(Akiit.com) A “gangbanger,” apparently, if you are the owner of the Boston club that expelled dozens of black Harvard and Yale students and alumni last weekend on suspicion of being criminals. Ask D. Omavi Harshaw, who was there.

It was hard to tell if the several dozen black Harvard and Yale graduate students and alumni exiting Cure Lounge Saturday night were shivering from the unwelcoming Boston cold or trembling from anger after we were kicked out of our own private party quite literally because of the color of our skin.

Harvard-Yale football homecoming has a unique significance for black graduate students who gather to celebrate; it is a temporary moment of relief. The Ivy League postgraduate environment can be a very a hostile one for blacks, who are arguably made to feel more at home in America’s prisons than in its top universities.

So it’s no wonder that the hundreds of black graduate students and alumni who flocked to Cambridge, Mass., last weekend were extremely excited at the opportunity to mix, mingle and dance freely with their peers from across the nation. The culminating party was held at Cure Lounge, a private club. After a long wait in line, things began to warm up as the DJ dropped gems and we dropped money at the bar. Around 10:45 p.m., I had just achieved enough liquid courage to approach this girl when the music suddenly stopped.

The lights came on. Girls stopped dancing. Bartenders began to clean the bar. I then saw looks of confusion become looks of indignation as the bouncers told the crowd that everyone would have to leave.

Why? What they told the crowd: technical difficulties. What they told the promoters, according to an e-mail they later sent out to those who had been invited: The people in line outside [read: black women] would attract “local gangbangers.” Yet anyone remotely familiar with Boston knows that local gangbangers in the Theater District look more like Colin Sullivan from The Departed than Omar Little from The Wire.

We were kicked out because apparently the promoters did not tell the owner that the Harvard and Yale graduates and alumni in attendance that night would be black. Quite simply, on Saturday, Nov. 20, 2010, a group of overprivileged blacks were kicked out of a private venue because of the color of our skin.

The owner of the club wanted to teach us a lesson: We are not above the law. What law, you might ask? Clearly, to him and many like him, the law of the land is that blacks are to behave according to the will of whites, be it through zoning laws, admissions letters or nightclub entries. We may enter, we may even prosper, but we must never control. We must never set the rules of the game. The white owner once again proved the fallacy of a post-racial America. In a sad twist of irony, the group that organized the party is named Triumph, and the club is named Cure.
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(Akiit.com) Philander Smith is a small historically black college in Little Rock, Arkansas, and was pretty known for being pretty much unknown. In HBCU circles, Philander Smith didn’t have the name cachet like the Howards and Spelmans of the world, and within the state of Arkansas, it was overshadowed by the larger University of Arkansas system.

Enter Dr. Walter Kimbrough.

“When I first got here, Philander Smith didn’t really have an image,” Dr. Kimbrough remembers. “Basically, they were known for having a choir and for rebuilding. That’s about it. I wanted to change that.”

Back in 2004, Dr. Walter Kimbrough was the Vice President of Student Affairs at Albany State in Georgia, when he was nominated for the post of college president. When researching Philander Smith, he’d heard about the negatives, but there were definitely things about the college that attracted him.

“When you talked to the average person in Arkansas, they talked about going to the University of Arkansas, not Philander Smith. They didn’t even know where it was because Philander didn’t have a profile. For me, that was a plus. When you go to a Harvard, there’s research that says a college president can’t do anything to change the culture. At a small college like Philander, a college president can come in and change culture.”

And so, Dr. Kimbrough accepted the position, and the Little Rock media soon dubbed the then 37 year old college president, the “hip-hop president”. While some at Philander Smith were a little uncomfortable with the moniker, Dr. Kimbrough recognized an opportunity to give the school a bit of personality.

“The local weekly newspaper used ‘The Hip-Hop President’ as part of their headline,” Dr. Kimbrough said. “The PR person at Philander didn’t like, it but I told them that we can use that. I had to let them know that I was a Gen Xer, part of the hip-hop generation, and the kids that we were trying to reach were also part of that generation. The average age of a college president is 58 years old, and I was 37. We needed to use hip hop as a way to tie into our mandate for social justice.”

However, before that, Philander needed rebuilding.

“When I got here, we had 949 people at Philander Smith. But not all of them were students. They were what I called enrollees. We had open enrollment, and a low retention rate,” he remembers.

The key to the turnaround was a six year plan to change Philander Smith. Out were open admissions, and in were higher entrance exam scores, with ACT scores up 30 percent since Dr. Kimbrough arrived on campus. Philander Smith also reduced the number of students on campus, to just over 600 students, yet these students are stronger academically than before, with GPA’s up 35 percent since 2004. Between freshman to sophomore year, the retention rate has grown for Philander students, moving from 51 percent to 77 percent.
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(Akiit.com) We, the American public, hold it as an article of faith that those responsible for devising and implementing public policy have our best interests at heart. Our best minds are hard at work, striving to make the world a better place. Our elected officials are dedicated to protecting our freedoms, increasing our prosperity, and securing justice for all.

What, then, is the public to assume when, in spite of the best efforts of our most brilliant thinkers and politicians, freedoms erode, prosperity decreases, and for a great many, justice seems elusive? Surely, sinister forces must be at work.

Let us take for an example the nation’s system of public education. For years, American taxpayers have been sold on a triad of public policy fixes for public education. In order to improve student performance, state and federal governments must dedicate a greater portion of their budgetary dollars to education; class sizes must be reduced, and there must be greater oversight by the federal government. So fervent is the belief in this holy trinity of education, that to even ponder the efficacy of the federal Department of Education is seen as heresy. Any politician who attempts to curb the unrestricted flow of tax dollars to public schools is accused of not wanting to “invest in education.”

And yet, increases in spending have not resulted in a corresponding increase in student achievement. Studies have shown that over the last 50 years, student proficiency in math and English has shown little improvement even as spending and federal government oversight has increased and class size has decreased. Given the brilliance and dedication of our public servants, the failure of significant academic gains to materialize, in spite of billions spent on education, can only be the devil’s work.

And if you are a black man, the devil must, indeed, be working overtime.

Information recently culled from the National Assessment for Educational Progress, based on national math and reading tests given to students in the fourth and eighth grades, revealed some rather disheartening results. According to the New York Times, the report paints a picture for black males that is, “even bleaker than generally known.”

In 2009, math scores for black boys lagged behind those of both Hispanic boys and girls, and black males fell behind white boys by an average of 30 points, which is interpreted as three academic grades. Black males drop out of high school at a rate twice as high as white males and their SAT scores are on average 104 points lower. In short, the report shows that black males fall behind academically early on and never regain ground.

These are not students failing because they do not have access to the internet or don’t have Olympic sized swimming pools. The sad fact is that the report demonstrates that middle-class black boys are scoring about as well as poor white boys. These are students who are not proficient in the basics of math and English.
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(Akiit.com) Like many I shall be heading over to my parents house for thanksgiving… Yes it will be nice to see family again, and just have a good time… Will watch the cowboys game while there as that’s a tradition… Anyway let me print out this blackheads treatment article for a friend…. Just amaze at how in this day some people don’t have a printer… Well I also need to check out facebook… Have a few pm messages…

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(Akiit.com) So a friend ask me are are fat burners safe? To my knowledge yes they are… Well my indy colts are 6-4 but still tied for first place in the standings… I have faith we shall make the playoffs… As for another AFC title game who knows but I love my team no matter what… Need to clean up the place as family shall be visiting… Also have to do alittle shopping… Would hate to run out of food literally…

Written By CTA