Dying of Whiteness is a recently published book by Jonathan Metzl.  Metzl is a psychiatrist and a sociologist who directs the Center for Medicine, Health and Society at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.  The book has received a good deal of attention in the mainstream media but, unfortunately, that attention has often oversimplified many of […]

It’s the morning after 700 marchers from Occupy Wall Street were arrested as they marched across the Brooklyn Bridge.  It’s a beautiful fall day in New York.  The Liberty Plaza occupiers remain securely in place—with a substantial, but not overwhelming, police presence on their margins.  The couple of hundred occupiers are engaged in a variety […]

Introduction  At the moment, there are bitter struggles going on over continuing school failures, testing policies, budget cuts to schools and colleges, layoffs, school closings, class sizes, and the establishment of charter schools.  There is also an increasingly sharp debate emerging between proponents of what I will refer to as the “new education reform” and […]