The Great Black Hope is her first effort in writing a nonfiction novel. She plans to write and publish the remaining fifty-seven or so other stories relating to her spiritual favors and experiences.

Fifty-seven other stories are still coming?

Oh, I am so happy right now...

Alone

I didn't want to swamp this in yesterday's links, so this gets its own posting.

I can't swear what is said here by Rick Santorum, but I can say what some people are thinking was said. From TheDailyWh.at:

Lots of discussion this morning about whether or not Santorum caught himself starting to say the N-word while describing Barack Obama during a recent speech in Janesville, Wisconsin.
Footage from the event shows Santorum characterizing candidate Obama as “the anti-war government nig-” before stopping himself with a filled pause and abruptly heading in a different direction.

There are several alternate theories out there which suggest Santorum was trying to say something (relatively) innocuous, and merely stumbled in an unfortunate place. One such theory claims Santorum was actually calling Obama a “governmentnik.” While plausible, “governmentnik” isn’t really something someone’s ever called anyone.

This wouldn’t be Santorum’s first brush with racial remarks. He previously came under fire for allegedly singling out black people as welfare recipients. He later claimed he stumbled on a word, which he couldn’t recall, but definitely wasn’t “black.”

Senate Bill 5...bad for education...bad for Ohio

I need some help here.

An Ohio state Senator, Shannon Brown, has introduced a bill, Senate Bill 5, that will drastically change the landscape of education and public service in Ohio. Feel free to take a while and read the full text of the proposed bill here. Then call OEA' action line to be connected directly to your Ohio senator's representative's office.

The following was sent to me from our union rep. It certainly does suggest that Senate Bill 5 might not necessarily be what's best for public employees, particularly teachers...

The Fordham Institute recently sponsored a survey of Ohio school superintendents.  When afforded the opportunity to speak out, this group generally expressed the view that labor contracts and government regulations serve as impediments to their managerial authority.  Removing these barriers would allow superintendents to more completely exercise their judgment and wisdom, which, in their view would lead to a better management of resources and a measurable improvement in student achievement.

Data from ODE show:

• Eighty-four percent of the superintendents of Ohio’s K-12 school districts are male.
• Seventy-four percent of school teachers are female.
• Ninety-eight percent of male superintendents are white.

Supporters of SB5 seek to replace a democratic and representative process with one where power is concentrated among a small group of 54-year old white males.  The evidence suggests that the first item on this group’s agenda is the protection of their own economic interests.

The joint testimony of OSBA, OASBO and BASA offers strong support of SB5.  The only concern expressed by this group has to do with the proposal to prohibit public employers from paying the employees’ share of retirement.  Since this benefit is universally applied to superintendents and treasurers, this position is not surprising.

Only about five percent of OEA local CBAs provide for a pick-up-on-the-pick-up.  Since this provision is found in mostly small school districts, it is reasonable to estimate that only one to two percent of OEA members enjoy this benefit.  Moreover, only a handful of the CBAs that provide payment for the employees’ retirement, pay the full employee share.  Full payment of the employee share is the industry standard for superintendents and treasurers.

In calling for the elimination of the single salary schedule for teachers, OSBA, OASBO, BASA and other supporters of SB5 are seeking to dismantle an objective and predicable pay system that has served to effectively remove gender-based pay inequity from public education.  As an institutional norm, training and experienced-based pay ensures comparable pay for comparable work.

The Economic Policy Institute reports that teachers are paid less than those employed in comparable professions.  However, within the teaching profession, the average pay of male teachers exceeds that of female teachers by about six percent.  Among non-teacher college graduates, males out-earn females by 32 percent.

The passage of SB5 would constitute a 27-year step backward in terms of the rights of all public employees.  For females, the potential harm is much greater.  Advances made over a century’s-long struggle for equal rights could be undone by the single stroke of a 58-year old white male’s pen.

Normally, I'm all down with anything that benefits white males, but in this case, I'm thinking it might not benefit this white male.

Race and the trends of DC comics

Before we get to the racial question, lemme provide a little background here - particularly for those of you who haven't been reading comic books for decades...

Comic books have gone through a number of eras (I'm going to focus primarily on current DC properties here because the subject of today's issue is the trends at DC comics):

• The Golden Age - (mid 1930's to late 1940's) - before, during, and just after WW II; typified by Superman and Captain Marvel (Shazam); added in a sciency, atomic tone after the war ended; non-white characters were typified by Ebony White (a black face pickaninny who drove The Spirit around) or Chop-Chop (The Blackhawk's buck-toothed Chinese mascot).
• The Silver Age - (mid 1950's to around 1970) - saw a number of redesigns of Golden Age heroes (Flash, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Superman, Captain America) into the more modern versions that most people recognize now; Marvel's modern heroes appear (Spider-Man, Avengers, Hulk, Iron Man, Daredevil, X-Men); race fades into the background for the most part as many of the racial stereotypes fade away
• The Bronze Age - (mid 1970's to mid 1980's) - kept most of the heroes of the Silver Age; shifted the tones of many stories to tackle real-world issues (drug use, racial discrimination, depression, religious differences, cultural shifts of hippies and counter-culture, social inequity); the first major black heroes appear (Luke Cage, Black Lightning, Storm, John Stewart, Blade, Bronze Tiger) all of whom were distinctly Black - defined by being black, not just heroes but Black heroes, often aligned with a sort of crossover from blaxplotation films; saw the publication of the panel shown at the top of this post
• The Modern (or Dark) Age - (mide 1980's until maybe current) - darker, more violent tone to comic storytelling (typified by Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns); psychological explanations for many of the villains; crossover events every year or two and now seemingly a constant cycle (World War Hulk leading to Civil War leading to Secret Invasion leading to Dark Reign leading to Seige leading to World War Hulks); trade paperback collections become more successful leading to long-form story arcs rather then single-issue stories; new non-black minority characters and revamps come forward (Blue Beetle, The Atom, Firestorm, Green Lantern [Kyle Rayner], Dr. Light, Wildcat)

This, then, is a bit of how we've gotten to where we are and what's happening at DC Comics.  During the Modern Age, there were a number of replacements of older characters with newer version (again), something that seems to come with every new generation of comic book writers.

• As Green Lantern, Alan Scott (Golden Age) gave way to Hal Jordan (Silver Age) who gave way to John Stewart (Bronze Age) who gave way to Kyle Rayner (Modern Age) - white to white to black to vaguely Hispanic.  
• The Blue Beetle mantle went from Dan Garrett (Golden Age) to Ted Kord (Silver/Bronze Age) to Jamie Reyes (modern age and Hispanic). 
• The title of Dr Light, Caucasian villain, shifted to Kimiyo Hoshi, Asian hero.
• The Atom - Al Pratt (Golden Age, no power, white guy) to Ray Palmer (Silver and Bronze Age, white guy, shrinking powers) to Ryan Choi (Modern Age, born in Hong Kong, shrinking powers).
• Firestorm - Ronnie Raymond and Martin Stein (Silver Age, white guys - don't ask) became Jason Rusch (Modern Age, black teenager).
• Wildcat - Ted Grant (whit guy, boxer, Golden Age) gave way to a number of other versions including Yolanda Montez (Bronze Age, hispanic). 
• Batgirl went from Barbara Gordon (Silver Age, red-headed white cutie pie) to Cassandra Cain (Modern Age, Asian).

In the past couple of years, however, DC has seen nearly every one of these changes undone, taking what was becoming a far more racially-diverse DC universe and returning it to a more white/Caucasian/homogeneous past.

• Hal Jordan was resurrected and returned to prominence as the one, true Green Lantern.
• Jamie Reyes's new series was canceled.
• Kimiyo Yoshi was pushed to the background after the use of - and ruination of the name - Dr Light in Identity Crisis.
• Ryan Choi was killed.
• Jason Rusch's series was canceled and the black face of Firestorm reverted to the white face of Ronnie Raymond.
• Yolanda Montez was killed.
• Cassandra Cain became a mind-controlled villain then retired to be replaced with Stephanie Brown (blond, white cutie-pie) 
• See a more thorough (if perhaps too much so) list here.

Comic Authority, a comic-themed blog that tends to be far more fanciful than serious, has posted a marvelous piece titled "The Racial Politics of Regressive Storytelling" by Chris Sims.  Here's Sims's conclusion, though I highly recommend the reading of the entire article:

But you can't really even blame the creators entirely, because it's reinforced by the fans. I'm sure a lot of it comes from the fact that the stories are often good stories (as I said, the Legion stuff isn't necessarily what I want the Legion to be, but it's still very enjoyable), but there's an underlying resistance to change that seems to come out in a far more ugly manner when race is involved. Again, I would certainly hope that the majority of comics fans aren't racist, but I heard John Stewart referred to as "Black Lantern" years before Nekron started sending out rings, and I've heard enough people refer to Jason Rusch as "Blackstorm" to know that a lot of them don't understand that casual racism is still racism.

Which is one of the things that's so galling about the regression from Ryan Choi to Ray Palmer. It's been a running gag among my friends that in comics, only white Americans ever find meteors, get splashed with chemicals or get visited by spacemen, everyone else (from Jack O'Lantern to Black Bison to the Gaucho to Apache Chief to Samurai and so on) has to have a power that relates to their race or their country -- specifically, the broad stereotypes drawn from white Americans' perception of their race or country. It's almost inescapable, and it reinforces the idea that non-white characters are defined solely by their ethnic differences.

But Ryan Choi was a character that actually had a character, and was one of the few Chinese-American characters in comics that didn't have powers relating to Kung Fu dragons. He was just a guy with super-powers that was filling a role that nobody had bothered to do anything with in years.

And now he's been shoved into limbo so that Ray Palmer can come back, reduced to a gentrified footnote so that the DC Universe can a little bit more like it did in 1978.

DC's executive editor, Dan DiDio, responded to Chris's article through an interview at Comic Book Resources (CBR) with a fairly impassioned response:

[CBR] There's been a lot of discussion – and a lot of angry discussion, I'd say – coming out of some of the recent DCU storylines, specifically the death of Ryan Choi in the "Titans" Brightest Day launch...


Didio: And if I could jump in here for a second, I'd ask "What past that?" There seems to be a concern about us pulling back in diversity, and we identify Ryan Choi, but we don't identify what more than that. If you're talking about a single character, we can't run backwards from the way we act and behave with our characters because we're afraid of addressing characters of different race or putting them in stories that are bigger or more exciting, I'm sorry to say. This is an interesting thing to me, because since I've been here, we've been extraordinarily aggressive in trying to bring racial diversity and diversifying our cast of characters as much as possible. That's been part of our agenda for the last five to eight years since I've been here. We're talking about a single character with Ryan Choi, but I'd love to know about examples past that, because at the same time that we've got Ryan Choi, we've got a Great Ten series running. If you look at every team book and everything we're doing, we go to extraordinary lengths to diversify the casts and show our audience in our books.

...which Laura Hudson of Comics Alliance masterfully annotates to provide very specific examples - including the cancellation of the Great Ten series that DiDio defends.

CBR also posted a Quote of the day from DC Senior Story Editor Ian Sattler saying this:

It's so hard for me to be on the other side because it's not our intention. There is a reason behind it all. We don't see it that way and strive very hard to have a diverse DCU. I mean, we have green, pink, and blue characters. We have the Great Ten out there and I have counter statistics, but I won't get into that. It's not how we perceived it. We get the same thing about how we treat our female characters.

David Brothers at 4thletter! answers that quote marvelously on his blog:

The problem with this statement is that green, pink, and blue people don’t exist. In fact, comparing actual, real-life people to fake people when discussing real-life issues is a pretty screwed up thing to do, isn’t it? It’s saying, “Yes, I understand your complaints, but look over here! This thing that we made up is just like what you want, just a different shade! That’s the same thing, right?”

No, it really isn’t. The point of diversity is to reflect reality. If you’re bringing up imaginary people when talking about actual people… you probably should just stop talking. A real life example: you’re making a cartoon for kids. Your boss asks why there aren’t any kids in your show. You respond that there are several kids, like this dwarf, this baby dragon, this baby goblin, those are like kids, right? No.

...


When you consider the trend of how DC has treated its non-white characters (and the fact that this argument has to be phrased in terms of white vs ______ is foul), DC Comics comes off looking pretty stupid. I don’t care whether these characters fit into their Silver Age nostalgia or not. When, as a company, you have made a habit of marginalizing a specific type of character, introducing new characters that you’re going to let die on the vine in an attempt to show how “diverse” you are, and then talking out the side of your mouth in public…

I couldn't have said it better.  Thankfully, David Uzumeri said it very succinctly.