Announcing "Strength through Diversity: Harlem Prep and the Rise of Multiculturalism"

I remember the day I stumbled upon Harlem Prep. It was 2012, and I was a young Masters student at Columbia University, on assignment for a professor at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. I had spent copious hours finding and then listening to oral histories of teachers in Harlem in the 1940s and 1950s. Tired from researching, I closed my notes and readied myself to the take subway home, except there was one more document in my stack—a DVD, actually—that I had not yet watched. It was not related to what I was researching; in fact, I did not know anything about it all. See, when I first entered the Schomburg Center, I asked the librarian if she had any tips about searching out oral histories of teachers during this specific time period. At the end of the conversation, she handed me a DVD that she thought might be useful to my research. All it said was “Step by Step: The Story of Harlem Prep” and a date of “1967” (which, I found out later, was not even correct)—no summary or creator information or anything more. Although I knew that it was not the right subject or time period I was researching, to be polite, I took it anyway and thanked her for her kind help.

So, at the end of the day, on a whim, I decided to pop in this mysterious DVD, just for a minute. What flashed before my eyes was a grainy documentary about a community school located in an old supermarket that educated students who had been “pushed out” of their previous schools. The humanity, the innovation, the energy, and the love of administrators, teachers, and students exploded through this little TV-screen in the corner of the Schomburg Center. I saw students in open-space classrooms talking about their dreams for a better life; I saw teachers engaging students through pedagogy soaked in cultural relevance and collaborative respect. And, I felt sudden jolts of inspiration for all that education could be—all that I have always wanted education to be. I left the Schomburg Center that day full of wonder, eager to learn more about this school—surely, there were books and plenty of research about this seemingly exceptional institution. Over the next few weeks, I scoured historical scholarship on Harlem and pop culture references, yet, no matter where I looked, there was nothing to be found. Other than a handful of blog posts by alumni, Harlem Prep’s historical record was astonishingly blank. As months went by, I began to think to myself that maybe it was my purpose as a scholar to try and do something to change that.

For the last eight years, I have had the pleasure of researching this school called Harlem Prep, trying to fill that historical void that I encountered back in 2012. Ever since that day at the Schomburg Center, it has been my goal to one day be able to share the story of Harlem Prep with the world, beyond the small circle of those who lived it. Over the years, I have had the great privilege of getting to know the beautiful members of the Harlem Prep family and to be able to hear their stories. My life has surely been changed by their generosity and kindness. In addition, I have been able to access thousands of documents about the institution and the people who created it, across different states. And, I was fortunate enough to be able to complete a nearly 600-page dissertation on the school in the pursuit of a Ph.D. That journey—in part, documented at uncoverharlemprep.com—was certainly a labor of love (and an undertaking in which I owe to the generosity of many people).

Today I am proud and earnest about embarking on a new journey—and in continuance of my initial goal—by humbly announcing that I have signed an advance book contract with Rutgers University Press. Although I know there is much work ahead, I am thrilled by the opportunity to help share the story of Harlem Prep with the world in book form. (And, don’t worry, the book will be significantly shorter than my dissertation!) Furthermore, I am happy to be in partnership with an institution like Rutgers and with editors whom similarly share my enthusiasm for this project. Fittingly, Harlem Prep also has a strong New Jersey connection—the school’s headmasters lived there and many alumni still do. Upon final approval, my book will be part of an exciting series: New Directions in the History of Education. Tentatively titled, Strength through Diversity: Harlem Prep and the Rise of Multiculturalism, my book will detail the life of this school—and the people inside of it—from 1967 to 1975, with a granular focus on the school’s multicultural philosophy. Over these seven years in which I write about, the school graduated and sent to college over 750 young people, almost all of whom had been out of school prior to attending Harlem Prep. While the book will certainly be a candid look at the institution, including details of its shortcomings, it also—I hope—will illustrate the enduring power of education.

As I think about bringing the story of Harlem Prep to a wider audience, I am reminded of how timely this story really is. For one, the kindness and love on display each day at Harlem Prep are qualities that are desperately needed inside schools—they are the bedrock of learning and engagement. Harlem Prep had those qualities in abundance, and this book, in part, will document the practical ways in which kindness and love manifested in the school’s make-shift classrooms and in the actions of its educators. I am confident that we can all learn from this example.

We can also look to Harlem Prep in terms of re-claiming multicultural education today. After all, our schools have also never been more diverse—and not just racially, ethnically, linguistically, and beyond, but also in terms of diversity of learning styles and needs. Classrooms are full of talented, inquisitive students who learn differently and who are full of unique life experiences. Harlem Prep’s entire educational philosophy was premised on the fact that this diversity was the school’s greatest asset. We must have a similar mindset today. As educators, we should rely on the beautiful diversity inside our classrooms and our institutions to be a guiding light—not just in theory or in empty rhetoric, but literally in every fact of the school. What does that look like? I believe that Harlem Prep provides a robust example for thinking about how to implement multiculturalism in the present.

Yet, thinking more broadly—and placing in context the uncertainly of our educational institutions during and then after this pandemic—never has it been more important, or more necessary, to re-imagine education. All across the country, the status quo of K-12 schools and colleges are being disrupted, with online classes and different modes of learning thrust upon educators, administrators, parents, and our students. Instead of forcing upon students certain curricula or pedagogy, we now must meet students where they are based on their access (or lack thereof) that they have to certain technologies, their various skillsets, and more than ever, the ways that they learn best. While 1967 or 1973 is certainly not 2020, Harlem Prep did something similar, even if in a different context: the school sought to personalize education to the students it was serving. Every student had been “pushed out” of his or her high school for a different reason, and students came to Harlem Prep with different abilities—there were no grades at Harlem Prep!—different living conditions, and vastly different ages (16 to 40+), politics, and lived experiences. Instead of being intimidated by the malleability that the school would have and be weighed down by constant fiscal uncertainty, Harlem Prep embraced flexibility in its pedagogy, policies, structure, grading, and more. Harlem Prep was able to foster the academic achievement of many hundreds of students in a turbulent 1960s and 1970s context. Although our present-day context presents a number of very different obstacles, in my opinion, we are still tasked with a similar challenge: to embrace flexibility and ultimately, to re-imagine teaching and student learning beyond the same methods that we have traditionally accepted in decades past. As we all envision new models of learning, perhaps we can seek inspiration from Harlem Prep’s example, too.

When I first “saw” Harlem Prep on that TV library screen school back in 2012, a majestic feeling rushed through me—it was a feeling of hope. As I spent hundreds of hours in the archives later on, reading the letters and memos of Harlem Prep administrators from fifty years ago, I felt a sense of wonder, as if I was peaking into a hidden narrative—both the achievements and the shortcomings—that too few people had ever known about it. And, every time that I had the great privilege of sitting down with an alumnus and bearing witness to his or her story, a wave of humility encapsulated me—even if, to be sure, not all stories ended in triumph. Tragedy is surely part of these individual stories and Harlem Prep overall, just as it is part of the human condition. Still, as I look to the past and now look to the future, it is my dream that when you read this book one day, you will not only feel inspired, but also feel that same sense of hope, wonder, and humility that I have, too.

Now, it’s time to go write!

-Barry

A Recommendation: “Love from the Vortex”

Dear family, friends, and dearest colleagues,

I hope this blog post find you safe and well in these uncertain and frightful times. Each day I feel weighed down by the growing sadness and pain I see, hear, and read about — from countries and peoples across the globe, to neighbors and community members down the street. The loss of jobs and livelihoods (and the immeasurable fear and anxiety as a result) combined with the seemingly unfathomable loss of life can be hard to comprehend. I know that it certainly is for me.

For those of you who know me, you know that I am an optimist by nature — it is, in my opinion, the only way to exist in these trying times. We have to believe (because of our pointed actions of course) that hope and justice is still around the corner, just waiting for the right moment to make its comeback. For now, although it seems that hope in the outside world has to be embargoed while we wait out these terrible circumstances, we can still find hope — and perhaps even healing — within ourselves and in others. I am writing to share with you how I recently read a book that brought out that hope in me.

Thus, I wanted to share with you and recommend this book by a dear mentor and brilliant scholar, professor Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz. This book, Love from the Vortex, is a remarkable book of poems that I encourage you to consider reading yourself. (You can purchase the book here through Amazon.com or directly through her publisher here.) Particularly at this time when we seem so far apart from each other — physical separation that has become the new normal — reading a book that put me closer in touch with myself and with my past relationships (and perhaps future ones, too) was powerful beyond words. Her poems were a temporary antidote — an escape at times — to all that I am feeling when I read the news, and I hope that it could be for you, too.

Below is my review of her book:

Love from the Vortex and Other Poems by Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz

A revelation; a courageous book of poems above life and love

Professor Sealey-Ruiz's book is, quite simply, a revelation—her book of poems will take you on a journey of self-discovery about what it means to love another person, to love yourself, and perhaps, most of all, what it means to be loved. Her prose is ethereal and evolving, just like her understanding of love does through the book. As I fell deeper and deeper into her world and her words, I found myself physically shaken and emotionally moved to such profound depths as I, too, pondered the complexity of all that love is.

 In structure, Sealey-Ruiz’s book is a series of poems that, in part, narrates six of her past relationships—each relationship a collective grouping of poems that, taken together, form a self-reflective journey of a person conceptualizing love, and then re-conceptualizing love over and over again as her understanding of love (and of herself) matures and changes. While Sealey-Ruiz’s poems are deeply personal, they are also deeply relatable—and I found myself intimately feeling her pain and her joy as I thought about my own relationships and my own life. The perpetual vulnerability in her words, the depth of her spirits which she courageously opens up to the reader, and the sheer rawness of her emotions jumped off the page and into my heart. I was able to feel her struggle with trying to understand something so magical and also so visceral—love—and the many ways in which love manifests in our relationships (and in ourselves). I was able to see how the meaning of love evolved to her as she herself grew as a person during her (still ongoing) life journey. And, by the end, I was left to contemplate how, above all, the meaning of life and the people we choose (or do not choose, on purpose or by fate) to share (or not share) this life with is tied up in how we understand what love is in the first place—and what it can be and what it is not. If we are to use the metaphor of love being like a rollercoaster, then Sealey-Ruiz takes you on an excursion through the pain, hurt, anger and loss caused by love, but also the joy, wonder, sheer bliss, and mysteriousness of being immersed in love, too.

 Overall, I highly recommend this breathtaking book of poems by Professor Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz.  The fact that this book is a deeply personal narrative of six past relationships is already an exceptionally daring act, and then to write with such beauty, poise, and vivacity adds to the significance of this feat. There are too many poems to pick my favorites; for example, in a poem entitled “Today,” Sealey-Ruiz movingly writes about how some of her more jubilant memories with a man will be wrapped, like presents, stored and taken away. In one of her longer poems across ten pages, entitled “A Moment of Remembering What Liberation Feels Like…” Sealey-Ruiz recounts in stirring prose a past relationship, and how the tension around motherhood (among other elements) with one particular lover leads her to seek freedom from their complicated past. Or, in her younger years narrated at the beginning of the book, she vividly describes how the power of love’s grasp can be dictated by small moments of physical affection in the poem “Your Touch.” And, at the end of the book, she also—if differently—elicits the ways in which recognizing the salience of the love she had to give within a relationship was in itself emancipating in the poem “Strength.” In all of the poems throughout the book, Sealey-Ruiz is a master wordsmith; personification, allegories, analogies, metaphors and rich imagery line the pages, often accompanied with black-and-white sketches that add additional wonder to her words. Even though my life experiences could not be more different than those of Sealey-Ruiz, there were moments when I read some of her poems and felt like closing my eyes, imagining that it was I in her shoes, trying to navigate her whirlwind—perhaps, her vortex—of emotions of love and life.

 In one of the final poems of the book, in an epilogue-like section of additional poems, Sealey-Ruiz writes that: “...words cannot define Love, words limit what Love can be. Love is what I wish to evolve into, what I imagine one day I can become.” Such words are a fitting summary of this majestic book: there are no words to describe the magnitude of this undertaking and the way in which reading this book will touch your soul like nothing else can.

Again, it is humbling to be able to share my recommendation and review of this book with the world. I hope it fills you with hope and, most of all, love, just as it did for me.

Explaining the Unexplainable: Loss of an Icon, the Loss of Ourselves

Like millions of people yesterday, I found myself visibly shaken. I felt disoriented, distraught, confused. When I heard the news that Kobe Bryant had tragically died in a helicopter crash, along with his 13-year old daughter Gianna, and seven other people in Calabasas, California, I felt such a deep sense of sadness that I had trouble comprehending it all.

I spent the entire day reminiscing about Kobe, eyes and mind glued to the coverage on ESPN, absorbing this tragedy over and over and over again. I watched the tears stroll down the cheeks of some of the world’s greatest athletes reflecting on Kobe; I read the poignant words of some of our most salient sportswriters share their memories of him. Hour after hour I consumed this media, grieving and feeling such a profound sense of loss. After hearing an ESPN anchor read Shaquille O’Neal’s tweet about Kobe, tears welled up in my eyes, too.

Why was I so sad? Why was I so distraught? Why did it feel like I lost a tiny part of me? These were the questions I kept asking myself. It didn’t make sense. He was not the first celebrity to die; not even, sadly, to die in such a tragic way. Yes, to be sure, Kobe was an extraordinary human. He was one of the greatest basketball players in the history of the NBA; a person who transcended sport, became a tireless advocate for women’s athletics, a rising storyteller in media and film, and by all accounts—and most importantly of all—a wonderful father to his daughters. (He was also, as I’ll get to, a very imperfect man.)

However, I am not a sportswriter—and the purpose of this essay, a form of personal therapy for me, is not really even about Kobe. It’s about us—about who we are and all that makes us human. In truth, while I idolized Kobe growing up as an athlete and found inspiration from him, I did not know Kobe Bryant any more than I did the other eight victims (including his daughter) who also died yesterday. It is a sad truth—the reality of a life where pain and suffering are core elements of the human experience—that we lose people all the time. Unspeakable and unexplainable tragedies litter our news feeds each day. And, the loss of life of the other victims on that helicopter are just as sad: husbands, wives, and children whose lives had just as much value as Kobe and his daughter. I could fill in the gap of any tragedy or loss of life that happens all around us, each moment. Why was this tragedy—the death of Kobe Bryant, a flawed athlete of all people—leaving such a personal impact on me on a scale that differed from these others? Why did I not feel this same magnitude of grief yesterday and in countless days prior for other tragedies that brought me a much more restrained sadness? I have often believed that who we choose to remember and cherish in our society—think: often famous people, and not the humanitarians who may in fact do copiously more good for the world—speaks volumes about our lack of priorities on the qualities that matter. Yet, here I was, mourning a famous athlete in ways that cut straight to my heart.

This awareness and internal questioning, and just my own consciousness about life and death stung me all day. So, I went to sleep last night, saddened by it all—and shaken by life’s preciousness and fragility—but hoping tomorrow, a new day, would bring more clarity to an event that made no sense. I hoped the new day would bring clarity both in terms of this particular tragedy for the nine lives lost, but even more so, in regards to why this event had shaken my inner foundation and the foundation of so many others that I saw in the loop of images around Los Angeles and around the world.

Yet, when I woke up this morning, that pang in my chest still remained. I still felt uncommonly morose; I still felt almost ill about Kobe Bryant, about this man I never even knew. And, in reality—and perhaps what I had known all along—was that, it was like I did know him after all. The reason why it hurt so bad, was, as Bill Plaschke poignantly wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “gone, too, is a little bit of all of us.” He could not be more right.

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As many of you know, I sometimes try to write about the complexities and purposes of life—I think we all ponder about these elements, at some level, consciously and unconsciously. It’s been a while but in the past, I have written about the importance of always dreaming, the power of kindness, the essentialness of love, about the death of a loved one, and the need to cherish life’s little moments (a timely sentiment in light of this horror). And, after thinking about Kobe’s death and why I was so crushed—and why it was not just me, but my students in class today, millions of working-class people in Los Angeles, and people all around the world with no connection to this famous athlete—I realized that it is because Kobe represented inspiration, personal satisfaction, relentlessness, and joy. He represented the qualities that define not the cruelness of our humanity, but the goodness of it.

What else is life than striving to experience joy? Than to hope to experience love and personal satisfaction? To find inspiration for living? To those that followed him, Kobe was that to all of us. We, somehow, someway—perhaps not even knowing it—looked to this person in ways that answered all of these questions about what we are all looking for each day. We saw Kobe do it in his singular fashion: the patented scowl, the unending relentlessness, the unique swagger. It was simply mesmerizing to watch. He made people believe in themselves and in others—and that’s no small feat! The championships he brought to Los Angeles were certainly exciting—I remember where I was the moment when he won them for the city. He gave the people of L.A.—again, a diverse, often disconnected and disjointed city—hope and a strong sense of unity. This joy and excitement was real and I have always believed in the power of sport.

Yet, the real reason why his loss has led to such emptiness is because Kobe was more than these things and his accolades. For all of the glitz and glamour of Los Angeles, at its core—like any place—its working-class people trying to do the best they can. (As ESPN’s Ramona Shelbourne said: You cannot tell the story of Los Angeles without Kobe Bryant.) Kobe epitomized that working spirit. The physical and mental anguish he would put himself through was truly legendary. To hear the stories of his workouts, the personal tribulations that he underwent to be great, his singular focus on his craft—and the way in which he went about his work with such meticulous detail—was actually stuff of legends. And, in this way, his impact on people was not about the championships at all—in fact, it never was. His ethos, his spirit, his demeanor represented more. The people of Los Angeles related to that. I related to that—I’m not even sure I knew it at the time. Every person who watched Kobe strove to be “the Kobe Bryant” of whatever was meaningful to his or her life: “the Kobe Bryant” of his or her profession or “the Kobe Bryant” of reaching a certain goal. (Fittingly, John Altobelli and his wife and daughter, who were just as tragically and horrifically lost in the crash, was described by a colleague as “the Kobe Bryant of junior college baseball,” changing the lives of hundreds of athletes and young men over his remarkable 30-year career. That short phrase said all there was to say about the type of person and coach that he was.) It was not that people wanted to “be” Kobe—a refrain that is common with regards to many celebrities—but that, instead, people wanted to be the best version of themselves because of Kobe. And he did that, creating a whole ethos—“Mamba Mentality”—of what being so relentless to improve a certain craft looked like in actuality. He was like our Rocky—but he was real. It is these reasons why one of my dearest former students, someone who grew up in L.A., left her cherished high school jersey at his memorial as a way to pay her respects to someone who not only inspired her play basketball, but to strive for greatness. When she told me this, I understood her pain—I understand why this was what she had to do to grieve someone who had such a momentous impact on her life. The way he resonated with so many people was truly unprecedented—I’m not sure we’ve ever seen an athlete transcend sport with the level of breadth and depth that he did, particularly in L.A. I’m not sure we ever will again. At the same time, for me personally, I acknowledge the irrationality of feeling this emotional connection to a person I have never met. It’s silly, even. I know that. And I keep telling myself that. But, yet, I can’t seem to shake why I was so moved to tears by his passing.

It is this short impromptu interview by a fan at Staples Center last night that sums up Kobe’s impact—real, rational, or not—about inspiring us, normal people you could say, to be the best we can be:

This was perfectly, authentically stated #KobeBryant pic.twitter.com/na3RlDqAM0

— Jeff Pearlman (@jeffpearlman) January 26, 2020

Still, we also loved Kobe and could relate to him because of his flaws—and mostly, because he grew from them. Kobe was very imperfect. From his sexual assault case to his on-court homophobic slur to his chastisement of his teammates, Kobe made many mistakes. He was complicated and it does his legacy no favors to gloss over these moments in his life. But we all make mistakes (even if, admittedly, not always to that same magnitude). And, like we all should do (but too often do not), Kobe learned from them. He apologized, acknowledged, and worked, internally and through self-education, to became a better person—constantly learning and growing. Marc Lamont Hill, a professor who knew Kobe well (and ironically, someone I once played a memorable game of pick-up basketball with at Columbia University), writes eloquently about this part of Kobe that we all, too, could relate to. For all his mythic qualities, he was so deeply human, too. And perhaps it is his untimely death that makes him the most human of all—because it is his death that makes us question our own lives: what we live for, why we live, how we can be the best we can be, and, how, when, and why we choose to feel when we do, rational or not.

In conclusion, I am certainly not the first person to state these thoughts about Kobe Bryant. The seemingly countless poignant tributes by talented writers who knew Kobe and followed his life arc can say more about him infinitely better than I ever could. But, beyond accessing or celebrating (or critiquing) Kobe’s legacy, is my interrogation of how I have struggled to comprehend this nine-person tragedy (and the daily tragedies around us): why literally the whole world—and myself—has been in constant mourning over this one athlete. (As Michael Wilbon tweeted tonight: “we are all underestimating the enormity of Kobe’s death on an international level.”)

And, so, life is so messy. And death is even more so. To mourn somebody like Kobe’s death is complicated in the scope of life and constant tragedies all around us, some we know of, many more that we do not. The fact that we mourn tragedies differently hurts. It’s unfair. It’s painful. Perhaps it’s not right—perhaps it’s even wrong. I acknowledge this. I struggle with it. I am deeply confused by my feelings of sustained pain for Kobe’s death. But what I can say is that it is these feelings, this constant battle to understand it all, that make us so authentically human—and Kobe’s life, and the way he lived, and maybe even tragically the way that he so cruelly died—represented these feelings perhaps better than anybody than I have gotten to “know” in my (and I suspect others’) lifetime. This is why, to me, his death hurts so much. It gets at multiple layers of feelings—about ourselves—that are deeply uncomfortable and raw.

Ultimately, all I can say is that, to me, Kobe’s death illustrates the depths of our human experience of living. The unfairness of it: the sheer cruelty of his death, his daughters’ death, the death of the families with him. Conversely, his death also highlights why we live: to be inspired, to work relentlessly at our craft and to be the best we can, to find joy in life’s moments of laughter and cheer. And, the unexplainable confusion of why we mourn so heavily for one person we only know from a TV screen in a world where we are constantly surrounded by see-able tragedy. If you are having trouble coming to grips with all these things—for why you feel this puzzling emptiness about Kobe’s untimely passing like I do or maybe even the guilt about feeling so—perhaps because it all embodies the enigma of life, the answers we do not have, the feelings we cannot quite explain. I certainly do not have answers for all of these questions—or the proper way to reflect about Kobe, about the other victims, about (another) shooting in our neighborhoods. You are not alone in feeling this sense of loss—this confusing, pain-staking sense of loss that does not, and perhaps will not, ever make sense.

Through another night of reflection—and, yes, re-watching the joy and awe of his athletic prowess and gutty performance of his 60-point final NBA game—is that it must be okay to feel this way. It is us striving to be the best version of ourselves by reflecting, probing our hearts and souls, and trying to find meaning in a world where that meaning can seem so unclear. After all, it’s what Kobe did every day: strive to be his absolute best and inspire others. In his memory, I ask of myself—and of you—to try and always do the same.

A Birthday Post: Dreaming of a Currency of Dreams

It's my 30th birthday today -- oh my! -- and as I reflect on this point on my life, I keep coming back to one thing: the concept of dreams. No, I don't mean fuzzy dreams in our sleep, but our life dreams -- dreams that guide us, inspire us, keep us on the right moral path. I have been thinking a lot about dreams lately because the last few months, I have had the great fortunate of being a part of two different sides of dreams, in different eras, and in different ways.

On one hand, each day, I write about Harlem Prep: a community school in Harlem, New York, from 1967 to 1974, that was all about supporting dreams. I've been learning about the dreams of these "students" -- now adults and community elders who continue to add love to those around them, while others, who have gone too soon, made their own indelible imprints on the world. These former students had all been pushed out of school and onto the streets -- "dropouts" and "unfit for learning" they were referred to as. Yet, the remarkable teachers and administrators at Harlem Prep rightfully saw through this slander and prejudice, and during the school's seven years of existence, more than 700 young people who had been out of school had now crossed the graduation stage and their dreams were re-set into motion.

Having the opportunity to tell this unknown story about the beautiful people at this school -- about so many dreams -- is beyond humbling. It was the dream of a better life that kept every student going despite unfathomable hardship and injustice. As the story of Harlem Prep proves, dreams are immensely powerful. They are innate. They are everywhere. They are everyone.

On other days, when I am not writing, I have been working with first year community college students -- and am the witness of their powerful dreams, as well ... but in a slightly different way. Their dreams are still in progress. Their dreams have yet to be fulfilled. Their dreams, on a granular level, are in my hands (and those of educators throughout the college). To be a part of someone's life in that capacity -- to have the agency to help a young person reach his or her dreams -- is overwhelming. I feel that gravitas when I speak with alumni who had their dreams rescued by caring educators, and I feel it deep in my veins when I, myself, am trying to do the same for the young people who look to me for inspiration and guidance (or, perhaps, just a little help on an essay). These moments are sacred and they are special, and each day I am humbled to be a position where I can make an impact on someone's dream.

And then, finally, I have been thinking about my dreams -- not the dreams of past individuals or the dreams of students  -- but my dreams, at this sort-of-young-but-not-that-young point in my life. I have many dreams that ebb and flow on a never ending basis, involving many people, and I so deeply hope that I have the opportunity to reach some of them so that I can help others reach theirs.

In all this thinking about dreams -- and in reflecting on my 30 years of life and the (hopefully) many more years ahead -- I realized that dreams remain one of this world's most compelling commodities (and something that cannot be bought or sold). They are not just "for kids" or a silly vestige of our younger selves. And they are not to discarded, or to be thought of lightly. Conversely, they are our moral compass. Real dreams are soaked in goodness; they invoke humility and kindness. In my opinion we must reclaim our dreams or reach for new ones, for they are what make us human. They are what make us whole. When we lose sight of our dreams -- and that includes our dreams for others, perhaps the most powerful dreams of all -- we lose ourselves. When we stop dreaming, we stop living -- we are stopped from being the best that we can be.

Over the course of my life thus far where I have lived in three very different places (and four if you count Cape Town, South Africa!), I have never met a person -- a child, an adolescent, an adult, an elder -- who doesn't have some sort of dream: a dream for themselves, a dream for others, a dream for the world. Dreams are the world's currency. If kindness is (or, should be, at least) the world's universal language, and love the building block of all human life, then dreams are the way we can understand and emphasize with each other. Every person on Earth has dreams -- and we, as a society, and as an individuals, must be in the business of supporting these dreams. And by dreams, I do not mean goals; they are related, but not the same. A goal is "an aim or purpose of action." A dream, however, is a "vision" for life: for what we hope for, how we strive to live, for how we believe the world (and people in it) should be. Like the more ethereal parts of life, dreams are deeply embedded in our souls. We cannot always describe them accurately, but we can feel them move every fiber of our body when they are present.

Thus, dreams come in all shapes and sizes, big and small, and motivate people in vastly different -- but all equally valid -- ways. Some people help others reach their dreams, like teachers or social workers. Some people sustain dreams or make them more accessible, like accountants, lawyers, or city planners. Some people even save or rescue dreams, such as doctors or firefighters. Some people build dreams (and impact other peoples' dreams along the way), like entrepreneurs and business folks. And, all people protect the dreams of family and friends -- and have their own.

Ultimately, when we are young we are told to "reach for our dreams," perhaps playfully, and not too seriously. But when we are older, we are told to table our dreams, to cast them aside as impossible fantasy. To be sure, dreams do not always come true ... perhaps they usually do not. I am not naive to the harsh reality that our circumstances affect our ability to reach our dreams: our finances, our abilities (or lack thereof), systemic inequality in countless facets of society, or just plain bad luck. After all, life can be really hard (and as a result, we must cherish the small moments of joy each day). But, just because our dreams do not always come true as we envisioned them, does not mean we should stop dreaming. In my (at times) tumultuous journey to a Ph.D., my dreams have seemingly been shattered or placed out of reach -- or so I thought. And, surely, some of these dreams have had to be adjusted as I have gotten older and the realities of adulthood have taken hold. Others were not dreams at all, more professional goals or personal aims. But to dream, to really dream, is an action -- a way of being -- that can never be taken away if we so choose. Dreams keeps me going. They gives me hope. They fill me with promise, unclaimed or not.

Coming full circle, my goal -- no, my dream -- for the next 30 years of my life is to try and help others' dreams come true. Those of my parents, my wife-to-be, my nephews and brother, my family, my friends, and hopefully, if I can reach my goal of being a professor, of my future students. After 30 years of living, I certainly do not have any more insight on understanding what life is about or the secret to happiness or to any of life's biggest questions. (Sometimes I feel like I know less each year!) But I do know that like love, like kindness, life selflessness, dreams -- ours and others -- play at least a partial role in figuring it all out.

I've reached 30, and I am so, so very thankful for more than I can describe. And, although I've certainly had setbacks on this life journey so far, I realize that I have to keep dreaming. I hope you -- no matter what  -- keep dreaming, too.

With love and endless gratitude,

-Barry

"Love is Real, Real is Love"

Last week I went “home”—or, at least, my Los Angeles home—to visit my mom who broke her wrist and then her foot recently. (Bad luck, I know, but she will bounce back, as she’s the strongest person I know. Or, as Shakespeare once said, "Though she be but little, she is fierce!") We spent a lot of time together, and in the final day of my trip, we pulled out the three remaining boxes of my old school work, dusted them off, and peaked inside. I don’t often spend time thinking about the past (and can’t remember the last time, if ever, I’ve opened up those boxes); I feel as if people are much too often consumed by the moments of yesteryear—both those heartwarming and those heartbreaking. I’m a fervent believer that we must live in the present, for as if there is one thing that we all know for certain is that time only moves in one direction.

But, once in a while, it’s nice to look back. Looking at our past can tell us who we are and where we’ve been, and where we must go. It can remind us of important ideas or concepts that we should continue to think deeply about in our future days. For me, in this instance, it was love.

As I perused those boxes I realized that there was a lot of love—love that made me who I am today and, as I look forward to my upcoming marriage (and hopefully kids not long after), who I want to be. It was overflowing with so much love. I was, and still am, beyond fortunate to have been surrounded with so much love, a nod to a poem my brother once wrote at my grandparents' 45th anniversary many years ago.

There was one letter in particular in these boxes that caught my eye that mentioned love: a letter that I wrote to my former high school principal almost a decade ago. In this letter I thanked him for all he did on the eve of my graduation, and how I constantly thought about one phrase he would repeat that the principal before him would always say:

Driven by dreams, inspired by love.

I’ve always agreed with this statement—it’s powerful, poignant, admirable even. But, this message got me thinking. I actually think it’s the other way around:

Inspired by dreams, driven by love.

I feel as if the prospect of maybe one day reaching our dreams is what inspires us to act—whether those dreams are big, small, or somewhere in between, whether professional or personal. Healthily, we all aspire to different life dreams, dreams that are adjusted as the realities of the world seep into our veins in each subsequent stage of our lives. Yet, it is love that drives our ambitions to reach those dreams; in fact, it is love that drives every single human, in every facet of life. Every thing we do in life is, on some level, because of or for love. Stripped down to the core of our motivations, it is why we go to work each day: out of love to provide for our family and friends (or our own life). Or, for some, love for a profession—we operate out of a love for a product we are building, a company we are growing, a book we are writing. For the best of us, love for our neighbor or a person less fortunate. Love takes infinite forms, and can be applied to infinite people—to friends, mentors, family, co-workers, and strangers.

My point is this: we often speak of love as if it’s some idealistic notion, something imagined or something we strive for out of optimism or some other ethereal feeling. But I’ve come to the conclusion that love is not any less “real” than other things deemed more “real” in society such as intelligence—something humans have constantly tried to measure in people (unsuccessfully and incompletely, in my opinion). Just because we cannot fully quantify love does not negate its existence, or its practicality. If kindness is, in my mind, one of the most important characteristics a person can possess, love is a “thing” that, while uniquely different and malleable for each individual, it is not only the foundation of lives but the glue to our society.

Take this recent example about the shootings by police officers and on police officers in various cities the last few months that have received high media coverage. In an article on the conservative blog RedState.com—yes, I do read a wide variety of news outlets!—the author in part discusses the social contract between individuals in society that are taken for granted. He writes (with my emphasis in bold):

Here's the reality that we don't often talk about - that societies are held together less by laws and force and threats of force than we are by ethereal and fragile concepts like mutual respect and belief in the justness of the system itself.

In America, there are 376 police officers per 100,000 citizens - or one police officer per every 266 citizens. Stop and think about that. Could every police officer in America maintain order over 266 unruly people who had no respect for him or the badge he wields? Absolutely not. The only thing that makes the situation even a little bit tenable is that the vast majority of people never think about confronting or challenging a police officer, and instead get up each day with the commitment to live their lives peacefully and lawfully, because they believe a) that they live in a society that is basically just and b) they believe that the few policemen who do exist will be there to protect them if something goes wrong and c) they have faith, by and large, that if someone commits a crime against them, they will be caught and punished.

Think, though, about what happens when these invisible bonds that are the most important part of maintaining law and order begin to dissolve - especially within a given subcommunity.

Of course, the article was written at the height of these events, and the urgency of the author’s prose is noticeable. He goes on to explain how when one group, such as Black citizens, rightly feel as if the (justice) system is broken—feelings that are backed up by decades of statistics about lack of police indictments, more frequent subjection to force, higher likelihood to be killed, serving longer criminal sentences, and so on (not to mention decades of discriminatory policies in housing, education, the workplace, etc.)—then society breaks down. Here, the problem is not just the crime, but that the crime too often goes unpunished—the system fails to work as it should. It’s a thoughtful (if imperfect), accessibly written article and I highly recommend reading it.

However, I bring up this article not to discuss the author's main conversation on the pertinent issues of race in America here—as central as they are and as passionate as I am about them—or about police brutality from a white, suburban perspective, but of the author’s suggestion that what holds society together is not only laws (or police officers, for that matter) but mutual understandings of respect and human decency. However, I would take this tangential idea and go one step further: love also holds our society together via this same notion, and has even greater potential. It drives our daily lives, and those around us—both strangers and friends—to do “good” every day. Quite simply, a world devoid of love is a world devoid of order—a world of chaos and indifference. Recognizing the realness of love, however that love manifests is essential to not just personal happiness, I believe, but an important step in making society better.

Of course, love is not the simple solution to our many world problems. It won’t alone solve the deep legacy of racism, the complicated hazards of terrorism, or the existential threat of climate change nor will it fix the challenges of globalization or the increasing economic inequality, for example. We certainly need tangible and smart, research-driven policy. However, I do believe love is where it all starts; it is an essential vital ingredient. And this is where the clichéd saying of the "power of love" rings true. To me, love has always felt so "real"—I have emotions that I may not be able to measure, but they are so potent that they physically move me to tears or to laughter, or to get up early on Saturday morning to put in a few extra hours of work (or to write this blog!).

Yet, to be sure, because love is so powerful, we must also refrain from using love as a shield for hate—as a justification for loving ourselves or someone close to us just to mask our conscious (or unconscious) prejudice for others. We all have equal claim to love and to being loved, and acting on love in a way that prevents others from doing the same is not love at all.

I think it goes without saying that we all understand to love to be the world’s common language—it has no discrimination, no preference, no barriers. We all love. We all seek to be loved. And it is this love that drives us each day that we should recognize when interacting with others or writing policy with regards to our fellow woman and man. It is love, in partnership with mutual respect and kindness, that keeps civilization together (and the lack of it that has the potential to tear us apart). And so, we must be driven by love, not by hate, fear, apathy, or indifference. Every thought and every action, must be driven by love. Using love as a guide in each action and each thought will then not only enrich our own lives, as we all well know, but, cement stronger bonds between the invisible forces—or, as the author above writes, the “fragile concepts” of things like mutual respect—that keep our society functioning. To me, we must bolster these fragile concepts that make the world "work," wrapping them with an undying love for everything we do, in everyone we meet, in everything we are.

Coming full circle, I pledge to not speak blindly about love, as if its to broad or an imaginary idealistic force. I want to recognize its true power, not just in thought, but figure out how it works in practice. And, so, let’s not just be inspired by love, but let us be driven by it—let it guide us—as we navigate life. We must reclaim the potential of love and recognize that a life without love is not only a life without meaning, but a world without love is a world without reason, a world without order. Some of the most extraordinary people who walked this Earth spoke about love—MLK, Einstein, Mother Theresa, to name a few. I think they knew what they were talking about.