sounds like you have a very close connection with your wife….almost a symbiotic relationship. that’s great that your ideas amplify when you’re with her.

yea, the reference to attempting to get in contact him was to try to take/audit one of his classes last year and share some of my ideas with him, but he never responded and life moved on. don’t worry, it doesn’t keep me up at night. when i read his piece originally, i felt compelled to write this post, b/c to me it felt like i had a first-hand example of him not actually living the message he so forcefully put out there. it doesn’t matter how confident or interesting or intelligent you are – if the person at the other end isn’t listening, your efforts fail. it would give me some satisfaction to think he read this post and thought to himself, “oops.”

(let’s split the sentence to allow different options in the reading… making sense -you need two to tango-)

(let’s focus on this part – - > ” .. trying to stay under that threshold means giving those people veto power over your actions. ”

..how about LETTING GO giving so much power to a ONE person who seems to be ignoring your attempts to communicate – do business together… There’s always a choice … of not staying under any threshold that exerts “VETO POWER over your actions” (in as much as possible, for many people don’t have that luxury, granted)

IME moving on when a door remains shut after you’ve made sure there’s someone in there and that someONE IS NOT ready to allow you right of passage, may also open up your vision to MANY other OPEN doors you may have been missing… And so, you can keep on doing cool stuff and sharing and building elsewhere with others… which you seem to be doing pretty well in any case

My point it’s really the community that decides. I have never paid much attention to anything society (uh, that’s people right? )had to say about roles or boxes perceived or real.

I have worked in the corporate world – yuck. My wife now works at a major a major bank(please don’t boo). We’ve both started businesses. It’s my personal belief that we are totally interdependent on each other and really just to get really basic about it just think of biology.

As hard as it might be to believe it takes two to multiply. And I can hear foul being shouted already but I have always believed that the most magnificent role of women is the ability to multiply.

Not to say women have constant fantastic original ideas. That’s not what I am implying. But I know in my life if I stay open and connected often with my wife of 31 years all I have to do is say into the air an idea I am having and like magic it compounds and grows into something sometimes scary but always MORE than I that is beautiful great and bigger than me.

Others who are interested might want to join a new Twitter chat group on Thursday Nights 9PM EST called #BlackEd . This group includes some amazing thinkers and it is growing very rapidly.

The subject is close to my heart and our work: the opportunity (achievement) gap.

Cheers,

Linda

i tweeted this quote the other day by J Krishnamurti: “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

The “elite” of the country aren’t doing themselves any favors.. we’re being eroded, and eventually everyone suffers. Yes, the system is the enemy, but who’s running the system?

i mean….. it’s overwhelming. and i think it will happen like you say, in grassroots, because the system is just too big to overhaul overnight. in the meantime, people need to take control of the situation the best they can. think of new ways to do things. i mean, even your statement about every child having equal access to high-quality education….. that itself is debatable, as we come back to the issue of the system. the educational system also is in trouble, and even people of privilege who have access to a “high-quality” school…… is a high quality school the equivalent of a high quality education? i hear laments from parents all the time in regards to the actual learning that’s taking place in the classroom. if you look at this through the lens of the industrial era, and go back 100 years, you’ll see that schools were not designed to teach people to think, they were designed to teach people to comply and get prepared for a job in a factory. we’re now in a post-industrial society, but many of the structures of the educational system are still based on the old way, and so are creating mental models in children that prepare them for jobs that no longer exist.

i’m not sure how you’re interpreting the tone of these words, but let me assure you they’re coming from a place of frustration. the system is oppressive. though you say unemployment is highest among african americans, i think there are plenty of white men who very much experience an opportunity gap because of financial situation, educational level, and any number of circumstances. i don’t think it’s fair to say that being white automatically gives every white person a clear competitive advantage over someone non-white. but regardless, the system is oppressive. i think it’s intentionally designed that way. i think it’s a model that’s outrageous and unjust, but designed to be so. i think that “the masses” (and i put myself in that category) are getting pissed about it, and it’s time for equality. how dare you tell me because i’m a woman i can’t? how dare you tell me because i’m black i can’t? how dare you tell me that because i was born into a certain class i can’t? well, probably because those reasons were sufficient in themselves at one time, and people had very little room to express agency within societal constraints. but that’s unacceptable. we refuse to accept it anymore. and so we have to start doing something, because if we wait on the system, we’re just going to keep waiting. for a class that has always been in power to willingly relinquish it in the name of ‘equality’ is just too painful. there is greed, ignorance, selfishness, and fantasies of glory and conquest standing in the way. we need a groundswell.

Unemployment is highest in African American men–even with an African American man in the White House. If we gloss over the data with nice platitudes then we will have nice discussions but we will never see real change.

Change start in grass roots not in ivory towers.

Until every child is afforded equal access to the same high-quality education, we will continue to see the opportunity gap. We are not the enemy. A system that affords one class of people more rights is clearly the enemy.

IMHO An intelligentsia that uses new and evolving media to placate a broken system is part of the problem and not the solution.

No. Women are not their own worst enemies. Black, Hispanic, American Indian people are not their own worst enemies. When half the children in the United States don’t read at an appropriate level in grade three (numbers are worse for children of color) and we look closely at the data we see there is no achievement gap only an opportunity gap. The same is true for women.

When women throw phrases around like: “we are our worst enemies” then nothing changes. Might as well write a letter to every every corporation and say: “Yes. Of course you want an all white male management team and board of directors. Women are their own worst enemies. They have hormones, babies, and are too emotional. Your greatest fears which have lead to sexist/racist behaviors are absolutely correct.” Carte Blanche.

I don’t know about you, I am my friend and I am an advocate for women being their own best friends and for giving women an equal opportunity to achieve their highest goals because this is NOT a man’s world as your title suggests. This is our world, too.

Thanks!

Linda