By LaQuanda McNeil
Staff Writer
The Rose Black Resource Center is offering an eight-week course, “Black Minds Matter,” on issues African American men face in the classroom and society at large.
Professor J. Luke Woods will instruct the course from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays through Dec. 11. Each course is offered at a different LSU building location at Cal State Dominguez Hills.
“Black Minds Matter” is a course out of San Diego State University that raises national awareness about issues that African American boys and men face in education. The course focuses on the extensive devaluing and criminalization of black minds. Each class will include guest speakers, interviewees and video releases.
“I attended the ‘Black Minds Matter’ course after my class ended, and while I was only able to catch one interview, it was very powerful,” said Tanisha Saunders, a senior at CSUDH.
Saunders was able to listen in on an interview with a prominent civil rights leader discussing the tendency of society to lock up rather than educate young, black men.
“I was just in time to catch Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter, in an interview with San Diego State Professor Dr. Woods discussing the over-criminalization of young black males within schools and jails and prisons,” she said.
Saunders described a course that shines a light on issues black men face – in the classroom and in society.
“This course is a great opportunity for students, professors, professionals and the community to engage in in depth conversations about issues that affect young black men within our education system and society as a whole,” she said.
Some of the topics covered in the course include assumptions of criminality, linking black lives and black minds, and ascription of intelligence.
Seating is limited, and students are asked to arrive early. For information, please contact Jonathan Henderson, the project coordinator at the Rose Black Center, at: jhenderson@csudh.edu.
Registration for the Black Minds Matter course can be completed online at: jlukewood.com/bmm.
