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therethinkers · 5 years ago

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what to the black student is your 4th of july: end modern day lynching

His body was found off the waters of the Mississippi River. Beaten, bruised, and lifeless. On March 8th, 2018, 14-year-old Ja’Sean Williams was lynched by the St. Bernard Parish Police. In the darkness of the winter night, running for his life, Ja’Sean used his last few breaths to plea for help.

JaSean William’s lynching reminds us that the origins of policing are not separate and disconnected from the legacy of chattel slavery in the United States. From slave patrols to Texas Rangers, and later the Ku Klux Klan, Black bodies have always been controlled, exploited, and regulated by caste systems upheld by white supremacy. For Black youth, policing and racialized police violence has never been a distant truth -- the majority of fugitive enslaved Africans, and their descendents, who were hunted by slave patrols and Federal marshals were Black youth between the ages of 13-29 who were seeking freedom.

Emancipation for Who?

After the so-called Emancipation of Black people, the system of slavery shifted and adjusted to maintain white systems of power. Racial terror lynchings peaked after Emancipation and during Reconstruction as a tactic to publicly terrorize and torture Black people into submission. These acts of of white terror were largely tolerated, and often sanctioned, by local municipalities and the Federal Government. Ja’Sean’s lynching as well as many other lynchings of black and brown youth are part of the legacy of racial terror and state violence in Louisiana. Between 1877 and 1950, over 540 Black people were lynched in the state, with over 4075 nationwide. These extrajudicial punishments are mostly seen by humanity to be unethical, since they bypass the due process of the legal jurisdiction in which they occur. Extrajudicial killings often target leading political, trade union, dissident, religious, and social figures and are only those carried out by the state government or other state authorities like the armed forces or police, as extra-legal fulfillment of their prescribed role.Five hundred and forty people executed without trial to uphold white supremacy and maintain segregation. Black families were devastated, our communities were broken, and many fled looking for a safety that does not exist in America.

Seventy years later, the system of yesterday remain. From our classrooms and school hallways to our neighborhood blocks and city streets, Black people are under attack. Everyday a Black person in New Orleans is lynched. Everyday, a Black person in St. Bernard Parish is terrorized by white power structures that leave them gasping for air. Everyday, a Black youth in Jefferson Parish is brutalized at the hands of school police. Black people are fugitives in their own cities, looking for sanctuary.

If we understand school policing of be an extension of the theories, strategies, and tactics of the violent policing in our communities, then we cannot separate school policing from slavery.

School police patrol, surveil, detain, arrest and brutalize Black youth into submission. They socialize Black youth into domination. All tolerated, and often sanctioned, by schools and school districts. For Black youth, learning means learning to stay in your place. When Black youth have our schools taken from us, when Black youth are beaten and assaulted in our hallways, and when Black youth are murdered - this white supremacist, patriarchal, sexist status quo remains set.

State Violence: Same Shh... Different Day

The nooses around our necks take new forms -- Police patrolling our communities, state sanctioned violence.

Police assaulting us in schools, state sanctioned violence. Metal detectors in schools, state sanctioned violence.

Forced to walk in lines and eat in silence, state sanctioned violence.

Being maced unconscious for protesting police assaults, state sanctioned violence.

Expulsions with no explanation, state sanctioned violence.

School privatization and closures, state sanctioned violence.

Being called an animal by a school board members, state sanctioned violence.

Curfews laws, state sanctioned violence. Surveillance, state sanctioned violence.

Food deserts, state sanctioned violence.

Home evictions, state sanctioned violence.

Displacement and gentrification, state sanctioned violence.

We Charge Mentacide

In the spirit and tradition of Ida B. Wells, we began to document, report on, and respond to acts of racialized violence by school police. In 2015, a student-recorded video of 16 year-old Black girl from Columbia, South Carolina being placed in a headlock, flipped over in her desk, then dragged across a classroom by a school police officer went viral. She was a student at Spring Valley High School. Many students bowed their heads down in fear, while others pulled out their own phones to record. Niya Kenny, 17, did the latter. Both Niya and Shakara were arrested, sent to juvenile detention, and charged with ‘disturbing school function,’ a South Carolina state statute carrying a penalty of $1000 fine or a possible 90 day jail sentence. There was a national outcry. For many, the video was shocking. But for the young people and youth organizers in the Alliance, it was a confirmation of what they already knew: police do not belong in schools. The #AssaultAtSpringValley exposed a long legacy of racialized police terror and state sanctioned violence in schools and launched the national fight for #PoliceFreeSchools. More and more student-recorded videos of police assaults in schools began circulating through news channels, articles, and social media.Tracing these assaults back to 2009 and assessing the lack of accountability on the side schools and police departments, moved us to take the political position that we must dismantle school policing and the white power structures that uphold it.

We must be a commitment to fulfilling the education vision of Rethinker George Carter iii, who envisioned schools with mood detectors, instead of metal detectors, schools with strawberry gardens instead of suspension rooms. We will never achieve this liberatory vision with police in our schools and police terrorizing our neighborhoods.

Police in schools is a vestige of slavery and racial terror lynchings.

Maria C. Fernandez, Advancement Project Jonathan Stith, Alliance for Educational Justice

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therethinkers · 7 years ago

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therethinkers · 8 years ago

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get out: black educator edition (new orleans schools)

by a black educator in new orleans | pen name barbara jean wells

The 2015-2016 school year was easily the most traumatic work year of my adult life. I was a teacher at an alternative high school in New Orleans, a job very similar to one I left in Philadelphia. Alternative schools are intended to address the pushout crisis by creating spaces for students who have not found success in traditional schooling environments. Sometimes this is simply because they need a smaller environment than those provided by traditional schools. Sometimes it’s because they are the kids who have dropped out or been pushed out of the charters that claim to be educating ALL of our kids. Sometimes they are kids in the justice system, or young parents caring for children of their own. The possibilities are endless. It’s a population that I am very comfortable with, having worked in alternative education for a few years and also one that I care deeply about because of the unique challenges and struggles that come with serving youth.

Despite my passion for, and comfort with, alternative education, last year led me to question the very foundation that I had built my career as an educator on. I cried a lot, emoted on facebook, journaled during professional development meetings, frequented happy hours with other educator-friends and soaked it all away over margaritas paired with chips, and salsa (yes, we’ll need another pitcher). I worked out for self-care, got a therapist to maintain balance, and dug into my yoga practice to begin meditating regularly. I did the usual things one does when they’ve got a stressful job.

When those folks are teachers, all of the above are done with student stories sprinkled in between. Exasperating, funny, touching, and annoying moments with kids that make the job everything that it is. But when my coworkers and I went out to vent about a stressful day, the kids weren't the main topic of conversation. We talked about them, sure, but much more of our dialogue was spent on how racism played out in the daily grind of our work as educators. We vented about administrators whose savior complexes were evident in the very way they spoke to and about students. We talked about how meager the expectations were of our low-income, predominately Black kids. We talked about the lack of ability for our white coworkers to even acknowledge the life differences between themselves and their students, so great was their desire to be colorblind. And more than anything, we talked about how the behaviors that spawned from these beliefs about Black kids and the communities they came from indicated the same age-old (and, well… racist) idea that our students should not be expected to excel.

What I realized halfway through this school year was that my desire to center Blackness in the classroom, to help my students unlearn most of the things that the media told them about themselves, still had to be done within a racist system. Perhaps this isn’t shocking to folks of color who are teachers, but after 9 years in the profession, the realization hit me like a ton of bricks. The progress I felt like I was making in the classroom with my students was directly counteracted frequently by other staff members in the building: those who looked down on them, made wild assumptions about their lives based on stereotypical views of Black communities, and centered conversations about the kids on their academic deficits more than anything else.

So what exactly did this look like on a day-to-day basis?

Extreme white saviorism

For starters, the level of white saviorism was intense. In this alternative school setting it translated to exceedingly low expectations of students and their futures. In one staff meeting, a white teacher claimed that it was actually a great thing if students ended up working at local grocery stores after graduating because at least, “they weren’t in the streets shooting each other up.” Others nodded along in agreement.

The idea that they were essentially “saving” kids from themselves and the communities around them drove some staff members to befriend kids rather than encourage their academic or personal development. One white teacher whose actions were particularly infuriating, let’s call him Mr. Frank, taught special education students who struggled behaviorally and academically. In this setting, it meant his class was full of the Black boys who could not sit still. Students dubbed it the place you go to “listen to music and eat snacks.” In meetings, Mr. Frank spoke openly and often about all the academic tasks he felt like students were incapable of even trying. These ideas help to explain some of the trash that passed for rigor in his classroom. He let students print Wikipedia pages and paste them to trifolds for final project work. He excused them from completing assignments and rarely failed kids regardless of what their effort or attendance looked like. Instead of encouraging academic growth in any meaningful way, he took kids to the store, bought them food, and handed out money. Let’s pause here, because many of these things sound incredibly sweet when done by a family member or friend. And yes, relationships are super important when teaching. But building them isn’t the ONLY part of teaching. As educators we focus on building relationships with kids in order to better TEACH them. To do this we have to actually believe in their intellectual capabilities enough to push for their academic growth. Mr. Frank didn’t see the second part of the equation as important though. He thought so little of the kids’ intelligence that there was no urgency in actually teaching them. He was there to be nice to them. To call them his “boys.” To make friends.

Mr. Frank’s existence as a 60-something year old white man didn’t stop him from greeting Black kids as the n-word and jokingly calling a young woman a “ratchet ass bitch” in front of a group of males in order to get a laugh from them. In previous years before I had arrived to the school, Mr. Frank had a co-teacher who was a gay trans man. When students in his class had been verbally assaulting, and in one instance physically taunting the co-teacher, Mr. Frank simply ignored the situation. He claimed his co-teacher needed to make better relationships with the kids, instead of using the teachable moment to encourage students to confront their blatant homophobia and transphobia. It would not have been easy. But actual, true teaching never is.

Over the course of my year there, it became clear that Mr. Frank’s class was a fun holding cell. Its sole purpose was to have somewhere to put kids. And with the low expectations and easy grades, it wasn’t difficult to see how the desire to be a savior to his idea of poor, broken, Black kids translated to the goal of befriending his students rather than teaching them.

the following is a snapshot of interviews with teachers and students about their experience.

The privileging of white voice/ opinion

Outside of Mr. Frank’s outrageous everyday actions, another obvious indicator of racism in our workplace was the constant approval of white opinion and the subsequent shutting down of voices of color. One white teacher who was covering a Black educator’s classroom told students that their definition of racism, one that recognizes that all whites receive benefits and privileges from systems of white supremacy, was wrong because it made white people uncomfortable. He justified his assertion by coolly stating that he could speak to the issue because his partner was mixed race.

Over the course of the year, several teachers of color had complained about Mr. Frank’s behavior, specifically about their discomfort with him using the n-word and how his decision to do so made the workplace feel unsafe. They were told several times, “He has his methods.” Early in the year, a young Black woman was hired as his co-teacher but didn’t last in his classroom a month before needing to be placed with another educator. She expressed to me that he often seemed unprepared to teach and when she asked for lesson plans or outlines, she was scolded. He told her, “You don’t ask questions. I’ve been doing this for years. I’m the surgeon, you’re the assistant.” When she went to the principal with complaints of being treated condescendingly, she was reprimanded for causing trouble and made to sign a contract stating that she would never discuss Mr. Frank with other teachers while on the school premises.

Later in the year, when I tried to organize a meeting with a few teachers of color to talk about how best to deal with a white man calling Black kids the N-word, and brainstorm coping strategies for the growing list of racial microaggressions at work, I was called into the principal’s office for a meeting with her and the dean. Some folks suspected that someone had ratted me out and brought the principal the information. Others insisted that she regularly read staff emails. Either way, in the meeting I was made to apologize for my unprofessional behavior, despite the fact that I had previously addressed the principal with my concerns and was dismissed without any promise of further action.

All these instances taught an easy lesson. Other teachers of color and I quickly learned that if you had issues with how white teachers treated you, you kept your mouth shut. If you questioned how certain practices and behaviors were impacting students of color, you kept your mouth shut. And if you wanted to address issues of microgressions that made the workplace toxic, you didn’t discuss it at work in hopes of bringing about change. You went to happy hour with people you trusted and cried.

Valuing Intention over Impact

One of the major things that became apparent to me during my time at this school was how heavily white people who made the workspace uncomfortable leaned on their good intentions. Because everyone meant well, because everyone could couch their behaviors in the altruistic deed of educating Black kids with huge academic gaps, they did not seem to mind if their actions had negative impacts on coworkers of color or even the Black children they were supposed to be serving. When I realized this about my boss and coworkers, I began to see how strongly whiteness seeks to protect itself in schools. Everything from Mr. Frank’s “methods,” to teachers doing work for students they didn’t deem capable, to oft-expressed colorblind sentiments that white teachers used to make connections between themselves and the kids, were excused and never questioned because the people who did or said them “meant well.” It didn’t matter what impact this had on the kids and it sure as hell didn’t matter how it made staff members of color in the school feel.

It was around this time that I began to draw connections between law enforcement and education systems in this country. I knew from the many instances of cops who got off for murdering unarmed Black men and women, that whiteness in their institution also tended to protect itself. And much like with law enforcement, the issues that exist in education aren’t addressed as system-wide problems indicative of attitudes and biases towards people of color. Instead we discuss the few bad apples. In the education field, this means the teachers who DON’T care at all. They are essentially, the teachers with ill intent.

The problem with this approach is that most all white folks, teachers and otherwise, never see themselves as bad apples. They know that they mean well so they assume that they couldn’t possibly be a part of the problem. At this alternative school, the white folks who caused a great deal of the microaggressions could barely hear us decrying their actions and language. I imagine because our complaints were drowned out by the sound of them patting themselves on their backs every day for their hard work.

Recently, I read a headline that announced that percentages of Black teachers in the classroom have fallen drastically in the past few years. I didn’t bother reading the article because I felt like the wounds from last year were a little too raw for me to willingly subject myself to stories about why others like me may have been driven off. Halfway through the year when I was processing the notion of the education system being corrupt and failing to serve Black and Brown students, I posted a rant on Facebook. In it, I reflected on nearly 9 years in the education field and the experiences it took to get there. I specifically recalled going to grad school with people who made sweeping generalizations about Black/ Brown communities and consequently stereotyped their students as well. I remember smoking cigarettes after classes with fellow students of color lamenting the fact that some of the people in our Ivy League program were already in positions of power in schools full of Black children. I remember how proud they seemed of themselves for taking on the work of “fixing“ kids and schools, despite the lack of desire to fix their own racist viewpoints, language, approaches, etc.

Like last year, I brushed it all off over happy hours. I was still hopeful then. I thought that I could teach Black and Brown youth in a way that centered them, their stories, their beauty, and their lives. I did not consider that those grad school classmates who thought so little of us, and that people who shared their ideas, were already running the system and starting the charter schools. I did not consider that fighting for my kids essentially meant fighting against these people. It was a battle I was unprepared for when I first started teaching in 2007. It is a battle I expect to fight for the rest of my life. Though the new hope is to one day do it within an institution that is willing to take on the fight with me. This would save me from a career of holding my tongue until I get to half-priced drinks with other teachers of color who have learned that silence is the only way to stay in the ring.

#boutdatrethinklife respecttheyouth nolaed giveusfree freethemind education4liberation

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therethinkers · 8 years ago

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my school is closed for business

article by big sister love rush | rethink vanguard | 18 years old

The education system has been the main thing on many people’s minds over the past three weeks. While my friends and I are counting the days to prom and graduation, a lot of other people are waiting as the Orleans Parish School Board makes decisions about “what to do” with the last five public schools in New Orleans.

I'm a graduating senior at Algiers Technology Academy (Algiers Tech); it's has been my school home for the last four years. Early this year I learned that my class, the class of 2017, would be the last class at Algiers Tech. My school is closing in June of this year [2017]. Many students who attend my school, those who won't be graduating with me, are upset that they won't be graduating from Tech and won't be able to graduate at the top of their class. For me, being in the Top 5 of my class is a huge accomplishment and I know many students wanted to have that opportunity at Tech. Now they will have to compete for a spot at schools with hundreds of students, instead of a school like Tech whose student body was never more than five hundred. And, because of school rules around being four year students, won't be eligible for top honors at their new schools. I feel like this is unfair. So, for the last month, I have gotten more involved in education conversations in New Orleans.

On March 30th, 504ward—an organization designed to support young (25-35) “talented” middle class professionals in New Orleans—hosted, A Panel on Public Education in NOLA. At first I was confused why a group of mostly childless, mostly white folks were hosting a whole event on education and then I learned that Leslie Jacobs, “architect” of Louisiana’s school accountability reform and one of the creators of the Recovery School District was also one of the founders of 504ward. She was one of the main people to take control of schools and education out of the hands of parents, like my mother, who has and is raising five brilliant children and put education into the hands of outsiders and the Recovery School District (RSD).

The charter schooling[i] system doesn't allow my mother to come check on me at school because its "dangerous". Organizations that claim to be "for youth and parents" but support charters are taking control and taking choices from families. School choice is a myth. 504ward's panel on public education seemed to be designed for people who don’t know much about the state of education in New Orleans. And the event, not surprisingly, didn’t look nothing like the 10th ward community that it took place in and there were very few people who identified as parents of school age public school students.

When I, and about 40 other youth who are part of Rethink, showed up at this event and the adults seemed first surprised, then confused and then unhappy. I sat through four presentations where educators talked about what happens to youth in New Orleans and told some of "our stories" without addressing us or acknowledging that we had vital knowledge about public education in New Orleans. We [Rethinkers] know that we are the experts because we attend these schools on daily basis.

At the meeting, we made comments and questioned the theories of these adults when they talked about "what works in schools", and got nothing in return but backlash and the regular questions like "who are experts in this?" "who worked through pre and post Katrina?" They act like we have no expertise. We are the people who actually experience all of their experiments in schooling. We know that charter schools mean privatization and control over every aspect of youth's lives. Schools becoming charterized means that students, teachers, and parent voices are silenced. We left the meeting knowing that this wasn’t going to be an easy fight. But we didn't go home. Instead all of us students met together to debrief what we just experienced and came up with strategy for how we wanted to move forward.

This very serious and unfortunate issue of charter schools has caught people's attention countrywide. A week after the 504ward meeting, representatives from the national NAACP came to town to host a public hearing to collect evidence on the State of New Orleans schools as part of a nationwide project to investigate the impact of charter schools on youth and families. If I had a dollar for every person who comes to New Orleans to "collect evidence" and "study the effects of charters, or poverty, or inequality" I would be able to fund free college education for all students in New Orleans. Maybe we should keep that in mind as a strategy to replace TOPS.

The NAACP event was once again centered around lots of adults who ran CMOs, were principals, lawyers, etc. talking about the state of New Orleans Schools. Only about fourteen youth attended the event and ten of them were my fellow Rethinkers. We attended the Education Task Force Hearing to provide our thoughts, research, and analysis to the meeting. We were concerned because we remembered when the local NAACP voted in favor of charter schools and wanted to make sure that the National Task Force was clear that most Black New Orleanians want public schools and public control instead of the harsh discipline, extreme testing, and lack of accountability to families that our current charter schools operate with in this city.

The hearing was lit[ii] from the beginning and my friends, at one point, asked an adult to give them his public comment time to talk to the Task Force about how adults are failing youth in this city. We TOOK the time we were given and then some. We really wanted to share what happens in our schools; how the few permanent teachers we have work so hard for us, how so many classes are ran by short term substitutes, how food runs out at meal times, and how we worry if our school’s reputation is good enough to support us in getting into the college or careers we want. We shared how we face two hour commutes to and from school, are forced to experiment with digital learning with systems like Odyssey, are punished for having the wrong color sweater, or how we worry about being able to attend a school that will give us the education we need.

This meeting escalated quickly as audience members (New Orleans residents), were chastised for being too emotional with their truth. I couldn't believe that in this space, our behavior was being controlled. But that's the story of oppressed people, right? We're supposed to take all the oppression and then "behave" accordingly when we are telling the truth of our experience.

After being asked to sit down by an adult moderator, 1 of the 3 young students stood with dignity and stated, "You don’t attend the school, you're not there everyday. The Teach for America teachers don’t care about us, charter schools don’t care about us, and our futures are at stake."

As people came to remove students from the microphone, their elders and adult supports in New Orleans community, yelled " Don’t You Touch Them" and "Let Them Babies Speak."

One of the Rethinkers in the audience then began to lead everyone in the freedom song, "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around."

Emotions broke through as these young people shared that they are afraid for their futures as their school, McDonogh 35, faces privatization and New Orleans becomes the first all charter school district in the country. We promised one another to get together again one week later to attend a meeting hosted OPSB on the future of 35 and New Orleans last 5 public schools.

This last meeting was perhaps the strangest of all. I think it was supposed to be a meeting about what to do with the last five public schools but instead became largely a pep rally for two competing CMOs; ExCEED and InspireNOLA. The School Board didn’t talk about how they might keep the last five schools public, how students and parents might have a larger say in education or about the failings of charters; they didn’t talk at all. Through all these meetings I keep thinking, who is profiting? Who wins when my school is closed? Who succeeds when conversations about education don’t include and aren't centered around students, families and teachers? Who benefits when groups are examining the damage of privatized schools on students without any plan on how to stop that damage? Who is aided when discussions become pep rallies? Who makes the money when schools become sites to make a profit?

This reminders me of a conversation started by Rethinkers way back in the Fall right before the school board elections. We held a youth centered school board candidate's forum for over 200 youth and some of their families.

At the forum we announced our petition to lower the local voting age to 14. One of the main reasons for our petition is the unfairness of a school board elected by people who aren't students. I know our school board would actually have to show up differently and represent youth interests if we were the ones that put them in their positions.

PLEASE SIGN OUR PETITION TO LOWER THE VOTING AGE IN NEW ORLEANS. WE ALREADY HAVE OVER 400 YOUTH SIGNATURES. WE NEED SOLIDARITY FROM ADULT SUPPORTS AS WELL.

ADULTS -- CLICK THIS LINK TO SIGN: RETHINK PETITION TO LOWER VOTING AGE

Youth lives, voices, and futures are not being valued. A stand for justice needs to be took and the time is now! Youth are the experts and we deserve to be treated like we are. I am one student. I am one of over 100 students at Rethink who want an education for all youth that includes analysis of the systems that run society and that teaches us our true history and the role that it plays in our current lives. We want curriculum that represent us and people like us. We want input from youth of color on curriculum and teacher trainings. We want educational infrastructure to support youth entrepreneurship, youth cooperatives and business opportunities that support the communities we come from. And we want real youth and community input and veto power on all decisions regarding school openings, closings, leadership, and locations.

We can and will do it. We will take our education in our own hands because we are the experts of our experience.

[i] Schooling is what happens in schools; it’s about control and discipline. Education is about sharing power and knowledge

[ii] Lit means fire, hot, interesting

#boutdatrethinklife #nolaed #respecttheyouth #rethinknola

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therethinkers · 8 years ago

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diversity does not equal equity

As the charterized education landscape in New Orleans faces PUSH BACK FROM EDUCATORS AND YOUNG PEOPLE who have been on the receiving end of an inequitable education, diversity is gaining popularity as a new buzzword, a panacea that somehow solves systemic racism without ever addressing it.

A recent article on Nola.com (“SCHOOL SEGREGATION PERSISTS IN THE NEW NEW ORLEANS”) raises some interesting points about the state of education in New Orleans but offers an incomplete analysis. Instead of focusing on the problems of market based education reforms that have resulted in charterization of all but 5 schools - over testing, extreme social control and discipline - Danielle Dreilinger’s article instead centers on the prevailing mythology that the lack of multi-cultural “integrated” classrooms is what is stymying academic success for the youth of color that attend our city’s “public” charter schools. In doing so it misses the mark and fails to address the inequities of market based charter schools.

Calls for “diversity” ignore the history of southern education of the 20th century when mostly Black youth were legally forced into separate and unequal schools. Those public and private all-Black schools were almost universally underfunded, overcrowded and populated by students and teachers fighting to have access a quality education. Under those conditions the U.S. south produced four generations of academic excellence from Ida B. Wells to Martin Delany, from Charles Drew to Oretha Castle Haley to Pauli Murray, the list goes on. These segregated schools also prepared thousands of regular people—like many parents and grandparents who attended segregated Louisiana schools from elementary through the Southern University system—to achieve advanced educational degrees, robust careers and a measure of financial stability.

These educators knew that racial integration and assimilation were not the key to academic excellence. The true keys were an experienced teaching staff, an understanding of education as both a practice of freedom and an act of love, a commitment to the whole child, and an ability to make learning culturally relevant. With this knowledge it becomes clearer that over testing, inexperienced teaching staff and the inability to address the whole child are what really ail New Orleans schools.

The current conversation about “integrating” New Orleans’ schools presupposes that the absence of white students hinders the academic achievement of students of color. This assumption is based in white supremacy. Not the white supremacy of the Klansmen, but of ordinary people who still hold a fundamental belief that white people, by their very presence, bring improvement.

Let’s be clear: while diversity is a much easier and more comfortable goal, it is in no way equal in breadth or depth to the necessary goal of equity. We know that the injustice and inequity in our city’s schools echo the injustice and inequity in our neighborhoods and the injustice and inequity in our everyday lived existence.

The moves by some charter schools, as cited in the article, to recruit and enroll a “more diverse” student body creates increased competition among Black, Latinx and Vietnamese students for spots at these schools that amounts to a kind of reserve affirmative action.

Instead of giving enrollment opportunities to oppressed groups, these schools focus resources and energy on the recruitment of white students - who are both a minority in the New Orleans population and who, by virtue of the racial wealth divide, have greater access to educational opportunities.

Armed with this the knowledge we should not be focusing our energies on diversifying charter schools, but on RE-INVENTING WHOLE SCHOOL SYSTEMS with equity at the center.

#respecttheyouth boutdatrethinklife education4liberation giveusfree nolaed

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therethinkers · 8 years ago

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There Are No Sanctuaries by Kesi Foster Urban Youth Collaborative NYC

Black and Brown youth have never received sanctuary in this country, its cities, our communities, or in the institutions that are supposed to provide a safe, nurturing and supportive environment, including our schools. Despite Mayor’s and municipal governments from New York to Philadelphia and Los Angeles to the Bay Area cities, reaffirming their commitments to be “Sanctuary Cities,” Black and Brown youth are entangled in a web of oppressive, discriminatory, and dehumanizing policing and criminal justice systems weaved on the local level around their communities and schools. The Sanctuary Cities movement emerged in the 1980’s when communities worked with churches to provide sanctuary for people leaving Central America due to political instability fostered by US involvement. The churches promised a safe haven free from the clutches of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. As the Obama Administration aggressively moved to break-up immigrant families, deporting more people than the 2.5 million people, the Sanctuary City movement began to redefine sanctuary to address the new conditions. This has included varying levels of commitment by Municipal governments to not cooperate with ICE. Some Sanctuary Cities have passed policies to not share local law enforcement information with ICE and not to detain individuals for minor crimes based on their status. Other districts have passed mostly symbolic commitments to limit interactions between local law enforcement and ICE. Certain districts provide legal and social supports for undocumented communities. Today, close to 50 cities across the country claim to be sanctuaries by providing protections from an unjust, unforgiving, and discriminatory federal criminal legal system. Unfortunately, Black and Brown young people and their families in these same cities are not protected from unjust, unforgiving and discriminatory local criminal legal systems. From “broken windows” policing, to Stop and Frisk, to criminalizing the poor to the school-to-prison pipeline, the systems that Black and Brown youth are forced to navigate everyday make finding sanctuaries an impossible task. Even if local officials don’t let ICE walk in the front door of our schools to take our children, local militarized police forces are taking Black and Brown youth out of the back door in handcuffs. This is not a sanctuary for Black and brown who are targeted and it’s not a safe place for them to learn. Black students are more than two times as likely to be referred to law enforcement than their white peers, and Latina and Indigenous students are similarly disproportionately criminalized and pushed into the criminal legal system by their schools. As the incoming Administration begins to expand on plans to expand its use of criminal to target undocumented communities, and push Stop and Frisk as a national strategy to increase law and order in Black communities, school-policing policies will do little to provide sanctuaries for any community. State and local funding priorities facilitate putting young people in front of police, prosecutors, and judges when they need guidance counselors, mental health workers, and restorative justice practitioners. There is no evidence police in schools creates safer environments or helps improve academic outcomes, but for many Black, Brown, and Indigenous youth, police are more prevalent in their schools than guidance counselors and more empowered than school administrators. Police were never put in schools with Black and Brown youth to keep them safe. They are there to police them and that will always end in their criminalization and incarceration. If Black and Brown youth are ever going to be free from the clutches of the local and federal criminal legal systems that stalk them in their communities and schools, we must respond to the new conditions created by the infrastructure put in place by the Obama administration and those that preceded him and by the explicit intentions of the incoming Administration to oppress, deport, and incarcerate Black, Latina, Muslim and Indigenous communities. We have to respond collectively across struggles. Our resistance must keep all undocumented communities – Latina, Black, Asian, Muslim free from the federal criminal legal system and dismantle the local criminal legal system that has denied Black communities from ever finding sanctuary in this country. As communities, we have an opportunity to connect our struggles, to expand ideas and strategies to go beyond protection from one system because these systems are all interconnected. We need to come together and collectively transform our institutions, communities, and cities into sites of resistance and protection for everyone.

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therethinkers · 8 years ago

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even tonight and i need to take a walk and clear my head about this poem about why i can’t go out without changing my clothes my shoes my body posture my gender identity my age my status as a woman alone in the evening/ alone on the streets/alone not being the point/ the point being that i can’t do what i want to do with my own body because i am the wrong sex the wrong age the wrong skin and suppose it was not here in the city but down on the beach/ or far into the woods and i wanted to go there by myself thinking about god/or thinking about children or thinking about the world/all of it disclosed by the stars and the silence: i could not go and i could not think and i could not stay there alone as i need to be alone because i can’t do what i want to do with my own body and who in the hell set things up like this and in france they say if the guy penetrates but does not ejaculate then he did not rape me and if after stabbing him if after screams if after begging the bastard and if even after smashing a hammer to his head if even after that if he and his buddies fuck me after that then i consented and there was no rape because finally you understand finally they fucked me over because i was wrong i was wrong again to be me being me where i was/wrong to be who i am which is exactly like south africa penetrating into namibia penetrating into angola and does that mean i mean how do you know if pretoria ejaculates what will the evidence look like the proof of the monster jackboot ejaculation on blackland and if after namibia and if after angola and if after zimbabwe and if after all of my kinsmen and women resist even to self-immolation of the villages and if after that we lose nevertheless what will the big boys say will they claim my consent: do you follow me: we are the wrong people of the wrong skin on the wrong continent and what in the hell is everybody being reasonable about and according to the times this week back in 1966 the c.i.a. decided that they had this problem and the problem was a man named nkrumah so they killed him and before that it was patrice lumumba and before that it was my father on the campus of my ivy league school and my father afraid to walk into the cafeteria because he said he was wrong the wrong age the wrong skin the wrong gender identity and he was paying my tuition and before that it was my father saying i was wrong saying that i should have been a boy because he wanted one/a boy and that i should have been lighter skinned and that i should have had straighter hair and that i should not be so boy crazy but instead i should just be one/a boy and before that it was my mother pleading plastic surgery for my nose and braces for my teeth and telling me to let the books loose to let them loose in other words i am very familiar with the problems of the c.i.a. and the problems of south africa and the problems of exxon corporation and the problems of white america in general and the problems of the teachers and the preachers and the f.b.i. and the social workers and my particular mom and dad/i am very familiar with the problems because the problems turn out to be me i am the history of rape i am the history of the rejection of who i am i am the history of the terrorized incarceration of myself i am the history of battery assault and limitless armies against whatever i want to do with my mind and my body and my soul and whether it’s about walking out at night or whether it’s about the love that i feel or whether it’s about the sanctity of my vagina or the sanctity of my national boundaries or the sanctity of my leaders or the sanctity of each and every desire that i know from my personal and idiosyncratic and indisputably single and singular heart i have been raped be- cause i have been wrong the wrong sex the wrong age the wrong skin the wrong nose the wrong hair the wrong need the wrong dream the wrong geographic the wrong sartorial i i have been the meaning of rape i have been the problem everyone seeks to eliminate by forced penetration with or without the evidence of slime and/ but let this be unmistakable this poem is not consent i do not consent to my mother to my father to the teachers to the f.b.i. to south africa to bedford-stuy to park avenue to american airlines to the hardon idlers on the corners to the sneaky creeps in cars i am not wrong: wrong is not my name my name is my own my own my own and i can’t tell you who the hell set things up like this but i can tell you that from now on my resistance my simple and daily and nightly self-determination may very well cost you your life

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therethinkers · 8 years ago

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stay woke

Those who study authoritarian regimes suggest keeping a list of abnormal events after a demagogue is elected, as a way to remind yourself that this isn't normal and to keep from being overwhelmed into acceptance by the onslaught of attacks on our rights. Here is a list below. We are 4 days in. As the author says, "when you see all of this in one list, it is easy to get overwhelmed, at first-- it is also easy to see a pattern and to finally, finally recognize that none of this is normal, nor is it ok." * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the DOJ’s Violence Against Women programs. * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities. * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Minority Business Development Agency. * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Economic Development Administration. * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the International Trade Administration. * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership. * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Legal Services Corporation. * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ. * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Environmental and Natural Resources Division of the DOJ. * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Office of Electricity Deliverability and Energy Reliability. * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. * On January 19th, 2017, DT said that he would cut funding for the Office of Fossil Energy. * On January 20th, 2017, DT ordered all regulatory powers of all federal agencies frozen. * On January 20th, 2017, DT ordered the National Parks Service to stop using social media after RTing factual, side by side photos of the crowds for the 2009 and 2017 inaugurations. * On January 20th, 2017, roughly 230 protestors were arrested in DC and face unprecedented felony riot charges. Among them were legal observers, journalists, and medics. * On January 20th, 2017, a member of the International Workers of the World was shot in the stomach at an anti-fascist protest in Seattle. He remains in critical condition. * On January 21st, 2017, DT brought a group of 40 cheerleaders to a meeting with the CIA to cheer for him during a speech that consisted almost entirely of framing himself as the victim of dishonest press. * On January 21st, 2017, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer held a press conference largely to attack the press for accurately reporting the size of attendance at the inaugural festivities, saying that the inauguration had the largest audience of any in history, “period.” * On January 22nd, 2017, White House advisor Kellyann Conway defended Spicer’s lies as “alternative facts” on national television news. * On January 22nd, 2017, DT appeared to blow a kiss to director James Comey during a meeting with the FBI, and then opened his arms in a gesture of strange, paternal affection, before hugging him with a pat on the back. * On January 23rd, 2017, DT reinstated the global gag order, which defunds international organizations that even mention abortion as a medical option. * On January 23rd, 2017, Spicer said that the US will not tolerate China’s expansion onto islands in the South China Sea, essentially threatening war with China. * On January 23rd, 2017, DT repeated the lie that 3-5 million people voted “illegally” thus costing him the popular vote. * On January 23rd, 2017, it was announced that the man who shot the anti-fascist protester in Seattle was released without charges, despite turning himself in. * On January 24th, 2017, Spicer reiterated the lie that 3-5 million people voted “illegally” thus costing DT the popular vote. * On January 24th, 2017, DT tweeted a picture from his personal Twitter account of a photo he says depicts the crowd at his inauguration and will hang in the White House press room. The photo is of the 2009 inauguration of 44th President Barack Obama, and is curiously dated January 21st, 2017, the day AFTER the inauguration and the day of the Women’s March, the largest inauguration related protest in history. * On January 24th, 2017, the EPA was ordered to stop communicating with the public through social media or the press and to freeze all grants and contracts. * On January 24th, 2017, the USDA was ordered to stop communicating with the public through social media or the press and to stop publishing any papers or research. All communication with the press would also have to be authorized and vetted by the White House. * On January 24th, 2017, HR7, a bill that would prohibit federal funding not only to abortion service providers, but to any insurance coverage, including Medicaid, that provides abortion coverage, went to the floor of the House for a vote. * On January 24th, 2017, Director of the Department of Health and Human Service nominee Tom Price characterized federal guidelines on transgender equality as “absurd.” * On January 24th, 2017, DT ordered the resumption of construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline, while the North Dakota state congress considers a bill that would legalize hitting and killing protestors with cars if they are on roadways. * On January 24th, 2017, it was discovered that police officers had used confiscated cell phones to search the emails and messages of the 230 demonstrators now facing felony riot charges for protesting on January 20th, including lawyers and journalists whose email accounts contain privileged information of clients and sources. author credit @dreamhampton

#staywoke

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