Journal of a Black Teacher

At the end of the day, a face-to-face conversation over a cup of coffee or dinner is better than posting on social media; let us be very clear, it’s entertainment - but for some, it’s a lifestyle, unfortunately. By Don Allen, Journal of A Black Teacher (Editorial Opinion)  Comedian Katt Willams (in one of his stand-up acts) said, “I’ve never seen so many influencers on social media who don’t influence anything.” Undeniably, social media has the ability to keep people in contact with their past. In a way, it works digitally just like the scrapbook—saving moments of our lives and letting us relive them at will. Beyond personal memory, social platforms become vehicles for historical narratives. Any given day could bring out threads about the civil rights movement, posts marking a special historic event, or even simply a viral tweet citing one of the major leaders, for example, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Encounters of this sort could sometimes be educational and informative in the sense th

January 11, 2023 My institution, Hamline University, a small liberal arts college located in St Paul, Minnesota, has been in the news lately. The New York Times ran an article leading with the headline, “Prophet Image Shown in Class, Fraying the Campus.” The article reports on an incident that occurred on our campus in October, where an adjunct instructor, teaching a class in art history, showed an image of the prophet Muhammad to a class attended by a number of Muslim students. And when a Muslim student objected to its showing, to quote the Times, the adjunct “lost her job.” Various so-called stakeholders interpreted the incident, as reported in various media, as one of “academic freedom.” The Times went so far as to cite PEN America’s claim that what was happening on our campus was one of the “most egregious violations of academic freedom” it had ever encountered. It begs the question, “How?” Because Hamline University is now under attack from forces outside our campus, I am taking t