No Child Left Behind--Lamont Carey

WHEN THE BULLETS FLY IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/nj/20070918_Willingboro_school_locked_down_after_gunfire.html
So why wasn't this on CNN? Why didn't the country freeze at the sound of this incident? I mean, we all know that Kanye West wasn't lying when he stunned the nation a few years ago on television when he said "George Bush does not care about Black people." But it's not just the President. 200+ kids would have lost their lives in an elementary school and nobody is fired up about it. All these innocent LITTLE children would have lost their opportunity to succeed and nobody is reporting it. The fact that school was open the next day is further heightens my level of anger and disdain at the Willingboro schools system. Surely, they can't assume that these children are used to the sound of gunshots and don't value their own lives. Had this happened in the white burbs then the children would have a week of on-going trauma therapy and myriad procedural safety drills. But it's as if they're assuming that black kids are immune to trauma. Imagine how they feel about going to school and hearing gunshots? Surely, some of them MUST be scared out of their wits. But nobody cares...If a tree falls in the woods kinda thing u know? Yeah well that's my two cents for today.

Blacks given the Emmitt Till treatment in 2007...

http://news.aol.com/story/nc/_a/details-emerge-in-horrific-torture-case/20070911152309990001

Racism is becoming more and more rampant in the United States. We cannot pretend that it no longer exists. We must fight against injustice and stand up for human rights. The Jena 6 case isn't unique. There are many such cases which are not publicized. We cannot allow history to repeat itself.

Globalization in Jamaica

America sneezes, Jamaica catches a cold. Sad.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5277094596195828118

With a new purpose

This is the beginning, the dawn of a new year. I have a new outlook. Those who have tried will no longer win, those who haven't will have no opportunity to do so. This is the beginning of the end of the dawning of a new day. 2nd year...if I made it through the first, I can make it through this. I will sell my soul for this dreaded sheet of paper that validates my words and makes me relevant to academia. That's the nature of this beast that is controlled by the beasts that refuse to see me and you for who we are. Cheers to a new dawning

Supreme Court revists Integration in Schools

http://www.naacpldf.org/VOLINT/add_docs/volint_home.html

Check out the opinions that each judge expresses, particularly Justice Roberts, George Bush's last appointed judge. Racism is real and so are segregated schools.

To fulfill your life-purpose you've got to answer

Visions that can change the world trapped inside an ordinary girl
She looks just like me too afraid to dream out loud
And though it’s simple your idea, it won’t make sense to everybody
You need courage now If you're gonna persevere

To fulfill divine purpose, you gotta answer when you're called
So don't be afraid to face the world against all odds


CHORUS
Keep the dream alive don't let it die
If something deep inside keeps inspiring you to try, don't stop
And never give up, don't ever give up on you
Don't give up

Every victory comes in time, work today to change tomorrow
It gets easier, who’s to say that you can’t fly
Every step you take you get, closer to your destination
You can feel it now, don’t you know you're almost there?

To fulfill divine purpose, you gotta answer when you're called
So don't be afraid to face the world against all odds

Keep the dream alive don't let it die
If something deep inside keeps inspiring you to try, don't stop
And never give up, don't ever give up on you

Sometimes life can place a stumbling block in your way
But you're gotta keep the faith, bring what's deep inside your heart
to the light
And never give up Don't ever give up on you

Who holds the pieces to complete the puzzle?
The answer that can solve a mystery
The key that can unlock your understanding
It's all inside of you, you have everything you need yeahhhh

So, keep the dream alive don't let it die
If something deep inside, keeps inspiring you to try don't stop
And never give up, don't ever give up on you

Sometimes life can place a stumbling block in your way
But you're gotta keep the faith, bring what's deep inside your heart yeah your
heart to the light
And never give up Don't ever give up on you


* I think this is what George Bush was thinking when he invaded Iraq. He CLEARLY misunderstood the song. IF you think about it, each line does somewhat sound like what he says. Only, Yolanda meant this in a positive way. He totally thinks "divine purpose" is to get the whole world to hate us. He clearly doesn't want to "bring what's deep inside" his heart "to the light" though. What about the truth, Mr. President? Who really holds the pieces to complete the puzzle of the war in Iraq? The key that can unlock OUR understanding...? WHERE IS IT?

Co-Dead Language--Saul Williams

This moves me in inexplicable ways:


Title: Co-dead Language

Whereas, breakbeats have been the missing link connecting the diasporic
community to its drum woven past
Whereas the quantised drum has allowed the whirling mathematicians to
calculate the ever changing distance between rock and stardom.
Whereas the velocity of the spinning vinyl, cross-faded, spun backwards, and
re-released at the same given moment of recorded history , yet at a
different moment in time's continuum has allowed history to catch up with
the present.

We do hereby declare reality unkempt by the changing standards of dialogue.
Statements, such as, "keep it real", especially when punctuating or
anticipating modes of ultra-violence inflicted psychologically or physically
or depicting an unchanging rule of events will hence forth be seen as
retro-active and not representative of the individually determined is.

Furthermore, as determined by the collective consciousness of this state of
being and the lessened distance between thought patterns and their secular
manifestations, the role of men as listening receptacles is to be increased
by a number no less than 70 percent of the current enlisted as vocal
aggressors.

Motherfuckers better realize, now is the time to self-actualize
We have found evidence that hip hop’s standard 85 rpm when increased by a
number as least half the rate of it's standard or decreased at ¾ of it's
speed may be a determining factor in heightening consciousness.

Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the
unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Equate rhyme with reason, Sun with season

Our cyclical relationship to phenomenon has encouraged scholars to erase the
centers of periods, thus symbolizing the non-linear character of cause and
effect
Reject mediocrity!

Your current frequencies of understanding outweigh that which as been given
for you to understand.
The current standard is the equivalent of an adolescent restricted to the
diet of an infant.
The rapidly changing body would acquire dysfunctional and deformative
symptoms and could not properly mature on a diet of apple sauce and crushed
pears
Light years are interchangeable with years of living in darkness.
The role of darkness is not to be seen as, or equated with, Ignorance, but
with the unknown, and the mysteries of the unseen.

Thus, in the name of:
ROBESON, GOD'S SON, HURSTON, AHKENATON, HATHSHEPUT, BLACKFOOT, HELEN,
LENNON, KHALO, KALI, THE THREE MARIAS, TARA, LILITHE, LOURDE, WHITMAN,
BALDWIN, GINSBERG, KAUFMAN, LUMUMBA, GHANDI, GIBRAN, SHABAZZ, SIDDHARTHA,
MEDUSA, GUEVARA, GUARDSIEFF, RAND, WRIGHT, BANNEKER, TUBMAN, HAMER, HOLIDAY,
DAVIS, COLTRANE, MORRISON, JOPLIN, DUBOIS, CLARKE, SHAKESPEARE, RACHMNINOV,
ELLINGTON, CARTER, GAYE, HATHAWAY, HENDRIX, KUTL, DICKERSON, RIPPERTON,
MARY, ISIS, THERESA, PLATH, RUMI, FELLINI, MICHAUX, NOSTRADAMUS, NEFERTITI,
LA ROCK, SHIVA, GANESHA, YEMAJA, OSHUN, OBATALA, OGUN, KENNEDY, KING, FOUR
LITTLE GIRLS, HIROSHIMA, NAGASAKI, KELLER, BIKO, PERONE, MARLEY, COSBY,
SHAKUR, THOSE WHO BURN, THOSE STILL AFLAMED, AND THE COUNTLESS UNNAMED

We claim the present as the pre-sent, as the hereafter.
We are unraveling our navels so that we may ingest the sun.
We are not afraid of the darkness, we trust that the moon shall guide us.
We are determining the future at this very moment.
We now know that the heart is the philosophers' stone
Our music is our alchemy
We stand as the manifested equivalent of 3 buckets of water and a hand full
of minerals, thus realizing that those very buckets turned upside down
supply the percussion factor of forever.
If you must count to keep the beat then count.
Find your mantra and awaken your subconscious.
Curve you circles counterclockwise
Use your cipher to decipher, Coded Language, man made laws.
Climb waterfalls and trees, commune with nature, snakes and bees.
Let your children name themselves and claim themselves as the new day for
today we are determined to be the channelers of these changing frequencies
into songs, paintings, writings, dance, drama, photography, carpentry,
crafts, love, and love.
We enlist every instrument: Acoustic, electronic.
Every so-called race, gender, and sexual orientation.
Every per-son as beings of sound to acknowledge their responsibility to
uplift the consciousness of the entire fucking World.
Any utterance will be un-aimed, will be disclaimed, will be named- two rappers slain


* parts of this text might not correspond with the actual performance. The exact words of the original poem is published in Saul Williams' book, The Dead Emcee Scrolls.

Dr. Julia Hare

I got an email with a link to youtube this morning that angered me. Why? Well it was a video of Dr. Hare giving a talk at Tavis Smiley's The State of the Black Union Conference this year. I was livid. I had never even heard of such an event, let alone hear of the things that were said. Dr. Julia WHO? Never heard of her. And when I did my research to find out who this woman, who spoke so profoundly on the issues concerning Black children in today's society, I learned that this woman is an educator. WHY haven't I heard of her? WHY isn't she a mainstay in my doctoral class discussions? WHY haven't I heard of DR.JULIA HARE? Why when I was learning history was her name never mentioned? WHy aren't her books a part of my curriculum? WHY wasn't this conference publicized in a way that I could hear more about it? I am ANGRY! When Black America does something positive, it is left to word of mouth! WHY? I am livid. So I have made it my duty to make myself more aware. I have thought so many times of how I could've known about Smiley's event on CSPAN if I didn't check the listings on a daily basis and I found this website: http://www.covenantwithblackamerica.com and I will commit myself to combing through the site and keeping myself informed while fighting to keep Plymouth damn rock off me! We MUST arm ourselves with knowledge or we and the cause/struggle will die.

A great passage from Ralph Ellison's book

I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am i one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids--and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me...That invisibility to which I refer occurs because of a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those with whom I come in contact. A matter of the construction of their inner eyes, those eyes with which they look through their physical eyes upon reality. I am not complaining, nor am I protesting either. It is sometimes advantageous to be unseen, although it is most often rather wearing on the nerves. Then, too, you're constantly being bumped against by those of poor vision. or again, you often doubt if you really exist. You wonder whether you aren't simply a phantom in other people's minds. Say, a figure in a nightmare which the sleeper tries with all his strength to destroy. It's when you feel like this that, out of resentment, you begin to bump people back. And, let me confess, you feel that way most of the time. You ache with the need to convince yourself that you do exist in the real world, that you're a part of the sound and anguish, and you strike out with your fists, you curse and you swear to make them recognize you. And, alas, it's seldom successful...I have been boomeranged across my head so much that I now can see the darkness of lightness. And I love light. ---from the Prologue of Ralph Waldo Ellison's Invisible Man. Hands down, the greatest story ever told of man's plight to survive in a selfish world.

When White Women Go Missing

It seems like the entire world stops when someone white and female goes missing. And nobody is lashing out against this injustice. Countless Black children go missing on a daily basis and the most I'll hear about it is on some lousy email sent out by friends. Why is this so? Isn't Black life as valuable as White life? Well, based on the latest events, apparently not. Black people die everyday in gullies and lakes. Black children go missing on Spring Break all the time. Yet, there is no paper trail, no CNN World News Report, no MSNBC coverage, NOTHING! And then they look at us and say America is not divided...BULLSHIT!

Graduate school and friends

If I ask one in every ten friend or colleague I have what they know about my program, they will probably recite a long convoluted explanation of a paper I wrote or a description of my previous job. Nobody really understands what I do or what I am doing. I was accused the other night of having nothing to do, which is why friends, and family members abuse my time by waking me up at obscene hours of the morning whining about their problems, or just sitting in mere silence, or just to ask questions about nothing. So my status as a full-time graduate student somehow translates to free time. What people do not understand is the high demands that I face on a daily basis. Deadline upon deadline, project upon project. Right now I'm taking on summer course which basically translates to hell. What would have been 13 weeks of work has now been crunched into 4 weeks of work. I am expected to produce a dissertation proposal (something that takes months to prepare) in one month. Yet I am awakened daily with text messages, phone conversations about the weather, squabbles about irrelevant and minute things, instant messenger conversations about things that are beyond my scope at the moment, and a bunch of other things which make it evident that people think I sit around scratching my armpits all day.

So I made a new rule. I am no longer available for counseling or keeping company or for mindless chatter, etc. And the consequences, I'll face head-on with no qualms. I have lost many acquaintances on this quest of higher education: Those who curse me for not calling them back (because I have only free time right?) and those who think I was not there for them in their time of need have all written me off as someone who is inconsiderate or not quite a friend. So where is the support? Somehow my education has translated into worldly knowledge because I'm being asked to help edit this paper and that, formulate this idea and that, give feedback on this idea and that and the list goes on. While I am flattered by the confidence others have in my knowledge, I am overwhelmed by my own work and don't need the extra baggage. The most difficult part of doing doctoral work is being out there alone with nobody to share the joys and struggles with. Friends and family just don't understand.

My nights and days consist of constant reflection on the things I have due and on the things I plan to do to avoid staying in this program for another 10 years. I have met and still know people who have been enrolled in doctoral programs for 10+ years. Life happens, what can I say? But in order to avoid becoming one of them, I am aware that I must seclude myself from my own world of chatter and mindless involvement to focus on a greater goal. When I finally get through (which is what people keep asking...) I will be young enough to concentrate on building friendships that have solid foundations. However, at this time, my work is a full-time commitment which I must face head-on in order to avoid failure.

So I no longer feel guilty for ignoring my phone or turning it off for that matter. If people call me at 8am, I have no problems hanging up on them. When people insist that I hang out or visit them, I have no qualms about ignoring or turning down such invitations, and I feel no guilt for enjoying free time ALONE. Doctoral work is stressful and demanding and clearly those who have not experienced it with someone or on their own will never understand.

Kids go to Planned Parenthood on a trip. What's the big deal?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/06/13/planned.parenthood.trip.ap/index.html

So a trip took children to Planned Parenthood after school and this made negative national news. This ruffled my feathers a bit because what is the point of this argument in New Hampshire? Promoting safe sex and allowing students to understand the resources available to them in case of certain normal teenager emergencies and this is a problem? In this day and age we must understand the importance of teaching children responsible behaviors and alerting them to the options they have. I think we are starting to place rhyme over reason here. The fact that people were standing outside with placards about abortion has very little to do with the high level of educational activities that are sponsored by Planned Parenthood. In fact, the pamphlets that they create and distribute about women's health and birth control have won numerous awards. Maybe if we would educate our children about birth control methods we would help them avoid the multiple abortions that some have before graduating high school! Have I shocked you? I can't count the many students I had in high school that had multiple (NOT JUST ONE) abortions by 11th grade. Had they known that there was a place where they could get confidential support and preventative methods, they might have been better off. And I won't even discuss the high level of STIs amongst high school children.

We ought not get carried away with old traditions. We must teach chldren responsibility even at the expense of offending those parents who are still in denial about their children having sex. But then again, that's just my two cents...

Genarlow Wilson Released

A 17-year-old young man accused of raping a 15-year-old while having consensual oral sex was released today in Georgia (*EDIT. Upon appeal from the prosecutor, Genarlow must remain behind bars until the appeal has been heard). After spending 27 months, 25 days, 19 hours, and 6 minutes in the old slammer, he has been released. In the 1990s, when the country was cracking down on crime, the Georgia General Assembly passed a law that stated that anybody who has sex with anyone under 16-years-old is automatically a rapist. This was considered one of Georgia's 7 deadly sins. The law was created to protect children from child molesters.

One night in Georgia, Genarlow received oral sex from a 15-year-old girl at a Day's Inn Hotel. Why Day's Inn rented a room to unsupervised teenagers is already beyond me. But that's neither here nor there. Even the Prosecutor admits that he did not consider the sex forced. Genarlow was given the same sentence as a sex-offender who preys on children and weak individuals. This was another unfair case of a teenager being a teenager. Marcus Dixon knows a bit about that.

So today, June 11, 2007, Genarlow is a free man but can the state of Georgia ever repay him for the time he spent behind bars or for the mental anguish he suffered those two years? Imagine the psychological effects of Genarlow ever engaging in sexual activity again; he is indeed traumatized. He suffered this ill fate as a child and in one day his life changed forever. The college scholarships, the 3.2 GPA he boasted, the Homecoming King title he sported, the popularity he had, his entire future, all smeared by one night of irresponsible teenage fun. This all while Paris Hilton is making national news for crying about a few days she has to spend in a cozy prison hotel for DUI charges (careless adult fun). What is justice if justice turns a blind eye to inequity? That's just my two cents.
For more about the Genarlow Wilson case: http://www.wilsonappeal.com/index.php
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/06/11/teen.sex.case.ap/index.html

Money for grades? Mayor Bloomberg proposes a new plan for NYC children

Cash is cool: Mike

Nothing wrong with it, says mayor, of kids scoring dough for grades

BY MICHAEL SAUL and ERIN EINHORN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Posted Saturday, June 9th 2007, 4:00 AM


Mayor Bloomberg

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mayor Bloomberg defended a controversial proposal to pay kids for high test scores yesterday, but said there are no specific plans to make it happen.

"As one of the new approaches to try to tackle the intractable problem of poverty, we have said that we would raise ... $50 million privately to encourage people, using economic incentives," Bloomberg said. Money for test scores is "one of the possibilities."

The Daily News reported exclusively yesterday on a plan to pay fourth-graders as much as $25 and seventh-graders as much as $50 for high scores on so-called interim assessments, which, beginning in September, will be administered in all city schools. The tests will help teachers determine what kids know and what they still need to learn.

The mayor's Opportunity NYC plan also would give poor families cash rewards for actions like taking their kids to doctors' appointments and attending job training.

The test-score proposal, which education officials say is preliminary and has not yet been approved by the mayor or Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, would be structured differently, with the money going to schools that would then pay it out to kids.

Dozens of principals who attended an information session this week expressed initial interest in the program, including Rose-Marie Mills of Middle School 343 in the South Bronx.

"My kids need incentives to do really well, and they're not privy to some of the finer things that other kids are," she said, noting that poor families can't afford to reward kids for good grades as easily as middle-class families can.

Maryann Manzolillo of Intermediate School 162 in the Bronx said she would put the incentives in school-based bank accounts, then use them to teach kids about managing money.

Now, she said, attendance is low on interim-testing days. "Children say, 'Oh, it's a practice test. It doesn't count,'" she said. "Money makes everything really count."

Some teachers and parents yesterday applauded the idea of motivating kids, but others, including Tina Pack, a mother of eight who lives in public housing on the upper East Side, had reservations.

"In my mind, kids will cram to do better on a test, but what knowledge will they gain?" she said. "I never say if you get an A on a test I'll give you a reward.... What if maybe you're working really hard and you get a B? I'm trying to reward the learning."

msaul@nydailynews.com

With Carrie Melago, Jens Dana, Elaine Chan and Karl Stampf



---Now my parents used to offer $1 for every A I got but this is a new spin on motivation. How can the city afford to pay children for grades? This, to me, is a testimony that NCLB has led the nation to all-new-LOWS as far as education is concerned. High scores, low values, that's the effect of NCLB. And can we truly blame Mikey B? The guy is a billionaire; he thinks in terms of dollars! His iris is the shape of a golden dollar, his pupils are dollar-signs, this guy is the money man! And what better way to motivate poor children to do better than to pay them? Instead of paying the teachers more money to stay after school and assist them, let's pay each child $50...it's so much cheaper to pay 4th graders to pass a test than to give them the books they need to study for the test. Mayor Mike has seen the light but it's so bright that it's clouding his good senses. TRY AGAIN!

Presidential Candidates

I have been listening to the debates by both Republican and Democrats and I have noticed one common theme: War. I believe, however, that they keep discussing the wrong war. They keep looking at the war overseas and talking about world peace and a bunch of things. For the candidates I have a few questions about certain wars that are being fought in America.
What about the war on:
Poverty
Illiteracy
Civil rights
Racism
Ignorance
Police brutality
Affordable Healthcare
Illegal immigration
White-collar crimes
Violence
A.I.D.S
Cancer
Affordable housing
Poor schooling
Bad teachers
HURRICANE KATRINA VICTIMS
...and the list goes on ?

What say you, Mr. Obama...do the people in Alabama feel that you feel their pain? What about you Mrs. Clinton? How do the people who used to live in what is now Clinton Hills feel about affordable housing? What about Rudy G? What do you say to rude behavior towards teachers in classrooms? John Edwards are we heading forward or falling backwards? Mitt Romney, What would Jesus Do? Better yet, what would he say to you? Would he even know your name?

What the candidates fail to realize is that we are educated voters who care about the things that matter. When will they answer questions about the wars that have been around for too long?

What do you think about this guy?

According to a newsfeed from gmail:
Anthony Hervey, the African-American scholar, philosopher, and black leader, who can be seen waving his Confederate Flag in the Town Square where his Mississippi home is located, has penned another new book.

Titled; "Why I Wave The Confederate Flag," the book calls black leaders on the carpet, chastises welfare programs, and says desegregation has harmed blacks and contends white people are on a guilt trip.

Visit his website:
www.AnthonyHervey.com

Service to others

How much of your time do you give to others? How much of your time do you spend making the world a better place in a non-self-serving way? There are many young people who could use the service of a mentor that has been successful or is on the right path to success. If we give of ourselves to these young people, we would be building a better future. For ways to help uplift the community you can contact your local Boys and Girls Club of America, Urban League, Public Library, United Way, Girls Scouts, and local churches. Food kitchens are usually offered by neighborhood churches and they always seek volunteers to pass out food. Do something for your community today.

When is enough enough?

GALESBURG, Illinois (AP) -- Five students will get the diplomas they were denied when cheers erupted for them at a high school graduation, and school officials said Wednesday they would review a get-tough decorum policy.
Galesburg High School officials had said they would not hand over the keepsake diplomas unless they received apologies. But the stalemate over the diplomas and the media attention it attracted have taken valuable time and energy, they said.
"It is time for the good of the community, the school district, the families and the students involved to move on," Superintendent Gene Denisar said in a written statement.
The diplomas were withheld because the school said cheering violated a school policy aimed at restoring graduation decorum. The students still were considered graduates on paper, but they didn't have a diploma.
Graduate Nadia Trent, who picked up her diploma from the school secretary Wednesday afternoon, said she's "just happy it's over."
"If they would have apologized, it would have been better," said Trent.
Denisar cited talks with the Illinois State Board of Education, which has said it cannot support the district's decorum policy because it makes students responsible for behavior they cannot control, in explaining the decision.
The central Illinois school district about 150 miles southwest of Chicago will continue efforts to make commencement a "respectful and dignified occasion that all graduates and their families can enjoy," school board President Michael Panther said in statement. Officials did not say how they planned to review the no-cheer policy.
Peoria attorney Jeffrey Green, who took the students' case at no cost, sent a letter late Tuesday threatening to sue the district if officials did not apologize and deliver the diplomas by 5 p.m. Wednesday.
"They met with the families two or three times and had a chance to get this thing right," Green said. "I've been involved less than 24 hours, and now they have their diplomas, so you draw your own conclusions."
Parent Pam Kelley said she was disappointed that school officials did not apologize and that her daughter, Amanda, was handed the diploma by a high school secretary, not principal Tom Chiles.
"At least he could have come out and shook her hand and said congratulations," Kelley said.


Ms. Educated--I won't even waste my time. Nobody considered the joy of the family members for whom these children could very well be the first child graduating with honors. Or that they had seen the children work hard throughout the years to overcome obstacles (many of which I'm sure they faced in this school district) and were just simply proud to see them get out of there. This is a travesty and nobody can control the joy of parents at a graduation ceremony; it's preposterous. Absolute power corrupts absolutely

Confronting the powers that be

Had a meeting today with the prof. I'm exhausted. I never thought I'd have to explain myself so much in a million years. I don't understand how people are Athiest...there IS a God. There might be no Santa Claus but there is definitely a God. Those who are in power often forget that there are others higher and more powerful than they, even if the higher One has no given name, in their book. When struggling with the powers that be, remember that within you there is a force that cannot and will not be compromised because of their insecurities or their fear of confronting their own prejudices. Even a child knows the importance of this; my six-year-old niece told me today that she wants a book for Christmas. I feel great knowing that her spirit and love of learning have not been pulverized by the negativity she suffered from a deameaning public school teacher of color. That is reassuring. Nothing else in the world matters.

The things we take for granted

Health insurance, PCPs, low-cost prescriptions, our dignity...these are the things we take for granted in America. Today I experienced life through a poor woman's eyes. I went to a free clinic for a yearly check-up and boy, did it take forever! I had forgotten what life is like for many people who don't have affordable healthcare. I walked in, went to the reception window and all I wanted to know was if I was in the right place. I approached the reception desk, a white woman of about 55 years got up, opened the sliding glass and before I could finish my sentence said "take a number" and then slammed the glass. I was 30 minutes early for the opening of the clinic and I was number 23.

A year ago I didn't even know that a free clinic existed. I had the highest coverage from a notable HMO and was able to visit the doctor as many times as I was sick without even thinking twice. Healthcare was not a concern for me; all I had to do was flash a card and I'd be seen in less than 30 minutes wherever I went. Today, I stayed in a clinic for 3.5 hours before I was seen by an intern. Nobody answered questions, I was just a number and everything seemed to refer back to that one number, 23. When I was called forward to explain why I was worthy of their service, I was told that new patients are being screened because there were less doctors available and new patients were only being seen if their situations were important.

A one-year checkup is not important in free-clinic logic but a nurse had been listening in and approached me after I walked away to wait on the receptionist to confirm with the doctor to see whether I was eligible (I call it worthy) to be seen. The nurse was a young 30-something woman who is working on her Ph.D. After our initial interview she found out that I, too, am a doctoral student. Her brow raised of course and the condescending, spell-out-each-word-as-if-I-have-no-sense talk that she had been giving me changed to more "normal" free-flowing conversation. I guess I was no longer "really poor" but just "a needy student" so I was not quite like the other people in the room. After she gave me my informed consent and interview session for my paid participation in the study (I earned a whopping $20 for filling out 40-mins worth of paperwork. Cool way to make money while you wait, huh?), she returned to her post behind the glass window. Soon, I was treated with utmost respect by everyone behind her glass window. One nurse who did my initial patient screening even commented on how "impressed" she is that I am doing this work. Everybody, including the nasty receptionist, began to speak to me with respect and asking me questions about the book I had been holding in my hand and about my areas of interest. So I guess education does make all the difference, even if you're a poor graduate student who sits in a free clinic, having to validate your need to maintain good health just like everyone else.

A number of my students have lived their entire lives without health insurance. Besides being humiliated by slamming glass windows, condescending stares, and long waiting hours, there is the fear of not being seen at all after waiting three full hours. After my experience today, I could not conceive of how it must feel for people who have to spend their entire lives going to free clinics and waiting. I spent more time just waiting than anything else. For me, this is temporary poverty, since grad school only lasts for a few years. I have the option of quitting school and going forth to maintain an upper-middle-class lifestyle. So this temporary humiliation, for me, is endurable. But what about those for whom this reality is permanent? How must they feel each time they approach the glass window to ask a question? I am sure that some people who could use the service of the free clinic probably do not even take advantage of it. Just imagine having to work 2-3 jobs and sitting in a clinic just waiting. It's no wonder that people who live on or below the poverty line are in poor health.

The services offered at the free clinic are thanks to doctors who volunteer their time but there must be more that the government can do to help those who are truly in need feel more validated and less inferior when they attempt to get good healthcare. That's part of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, isn't it.? That's just my two cents.

Dear Mr. President

I went to a dance recital last night and I saw the children perform this song. I thought it was a great way to make a political statement through dance. The lyrics are so powerful! The song is written and sung by Pink as an open letter to President George Bush. I wonder if he ever heard it and I wonder what he said when he did. I know if it were addressed to me it would've made me feel mighty ashamed of myself, how about you?




Dear Mr. President,
Come take a walk with me.
Let's pretend we're just two people and
You're not better than me.
I'd like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly.

What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street?
Who do you pray for at night before you go to sleep?
What do you feel when you look in the mirror?
Are you proud?

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry?
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye?
How do you walk with your head held high?
Can you even look me in the eye
And tell me why?

Dear Mr. President,
Were you a lonely boy?
Are you a lonely boy?
Are you a lonely boy?
How can you say
No child is left behind?
We're not dumb and we're not blind.
They're all sitting in your cells
While you pave the road to hell.

What kind of father would take his own daughter's rights away?
And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay?
I can only imagine what the first lady has to say
You've come a long way from whiskey and cocaine.

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry?
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye?
How do you walk with your head held high?
Can you even look me in the eye?

Let me tell you 'bout hard work
Minimum wage with a baby on the way
Let me tell you 'bout hard work
Rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away
Let me tell you 'bout hard work
Building a bed out of a cardboard box
Let me tell you 'bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
You don't know nothing 'bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
Oh

How do you sleep at night?
How do you walk with your head held high?
Dear Mr. President,
You'd never take a walk with me.
Would you?

Which America do you live in?

I live in a very white town. Blacks make up 5% of my neighborhood. Today someone invited me to a town fair and while I'm very much a non-fair-going city gal, I decided to take in some of this very white town's festivities. I arrived in time to see a number of fire brigades floating down the street where a parade was taking place. Blasting from the speakers was the song "Proud to be an American," and as I rattled my brain to figure out where I had heard the song before (oh, yeah, 9/11, American Idol?), I looked around to see the proud faces of this America in which I will have to live for the next 4-5 years. The on-lookers, my neighbors that I had never seen, who hardly even realized I was standing there, were primarily white. I felt like I was at a redneck Republican convention. All around me were long beards, flush red cheeks, construction boots and Birkenstocks, and an all too familiar obnoxious smell of Marlboros all around. (Where's Derrick the WHADAFXUP guy when you need him? ).There is a grey cloud over this town and I swear it's thanks to cigarettes. But I digress. The only diversity I saw in my limited line of vision was in the colors red, white, and blue and some orange that the attendees and the participants of this parade wore. No sign of diversity in this town. Then I wondered why the heck someone would invite me to this kind of function. I felt like a stranger in a world that seemed all too familiar to everyone else who was there. They were clapping and cheering and jumping to catch the candy that the paraders threw out and all I could think about was how vastly different this America is from the America I have known for 13 years. Then suddenly, black man rode by on his makeshift float. He is running for town judge. I thought "Oh maybe it isn't so white after all!" But I was standing within earshot of a couple in their late sixties. The woman exlaimed in a most condescending and surprised tone "town judge?" as if to say "how dare he! Does he not see what town this is? Apparently not. This is America!

People here seemed to have no care in the world. I saw some soldiers walk by and I immediately thought of the soldiers in Iraq. The 18 year olds who had no choice but to enlist in the army after high school, the fathers who have never seen their newborn daughter or son because they were deployed too soon, the mothers who had to walk away from their children to serve...I thought of them. And then my attention was called back to the scene. It was time for the bed and bath tub race. People decorated beds and bath tubs and dragged them down the street as a form of entertainment. This is when I zoomed out again because I couldn't help but think of the victims of Katrina who were still displaced. Those who still have no bed nor a decent bath in which to take a shower. This is America...the America I live in. Then it was time for the wave. A young girl volunteered to run along the side of the street as the "wave director." This was all new to me; I'd never seen it. The young girl took her white-socked feet out of her Adidas slippers and the commentator said "your mom is going to kill you for running in those socks." She shrugged as if to say "so what, I have plenty more where this comes from." And again, I had an out of body experience--I started thinking of the many children who hide their feet when they change their shoes in order to hide the holes in their socks. But she shrugged. She took it for granted. This is America...the America in which I reside. It's definitely a different world from my own. And now I know why I was invited to the fair. The people who teach me and other teachers in my program are from this world. They would never understand what I mean when I speak on behalf of the child who does not have the things they have because to them being middle class, Republican, and monolithic is American. This is the America that controls my future...and I will probably never understand it or live in that America but I'm glad I got to see the other side. Am I proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free? I have to think about that for a while but first, I need to understand what the word free means because with what I saw today, freedom comes at the expense of the other America; the one in which I've lived and worked for 13 years. But I definitely won't forget the men and women who died and gave that right to me. But I doubt Lee Greenwood was talking about the same men and women that gave my rights to me. Not to take anything away from the troops. I am the only sister of a soldier. But let's talk about the two Americas and the two kinds of people who gave their lives for freedom because someone seems to have forgotten 1619 and before...that's my two cents.

Have you heard of Blair Holt?

This child died being a hero. He gave his life for other classmates on a Chicago city bus. So many children had died before Blair. In fact, he was number 20. Why did it take 20 for them to pay attention? When a white child disappears it becomes national news. A Black boy gives his life to save his classmates and only one national network reports it. Thank God for Anderson Cooper.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/mitchell/385585,CST-NWS-mitch15.article
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news&id=5295070
http://video.nbc5.com/player/?id=109760
They're offering $10,000, is that all this child is worth? Stop the violence, save our children! And demand that America puts value on the life of Black children just as they do on the lives of white children. There are too many missing Black children and too many dying to violence and they go unheard of. Racism is insidious and the media perpetuates it every time a White child goes missing.

Poverty in America

Poverty is a killer in these United States. I have seen a couple of documentaries about poverty in America and they each one shocks me more and more. I was watching one on MTV today called "I'm Dead Broke" and there was another that I saw recently called "Hardscrabble Childhood" that really spoke to me. Sometimes we take for granted the things we have without thinking twice. There are people who have to hustle up a dime so they can find places to live or so they can eat. These people are the parents of the children that walk into classrooms everyday and we can't ignore the reality of this. There is such a thing as Third World living in a First World Country, ask the people who had to suffer the ills of Katrina and those who live below the poverty line in many rural and urban areas in the United States. What can educators do? We can be empathetic towards all of our students, even without knowing who's who. Notice that I said empathetic, not sympathetic because sympathy often renders itself in unwelcomed forms. We need not isolate a child and offer him/her financial support or clothing to make the child feel stronger. We simply need to continue to make the child feel valued, worthy, important, and capable of achieving his/her goals. Empathy requires that we constantly reflect on our own lives and our practices as educators so that we could make the classroom experiences of students more empowering. Sometimes a simple daily smile can help change a child's life, if even for a few hours. To learn more about how poverty affects children in the United States, check out Lisa Delpit's Other People's Children, Jonathan Kozol's Savage Inequalities, Amazing Grace, and The Shame of the Nation, Barbara Ehrenrich's Nickel and Dimed or Anne Lareau's Unequal Childhoods.

Invictus by William E. Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of Circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of Chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Believe..

A friend sent this to me today and I don't think he knows how much it meant to me. I'm sharing it with others because I believe that this will make someone else's day too... Thanks LW

BELIEVE WHILE OTHERS ... by William Arthur Ward
Believe while others are doubting.
Plan while others are playing.
Study while others are sleeping.
Decide while others are delaying.
Prepare while others are daydreaming.
Begin while others are procrastinating.
Work while others are wishing.
Save while others are wasting.
Listen while others are talking.
Smile while others are frowning.
Commend while others are criticizing.
Persist while others are quitting.

Images

I just read a post on a message board that says that a particular family reality show on television is portraying a disrespecful image to the "black struggle." The argument that this person used to defend this claim is that "most black people do are not wealthy, driving Bentleys, they are poor to middle class." Of course there were no statistics to back THAT up but I had to wonder how many people actually thought that was the standard--poor to middle-class and WHY?

I had to seriously reflect and consider the source of this kind of thinking and the only sources I could come up with are schools and the media. In her article concerning social class, Jean Anyon (1980) highlights the differences between the way poor children are taught versus the wealthy. It is unfortunate that black people come up in many studies done about poor people but in very few about the wealthy. It is then no wonder why people think that most black people are either poor or middle class and that this is an OK concept. Why is it bad that some black people are affluent and can afford the Bentleys and the jets without going broke? This leads me to the second responsible source of this form of thinking: The media.

You know what annoys me the most? Pictures of starving children in Africa. Yes, more than the show Hollyhood or The Flavor of Love or I Love New York, pictures of starving children in Africa annoy me. Having traveled to the motherland three times and having the best experience of my life, I am appalled when the only image of Africa is suffering. This is not to say that there are not starving children in Africa (I personally didn't see any and I went to villages, towns, cities, schools, church, the market, people's homes) because I'm sure there are. But I have seen more homeless people in America than in the the developing countries I've visited. But I digress. The way that black people are depicted on television is nothing short of appalling. I grew up on the Cosby Show and A Different World and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Black people were part of families--successful families. A dual parent household was normal and children such as myself aspired to own brownstones in Brooklyn because we thought we could. College, success, stability, THAT was our reality. When did that change? When did having a family, a big house, and values become disrespectful to the black struggle? It was once the aim of the struggle! But money and the media have both influenced society's image of what being black is.

For two great perspectives on this issue, I recommend Dr. Bill Cosby's Come on People: On the Way From Victims to Victors and Dr. Michael Eric Dyson's Is Bill Cosby Right?

long

I am aware that my posts are long. Can you blame me? I have spent 13 long years in public school; I have a lot to say! Ok, so I will try to make shorter posts...TRY...operative word. And we all know what that means. If you don't, ask Yoda.

urban schooling

Yesterday I sat to reflect on what I really want to do about the way non-white children are educated. I thought of it because I was creating my syllabus for this class I'm going to teach about education policy and I had to skim through the readings I was assigning to figure out what order I wanted them to follow on my syllabus. That's when I started to realize that it matters not where Inequity and Overcrowding or Censorship and Overrepresentation of minorities in special ed. were placed, they are all equally horrendous and nobody is doing much to solve the problems. Instead, more problems are being created and more education leaders are turning a blind eye because their children's private school education is paid in full.

I'll tell you something sad. I taught public school but I am an advocate for independent schools. I have stories to back my belief and I promise to write about that another day. My colleagues always snubbed me when I said that I would never send my children to public school in New York City but I guess they just never understood where I was coming from. I am a product of public schooling and what I now know about my history wasn't taught in my textbooks. NYC public schooling, for Black children, is just another medium of teaching survival and subordinance. "Here's your schedule," "No, you can't graduate early," "Take this class, it's good for you," "Apply to this school, your average isn't high enough," "Here's a scholarship application, don't tell anybody I gave this to you," "Take off your coat and put your bag through the scanner," "Walk slowly through the metal detector." I don't think that was preparation to be a leader or a corporate executive or a professor, do you?

None of my high school teachers ever told me that they expected me to be better than them. And that's a crucial lesson that I taught to my own students. Having taught at my alma mater, I told my students that I deemed myself successful and I expected that since I have taught them my secrets to success, I expect them to be greater than I ever was or could be. Teaching was not my way to keep them below me; it was my way of giving them the little I had and showing them ways by which they could get more. I remember one class that I taught. They thought I was a total bitch (another term reserved for Black female teachers who push students harder than their white counterparts and who tell students the truth) and that I was grading them unfairly. I gave them the grades they deserved. How could you write one-page summaries in AP English and get a 95? But that's the mediocrity that was expected of me and was now expected of them. I sat in a former teacher's classroom with them once and I was able to recite her entire lesson; she had taught it to me 6 years prior, in another century...and in the 21st century, she was teaching the same lesson. It was appalling. I can't recall a lesson in my years of high school that actually highlighted my experiences. Why? Because none of my teachers had actually lived my experience. Those who didn't live off in the suburbs of Long Island, lived in brownstones in fancy neighborhoods where many of us had never visited except to collect something from our West Indian mothers who sat in their homes babysitting their white children for a small, tax-free fee and second hand clothes--a far cry from stuffy apartment buildings. Maybe their children attended public schools but none of their children attended my school--they went to their neighborhood schools where most of the other students looked like them.

So when I started teaching, I went with one goal: To make my students better than I was. I wanted share with my students my own experiences and give them possibilities. No, you don't have to apply to state and city colleges; there are other great institutions out there! Nobody ever assured me of this--they just mentioned it in passing. So you don't have money for college, ever heard of a student loan? Nobody told me that loans were ok, nor did they tell me that there were programs that would forgive my loans. I had to go back and tell somebody! After all, I am African and that is how we learned to uphold traditions (and community stories): By word of mouth. I had to tell my students that it was not okay to keep scholarship information to themselves, even when they had no intention to apply. I had to tell my students that it is ok to travel abroad and see new places. I had to tell my students that applying to Harvard isn't such a bad idea even if you're a student in an inner-city school who has been told that he/she isn't good enough. I had to tell my male students there just aren't enough basketball scholarships for everybody and even NBA players needed a brain, that they weren't work horses responsible for dragging the load of keeping American sports competitive, that there was more to life than just sex and money and jewelry, that they were important and what they had to say was valid and that somebody was listening and observing their talents.

If I were to ask my students to tell you the things they have been told in schools, they would probably shock you. The sad reality is that oftentimes, children are hurt but they absorb what they are told because they think these things are normal. It is not normal to tell a child to apply only to city colleges. It is not normal to call a child an animal for break dancing in the hallway. It is not normal to tell a child to be quiet or else you will take off point from his/her grade. It is not normal to make a child feel inferior and second-guess him/herself. It is not normal because they don't do it to their own children. This is not to say I am not guilty of hurting students or that I have never offended them. I have. I have also loved them, each one differently for the difference they brought to the classroom. One poster I had in my classroom says, "an original is always better than a copy." I love that quotation.

A professor of mine once asked us "why would the colonizer teach the children of the colonized the way he does his own children?" And I pass that statement on to every Black parent today. And don't be mistaken, the colonizer is not always of a different race. I wish that every Black parent would follow the news and learn about the things that are going on in inner-city schools. I wish that every Black parent could be a fly on the wall in his/her child's classroom to see the atrocities that occur when unlicensed, untrained teachers become babysitters and no more than just that because they feel that their daily plight is to sedate rather than educate our children. They used to ask me how it is that I had no referrals from my class or how it is that I never talked about discipline problems and I used to simply say "because I'm too busy teaching." My students were too busy learning to find time to create problems with each other. I knew and understood that my students were civilized human beings with feelings and thoughts and ideas that were sometimes far better than my own and that the classroom was a place for sharing ideas, not for pushing my own agenda and I didn't need John Dewey to tell me that. Some white teachers take things too personally. They want to respond to every comment a child makes and to correct every "deviant" behavior through punishment. Never through love. When I interviewed for my teaching position, the interviewer said "you have the heart of a teacher." I wasn't sure of what she meant but I am hoping she didn't mean the heart of those babysitters.

Teaching is one of the most inspiring jobs one can have. When I woke up each morning, I wasn't fearing going to work. My greatest fear was failing to teach my students what they needed to know. I wanted to teach subject matter but I also wanted them to understand life and to feel that they had an advocate. Many of them had brothers and sisters and parents who had been successful college grads but some of them had no examples of success to follow. Most of them wanted be doctors but nobody had ever taken the time to explain to them the process of becoming an Oncologist or a Cardiologist. All they knew is that they were going to college. They didn't know how long it would take for them to achieve such goals, they just knew they had to do something "big". Now tell me, how can one do something big if he/she has no idea of the steps to take? Walking blindly into traffic, is what I call it. I shared every happy moment with my students and told them that failing was not an option. They had to learn to code switch, they had to learn to smile with a fork in their side, they had to learn to take responsibility for their work, they had to learn to present themselves with pride. The kids you see on the subway and on the bus and on the street aren't superficial: They have stories that they can tell if only someone is there to listen. They have real-life characters and plots, settings, climax, denouement. They have their own rhythms and their own rhymes. They have their own theatrical productions to write. They have their own ideas of what reality looks like and it does not always resemble Jay Gatsby's.

When it comes to teaching children of non-white parentage, it is imperative that people understand that their stories, like mine, aren't going to be read in textbooks, they will only be heard but only if we listen keenly.

My first year as a doctoral student

It felt like nothing I had to say mattered. There were so many times when I just felt like giving up and then I realized that others would follow me and so I had to fight the good fight. I am one of two Black women in the program. The other woman was told that she doesn’t even deserve to be in the program. I was never told but was rather treated that way. Nothing that I said mattered. It was as if I spoke and no one was listening; like I wrote and nobody read what was written in black ink; like I taught but nobody learned.

At 26 years old, I am the youngest in my program. My age and my ethnicity have worked against me in myriad ways. First, I had to put up with the agist comments of some of my colleagues who did not think that a 29 year old superintendent knew what he was doing. I had to put up with racist comments by professors and colleagues. They spoke things in front of me that shocked the daylight out of me but I had to tolerate and subdue my anger and rage for fear that they would consider me another “angry black woman.” I tried to understand this culture of power, but I felt like an outsider ALL THE TIME. I remember one specific incident in which a woman spoke about the disempowered children in her school. She told the class about the clear difference that can be seen when some children drive Escalades at 16 years old and others have to walk or take the bus. The professor’s immediate response: “so you have the Black kids and the White kids.” I was floored. The woman had said nothing about color, she just spoke about privilege and already the assumption by the person leading the class was that privilege or lack thereof was equivalent to race.

I was always the exception: “City kids have no skills when they come here, they lack basic skills.” A statement like that would be followed by the furtive glances by certain class members and then the person would correct the statement by appeasing me with a “oh not you because clearly you’re here with us.” But what about the city kids that I had taught for four years who are now attending Ivy League institutions? I recall a time when a white woman brought her daughter who was on spring break from college to class. I watched as she introduced her daughter to everyone but me and the other black woman in class. We were standing right next to her but she never thought it necessary or proper to introduce us. Not that we cared, we just noticed and my friend and I talked about our memories of the Jim Crow era when white people would never introduce a Black person to another white person and here we were in 2007 experiencing the same thing.

And then there’s the woman who despises Martin Luther King because there were so many other people who fought for civil rights that have gotten no credit. But she never took the time to highlight the accomplishments of King who so constantly and respectfully gave credit to his supporters and to Mahatma Ghandi for the teachings of non-violence. She never showed respect for the fact that I sat in the room as one African American in a class of 13, and never acknowledged that the very things that Dr. King fought for were still not being practiced in our school. All she could say was that Dr. King didn’t deserve the accolades he received because he did not do it alone. Her point, though valid, was offensive to me, a Black woman who appreciated the leader that helped spark change in the way America views difference.

It was as if I was invisible in some of their conversations. They said things that shocked me. I was amazed that people who have been exposed to difference, who have traveled far and wide, who are teaching children from varied cultural backgrounds could say the things that my colleagues said. Whenever they wanted an international perspective, they would point the direction to the only non-fluent English speaker in the class—the woman from South Korea. They even once asked her what it was like to live in a Communist country and in my mind I thought—She’s South Korean…how could you guys even ask such a stupid question. I would watch them flinch and roll their eyes as she spoke. Some would often offer a condescending nod in agreement even when what she said didn’t require agreement. It was as if they were sorry for her simply because she didn’t speak English well. They didn’t speak to her outside of class. In fact, they hardly spoke to anyone but each other outside of class and this is why I didn’t attend social functions.

The two social gatherings that I actually attended confirmed to me that I would never attend anymore. They were stuffy. If anyone brought anything as a dish other than crackers, cheese, or cucumber sandwiches, the food would remain untouched. Another rule I learned, don’t bring ethnic food unless it’s from some European country. They don’t eat it. I made the sad mistake of bringing rice and beans to a dinner and then I realized that my rice and beans remained untouched as people reveled in the luscious taste of brownies and ham sandwiches, barbecued ground pork and some other very White meals that I tried out of deference. All the white people spoke together with an occasional acknowledgement of the fact that I was in the room when they wanted to know what the dish I had prepared was. “It’s rice and beans,” I’d say, as I conjured up creative names for the rocks they had been living under for their very white, middle class lives.

We have an annual lecture series in which they invite an outside speaker. Last year, before I joined the program, they had Dr.Lisa Delpit. I don’t think they learned from her or else they would not do the things they do. I went back to read Other People’s Children and I am all three of the graduate students quoted in Chapter 2. I made a copy to give to my professor. I don’t know what else to do. This year, it was some other lady who talked about kiddy literature and something else. They had really wanted Cornel West but he was “booked.” I am of the opinion that they really hadn’t tried to get Dr. West, they just said it to appease my query about why this year’s lecture wasn’t featuring someone who dealt with social justice issues. For this year’s lecture, I had been sick all week but I thought I’d do my best to attend since my school was responsible for the event. Upon entering the reception area, I saw my advisor and since I had my partner with me, I thought it would be nice to introduce him to her. As we walked over to her, I saw two other professors, who acknowledged us and inquired about my health. They offered their well-wishes. As I approached my advisor, I realized she had been engrossed in a prior conversation. As is my cultural custom, I did not interrupt. Instead, I stood to her right and waited. She did not acknowledge my presence. She carried on in conversation and then proceeded to walk right in front of me and made her exit. For the entire evening, she did not make eye contact, nor did she as much as wave to say hello. And then I remembered something I learned about some white folks: They won’t acknowledge you in public.

Then there was the struggle of writing. I’d get papers back with comments such as “well-written, well-organized paper.” As if they didn’t expect that I could write or organize my ideas. Nothing is said about what is written, except if what is written is wrong. As an English teacher, it is my practice to have conversations with my students’ work on their papers. I’m not reading their papers for organization but for substance. These doctors of miseducation seem to have missed that lesson in teaching. I would get papers referring me to ask my classmates about certain topics as if what I had to say was not valid but their knowledge was. I got comments that were directed towards personal things rather than what I had written on the paper. People assumed that what I said on the paper constituted my opinion rather than my research, although I had listed several sources to confirm what I had written. It was as if nothing I said mattered unless I could cite a million white people who said the same thing. I would write about Black people and then I was always asked if this isn’t true for all people. I’d be referred to read books by white authors never by a Black author. If I were to find something by a Black author, it would have to be on my own. I was not free to speak my mind for fear of backlash. People warned me to be careful of what I said and to whom. But I have never been that kind of student. I was never one who would sit and take what people said without responding.

The one thing I have learned during my first year of doctoral studies is that my experiences are invalid and that I am not a member of the “group” although I did the same things—if not more—that the others did to get where I am. I found myself constantly defending myself and since there are no Black faculty members in my school, I felt alone and vulnerable. I became resentful, angry, but subdued. I spent extra hours working on things that would be simple if I hadn’t felt the sting of racism at my tail. People wanted me to fail. They corrected spelling and fixed my commas, took points off for me forgetting an ampersand on my works cited page and I constantly received grades with a – or + next to them; rarely a solid grade. It was after my second semester after I had painstakingly written what I and others who read it considered an excellent, informative paper that I began to feel the need to fight back.

I knew that I had done the right thing and that my paper had been based on the research I had found. I made one simple blunder, which I acknowledged, and I became a sacrificial lamb. I am tired of defending myself from their mindsets. There is just no way I will be able to withstand the rabid racism that lives in these people’s minds. I thought about quitting three times during my first year and it was not because I thought the work was too difficult for me to manage. It was mainly because I felt demeaned, disrespected, and distraught by the things I was told and the things I heard and saw.

My program and the people who run it are no different from public schools where Black children are treated as inferior. They have built the program on a social justice theme, where they claim that the focus is to change society but my program is more of a replica of racist America than they realize. On one of my last papers, my professor asked how can we solve the problem of retention and recruitment of Black scholars in programs dealing with education and after pondering on her question, I realized and understood why more African Americans are not in doctoral programs. We are tired of being banged against society like the narrator of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. My first year made me wonder what these professors are teaching teachers to do to Black children, if this is what they do to Black adults. It made me realize that retention rates of teachers and drop out rates of students is probably never going to change as long as there are people who think they are superior to others.

I have never come this close to giving up the fight and though my program is two years long, I fear, no DREAD the day when I would ever have to enter another classroom taught by another white person who has predispositions about what I should and should not know or say. I have to think back to the days of segregation and wonder what those who have come before me would have done. I cannot sit by and allow prejudice to dictate what will become of my life because although I do desire to do better for myself, I love what I do. Education is my calling and I will not and cannot allow white people who think they have written the books on how to teach, dictate what will become of my self-esteem and self-worth as a teacher.

I think of what will happen if I stay here. Who will sit on my committee? I look around my school and there are no faces that look like mine, no hearts that dance to the beat of African drums, and no lips that speak the truth about my people; I cannot stay here. Yet, I need to stay here so that I can do for someone else what nobody here can do for me: help. Never before in my educational career have I felt so hopeless, so undeserving, and so useless as I have in my doctoral program. These people have worked and continue to work to squeeze every bit of pride and self-esteem that is left in me and in my other Black female colleague. Nothing we say matters unless I can cite a million other white people who are saying something similar.

But I can hardly find enough white people saying similar things as I have experienced them in New York City’s public schools. They are all saying that Black children are not achieving. My children are achieving and have achieved with very few resources and yet nobody chronicles their experiences. I have reached the point of saturation and I am seeking a mentor, someone who can guide me; someone who can provide one word of encouragement to say “hold on” because they are doing everything to crush my spirit. They constantly challenge my knowledge and my scholarship as if they have written anything groundbreaking or earth shattering in the last ten years. I am frustrated and ready to give up and go back to my students who I love and miss so much. They send me motivation everyday and they are behind me, rooting for me to finish this program and do something to fix the inequities in their school. But I cannot endure the sting for much longer and each step I make towards endurance and resilience is pushed ten steps back by the powers that run my school. I am lost, alone, and frustrated and I cannot even tell this to my advisor because she is one of them. I am a fallen tree in an empty forest: nobody is hearing.

I’m meeting with a professor next week to defend another paper...How much can one person take?