Jackson Free Press

This is your resident satirist returning with another Reader's Guide to Ken Stiggers. Today, I want to share my thoughts behind "Ghetto Science Team," a term I frequently use in my column. Some folks might consider "Ghetto Science Team" to be an oxymoron, but the combination of those three words has a deeper meaning than what appears on the surface and makes a great statement.

For me, "Ghetto Science Team" echoes what educator W.E.B. Dubois wrote in 1903:

"The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education, then, among Negroes must first of all deal with the Talented Tenth; it is the problem of developing the Best of this race that they may guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the Worst, in their own and other races."

I could have used a general term like "The Ghetto's Talented Tenth"; however, "Ghetto Science Team" is better; it's an affirmation that says people from the ghetto are intelligent and can work together as a team. What seemed like a joke or play on words is actually a positive statement.

Therefore, the term "Ghetto Science Team"—inspired by Dubois' "Talented Tenth"—is a group of resourceful and intelligent men and women from the ghetto who make the best of financially challenged situations.

On the next Readers' Guide to Ken Stiggers, I'll explain why Lynne Cheney wrote poignant Standard English introductions for books written by members of the Ghetto Science Team.