A2 achievement gap, Black Solidarity Conference, Felons and Voting

Ann Arbor is in the national spotlight, this week in Time, due to the achievement gap between Black and White students. Ann Arbor is one of the highest performing districts in the state of Michigan, but features one of the largest gaps between MEAP, SAT, and grades between Black and White students. Glad to see it's getting more coverage, sad there is no new info in it, but gives hope for the value of my dissertation which partially covers the Ann Arbor Black-White achievement gap.

The Black Student Union is organizing a Black Solidarity Conference the weekend of Feb 4th-6th. The conference is projecting an attendance of about 200 folks, so they are looking for students to host visitors. Contact bigshel@umich.edu for more information.

The question of felons being allowed to vote in NY is still not "settled." Want more info on felon voting disenfranchisement, click here or here. FYI: Felons who have served there time in the state of Michigan are allowed to vote.

See you in Canada? G-G-G-OP Unit? 50 the anti-christ?

So I was all set to go to Canada (Mexico, Venezuela, or any other place people could argue convincingly about) immediately following last Tuesday's results and I know I'm not alone! William Jelani Cobb has a great commentary about expatriation. So who is down to leave?

Hadji Williams comes with some ruckus about the hidden conservative youth vote in the 2004 presidential election. It's an interesting piece about culture (really how people dress and what they listen to)and their political leanings. My favorite quote is "many of those who did vote screamed revolution for a while but went
behind the curtain and changed clothes on us and rolled with the G-G-G-G…O-P Unit!"

Lastly, reason 452, 50 cent may be the anti-christ are reports that he didn't vote after endorsing the "Vote or Die" campaign. Some are speculating because he is a convicted felon he may not have been able to vote, unless he's currently on parole, he was good to go in New York, right? And I really don't care if Luda or Paris Hilton did or didn't vote. Ludacris was probably too busy thinking about Bill O'Reilly and Paris Hilton... no comment.

Still don't have my thoughts together on the election results.

Fun with Maps...

So there are a number of maps floating around the internet these days regarding November 2nd's election. Some hilarious. Some disturbing. These are the most thought provoking to me. What do you think?

This is frightening. 
red counties went for Bush, Blue for Kerry, Grey were undecided

Somethings never change... 
green states were free states and territories, yellow were open to slavery, and red were slaves states

Get it... ha, ha, ha. 

Say it ain't so....

Life imitating art...? 

So I've had a day to process the election and its results... well after a day, I'm convinced it still sucks! Bad news, except for medical marijuana in Ann Arbor and the Detroit school board. I'm still searching for the words to describe the past couple of days... more on that to come later...

Tinkering under the hood... Voter Guide

I've been tinkering under the hood of the site since its return, it may not look different yet, but I hope the improvements will make your blackatmichigan.com experience better. It's amazing how much stuff I forgot about blogging and the web, even more amazing how hard it is to figure out how to get stuff working again.

Too busy or lazy to figure out who to vote for besides the president? Solution= A voter guide (of course from good sources. Tomorrow in Election day, ya know, go Vote or Die but while you're at it, print out Goodspeed Updates' Voter Guide. That is of course if you're in the Ann Arbor area, not in A-deuce, check out the League of Pissed of Voters' Guides for you local area. Aight, off to try to break writers block!!!!!