Posts by mekkaokereke@mastodon.cloud
(DIR) Post #APSGL33yP5eDCJsME4 by mekkaokereke@mastodon.cloud
2022-11-10T08:05:51Z
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👍🏿Whoever said "There's no such thing as a free lunch" is not a good person. Of course there is. All children should eat for free. The Swedes are wrong on this oneProviding free lunch for everyone will do more to reduce the so called "racial achievement gap" than many school programs.https://www.npr.org/2022/11/09/1134832752/colorado-free-school-lunch-results-measure-midtermsNot all Black kids are poor, but in the US, many are. "School lunch debt" is a disgusting term that shouldn't exist.
(DIR) Post #APTmo6flSCWmTvPbgO by mekkaokereke@mastodon.cloud
2022-11-10T20:01:04Z
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I think much of my issue around the Content Warning culture on Mastodon, is the vocabulary. "Content Warning" has a very specific meaning in other contexts. Here, it is more like "Content Filter" or "Subject Line," to give readers a choice to expand or not.This feels wrong, because of other contexts where majority folks have tried to express trauma or pain at even having to hear about the racism that impacted me. Feels very much like "Ban teaching civil rights, so white kids don't feel bad."
(DIR) Post #APTmo8dMA7n2Z2IiCu by mekkaokereke@mastodon.cloud
2022-11-10T20:06:49Z
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The issue of "Most white folk don't want to hear about your racism" is a related but separate issue. I don't think forcing people whose ears aren't open (or aren't open right now) to hear what they don't want to hear is fruitful anyway.🤷🏿♂️Over the years, a bunch of folks said I helped them become less racist. That's not true. I don't have that power. I wish I did! They made themselves less racist.What happened was, they opened their own ears, and then they could hear what I was saying.
(DIR) Post #APWS2ZAUmzgrLmigL2 by mekkaokereke@mastodon.cloud
2022-11-12T04:32:51Z
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Sometimes social networks are asked to provide information on their users by scary sounding government lawyers. Big social networks have big money, which buys big lawyers. They can choose to stand up for users.Big networks often have tradeoffs between regional policy an regional lawyers, to find the right balance of what they can protect, and what info users need protecting.How does that work in the fediverse? eg a scary letter to an instance owner?
(DIR) Post #APX45UWKK57u3ukjs8 by mekkaokereke@mastodon.cloud
2022-11-12T15:48:05Z
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Elon doesn't build cars. Elon hires engineers, designers, and other professionals, that build cars.The Model S was great because it was built by Peter Rawlinson, one of the best lead EV engineers of this era.If Peter gets tired of Elon, he can leave, start his own company (Lucid), and build another car(Air), that one-ups Tesla on almost everything.https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4yjRIcRc9qYIf you don't know who Peter is, you think Elon is more of a genius than he is.
(DIR) Post #APX45WGnoltfULVMx6 by mekkaokereke@mastodon.cloud
2022-11-12T15:50:38Z
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Obligatory reminder that we can't fix the environment by making super expensive luxury cars for rich westerners to consume. 👍🏿But you get my point.
(DIR) Post #APXG7U0IPhdMUNUFKi by mekkaokereke@mastodon.cloud
2022-11-12T17:34:26Z
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🤔 More questions that I don't know the answer to:Is it possible to drive social change through Mastodon? Could "Black Lives Matter" have happened on Mastodon? Or do the "intentionally slow, pleasant conversation" features eliminate the possibility of this? Do the "interest silo" tendencies discourage cross pollination?Or can we have our cake and eat it too? Will the addition of more journalists, more Black and brown folk, and higher total user count, cross some network effects threshold?
(DIR) Post #APZcsbMZSLXSEPhNVg by mekkaokereke@mastodon.cloud
2022-11-13T21:12:20Z
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1. Most Black folk in the US experience frequent racism, and have to navigate racist systems daily. It's an important part of our lives.2. Many white folk are very uncomfortable even hearing about racism.3. People often talk about the most important things in their lives, with their friends. 4. Most white folk in the US (~75%), have no Black friends. Zero. None.https://www.prri.org/research/poll-race-religion-politics-americans-social-networks/
(DIR) Post #APZcsbuFR8TdurSH0C by mekkaokereke@mastodon.cloud
2022-11-13T21:15:25Z
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I don't know if having Black friends makes a person more comfortable with hearing about racism, or if being comfortable hearing about racism lets Black people feel comfortable enough around them to form a friendship.But I do know that one of those two things is something that you can work on and improve by yourself, without any Black folk around! 👍🏿
(DIR) Post #APb00a8EPUNYpij3GS by mekkaokereke@mastodon.cloud
2022-11-10T01:35:27Z
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🤔I think it would be cool to see resource usage accounting for my handle. Sort of like a carbon footprint, but for letting me know how much I'm costing the admin.This might be hard to do accurately without full analytics, so an estimate would be fine. This might inform how much people donate to patrons etc.E.g. am I costing my admin 50c a month? Or $30 bucks? If I donate $100 a month, how many users would that support? That video I uploaded was more expensive than everything else I did! Etc
(DIR) Post #APb00bfwfcwPcZVUS8 by mekkaokereke@mastodon.cloud
2022-11-13T17:46:44Z
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@markusl @hal Yeah, but one of the people on that page is @aral who has a toot and wrote up some stuff on his individual account costing about $50/month.And another clue is that they're currently closed for business for setting up new instances.I think the rough estimate might not be sufficient. Maybe more granularity is needed. Or maybe their estimates may have assumed lower user connectivity from before the #twittermigration ?
(DIR) Post #APg5qEjKhGS54pKU9A by mekkaokereke@mastodon.cloud
2022-11-14T11:30:39Z
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🤔Q: Why do Black kids that go to school in Nigeria or Kenya excel in math, but Black kids that go to school in the US do not?Why do Black kids in the US that have at least one Black teacher do better in math, and are more likely to graduate and go to college?A: Because racist people are not good at teaching Black kids, and Black teachers can shield kids from racism.Imagine if I taught at this school with this teacher. Wouldn't work. One of us would have to go.https://twitter.com/Phil_Lewis_/status/1591881094432964612
(DIR) Post #APg5qFKCUBwUvAZvc0 by mekkaokereke@mastodon.cloud
2022-11-14T11:39:55Z
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Then you're either left with a more racist school, failing its talented Black kids.Or a less racist school, providing a safer environment for Black kids to succeed and thrive.1 black teacher? 13% more likely to go to college than their same school, same race peers. 2 Black teachers? 32% more likely to go to college. And the positive effect is concentrated in Black boys.https://www.nber.org/papers/w25254Because Black boys receive the most racist excessive discipline and mistreatment in schools.
(DIR) Post #APg5qFmYmkcyL7qZoe by mekkaokereke@mastodon.cloud
2022-11-14T11:50:41Z
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Black teachers aren't intrinsically better at teaching, or even intrinsically better at reducing racism. In fact, Black teachers have less intrinsic ability to reduce racism than their peers. Because they have less situational power. Because racism. 🙂🙃But Black teachers show more willingness to reduce racism, sometimes at great personal cost, and career risk.My point is, any teacher of any race could step up at any time, and provide the protection that Black teachers provide. 👍🏿
(DIR) Post #APg5qGQyMUxCMSkqo4 by mekkaokereke@mastodon.cloud
2022-11-14T12:08:15Z
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Awkward conversation starter*If you know someone that teaches school in the US, ask them if Black students' math scores are the same as white students' math scores at their school. They'll say no.Then ask them who the most racist teacher in their school is. They might tell you. Then ask them what they've done about this racist teacher.*(Don't do this. Because it's considered rude.We can talk about "Fatherless Black households!" and "Teaching Black kids to value education!" But not this.)
(DIR) Post #APg5qGqqoHebeirW8u by mekkaokereke@mastodon.cloud
2022-11-14T12:20:30Z
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If you do ask these awkward questions, you will throw the vibes off, and the party will be ruined!Talk about something general interest and not offensive instead, like "Guns in Chicago!" Don't ever talk about taboo topics, like "Racist teachers in Chicago schools."Talk about something general interest, like "Black high school drop out rates!" Or "Black poverty!" Don't talk about sensitive topics like, "Why Black kids drop out of high school." or "Why Black kids are poor."
(DIR) Post #APprnFRQ6b1nYm3nmq by mekkaokereke@mastodon.cloud
2022-11-21T17:08:57Z
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😑Another Black person played Mastodon "instance roulette" and lost.We need a Mastodon instance Green Book pronto or this ain't gonna work.This is starting to feel like the WW2 Dunkirk evacuation where the Black and Indian Commonwealth soldiers were abandoned on the beach...https://twitter.com/wickdchiq/status/1594711597359980547
(DIR) Post #APprnHaM8LMeD4Fxzc by mekkaokereke@mastodon.cloud
2022-11-21T17:10:37Z
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Shout-out to Colonel John Ashdown, who was a Captain on that day at Dunkirk. He commanded a regiment of Indian soldiers and mules. He was ordered to abandon the Indians and the mules and save himself.He refused. He abandoned the mules but marched his Indian soldiers to safety♥️Of course they tried to court martial him for refusing the order to discard and abandon the soldiers he was responsible for.🤡
(DIR) Post #APprnJNfSUP3mIKrUe by mekkaokereke@mastodon.cloud
2022-11-21T17:10:46Z
1 likes, 1 repeats
It's not OK to flee from the Titanic that is Twitter hitting the Musk Iceberg, and not care if the life boats let Black folk on.Be like John Ashdown.
(DIR) Post #APprnLDSdPQXTDZjrU by mekkaokereke@mastodon.cloud
2022-11-21T17:21:49Z
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And before anyone gets mad about him abandoning the mules in the French countryside...a) Mules are a highly evolved creatures, and as such are recognized as pacifists by choice. They do not acknowledge the borders and armies and petty squabbles of man, and swear allegiance to no flag. Only to oats and hay!b) Some lucky French farmers came up on some free mules! Score! Give oats and hay!