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Five Things – 4 February 2016

1.

And calamity befalls my poor Chromebook again. I opened up my little workhorse machine to do this exact entry and again, the screen was cracked. And again, I have no clue how it happened. So, just as I did just before Christmas, I ordered a replacement, which will be here in a few days, and I’ll fix the thing. Fortunately, it’s very easy. There are a couple of videos that show how to repair the thing. Easy.

In the meantime, the things that I want to write are delayed a day or so, now. I’m just glad I had other options available at the ready.

2.

There was a time when I wouldn’t even have a thought of replacing a laptop screen. I broke my older HP’s screen circa 2009. I left it laying next to me when I went to sleep and rolled on top of it. I had to send it back to get them to put a new screen on.  

When I got it back, the machine back, the screen was still acting up. I had to send it back a second time. That time, they replaced the motherboard and the screen. Never have had another problem with it, but all that back and forth was frustrating.

I even went and got a new set of computer tools for the job.

3.

They’re calling for snow for next week. Done with it.

4.

Yay, it’s Black History Month. Back in the day, this was the very time of year that we’d learn about Dr. King and if we were lucky, Malcolm X. Not that we got lucky often. But we’d learn about some other fine folks in between, so it wasn’t all bad.

We had Great Blacks in Wax back then, but not the Reginald Lewis Museum. That would come much later. This generation’s school kids will have the National African American History Museum by the end of the year, which is great.

However, I have a proposal.

Let’s not study any Black history. Let’s not let another February go by with kids and young people learning that racism and inequality are things of the past when they’re still present these days.

Okay, maybe that’s too much. Sure, spend a lesson on the I Have A Dream speech, but In addition, have conversations around situations like Ferguson and the Laquan McDonald and Freddie Gray killings. Have a conversation about the two Baltimores (and no, neither of them is one from the Wire. I’m talking about the real thing). I’m not the only one that refers to the “Real” Baltimore as being the one outside of the Inner Harbor.

Progress has been made, for sure. But there is still a way to go. Have a conversation about where we go from here because looking back into the past and thinking the conditions that people like Langston Hughes and James Baldwin and Audre Lorde and Angela Davis lived through and fought have not entirely abated.

5.

Super Sunday is in a few days. It’s cool. I’m looking forward to baseball season.