I’d like to start out by asking everyone to turn to the person seated to your left and your right and say to that person, “When I see you again.”

“When I see you again.”

It may seem improbable that a person can garner a Ph.D. from Yale University without ever graduating from the eighth grade—but in fact it is true and you are looking at one such person right now. I never graduated from the eighth grade.

Sure, I got my diploma, passed all my classes and was an honors student, but I never graduated from eighth grade.

Little did Ms. Saint-Louis and Principal Fralin know when they extended the invitation for me to speak today that this would be my first eighth grade graduation—and had my parents been in town today I might have asked to borrow a robe so that I could march in the procession with this year’s class.

No, I never graduated from the eighth grade. I never sat where you were right now basking in the adulation of my middle school teachers and parents.

When it came time for me to attend graduation I had long grown weary of hearing my parents agonize over money that I decided not to bring forth another cost for them to incur. In my mind we would all benefit if I saved them the cost of the cap & gown, and the yearbook that came with my graduation packet. When June arrived and my parents realized that they had not received any notices about graduation, I told them, I simply told them I decided not to attend. When my teachers intervened, I dug in deeper and held fast to my decision. When my friends said I was being “stupid” and “selfish,” I simply brushed them off. When my music teacher told me he’d fail me if I didn’t attend and play in the band—I reminded him that his class was an elective. Looking back on it now—better yet—looking out into faces in this crowd I can not believe that I would undermine years of work and effort by so many people for a measly fifty dollars. How could I have been so naïve?

I’ll tell you how: I was fourteen years old. Like some of you in this audience I was fourteen wishing I were seventeen so that I could get my license and a car. I was fourteen wishing I were eighteen so that I would be on my way to college and out of my parent’s house. I was fourteen and saw the wonder and beauty in everything else accept being fourteen.

Man, what I wouldn’t give now for having someone else pay my mortgage, buy my groceries, my clothes and all I would have to in return is go to school for eight hours a day for nine months and have the other three months to myself. Don’t get me wrong life gets better as you get older, the girls get prettier…and some of us boys even start acting our age…but what you have going now, is a pretty good deal.

Jeff, I'm now done with my Hamlet impersonations. When Fox "News" put "Baby Mama" under Michelle Obama's name it was time for me to get back on this grind. As Adam Green wrote on the Huffington Post a while back, Fox is not a news network, the only difference between them and The Daily Show is that most people, or rather most people that I know, don't find their sense of humor funny. It's one thing to poke fun at racism and xenophobia like Colbert and Stewart sometimes do, but it's completely something else to perpetually peddle racist and xenophobic viewpoints. What has been striking about Fox's rise is not only their ability to win ratings battles against CNN and MSNBC, a trend that is shifting this year, but they have an uncanny ability to dominate the news cycle. People talk about Fox more than any other network, and until that changes, it's very unlikely that they will change their ways. After all, what do they say, there is no such thing as bad publicity.

In other news, Jonathan Chait has a piece on Joe Lieberman over at The New Republic. I agree with Chait's take on Lieberman, but still think that he's being too kind with Lieberman. If you compare what has become of Al Gore since 2000 and Joe Lieberman it's an astonishing difference. I'm sure that there are some who'd even have a hard time believing that they were even on the same ticket. Lieberman has become a media-seeking, revisionist history, foreign policy racketeering hack in the last eight years. Not only is Lieberman wrong in his assessment of how the democratic party has evolved over the last 50 years, but he's wrong, morally so about the arc of American politics in the last 50 years. I think even Karl Rove thinks that Lieberman is a little far right. Yet, just like he continued cozying up with Lobbyists long after it was no longer politically viable for any politician to do so, John McCain keeps on rolling with Lieberman as if Lieberman has anything to offer. Seriously, does Joe Lieberman have a constituency? McCain hanging around with Lieberman is like an someone kicking it with Andre Harrell thinking that they're going to get put on.

Also, in what will not be the last of such articles, The Wall Street Journal's Jonathan Kaufman has a piece exploring whether it's time to end Affirmative Action. As with most of these articles, Kaufman tries pitting working class blacks and whites against each other in a debate over who has the edge for getting that elusive slice of the american pie. As expected the article fails to address issues such as legacies and athletics in college admission. Sure, we all know that Becky's parents hate the idea of losing her place at Chapel Hill to Jamaal, but how do they feel about her losing that coveted spot to Tyler Hansbrough?

Finally, did anyone catch Obama's speech in Michigan? He's really on his game when talking about education. The Democrats are on the right side of most of the issues these days because Bush has tilted things so much in their favor, still I have a lingering suspicion that the Republicans will win this election. Not John McCain mind you, but the Republican party. If Obama is to be as bi-partisan as he suggests, he will have to make a concession to the republicans. We all know it won't be on either healthcare, education or the economy. The only thing left for the republicans is the war and the military. Withdrawing from Iraq will take years to expedite and military spending is not likely to be severely cut because Obama will want a second term, and the military does play a role in spurring innovation and developing technology. That said, what will an Obama presidency look like if the republicans get a chance to tool around with their favorite toy?

F-Dot

Thursday evening, June 19th, offers a great opportunity to support Kenyan, African, and African-diasporic arts and, at the same time, contribute to the relief effort for the hundreds of thousands who remain internally displaced by the recent political crisis.

The Kenyan artist Wangechi Mutu has been spearheading this new project, and her work, along with many others (Kehinde Wiley, Julie Mehretu, many more) will be auctioned off for charity. The African Medical and Research Foundation has been on the ground in Kenya helping for decades, and is a marvelous organization. Kenya's nobel laureate, Wangari Maathai, is sponsoring the event and will deliver taped greetings from Kenya. And of course, there will be live music, spoken word, photography, and great food and drink.

Internets Celebrities, Rafi Kam and Dallas Penn, have produced another web-gem. Their latest production "Checkmate" explores the proliferation of check-cashing stores in lower-income communities in New York. As usual Brooklyn serves as their tableau for this satirical-video-essay on the dimensions of inequality in New York.