Why Can’t Raheem Read? Public Education and the Minority Community on Freedom thru Speech Radio

At one time, the United States of America boasted of the very best educational system in the world. However, of late that system has declined precipitously; we now rank about 10th worldwide. And consider this statistic: A full seventy-five percent (75%) of African American and Hispanic students attend school in schools or school districts that are considered failing.

This means that within an educational system already rapidly careening toward crisis, African American and Hispanic school children are already perhaps there. But how did we get where we are now? What can we, or should we, reasonably expect from our educational system?

What can we do to fix our educational system, or at the very least, make it work for us? Join us as we consider these and many more questions and issues as we discuss "Public Education and the Minority Community."

This week RiPPa and I will be joined tonight on Freedom thru Speech Radio by Professor Venus Evans-Winter of The Freire Project, Symphony of the blog Essential Presence, and national teacher trainer and teacher union official Cynthia Reddick.

You can join the conversation by going to the show’s platform by clicking here, or you can call into the show through our call-in number at 914-803-4881.

College Was a Different World Indeed: My College Memories

So, the other day I’m sitting at my desk in my classroom as the students began arriving for class. Because they seemed particularly animated about something on this afternoon, I paused for just a minute so that I might determine what had them all stirred up, and before long it occurred to me that they were simply getting their plans together for the upcoming spring break.

And, amused, I just had to smile for a second or two as I remembered spring breaks past and the whole undergraduate college experience. Do you remember those? Or, if you did not attend college, do you remember just being young with no real responsibilities and just living life to the fullest?

I studied hard, and I studied long, but I did get in my foolishness. In fact, there are some days I remember this episode or that episode, and it suddenly dawns on me just how horribly things could have turned out. When you are young, you are often under the impression that you are somehow invincible, but only later and in hindsight do you realize that though you thought you knew it all, you really knew very little.

But after listening to my students, I took stock of my plans for spring break, and oh, how things have changed. Instead of Freaknik or Daytona Beach, my spring break plans consist of catching up on all those household chores that I have fallen behind on. Plus, I have a doctor’s appointment for a colonoscopy and a prostate exam. I just hope that for my prostate exam, I get that doctor with the little tiny hands as opposed of the one who played basketball in college.

But anyway, here are those memories of college life that stand out for me:

The Church Lady Well, the Church Lady was not this lady’s given name; it was the name that I and some of my close friends gave her in our freshman year. It seemed for the first two years of school, we had practically every class together. And she would show up every day, for each class, dressed like it was Easter, big hat and all. I just couldn’t figure it out. It all seemed like overkill to me.

One semester we took an 8 AM class together. I would drag in to class in flip-flops, a tank top, gym shorts, and crusty to be damned, and there she would be sitting right up front, frustrating everyone with that big hat blocking the board.

Over the years, we became friends though. In fact, she is my colleague at the college where I now teach. And guess what? She’s still showing up everyday dressed like it’s Easter morning.

Ramen Noodles A week or so ago I came across this article about a chef selling a bowl of ramen noodles for $100 dollars. You know I had to do a double take. One hundred dollars for a cup of ramen noodles? The chef stated that the many years of tradition and experience that went into each bowl justified that price.

Well, doing college I ate many, many bowls of ramen noodles. I bought Ramen noodles by the case. In fact, I ate so many ramen noodles during college that the very sight of ramen noodles makes me gag now.

And it has been my observation then and now that ramen noodles are an integral part of the college experience for many students. So, along with that college tradition and experience, cheap, cut-up hot dogs went into my ramen noodles. I wonder how much I could have charged.

Financial Aid Dispersal Day on the Yard You could always tell when the financial aid, student loan, and scholarship checks arrived because suddenly everything on the yard would seem brand new. Everyone on the yard would show up in new clothes and shoes. Some even showed up to school driving new cars or cars with new rims and booming systems. And for a week or so, ramen noodle sales dropped precipitously.

For a brief minute, everyone on the yard was some sort of tycoon. But of course the money soon ran out, and everything returned back to normal. Speaking of return, I had a friend who took her financial aid money and purchased a $600 Gucci purse that she had had her eyes on for quite some time. And she strutted around with that purse like she owned the world for a while. But then one day she asked me to take her to the mall to return the purse. It seems she had run short of cash and really needed that $600 dollars she spent on the purse.

My Oldsmobile Cutlass Brougham I was intent on buying me a car. Suddenly, the Mercury Comet my dad bought for me just didn’t suffice. My dad recommended that I wait until he could go with me to purchase my car so I didn’t end up with a lemon. Instead, I decided not to wait for him and go at it alone.

I ended up buying a 1981 Oldsmobile Cutlass Brougham for $700. The advertisement in the paper said low miles and one owner, but low miles really meant the low 100,000s and the one owner must have driven that car to hell and back, but I bought it anyway.

Six months later the car developed a problem. I don’t know if it was the engine or the transmission, but you could push the pedal all the way to the floor, and the car wouldn’t go over forty miles an hour. Then came the unexplained fumes. From some undetermined location, these noxious fumes would fill the car whenever you drove it. But did that stop me from driving it? Not at all.

I, along with my frat brothers, would drive along at forty miles an hour for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time until we got light-headed. Then we would pull over and step outside the car for a while so that we could clear our heads. We might have shown up a little late and light-headed, but we did not miss one party in town.

Impromptu Road Trips Some of the best times I had as a college student were on those impromptu road trips we took all over the Southeastern United States with no planning and very little money. Somebody would just show up and excitedly inform us about a party or a Greek show in this city or that city, and we would just look at each other, shrug our shoulders and hit the road.

Sometimes I marvel that we ever made it there and back in one piece and without incident. But the old saying goes that God gives special attention to fools and babies, so perhaps that figured into the equation.

I remember one such trip from Jacksonville, Florida, to Virginia Beach, Virginia, for a Greek show and party. Seven of us stuffed ourselves into my line brother’s ancient Toyota Celica hatchback/deathtrap with a suspect braking system and tires so bald that you could see the air in them. There was an eighth but we had to leave him behind to make room for the case of oil and transmission fluid we had to take with us; every time we stopped for gas or to get something to eat, we had to replenish the car’s fluid levels.

We drove there, partied until the wee hours of the morning and had breakfast, took a quick, uncomfortable nap in the car, and then drove back. One the way back, we had just enough money for gas. In fact, we must have rode for about an hour or so on pins and needles as the gas light glowed ominously red.

Was it irresponsible? Were we a bunch of fools? Yes, but when you are young, you sometimes simply don’t think of such things. And not only that I had more fun than I have ever had in my life. I just hope my kids have a bit more sense than I did.

What are your fondest memories of college or of just being young?

Welcome to Texas, Land of Make Believe

Do you remember when over the summer, Texas governor Rick Perry threatened state secession? I don’t think anyone thought anything of it then; at the time, the right seemed particularly occupied with yelling out anything that seemed to express their extreme displeasure in the “Washington establishment” and the new socialist direction in which the country was heading, no matter how ridiculous it was or how ridiculous it made them seem.

Perhaps it was just coincidental that the face of the “Washington establishment” and the man leading that headlong charge into socialism just happened to be a black face, the first of its kind.

So by the time the secession talk came up, I wasn’t all that surprised; by that time I had seen and heard it all. But what really caused me to raise an eyebrow was when the secessionist movement actually began to catch on. A sizable portion of Texans actually supported secession or either could not make up their mind, and some fools even began to campaign on the secessionist platform.

And whatever reasons Texans might give for supporting secession, the first few lines from the Texas Secede! Website seems to imply that the president at least figures in the desire to leave the union:

“Texas is a free and independent State, subject only to the Constitution of the United States…” (note that it does not state…subject to the President of the United States…”…)

Now, I cannot insinuate race is a factor here because nowhere on this site can I find racist language, so I’ll resist making that charge. Let’s just say that Texans are somewhat intimidated by the change in American society and culture, no matter how minute, that is suggested by President Obama’s election.

However, if the secessionist movement does not gain ground, Texans have found an alternate means of affecting the historical trajectory of the nation; they’ll just rewrite history. Last week the conservative heavy Texas State Board of Education voted to transform the Texas social studies and economics textbooks into purveyors of conservative ideals and principals.

Among other things, among many questionable decisions, in doing so they downplayed the role of founding father and deist Thomas Jefferson in favor religious right icon John Calvin, opted to allow the Judeo-Christian influences of the nation’s founding fathers while ignoring the philosophical rationale for the separation of church and state, describes the United States as a constitutional republic as opposed to democratic, and removed mentions of capitalism in favor of the American free enterprise system.

The really shameful part is that these distortions of history will be used for a number of years going forward and will influence millions of young Texans. Perhaps, then, Texas is hedging its bets against change by attempting to influence the young minds that flow through its school system by teaching a skewed, one-dimensional version of history. But allow me to give the state of Texas a tip.

Yes, you might be able to change the textbooks. You may be able to distort the truth and downplay the roles and contributions of minorities to this great country of ours and the state of Texas. But keep in mind that racial demographics are quickly changing. Keep in mind that soon minorities will be the majority, with Hispanics leading the charge and African Americans coming in a close second.

So how long do you think you can go on suppressing the knowledge that Tejanos were among the fallen heroes of the Alamo? How long can do you think you can go on suppressing the knowledge of liberal and minority rights group?

All those new minorities coming down the pike will undoubtedly not be conservatives despite the Texas State Board of Education’s greatest efforts. A number of these minorities will be able to think for themselves and seek knowledge of themselves and see through the many liberties you have taken with the retelling of history.

Whatever the Texas State Board of Education may have been trying to achieve, they have managed to engender their own revolution; they have given the many disparate minority rights groups impetus to unite under a common banner. Many groups have already begun to fight back. Many groups have already begun to push back and challenge the distortions.

What the state of Texas has succeeded in doing is creating a text filled with conservative fairy tales positing the state of Texas as a utopia. So in reality, Texas has managed to secede and form its own country after all--the land of make believe.

Oh, the Places We Could Go: Just Think of the Possibilities If We Would Step Out of Our Zone of Comfort

A couple of months or so ago at the end of the summer, my wife and I planned a trip with a few other African American couples we know just to have one last bit of fun before summer ended. When we first conceived of the idea, we bandied about several suggestions, but all of them seemed so absolutely done.

Someone suggested a cookout at the beach, but I was beached out, and I don’t particularly find the beach all that fun. Of course, Disney and/or Universal Studios in Orlando were offered, but we go to Orlando several times a year already so that was out. And in that same vein, someone suggested Busch Gardens in Tampa, but that too was voted down.

Then my wife suggested that we go somewhere and do something none of us had ever done, something unlikely. And we finally decided on a destination and an activity. But on the eve of our trip, one by one the couples and families called us to say that they had to cancel, that they would not be going. And each couple and family proffered the same excuse: “We all talked and decided that that’s just something black folk don’t do.”

Evidently, all of the black folk got together, or at least enough to form a quorum, and decided that black folk didn’t do such things.

And when we arrived at our destination, we found that they seemed to be very right in their assessment. My family was the only African American family present. The other African Americans there were there either with their white spouses or partners or friends.

But nonetheless, we had the time of our lives, and my children talked about the experience for days afterward. This was an experience that they, that we, will never forget and our lives are richer because of it.

In thinking about this, I remember something my grandfather said on numerous occasions when I was a young man, but I didn’t understand then. He would say that if black folk had to discover anything, it would never be found because black folk didn’t like to step outside the familiar.

And this might seem to be a small thing to you, but the implications are much bigger. Perhaps, we can best look at this through philosopher Wittgenstein’s notion of the umvelt. Wittgenstein used that notion to explain that an individual’s knowledge of the world was limited only by the limits of that individual’s access to the world.

In other words, experience translates to knowledge, and we can further extrapolate that knowledge translates to opportunity. So, when we limit our experiences, we limit our knowledge, thus we limit our opportunities.

And I see this all too often when I am out in the community. Too often I encounter African American children not living up to their full intellectual potential simply because they believe studying and achieving is simply something little black kids do not do. And when I inquire of their dreams and aspirations as adults, the very few who do not want to be rappers or singers or professional athletes all name the same handful of occupations: cosmetologist, firemen, policemen, teacher, doctor, lawyer.

Not that these are not noble, worthwhile occupations, but there are so many others to choose from. They are so grossly uninformed of the wide range of possibilities, of opportunities, open to them simply because of their dearth of experiences.

And when I inform them of all the possibilities outside those few mentioned, the response is always the same: “Is that something black folk really do?”

You know, I had a friend in graduate school, a young African American man, who was studying something like forestry management science or national park management science or something of that nature. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but I do remember it was something that black folk don’t usually do.

And the National Forestry Service was so anxious to attract black folk to do it that they were willing to pay for him to receive a master’s degree and a doctoral degree and then hire him right out of school at a starting salary of about $65,000. When I saw his contract, I kind of wish that it was something this black man had done.

But if we are to increase the opportunities available to us and our kids, we must increase our willingness to explore our world. We must explore the full range of experiences available to us. We must step outside our zone of comfort, and go to those places we have never been before, and try those things we have never tried before. And if we begin to do this, oh the places we could go.