Please do yourself a favor and check out the latest addition to my blogroll, For Harriet. The site’s tagline says it all: Celebrating the fullness of black womanhood.  The content is smart, thoughtful, and edifying.  I don’t come away from it feeling like, “Heard it all before…” or “We need to do better…”  I come away from the articles challenged, encouraged, and informed.  There’s no shortage of folks talking about and at black women; For Harriet is the conversations we have with ourselves, our best selves.

My niece, Dontavia (NOT pictured above), who is a college-bound honors student, is raising money for a multi-state HBCU campus tour. She has the support of our family, and she has a part-time job, however, the cost of this tour is quite steep. I’m so proud of her, and I want to help her along the path toward the future she envisions for herself.

Please read her appeal below. We welcome your well wishes, prayers, and encouragement. If you are moved to make a monetary contribution, you may do so via my PayPal account (deesha AT deeshaphilyaw DOT com), or contact me if you prefer a different method. On her behalf, I appreciate your consideration.

On one my favorite message boards, AALBC.com, one of my favorite sister-friends, Yvette, shared the following on a “Black Girls and Science Education” thread:

Many educators worry that the ability of the United States to produce enough scientists will fall short unless a more diverse group of students are recruited to science study — and thrive. Despite the odds, some black females do succeed in science. Swimming Against the Tide: African American Girls and Science Education (Temple University Press) looks at why some students succeed, and the roadblocks they face along the way. The book is based on a combination of statistics, surveys and interviews. Sandra L. Hanson, the author and professor of sociology at Catholic University, responded via e-mail to questions about the book….

Full interview: http://insidehighered.com/news/2009/02/02/hanson

…which prompted me to share the following:

My oldest daughter and her female classmates were recently invited to a presentation by a female astronaut, Pam Melroy:

Pamela Anne Melroy (born 17 September 1961) is a retired United States Air Force officer and an active NASA astronaut. She served as pilot on Space Shuttle missions STS-92 and STS-112 and commanded mission STS-120.

Melroy presented awesome pictures and video–inside the shuttle at launch, rendezvous with the international space station, which is also under the command of a female astronaut, space walks, their tiny living quarters, zero-gravity fun, and repairs to the solar array on the space station. Did you know that the shuttles circle the earth every 90 minutes, so they get to see a sunrise or a sunset every 45 minutes? And stars don’t “twinkle” in outer space. What we see as a “twinkle” is caused by the presence of the earth’s atmosphere.

Clearly, the chaperones learned as much as the kids did.

Melroy challenged the girls, telling them that the next frontier was sending humans to Mars. She and her comrades will be too old to go when that mission is ready to be undertaken. That mission will be undertaken by people who are kids in school today…maybe one of them.

She talked about diversity as well, but she did so in terms of the diverse professional backgrounds that astronauts must have: military, engineering, astronomy, and other fields that just don’t “scream” astronaut; it takes expertise in all these disciplines to build a strong mission team. You can’t really train in college to be an astronaut per se. You have to first be something else, and excel at it, usually at a PhD level. The average age of those entering the program at NASA is 35.

Anyway, the mission’s robotics specialist was a black woman, Stephanie Wilson, and we saw her in action in the video. After Dr. Mae Jemison, I didn’t know any other black women had gone into space.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephanie_Wilson**fighting urge to pitch article about Wilson to a magazine…will return to book proposal now**

I returned D’s call, and it turns out that she had called to wish Peyton a happy birthday. D’s shy and demure phone demeanor belies a razor-sharp wit and smarts. I asked her what was going on with her.

“Um, have you ever heard of the Jacksonville Joe Berg Society?”

“No. What’s that?”

“It’s this thing I’m going to take a test for, at UNF. My science teacher nominated me. All I know is that it’s about the sciences.”

“Congratulations!” She waited while I Googled, and listened as I read the program description to her:

The Joe Berg Society of Jacksonville is a prestigious academic society which offers twelve seminars yearly between September and May in each of the Humanities and Sciences. Membership extends from the middle of the Sophomore year to the middle of the Senior year. Seminars are held at the Museum of Science and History unless the group is on a field trip. Speakers are college professors and professionals from our community who want to share their fields with outstanding high schools students.

In the fall of their Sophomore year, potential Joe Berg participants are nominated by their high school teachers and guidance counselors based upon their GPA and demonstrated interest in enrichment. These nominees sit for a rigorous examination in either the sciences or humanities. The Society admits about 50 students from roughly fifteen public and private Jacksonville high schools into each series each year. The Joe Berg Graduation ceremony is held in the middle of the students’ Senior year. These graduates have participated in twenty-seven to thirty-six hours of college level lecture and discussion.

D said, “Yeah. I’m really interested in the sciences.”

Somewhere, Dr. Mae Jemison and Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson are smiling.

“I’m taking two science classes now, Earth Science and Chemistry. I want to be a mortician.”

“Really? How did you arrive at that decision?”

“I watch a lot of CSI, but I don’t want to be a medical examiner. When I went to Granddaddy’s mom’s funeral, I asked the funeral director a lot of questions. She told me to take lots of science classes. Eventually, I want to be a funeral director.”

A science field *and* one that is recession-proof!?!?!?! She’ll want for nothing.

Can I tell you how proud I am, and absolutely ecstatic?

Dr. Mae Jemison, physician, fifth black astronaut and first black female astronaut in NASA’s history, and first (only?) black woman in space

I returned D’s call, and it turns out that she had called to wish Peyton a happy birthday. D’s shy and demure phone demeanor belies a razor-sharp wit and smarts. I asked her what was going on with her.

“Um, have you ever heard of the Jacksonville Joe Berg Society?”

“No. What’s that?”

“It’s this thing I’m going to take a test for, at UNF. My science teacher nominated me. All I know is that it’s about the sciences.”

“Congratulations!” She waited while I Googled, and listened as I read the program description to her:

The Joe Berg Society of Jacksonville is a prestigious academic society which offers twelve seminars yearly between September and May in each of the Humanities and Sciences. Membership extends from the middle of the Sophomore year to the middle of the Senior year. Seminars are held at the Museum of Science and History unless the group is on a field trip. Speakers are college professors and professionals from our community who want to share their fields with outstanding high schools students.

In the fall of their Sophomore year, potential Joe Berg participants are nominated by their high school teachers and guidance counselors based upon their GPA and demonstrated interest in enrichment. These nominees sit for a rigorous examination in either the sciences or humanities. The Society admits about 50 students from roughly fifteen public and private Jacksonville high schools into each series each year. The Joe Berg Graduation ceremony is held in the middle of the students’ Senior year. These graduates have participated in twenty-seven to thirty-six hours of college level lecture and discussion.

D said, “Yeah. I’m really interested in the sciences.”

Somewhere, Dr. Mae Jemison and Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson are smiling.

“I’m taking two science classes now, Earth Science and Chemistry. I want to be a mortician.”

“Really? How did you arrive at that decision?”

“I watch a lot of CSI, but I don’t want to be a medical examiner. When I went to Granddaddy’s mom’s funeral, I asked the funeral director a lot of questions. She told me to take lots of science classes. Eventually, I want to be a funeral director.”

A science field *and* one that is recession-proof!?!?!?! She’ll want for nothing.

Can I tell you how proud I am, and absolutely ecstatic?

Dr. Mae Jemison, physician, fifth black astronaut and first black female astronaut in NASA’s history, and first (only?) black woman in space

Girl, 12, told she can’t play ball with boys

You play ball like a girl.

That used to be an insult. In Beaverton, Oregon, it’s becoming more like a fantasy.

Jaime Nared, a 12-year-old girl who stands 6-foot-1, has been told she can no longer play on the boys team of which she has been a member since the second grade, according to a report on the Web site of The Oregonian. Curiously, the timing of her ban came in the wake of a 30-point effort against an all-boys team.

“She scored 30 points,” Jaime’s mom, Reiko Williams, told The Oregonian. “I remember one play. She stole the ball, dribbled up court and made a behind-the-back pass to a teammate. He missed the lay-in, and she grabbed the rebound and put it in. I think it was just too much for some of those parents.

“The next day, she came home and said they wouldn’t let her play with the boys anymore.”

Last month, a group of parents from an opposing team told management at The Hoop, a private Beaverton basketball facility that runs the league in which Nared’s team competes, that they didn’t like Nared playing against their sons. Hoop officials then told Nared’s coach, Michael Abraham, that she could no longer play, citing a league rule that prohibits mixed-gender teams, the newspaper reported.

“I never saw the rule,” said Abraham, who has coached basketball for 32 years.

“If I’d known about it, I wouldn’t have put any of my teams in the league. Besides, she’s been playing on this team since second grade, and she plays on our team when we travel around the region. There’s never been any problem in any event, not one word of complaint.”

Neal Franzer, The Hoop’s director of operations, told the paper that parents were “adamant” their complaints had nothing to do with Jaime’s skills.

“They said the problem was the boys were playing differently against her because she was a girl,” Franzer said, according to the paper. “They’d been taught to not push a girl, so they weren’t fouling her hard, and the focus had shifted from playing basketball to noticing a girl was on the floor with them.

“The rule may not have been enforced in past years,” Franzer said. “We have new management this year. It’s policy, and we enforce policy.”

Nared, however, had a different take.

“I think the boys on a specific team don’t like me,” she said. “It doesn’t seem fair.”

Abraham was also skeptical about the ruling.

“I can’t think of one boy that we’ve played against that’s had a problem with her,” he said. “Maybe their dads do. Teach the boys how to handle her. Front her, deny her the ball. You sure as hell don’t complain. Listen, she’s a girl’s girl, but she plays tough. She’s no cupcake. She gets knocked down and takes a charge.”

ShapingYouth is a forum about media and marketing’s influence on kids, and is chock-full of great resources for parents and anyone interested in kids and consumer culture. Another such site is ParentsForEthicalMarketing.org/Corporate Babysitter. Check them out.

Among other topics, both sites deal with gendered marketing. I keep my antennae raised when it comes to my girls’ perceptions of themselves as female, esp. given stuff like this mess:

(courtesy of Crunk + Disorderly)

…and “whorses”:

So tonight, I was all smiles upon overhearing this conversation as I cooked dinner:

MiniMe and BabyGirl are talking about something which prompts MM to mention a judge.

BG: What’s a judge?

MM: A judge is someone…well, when there’s a crime or people have a problem they can’t agree on, she is the one who decides who’s right and who’s wrong. And she decides if they have to go to jail. Basically, she’s in charge of the court and stuff like that.

So, to summarize:

Jane Bolin, America’s First Black Female Judge

…yes!

…absolutely not.

ShapingYouth is a forum about media and marketing’s influence on kids, and is chock-full of great resources for parents and anyone interested in kids and consumer culture. Another such site is ParentsForEthicalMarketing.org/Corporate Babysitter. Check them out.

Among other topics, both sites deal with gendered marketing. I keep my antennae raised when it comes to my girls’ perceptions of themselves as female, esp. given stuff like this mess:

(courtesy of Crunk + Disorderly)

…and “whorses”:

So tonight, I was all smiles upon overhearing this conversation as I cooked dinner:

MiniMe and BabyGirl are talking about something which prompts MM to mention a judge.

BG: What’s a judge?

MM: A judge is someone…well, when there’s a crime or people have a problem they can’t agree on, she is the one who decides who’s right and who’s wrong. And she decides if they have to go to jail. Basically, she’s in charge of the court and stuff like that.

So, to summarize:

Jane Bolin, America’s First Black Female Judge

…yes!

…absolutely not.

Here’s the intro:

You would never guess by looking at me that I have a little old lady living inside me. She’s an 82-year-old black woman who eats fish and grits for breakfast but knows what caviar tastes like. She knows no strangers, and everyone is welcome at her table. Look past my painted-on jeans from Old Navy, past my honey-brown dreadlocks and cynical smirk; see her toothy grin and favorite housecoat, the flowers on it faded from fuchsia to pale pink. I rush through housework like the chore it is, but the little old lady inside me makes sure I don’t accidentally touch anyone with my broom straws (lest I sweep them out of my life) or put shoes on the bed (worse luck than 10 broken mirrors and a dozen black cats). My Ivy League education would be nothing if it didn’t exist alongside her knowledge of the proper way to wring a chicken’s neck and how a lady should sit in public (knees together). I grimace a bit less through Pennsylvania winters because the little old lady inside me has red Georgia clay and Florida sunshine coursing through her veins. She is a generous, straight-shooting daughter of the South. She is the definition of old school. She is my grandmother, whom I called Nay-Nay.

Read the rest… (yep, that’s me at age 1)

And buy the mag at a Barnes & Noble (or similar spot) near you!

Asante sana.

The Sheroes Project.

Motivated by Maj. Kimbrell and by the desire to decorate BabyGirl’s new Big Girl bedroom, I’ve decided to collect images, preferably but not exclusively black and white, of black sheroes to frame, collage, and otherwise adorn the walls. And of course, Mini-Me is going to want to get in on the Martha Stewart Noire action.

So…I’m compiling a list of sheroes. Here it is thus far:

Maj. Kimbrell
Sojourner Truth
Fannie Lou Hamer
Rosa Parks
Ruby Dee
Angela Bassett
Maya Angelou
Alice Walker
Kara Walker
Dr. Mae Jemison
Madame CJ Walker
Harriet Tubman
Ruby Bridges
Jill Scott
Queen Latifah
Phylicia Rashad
Marian Wright Edelman
Oprah Winfrey
Angela Davis
Nikki Giovanni
Regina Carter
Bessie Smith
Ella Fitzgerald
Marian Anderson
Wilma Rudolph
Florence Griffith-Joyner
Venus and Serena Williams
Michelle Obama
Charlotte E. Ray
Judith Jamison
Shirley Chisholm
Lorraine Hansberry
Althea Gibson
Hattie McDaniel
Phillis Wheatley
Mary McLeod Bethune…

Please post names and/or links in the comments if you’d like to contribute to this project. Much appreciated.