Originally delivered Aug. 16, 1967, at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Atlanta. Transcript courtesy of the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute

Dr. Abernathy, our distinguished vice president, fellow delegates to this, the tenth annual session of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, my brothers and sisters from not only all over the South, but from all over the United States of America: ten years ago during the piercing chill of a January day and on the heels of the year-long Montgomery bus boycott, a group of approximately one hundred Negro leaders from across the South assembled in this church and agreed on the need for an organization to be formed that could serve as a channel through which local protest organizations in the South could coordinate their protest activities. It was this meeting that gave birth to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

And when our organization was formed ten years ago, racial segregation was still a structured part of the architecture of southern society. Negroes with the pangs of hunger and the anguish of thirst were denied access to the average lunch counter. The downtown restaurants were still off-limits for the black man. Negroes, burdened with the fatigue of travel, were still barred from the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. Negro boys and girls in dire need of recreational activities were not allowed to inhale the fresh air of the big city parks. Negroes in desperate need of allowing their mental buckets to sink deep into the wells of knowledge were confronted with a firm “no” when they sought to use the city libraries. Ten years ago, legislative halls of the South were still ringing loud with such words as “interposition” and “nullification.” All types of conniving methods were still being used to keep the Negro from becoming a registered voter. A decade ago, not a single Negro entered the legislative chambers of the South except as a porter or a chauffeur. Ten years ago, all too many Negroes were still harried by day and haunted by night by a corroding sense of fear and a nagging sense of nobody-ness.

But things are different now. In assault after assault, we caused the sagging walls of segregation to come tumbling down. During this era the entire edifice of segregation was profoundly shaken. This is an accomplishment whose consequences are deeply felt by every southern Negro in his daily life. It is no longer possible to count the number of public establishments that are open to Negroes. Ten years ago, Negroes seemed almost invisible to the larger society, and the facts of their harsh lives were unknown to the majority of the nation. But today, civil rights is a dominating issue in every state, crowding the pages of the press and the daily conversation of white Americans. In this decade of change, the Negro stood up and confronted his oppressor. He faced the bullies and the guns, and the dogs and the tear gas. He put himself squarely before the vicious mobs and moved with strength and dignity toward them and decisively defeated them.  And the courage with which he confronted enraged mobs dissolved the stereotype of the grinning, submissive Uncle Tom.  He came out of his struggle integrated only slightly in the external society, but powerfully integrated within. This was a victory that had to precede all other gains.

In short, over the last ten years the Negro decided to straighten his back up, realizing that a man cannot ride your back unless it is bent. We made our government write new laws to alter some of the cruelest injustices that affected us. We made an indifferent and unconcerned nation rise from lethargy and subpoenaed its conscience to appear before the judgment seat of morality on the whole question of civil rights. We gained manhood in the nation that had always called us “boy.” It would be hypocritical indeed if I allowed modesty to forbid my saying that SCLC stood at the forefront of all of the watershed movements that brought these monumental changes in the South. For this, we can feel a legitimate pride. But in spite of a decade of significant progress, the problem is far from solved. The deep rumbling of discontent in our cities is indicative of the fact that the plant of freedom has grown only a bud and not yet a flower.

And before discussing the awesome responsibilities that we face in the days ahead, let us take an inventory of our programmatic action and activities over the past year. Last year as we met in Jackson, Mississippi, we were painfully aware of the struggle of our brothers in Grenada, Mississippi. After living for a hundred or more years under the yoke of total segregation, the Negro citizens of this northern Delta hamlet banded together in nonviolent warfare against racial discrimination under the leadership of our affiliate chapter and organization there. The fact of this non-destructive rebellion was as spectacular as were its results. In a few short weeks the Grenada County Movement challenged every aspect of the society’s exploitative life. Stores which denied employment were boycotted; voter registration increased by thousands. We can never forget the courageous action of the people of Grenada who moved our nation and its federal courts to powerful action in behalf of school integration, giving Grenada one of the most integrated school systems in America. The battle is far from over, but the black people of Grenada have achieved forty of fifty-three demands through their persistent nonviolent efforts.

Slowly but surely, our southern affiliates continued their building and organizing. Seventy-nine counties conducted voter registration drives, while double that number carried on political education and get-out-the-vote efforts. In spite of press opinions, our staff is still overwhelmingly a southern-based staff. One hundred and five persons have worked across the South under the direction of Hosea Williams. What used to be primarily a voter registration staff is actually a multifaceted program dealing with the total life of the community, from farm cooperatives, business development, tutorials, credit unions, etcetera. Especially to be commended are those ninety-nine communities and their staffs which maintain regular mass meetings throughout the year.

Our Citizenship Education Program continues to lay the solid foundation of adult education and community organization upon which all social change must ultimately rest. This year, five hundred local leaders received training at Dorchester and ten community centers through our Citizenship Education Program. They were trained in literacy, consumer education, planned parenthood, and many other things. And this program, so ably directed by Mrs. Dorothy Cotton, Mrs. Septima Clark, and their staff of eight persons, continues to cover ten southern states. Our auxiliary feature of C.E.P. is the aid which they have given to poor communities, poor counties in receiving and establishing O.E.O. projects. With the competent professional guidance of our marvelous staff member, Miss Mew Soong-Li, Lowndes and Wilcox counties in Alabama have pioneered in developing outstanding poverty programs totally controlled and operated by residents of the area.

Perhaps the area of greatest concentration of my efforts has been in the cities of Chicago and Cleveland. Chicago has been a wonderful proving ground for our work in the North. There have been no earth-shaking victories, but neither has there been failure. Our open housing marches, which finally brought about an agreement which actually calls the power structure of Chicago to capitulate to the civil rights movement, these marches and the agreement have finally begun to pay off. After the season of delay around election periods, the Leadership Conference, organized to meet our demands for an open city, has finally begun to implement the programs agreed to last summer.

But this is not the most important aspect of our work. As a result of our tenant union organizing, we have begun a four million dollar rehabilitation project, which will renovate deteriorating buildings and allow their tenants the opportunity to own their own homes. This pilot project was the inspiration for the new home ownership bill, which Senator Percy introduced in Congress only recently.

The most dramatic success in Chicago has been Operation Breadbasket. Through Operation Breadbasket we have now achieved for the Negro community of Chicago more than twenty-two hundred new jobs with an income of approximately eighteen million dollars a year, new income to the Negro community. But not only have we gotten jobs through Operation Breadbasket in Chicago; there was another area through this economic program, and that was the development of financial institutions which were controlled by Negroes and which were sensitive to problems of economic deprivation of the Negro community. The two banks in Chicago that were interested in helping Negro businessmen were largely unable to loan much because of limited assets. Hi-Lo, one of the chain stores in Chicago, agreed to maintain substantial accounts in the two banks, thus increasing their ability to serve the needs of the Negro community. And I can say to you today that as a result of Operation Breadbasket in Chicago, both of these Negro-operated banks have now more than double their assets, and this has been done in less than a year by the work of Operation Breadbasket.

In addition, the ministers learned that Negro scavengers had been deprived of significant accounts in the ghetto. Whites controlled even the garbage of Negroes. Consequently, the chain stores agreed to contract with Negro scavengers to service at least the stores in Negro areas. Negro insect and rodent exterminators, as well as janitorial services, were likewise excluded from major contracts with chain stores. The chain stores also agreed to utilize these services. It also became apparent that chain stores advertised only rarely in Negro-owned community newspapers. This area of neglect was also negotiated, giving community newspapers regular, substantial accounts. And finally, the ministers found that Negro contractors, from painters to masons, from electricians to excavators, had also been forced to remain small by the monopolies of white contractors. Breadbasket negotiated agreements on new construction and rehabilitation work for the chain stores. These several interrelated aspects of economic development, all based on the power of organized consumers, hold great possibilities for dealing with the problems of Negroes in other northern cities. The kinds of requests made by Breadbasket in Chicago can be made not only of chain stores, but of almost any major industry in any city in the country.

And so Operation Breadbasket has a very simple program, but a powerful one. It simply says, “If you respect my dollar, you must respect my person.” It simply says that we will no longer spend our money where we can not get substantial jobs.

In Cleveland, Ohio, a group of ministers have formed an Operation Breadbasket through our program there and have moved against a major dairy company. Their requests include jobs, advertising in Negro newspapers, and depositing funds in Negro financial institutions. This effort resulted in something marvelous. I went to Cleveland just last week to sign the agreement with Sealtest. We went to get the facts about their employment; we discovered that they had 442 employees and only forty-three were Negroes, yet the Negro population of Cleveland is thirty-five percent of the total population. They refused to give us all of the information that we requested, and we said in substance, “Mr. Sealtest, we’re sorry. We aren’t going to burn your store down. We aren’t going to throw any bricks in the window. But we are going to put picket signs around and we are going to put leaflets out and we are going to our pulpits and tell them not to sell Sealtest products, and not to purchase Sealtest products.”

We did that. We went through the churches. Reverend Dr. Hoover, who pastors the largest church in Cleveland, who’s here today, and all of the ministers got together and got behind this program. We went to every store in the ghetto and said, “You must take Sealtest products off of your counters. If not, we’re going to boycott your whole store.” A&P refused. We put picket lines around A&P; they have a hundred and some stores in Cleveland, and we picketed A&P and closed down eighteen of them in one day. Nobody went in A&P. The next day Mr. A&P was calling on us, and Bob Brown, who is here on our board and who is a public relations man representing a number of firms, came in. They called him in because he worked for A&P, also; and they didn’t know he worked for us, too. Bob Brown sat down with A&P, and he said, they said, “Now, Mr. Brown, what would you advise us to do.” He said, “I would advise you to take Sealtest products off of all of your counters.” A&P agreed next day not only to take Sealtest products off of the counters in the ghetto, but off of the counters of every A&P store in Cleveland, and they said to Sealtest, “If you don’t reach an agreement with SCLC and Operation Breadbasket, we will take Sealtest products off of every A&P store in the state of Ohio.”

The next day, the next day the Sealtest people were talking nice, they were very humble. And I am proud to say that I went to Cleveland just last Tuesday, and I sat down with the Sealtest people and some seventy ministers from Cleveland, and we signed the agreement. This effort resulted in a number of jobs, which will bring almost five hundred thousand dollars of new income to the Negro community a year. We also said to Sealtest, “The problem that we face is that the ghetto is a domestic colony that’s constantly drained without being replenished. And you are always telling us to lift ourselves by our own bootstraps, and yet we are being robbed every day. Put something back in the ghetto.” So along with our demand for jobs, we said, “We also demand that you put money in the Negro savings and loan association and that you take ads, advertise, in the Cleveland Call & Post, the Negro newspaper.” So along with the new jobs, Sealtest has now deposited thousands of dollars in the Negro bank of Cleveland and has already started taking ads in the Negro newspaper in that city. This is the power of Operation Breadbasket.

Now, for fear that you may feel that it’s limited to Chicago and Cleveland, let me say to you that we’ve gotten even more than that. In Atlanta, Georgia, Breadbasket has been equally successful in the South. Here the emphasis has been divided between governmental employment and private industry. And while I do not have time to go into the details, I want to commend the men who have been working with it here: the Reverend Bennett, the Reverend Joe Boone, the Reverend J. C. Ward, Reverend Dorsey, Reverend Greer, and I could go on down the line, and they have stood up along with all of the other ministers. But here is the story that’s not printed in the newspapers in Atlanta: as a result of Operation Breadbasket, over the last three years, we have added about twenty-five million dollars of new income to the Negro community every year.

Now as you know, Operation Breadbasket has now gone national in the sense that we had a national conference in Chicago and agreed to launch a nationwide program, which you will hear more about.

Finally, SCLC has entered the field of housing. Under the leadership of attorney James Robinson, we have already contracted to build 152 units of low-income housing with apartments for the elderly on a choice downtown Atlanta site under the sponsorship of Ebenezer Baptist Church. This is the first project [applause], this is the first project of a proposed southwide Housing Development Corporation which we hope to develop in conjunction with SCLC, and through this corporation we hope to build housing from Mississippi to North Carolina using Negro workmen, Negro architects, Negro attorneys, and Negro financial institutions throughout. And it is our feeling that in the next two or three years, we can build right here in the South forty million dollars worth of new housing for Negroes, and with millions and millions of dollars in income coming to the Negro community.

Now there are many other things that I could tell you, but time is passing. This, in short, is an account of SCLC’s work over the last year. It is a record of which we can all be proud.

With all the struggle and all the achievements, we must face the fact, however, that the Negro still lives in the basement of the Great Society. He is still at the bottom, despite the few who have penetrated to slightly higher levels. Even where the door has been forced partially open, mobility for the Negro is still sharply restricted. There is often no bottom at which to start, and when there is there’s almost no room at the top. In consequence, Negroes are still impoverished aliens in an affluent society. They are too poor even to rise with the society, too impoverished by the ages to be able to ascend by using their own resources. And the Negro did not do this himself; it was done to him. For more than half of his American history, he was enslaved. Yet, he built the spanning bridges and the grand mansions, the sturdy docks and stout factories of the South. His unpaid labor made cotton “King” and established America as a significant nation in international commerce. Even after his release from chattel slavery, the nation grew over him, submerging him. It became the richest, most powerful society in the history of man, but it left the Negro far behind.

And so we still have a long, long way to go before we reach the promised land of freedom. Yes, we have left the dusty soils of Egypt, and we have crossed a Red Sea that had for years been hardened by a long and piercing winter of massive resistance, but before we reach the majestic shores of the promised land, there will still be gigantic mountains of opposition ahead and prodigious hilltops of injustice. We still need some Paul Revere of conscience to alert every hamlet and every village of America that revolution is still at hand. Yes, we need a chart; we need a compass; indeed, we need some North Star to guide us into a future shrouded with impenetrable uncertainties.

Now, in order to answer the question, “Where do we go from here?” which is our theme, we must first honestly recognize where we are now. When the Constitution was written, a strange formula to determine taxes and representation declared that the Negro was sixty percent of a person. Today another curious formula seems to declare he is fifty percent of a person. Of the good things in life, the Negro has approximately one half those of whites. Of the bad things of life, he has twice those of whites. Thus, half of all Negroes live in substandard housing. And Negroes have half the income of whites. When we turn to the negative experiences of life, the Negro has a double share: There are twice as many unemployed; the rate of infant mortality among Negroes is double that of whites; and there are twice as many Negroes dying in Vietnam as whites in proportion to their size in the population.

In other spheres, the figures are equally alarming. In elementary schools, Negroes lag one to three years behind whites, and their segregated schools receive substantially less money per student than the white schools. One-twentieth as many Negroes as whites attend college. Of employed Negroes, seventy-five percent hold menial jobs. This is where we are.

Where do we go from here? First, we must massively assert our dignity and worth. We must stand up amid a system that still oppresses us and develop an unassailable and majestic sense of values. We must no longer be ashamed of being black. The job of arousing manhood within a people that have been taught for so many centuries that they are nobody is not easy.

Even semantics have conspired to make that which is black seem ugly and degrading. In Roget’s Thesaurus there are some 120 synonyms for blackness and at least sixty of them are offensive, such words as blot, soot, grim, devil, and foul. And there are some 134 synonyms for whiteness and all are favorable, expressed in such words as purity, cleanliness, chastity, and innocence. A white lie is better than a black lie. The most degenerate member of a family is the “black sheep.” Ossie Davis has suggested that maybe the English language should be reconstructed so that teachers will not be forced to teach the Negro child sixty ways to despise himself, and thereby perpetuate his false sense of inferiority, and the white child 134 ways to adore himself, and thereby perpetuate his false sense of superiority. [applause] The tendency to ignore the Negro’s contribution to American life and strip him of his personhood is as old as the earliest history books and as contemporary as the morning’s newspaper.

To offset this cultural homicide, the Negro must rise up with an affirmation of his own Olympian manhood. Any movement for the Negro’s freedom that overlooks this necessity is only waiting to be buried. As long as the mind is enslaved, the body can never be free. Psychological freedom, a firm sense of self-esteem, is the most powerful weapon against the long night of physical slavery. No Lincolnian Emancipation Proclamation, no Johnsonian civil rights bill can totally bring this kind of freedom. The Negro will only be free when he reaches down to the inner depths of his own being and signs with the pen and ink of assertive manhood his own emancipation proclamation. And with a spirit straining toward true self-esteem, the Negro must boldly throw off the manacles of self-abnegation and say to himself and to the world, “I am somebody. I am a person. I am a man with dignity and honor. I have a rich and noble history, however painful and exploited that history has been. Yes, I was a slave through my foreparents, and now I’m not ashamed of that. I’m ashamed of the people who were so sinful to make me a slave.” Yes, yes, we must stand up and say, “I’m black , but I’m black and beautiful.” This, this self-affirmation is the black man’s need, made compelling by the white man’s crimes against him.

Now another basic challenge is to discover how to organize our strength in to economic and political power. Now no one can deny that the Negro is in dire need of this kind of legitimate power. Indeed, one of the great problems that the Negro confronts is his lack of power. From the old plantations of the South to the newer ghettos of the North, the Negro has been confined to a life of voicelessness and powerlessness. Stripped of the right to make decisions concerning his life and destiny he has been subject to the authoritarian and sometimes whimsical decisions of the white power structure. The plantation and the ghetto were created by those who had power, both to confine those who had no power and to perpetuate their powerlessness. Now the problem of transforming the ghetto, therefore, is a problem of power, a confrontation between the forces of power demanding change and the forces of power dedicated to the preserving of the status quo. Now, power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political, and economic change. Walter Reuther defined power one day. He said, “Power is the ability of a labor union like UAW to make the most powerful corporation in the world, General Motors, say, ‘Yes’ when it wants to say ‘No.’ That’s power.”

Now a lot of us are preachers, and all of us have our moral convictions and concerns, and so often we have problems with power. But there is nothing wrong with power if power is used correctly.

You see, what happened is that some of our philosophers got off base. And one of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as opposites, polar opposites, so that love is identified with a resignation of power, and power with a denial of love. It was this misinterpretation that caused the philosopher Nietzsche, who was a philosopher of the will to power, to reject the Christian concept of love. It was this same misinterpretation which induced Christian theologians to reject Nietzsche’s philosophy of the will to power in the name of the Christian idea of love.

Now, we got to get this thing right. What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and that love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best, power at its best is love, implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love. And this is what we must see as we move on.

Now what has happened is that we’ve had it wrong and mixed up in our country, and this has led Negro Americans in the past to seek their goals through love and moral suasion devoid of power, and white Americans to seek their goals through power devoid of love and conscience. It is leading a few extremists today to advocate for Negroes the same destructive and conscienceless power that they have justly abhorred in whites. It is precisely this collision of immoral power with powerless morality which constitutes the major crisis of our times.

Now we must develop progress, or rather, a program— and I can’t stay on this long— that will drive the nation to a guaranteed annual income. Now, early in the century this proposal would have been greeted with ridicule and denunciation as destructive of initiative and responsibility. At that time economic status was considered the measure of the individual’s abilities and talents. And in the thinking of that day, the absence of worldly goods indicated a want of industrious habits and moral fiber. We’ve come a long way in our understanding of human motivation and of the blind operation of our economic system. Now we realize that dislocations in the market operation of our economy and the prevalence of discrimination thrust people into idleness and bind them in constant or frequent unemployment against their will. The poor are less often dismissed, I hope, from our conscience today by being branded as inferior and incompetent. We also know that no matter how dynamically the economy develops and expands, it does not eliminate all poverty.

The problem indicates that our emphasis must be twofold: We must create full employment, or we must create incomes. People must be made consumers by one method or the other. Once they are placed in this position, we need to be concerned that the potential of the individual is not wasted. New forms of work that enhance the social good will have to be devised for those for whom traditional jobs are not available. In 1879 Henry George anticipated this state of affairs when he wrote in Progress and Poverty:

The fact is that the work which improves the condition of mankind, the work which extends knowledge and increases power and enriches literature and elevates thought, is not done to secure a living. It is not the work of slaves driven to their tasks either by the, that of a taskmaster or by animal necessities. It is the work of men who somehow find a form of work that brings a security for its own sake and a state of society where want is abolished.

Work of this sort could be enormously increased, and we are likely to find that the problem of housing, education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished. The poor, transformed into purchasers, will do a great deal on their own to alter housing decay. Negroes, who have a double disability, will have a greater effect on discrimination when they have the additional weapon of cash to use in their struggle.

Beyond these advantages, a host of positive psychological changes inevitably will result from widespread economic security. The dignity of the individual will flourish when the decisions concerning his life are in his own hands, when he has the assurance that his income is stable and certain, and when he knows that he has the means to seek self-improvement. Personal conflicts between husband, wife, and children will diminish when the unjust measurement of human worth on a scale of dollars is eliminated.

Now, our country can do this. John Kenneth Galbraith said that a guaranteed annual income could be done for about twenty billion dollars a year. And I say to you today, that if our nation can spend thirty-five billion dollars a year to fight an unjust, evil war in Vietnam, and twenty billion dollars to put a man on the moon, it can spend billions of dollars to put God’s children on their own two feet right here on earth.

Now, let me rush on to say we must reaffirm our commitment to nonviolence. And I want to stress this. The futility of violence in the struggle for racial justice has been tragically etched in all the recent Negro riots. Now, yesterday, I tried to analyze the riots and deal with the causes for them. Today I want to give the other side. There is something painfully sad about a riot. One sees screaming youngsters and angry adults fighting hopelessly and aimlessly against impossible odds. And deep down within them, you perceive a desire for self-destruction, a kind of suicidal longing.

Occasionally, Negroes contend that the 1965 Watts riot and the other riots in various cities represented effective civil rights action. But those who express this view always end up with stumbling words when asked what concrete gains have been won as a result. At best, the riots have produced a little additional anti-poverty money allotted by frightened government officials and a few water sprinklers to cool the children of the ghettos. It is something like improving the food in the prison while the people remain securely incarcerated behind bars. Nowhere have the riots won any concrete improvement such as have the organized protest demonstrations.

And when one tries to pin down advocates of violence as to what acts would be effective, the answers are blatantly illogical. Sometimes they talk of overthrowing racist state and local governments and they talk about guerrilla warfare. They fail to see that no internal revolution has ever succeeded in overthrowing a government by violence unless the government had already lost the allegiance and effective control of its armed forces. Anyone in his right mind knows that this will not happen in the United States. In a violent racial situation, the power structure has the local police, the state troopers, the National Guard, and finally, the army to call on, all of which are predominantly white. Furthermore, few, if any, violent revolutions have been successful unless the violent minority had the sympathy and support of the non-resisting majority. Castro may have had only a few Cubans actually fighting with him and up in the hills, but he would have never overthrown the Batista regime unless he had had the sympathy of the vast majority of Cuban people. It is perfectly clear that a violent revolution on the part of American blacks would find no sympathy and support from the white population and very little from the majority of the Negroes themselves.

This is no time for romantic illusions and empty philosophical debates about freedom. This is a time for action. What is needed is a strategy for change, a tactical program that will bring the Negro into the mainstream of American life as quickly as possible. So far, this has only been offered by the nonviolent movement. Without recognizing this we will end up with solutions that don’t solve, answers that don’t answer, and explanations that don’t explain.

And so I say to you today that I still stand by nonviolence. And I am still convinced, and I’m still convinced that it is the most potent weapon available to the Negro in his struggle for justice in this country.

And the other thing is, I’m concerned about a better world. I’m concerned about justice; I’m concerned about brotherhood; I’m concerned about truth. And when one is concerned about that, he can never advocate violence. For through violence you may murder a murderer, but you can’t murder murder. Through violence you may murder a liar, but you can’t establish truth. Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can’t murder hate through violence. Darkness cannot put out darkness; only light can do that.

And I say to you, I have also decided to stick with love, for I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind’s problems. And I’m going to talk about it everywhere I go. I know it isn’t popular to talk about it in some circles today. And I’m not talking about emotional bosh when I talk about love; I’m talking about a strong, demanding love. For I have seen too much hate. I’ve seen too much hate on the faces of sheriffs in the South. I’ve seen hate on the faces of too many Klansmen and too many White Citizens Councilors in the South to want to hate, myself, because every time I see it, I know that it does something to their faces and their personalities, and I say to myself that hate is too great a burden to bear. I have decided to love. If you are seeking the highest good, I think you can find it through love. And the beautiful thing is that we aren’t moving wrong when we do it, because John was right, God is love. He who hates does not know God, but he who loves has the key that unlocks the door to the meaning of ultimate reality.

And so I say to you today, my friends, that you may be able to speak with the tongues of men and angels; you may have the eloquence of articulate speech; but if you have not love, it means nothing. Yes, you may have the gift of prophecy; you may have the gift of scientific prediction and understand the behavior of molecules; you may break into the storehouse of nature and bring forth many new insights; yes, you may ascend to the heights of academic achievement so that you have all knowledge; and you may boast of your great institutions of learning and the boundless extent of your degrees; but if you have not love, all of these mean absolutely nothing. You may even give your goods to feed the poor; you may bestow great gifts to charity; and you may tower high in philanthropy; but if you have not love, your charity means nothing. You may even give your body to be burned and die the death of a martyr, and your spilt blood may be a symbol of honor for generations yet unborn, and thousands may praise you as one of history’s greatest heroes; but if you have not love, your blood was spilt in vain. What I’m trying to get you to see this morning is that a man may be self-centered in his self-denial and self-righteous in his self-sacrifice. His generosity may feed his ego, and his piety may feed his pride. So without love, benevolence becomes egotism, and martyrdom becomes spiritual pride.

I want to say to you as I move to my conclusion, as we talk about “Where do we go from here?” that we must honestly face the fact that the movement must address itself to the question of restructuring the whole of American society. There are forty million poor people here, and one day we must ask the question, “Why are there forty million poor people in America?” And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising a question about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I’m simply saying that more and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society. We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life’s marketplace. But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. It means that questions must be raised. And you see, my friends, when you deal with this you begin to ask the question, “Who owns the oil?” You begin to ask the question, “Who owns the iron ore?” You begin to ask the question, “Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that’s two-thirds water?” These are words that must be said.

Now, don’t think you have me in a bind today. I’m not talking about communism. What I’m talking about is far beyond communism. My inspiration didn’t come from Karl Marx; my inspiration didn’t come from Engels; my inspiration didn’t come from Trotsky; my inspiration didn’t come from Lenin. Yes, I read Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital a long time ago, and I saw that maybe Marx didn’t follow Hegel enough. He took his dialectics, but he left out his idealism and his spiritualism. And he went over to a German philosopher by the name of Feuerbach, and took his materialism and made it into a system that he called “dialectical materialism.” I have to reject that.

What I’m saying to you this morning is communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social.  And the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism, but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both. Now, when I say questioning the whole society, it means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated.

And if you will let me be a preacher just a little bit.  One day, one night, a juror came to Jesus and he wanted to know what he could do to be saved. Jesus didn’t get bogged down on the kind of isolated approach of what you shouldn’t do. Jesus didn’t say, “Now Nicodemus, you must stop lying.” He didn’t say, “Nicodemus, now you must not commit adultery.” He didn’t say, “Now Nicodemus, you must stop cheating if you are doing that.” He didn’t say, “Nicodemus, you must stop drinking liquor if you are doing that excessively.” He said something altogether different, because Jesus realized something basic: that if a man will lie, he will steal. And if a man will steal, he will kill. So instead of just getting bogged down on one thing, Jesus looked at him and said, “Nicodemus, you must be born again.”

In other words, “Your whole structure must be changed.” A nation that will keep people in slavery for 244 years will “thingify” them and make them things. And therefore, they will exploit them and poor people generally economically. And a nation that will exploit economically will have to have foreign investments and everything else, and it will have to use its military might to protect them. All of these problems are tied together.

What I’m saying today is that we must go from this convention and say, “America, you must be born again!”

And so, I conclude by saying today that we have a task, and let us go out with a divine dissatisfaction.

Let us be dissatisfied until America will no longer have a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds.

Let us be dissatisfied until the tragic walls that separate the outer city of wealth and comfort from the inner city of poverty and despair shall be crushed by the battering rams of the forces of justice.

Let us be dissatisfied until those who live on the outskirts of hope are brought into the metropolis of daily security.

Let us be dissatisfied until slums are cast into the junk heaps of history, and every family will live in a decent, sanitary home.

Let us be dissatisfied until the dark yesterdays of segregated schools will be transformed into bright tomorrows of quality integrated education.

Let us be dissatisfied until integration is not seen as a problem but as an opportunity to participate in the beauty of diversity.

Let us be dissatisfied until men and women, however black they may be, will be judged on the basis of the content of their character, not on the basis of the color of their skin. Let us be dissatisfied.

Let us be dissatisfied until every state capitol will be housed by a governor who will do justly, who will love mercy, and who will walk humbly with his God.

Let us be dissatisfied until from every city hall, justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Let us be dissatisfied until that day when the lion and the lamb shall lie down together, and every man will sit under his own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid.

Let us be dissatisfied, and men will recognize that out of one blood God made all men to dwell upon the face of the earth.

Let us be dissatisfied until that day when nobody will shout, “White Power!” when nobody will shout, “Black Power!” but everybody will talk about God’s power and human power.

And I must confess, my friends, that the road ahead will not always be smooth. There will still be rocky places of frustration and meandering points of bewilderment. There will be inevitable setbacks here and there. And there will be those moments when the buoyancy of hope will be transformed into the fatigue of despair. Our dreams will sometimes be shattered and our ethereal hopes blasted. We may again, with tear-drenched eyes, have to stand before the bier of some courageous civil rights worker whose life will be snuffed out by the dastardly acts of bloodthirsty mobs. But difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future. And as we continue our charted course, we may gain consolation from the words so nobly left by that great black bard, who was also a great freedom fighter of yesterday, James Weldon Johnson:

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod
Felt in the days
When hope unborn had died.
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place
For which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way
That with tears has been watered.
We have come treading our paths
Through the blood of the slaughtered.
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the bright gleam
Of our bright star is cast.

Let this affirmation be our ringing cry. It will give us the courage to face the uncertainties of the future. It will give our tired feet new strength as we continue our forward stride toward the city of freedom. When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows.

Let us realize that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. Let us realize that William Cullen Bryant is right: “Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again.” Let us go out realizing that the Bible is right: “Be not deceived. God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” This is our hope for the future, and with this faith we will be able to sing in some not too distant tomorrow, with a cosmic past tense, “We have overcome! We have overcome! Deep in my heart, I did believe we would overcome.”

Martin Luther King – Where Do We Go From Here? (Conclusion) from MLK Speeches on Vimeo.

By Guest Contributor Debbie Reese, cross-posted from American Indians in Children’s Literature

In October of 2011, ABC broadcast “Children of the Plains” on its 20/20 news program. Watching the promos for it, I shook my head. Diane Sawyer gave her viewers a very narrow program that did little to portray Native youth in the fullness of their existence.

Today (December 13, 2011) I’m sharing a rebuttal to Sawyer.

Please watch More Than That, and share it with as many people as you can. Those of you who work with children’s literature in some way, keep this video in mind when you’re reviewing books. We need literature that reflects the entirety of who we are rather than an outsiders romantic or derogatory misconception.

Update: 6:15 AM, Wednesday, December 14, 2011

After posting the video yesterday, I watched some of the other videos the students have on Youtube. They do a video news broadcast at their school. That’s what the first part of the video below shows, but the second half is a series of outtakes. While More Than That… blew me away, 12-12-11 (below) made me smile. These students are terrific! Right now, the school features More Than That… on their homepage.

By Arturo R. García

Well, that didn’t take long.

Gene Marks’ “If I Were A Poor Black Kid” piece for Forbes led to justifiably angry responses. Among them was Baratunde Thurston’s “Letter from a poor black kid” for CNN:

Thank you Mr. Marks. You have changed everything about my life. Thanks to your article, I worked to make sure I got the best grades, made reading my number one priority and created better paths for myself. If only someone had suggested this earlier.

But that was just the beginning of how your exceptionally relevant, grounded and experience-based advice changed my life. Thanks only to your article, I discovered technology.

Why did my teachers not teach this? Why isn’t this technology mentioned anywhere in popular culture? I don’t understand, but you do.

You listed so many different websites and resources, at first it was overwhelming. But I didn’t let that deter me. I thought to myself, “If a successful, caring, complicated, intelligent man like Gene Marks says to do it, then I’d better head over to rentcalculators.org right now!”

As Colorlines reported Thursday, Marks posted a response at CNN. The somewhat underwhelming transcript is under the cut.

Hi Baratunde,

Thanks for your piece – I thought it raised great points and continued the discussion. I wish you success with your new book too. And I read The Onion every day.

What do I know about being a “poor black kid?” Absolutely nothing. I’m a middle class white guy. But I went to school. So I know about that. And I’m in the business of technology. So I know about that.

How can any inner city kid even have the chance to overcome the inequality that our President spoke about and have a chance at some opportunity?

1. Study hard and get good grades.

2. Use technology to help you get good grades.

3. Apply to the best schools you can.

4. Get help from a school’s guidance counselor.

5. Learn a good skill. This is what I said in my blog. I said this wasn’t easy. It’s brutally hard. And, unfortunately, it’s not funny.

Will any of these kids read what I wrote in Forbes? Probably not. I’m hoping that educators, bloggers and most importantly parents do. Because it will be very tough for any kid to do it alone.

Regards,

Gene Marks

And that was it. Of course, Marks might just be conserving his strength; CNN reported he would post a follow-up piece this coming Monday, and we cannot wait. In the meantime, because the Internet is still a wonderful place, enjoy some more pics from the mandatory meme that just sprang up, If I Was A Poor Black Kid:

By Arturo R. García

Just when you thought Satoshi Kanazawa had wrapped up Tone-Deaf Article Of The Year honors for 2011, Forbes’ Gene Marks sauntered his way into consideration Monday with “If I Were A Poor Black Kid,” which spun a speech by President Obama on economic inequality into a privilege-fest with bon mots like these, emphasis mine:

If I was a poor black kid I would first and most importantly work to make sure I got the best grades possible. I would make it my #1 priority to be able to read sufficiently. I wouldn’t care if I was a student at the worst public middle school in the worst inner city. Even the worst have their best. And the very best students, even at the worst schools, have more opportunities. Getting good grades is the key to having more options. With good grades you can choose different, better paths. If you do poorly in school, particularly in a lousy school, you’re severely limiting the limited opportunities you have.

Somehow Forbes chose not to tag the bit about good grades as BREAKING NEWS. But maybe Marks’ editors didn’t want to overshadow the moment when he breaks it down even further than the President. That whole Occupy business? Totally barking up the wrong tree:

President Obama was right in his speech last week. The division between rich and poor is a national problem. But the biggest challenge we face isn’t inequality. It’s ignorance. So many kids from West Philadelphia don’t even know these opportunities exist for them. Many come from single-parent families whose mom or dad (or in many cases their grand mom) is working two jobs to survive and are just (understandably) too plain tired to do anything else in the few short hours they’re home. Many have teachers who are overburdened and too stressed to find the time to help every kid that needs it. Many of these kids don’t have the brains to figure this out themselves – like my kids. Except that my kids are just lucky enough to have parents and a well-funded school system around to push them in the right direction.

And about Prof. Melissa Harris-Perry thinking Marks’ column sounded like something out of The Onion? Well, she’s not wrong:

You know, it occurs to me that you don’t even live in America. And I’ve got to know, what the heck are you doing living in Sri Lanka? What do they have there? Camels? Rugs? Well, I can tell you one thing they don’t have: 100 percent grade-A American opportunity.

America is the land of milk and honey. You can probably catch a flight here from Sri Lanka for as little as $2,500 if you shop around. So what’s keeping you? Okay, I can imagine how it is: you live in a back alley and you eat garbage. And maybe you don’t have the liquid capital to outlay $2,500 on a luxury-like first-class airfare to the U.S. Well, you can always fly coach for about a third of first-class fare, and if worst comes to worst, put it on the plastic. As long as you pay it off as quickly as you can, the interest won’t cramp your style. (See Tip #1.)

It should also be noted that, as, Talking Point Memo’s Callie Schweitzer pointed out, Marks has also applied his “wisdom” to gender-equality issues in the workplace:

Women also have more personal and social pressures than men. And this affects their ability to further their careers and get the experience they need to become good managers. It’s common today for families to have two working parents. But let’s admit it, when little Johnny gets sick at school who’s the first person that’s usually called? When a child is up at night coughing, which parent is staying up with her? When the plumber has to make an emergency morning visit, who’s generally staying at home to deal with it?

It’s usually mom. And even if she has a full time job too.

When my wife and I were younger and our baby would cry in the middle of the night I would put a pillow…over my head. That stopped the crying for sure. My wife (who was working full time by the way) was the one who got out of bed to care for the child. Yes, I was an ass. I’m not saying that many dads don’t pitch in or try to do their fair share. But as much as women have achieved in earning their equality, there are still some age old cultural habits that won’t die. Children need their mommies. And most moms I know, whether they have a full time job or not, want to be there for their child. I know plenty of women who admit they struggle with this instinctual tug on their gut. Men don’t have this kind of instinctual tug. Let’s face it: unless there’s beer involved, men don’t have many instincts at all. We figure our wives will ultimately handle these things. And in many cases, they just do.

I could go on and on, and but, you know – beer. More reaction from around the ‘Net under the cut.

In other words, there’s more to getting a foot-hold in middle class than simply knowing how to use Google Scholar. There are a number of complex and tangle-ly mazes to maneuver when one is climbing up the socioeconomic ladder. Working hard is important; but let’s not be naïve. Gene Marks gives no real mention of the hard road ahead it will be for this kids like – access to a full range of technology, transportation to these those fancy-pants magnet schools. And what about supplies, equipment, oh and perquisite education just not offered at those lousy public schools. You see, no matter how hard a kid tries, when the smartest student from a poor-functioning school district walks into my freshman biology class, I can tell. And from day one, she or he is playing catch-up with the kids who attended those private or suburban school districts.
- DN Lee, Scientific American

Everything about Marks’ stupid, stupid essay assumes as unchanging truth that a poor person will have to work ridiculously hard in order to have a future where they are not poor, and this is the root of the problem that Marks not only doesn’t address but asserts is just not that big a deal in his preamble when, after applauding Barack Obama for talking about income inequality, claims that the superrich aren’t getting vastly more than their fair share. Because there’s nothing wrong with expecting someone to work hard to rise above their current status. But there’s plenty wrong with expecting kids to load themselves to the bone with work in order to have a chance to rise above their current status.5 He’s willing to pay lip service to the idea that inequality is wrong, but he’s not willing to suggest that something be done to address the problem of inequality. It’s just another hurdle for poor black kids to jump, and he’s ever so gracious to admit that he, Gene Marks, did not have to jump these hurdles – and that’s just how it is. Tough luck, poor black kids! Those of you who cannot do these incredible and amazing things to struggle upwards, well, there’s always McDonald’s.
- Christopher Bird, MightyGodKing.com

We Negroes are familiar with this particular brand of help. The #WhiteLove™ style of caring. Movies love to show how, when a white person with an open mind shows up and deals with poor blacks, their lives are magically changed. As I read this piece, I sighed to myself and mumbled, “White liberals.”

Please stop your furious typing. I’m not claiming that all white liberals are as completely clueless as Mr. Marks. I’m not even sure that Mr. Marks is, in fact, liberal — but this brand of “help” normally comes wrapped in an “I’m here with you, man! I understand your pain” bow that is purchased at your nearest “Awesome Liberals Totally Get It” gift shop. It’s the “Let me help you help you” brand of awesome.
- Elon James White, The Root

Excuse me Mr. Marks, while I understand and somewhat agree with your position, when was the last time you heard of Black kindergartners in inner-city Chicago receiving iPads? I’ve got all day.

He goes on to say that poor black children need to try their hardest to research nationally recognized magnet schools in hopes to attend. The accelerated learning material will put them on the track to college and higher learning.

Um, once more. I don’t know a child– white, Black, or otherwise– researching schools to attend in hopes of a better tomorrow. They would much rather be out playing with friends or watching cartoons, ignorant to the fact that the educational gap is indeed widening.
- Camille Travis, Uptown Magazine

If I was a rich white dude I would first and most importantly work to make sure I actually saw what it’s like to live as a poor black kid myself before I wrote a condescending column about how we should solve “our” problems. I would make it my #1 priority to spend some actual time with a working-class black family. Obviously, I wouldn’t know any personally, but I’d outreach to a social services program or an inner city school for help finding one willing to let me talk to them. Even the most privileged and obtuse person can look up the name of a charitable nonprofit in the phone book. And if you’re a technology columnist and business consultant, you’ll have even more resources: You can use Google!

Getting firsthand insights is the key to writing an informed column. By seeing and talking to actual people facing the actual situation you’re covering, you can choose to pen a different, better piece. If you choose to give advice about poverty from the comfort of your heated office, behind your expensive computer, in your ergonomic Aeron chair, you’re severely increasing the chances that you’ll look like an arrogant, condescending jerk.

And I would use the contacts available to me as a columnist for a magazine for rich white dudes. My school teacher says that columnists usually have or can find all kinds of stuff online these days. That’s because (and sadly) it’s oftentimes the only way that lazy columnists who don’t want to do their own reporting can get data to inform their opinions.
- Jeff Yang, WNYC

By Guest Contributor Liz Dwyer, cross-posted from Los Angelista

“Why’d you give that n***** your eraser?”

I send my two sons to school to learn, not so that they can be called racial slurs. But on Wednesday, a boy in 10-year-old Mr. O’s fifth grade class decided to make sure that the classroom was an extra welcoming learning environment. He posed the above question to another student, after that kid decided to give my son an eraser.

My son told me about it when I went to pick him up from his after school program and of course I was angry and upset, but I also felt numb. I am the mother of two black males in the United States. That means this is not the first time my boys have been called a racial slur.

I could write about how we are not post-racial and this is exhibit A of why I believe that racism is still America’s most vital and challenging issue. But it came to me that there’s something powerful about letting children–the most innocent of us all–share what it feels like to be called the n-word in class.

Last night I asked the boys if they’d like to talk about the racial slurs they’ve been called, and how it makes them feel. They were excited to share–we all know it’s cathartic to be able to share something painful that’s happened–and I’m glad that they know that they don’t have to keep the racism they face a secret or act like it’s not a big deal–or that it’s something they have to be ashamed of.

I filmed this interview with my boys before they went to sleep and in it Mr. T, my eight-year-old details being called an African bitch at school, and he talks about the first time he remembers being called the n-word. Mr. O talked about this most recent incident in his school, and then both boys talked about how it feels to know that when kids say these things, you still have to be in the classroom with them and what they think schools should do.

I have cried every time I watch the six minutes of this clip. It hurts like nothing else to know that children think it’s OK to call other children dehumanizing names that are steeped in the sickness of this nation’s racism.

(Editor’s note: a transcript of the video is under the cut – Arturo)

Mr. T (left): I would like to talk about racism. Kids have called me the n-word three times and for all those three times, they didn’t have a good reason. And, it’s racist for someone to call me that because the n-word is a racist word for black people and I’ve been called an African b-word once. What I told the kid the next day who called me that is, just because I’m black doesn’t mean I’m African. Because if I was African I’d be coming from Africa, and I don’t come from Africa. So that doesn’t make me African, and so that didn’t make sense for him to call me an African b-word. Anyway, it still would’ve been offensive if he just called me the b-word. Kids have spit in my face twice, and I didn’t like either of those, because it was just gross, and I hated it.

Mr. O: Hi, my name is Mr. O. About two days ago in my classroom – I’m in the fifth grade, and my teacher is a black male, so -

Mr. T: Mine too.

Mr. O: So it turns out a kid called me the n-word in class today. So I told my teacher who’s a black male, so it offended him very easily, too. He was born in the time when racism was still really active, so he was really mad with the kid, so the kid got suspended. But I didn’t like being called that, because it’s just not cool, you know?

Liz: Why isn’t it cool? Why do you think that kid called you that?

Mr. O: I’m not sure.

Mr. T: I think he called him that because basically he doesn’t know how offensive it can be to a black person. And he just thought that maybe it would be like a joke and he wouldn’t tell and no one would care, but that isn’t true. Because if it’s racist, everyone’s gonna wanna care about it, ’cause racism is a bad thing, and no one should ever want it.

Liz: What do you guys think would help kids not call each other the n-word or other names?

Mr. O: It could come from their parents, so their parents maybe could stop acting like that around their kids.

Mr. T: Maybe they could stop watching movies with the n-word. Like, one movie with the n-word is Malcolm X. In that movie they say the n-word a lot.

Liz: What about … How does it make you feel, when you’re at school to learn, and you know that kids at school are calling you these names, and you still have to be in class with them?

Mr. T: It just feels like you wish you were in another class and that you never met this kid, or that you never came to this school. The first time I ever got called the n-word was when I was five, I think. I was at the park and this kid just walked up to me and called me the n-word for no reason. At first I didn’t know what the n-word was, but then I asked mom, and she told me, and I felt really sad that he called me that. And I’ve also been called the a-word once.

Liz (to Mr. O): How do you feel? Like, this kid’s gonna come back from being suspended and you still have to be in the [same] room. Do you think that that being suspended is gonna change his attitude any?

Mr. O: No.

Liz: What do you think would change his attitude?

Mr. T: If a person could have a talk with his parents, maybe.

Mr. O: Saying that it could affect his grade, maybe. And communication with other students.

Liz: Is there anything that you think schools should be doing to help students not be racist against each other?

Mr. T: They can make a festival for all the black heroes, maybe?

Liz: That’s a good idea. (To Mr. O) What were you gonna say?

Mr. O: I think the schools can do all that they can to help, but it’s mainly the kid who has to stop doing it himself or herself. Because the schools can do all that they can, but that still might not affect that kid. But the kid has to tell himself that it’s not okay.

Liz: Is there anything else you guys would like to say about this? Do you worry it’s gonna happen again?

Mr. T: Yes. Because I’ve already been called that so many times that I never want it to happen again, or anything like what I just talked about to happen again.

Mr. O: I hope it’s not gonna happen again, because a lot of the kids in my classroom are my friends.

Liz: Well thank you so much for telling us how you guys feel and sharing your experiences.

By Guest Contributor Paula, cross-posted from Heart, Mind and Seoul

The students that I work with – kids and young adults ranging from 5 years to 18 years of age – very clearly understand that there are certain behaviors and language that I will not tolerate or accept in my presence.  Of course the vast majority know that they’re not going to get away with any profanity, but other words including “gay” or “retard”, racial slurs and derogatory actions (such as making an “L” on their forehead to call someone a loser, mocking another student’s speech, calling attention to a part of another student’s body, and yes even pulling ones eyes back to “look” Asian) are not necessarily universally known as utterly unacceptable until I call attention to it and we have a discussion as to why I will not accept it in our collective learning environment.

After the incident, we’ll stop what we’re doing and I’ll do my best to facilitate a discussion around the action or language and explain why it is hurtful to all of us.  Sometimes we’ll do an experiential activity (age appropriate of course) that hopefully drives home the point of impact v. intent and why we need to be aware and responsible of the impact that we’re having on one another.

At the end of the day what I ultimately tell my students is this: Now that you are aware of how I feel about this particular behavior or language and the impact that it can have on me and other people, if you CHOOSE to engage in this behavior or use this language again, I will assume that you are making a conscious choice to hurt me and others in this space and that is not okay.  You have the information now.  It is your choice from now on to use that information for good, not harm.  I will do my very best to protect this space for everyone who enters and I expect you to do the same.

The kids get it.  They really do.  Of course I cannot control what is said and done beyond the classroom, but in my presence they have respected our space and I appreciate and respect them for that.

I think we as adults can take some cues from these students.  Are there people in our lives who are telling us that certain things we say or do are hurtful or offensive?  Are we showing them that we are listening?   Or do we choose to dismiss their feelings and continue to make the deliberate choice to keep on hurting or offending them?

There is a woman in my social circle who has struggled greatly with infertility.  Let’s say that I thought it was cute and funny to call her Infertile Myrtle every time I saw her.  And let’s say that she told me that doesn’t like it because it’s hurtful and offensive and that she’s even explicitly asked me to stop calling her that name.  But let’s say that I really like calling her that because I think it’s an endearing term and because rhyming is just too fun and well, don’t I have a right to my feelings, too?  Well, of course I do.  But I need to decide – is it more important that I not intentionally harm or offend this woman or to do what I want to do simply because I think I have a right to do it?

It seems like a no-brainer, but how many people do we know in the workplace, in our communities and even in our own families who would say that people like this woman need to just “lighten up” and “get a sense of humor, already.”  Gee whiz, I mean, it’s not society’s fault that she’s unable to conceive – why should others have to censor their language just to accommodate her?  And besides, my cousin’s sister-in-law’s aunt’s half-sibling said it doesn’t bother her, so clearly it’s not all that bad.  It’s just a nickname – why does everyone have to be so PC all the time anyway?

But is it just a nickname?  Is it just a costume?  Is it just a simple gesture?  Is it just an innocent punch line?

When we have been told in no uncertain terms that a particular behavior or certain language is hurtful and offensive and when we refuse to acknowledge how our actions are impacting others by purposely choosing to repeat a behavior that we know is hurting a fellow human being, just exactly what does that mean?

I think my students would be able to answer that and I wish more adults were willing to do the same.

Longtime Racialicious readers know this time on the calendar has prompted the R to read someone (or several folks) about their racist costumes or some other Halloween-related foolishness. Well, this year, Ohio University’s Students Teaching about Racism in Society (STARS) put on posters what we’ve been putting into words for quite a while.

I think that, for the most part, the campaign deserves the accolades, coverage, and support it’s been getting around the web, from Angry Asian Man to the 17,575 (and counting!) responses on the STARS president’s Tumblr to The Root to Bitch to the former Racialicious owner Carmen Sognonvi .

Of course, we can argue, among other things, that phenotypes don’t equal culture and cultures aren’t static or even talk about the historical-religious appropriation of Halloween itself.

My only quibble with the campaign is that I may have chosen photos where the models conveyed different body language. Not that the models didn’t pose how they wanted, being a student-driven campaign. What I do think is quite a few photographers rarely get The Shot in one shot; in fact, several photographers submit several photos for clients/collaborative partners to choose from.

I would have chosen, say, the Latino looking down at the photo, the East Asian woman giving the “geisha” picture the side-eye. Or all of the models giving their respective photos the side-eye. Or all of them looking out at the viewer. Or all of them looking down. As is, the photo of the East Asian woman looking down may suggest non-confrontation (“meek Asian girl”)

juxtaposed with the men of color (the photo at the top of the post and this one)

and the Black woman

may  inadvertently suggest stereotypes of anger and aggression (“angry Arab,” “Latino with a temper,” “aggressive Black woman”). Just a thought if and when STARS decides to tweak this incredible campaign.

But, again, that’s my only quibble. STARS did a wild-applause-and-rose-tossing job with this campaign.

Others, however, have taken this serious and timely message and parodied—if not downright attacked–it. (Color me unshocked by this, Racializens.) Now, some of the parodies made me chuckle, like this Avatar-based one

and the zombie one

mostly due to the ideas of the creatures being symbols for people of color.

The ones about white people, especially poor whites, produced mixed results mostly because the parodies don’t quite grasp that, yes, poor white people do have a mitigated privilege via their skin color and that white people of various class standings making fun of poor whites may be viewed as “inside joking,”

but white poverty is also thoroughly ridiculed and dismissed—and, therefore erased–in US society by that very same mitigated privilege.

Oh, and let’s not forget the sexism and the fatphobia in these parodies.

As we’ve witnessed in our posts about racism in costuming, people have rushed to defend their choice to dress up in racially offensive Halloween garb in some of the comment sections about the campaigns, with the usual mixture of the “I got my rights!”, “my best [insert race and/or ethnicity here] friend/partner/co-worker/neighbor didn’t find my costume offensive,” (bonus points if the person saying this is a person of color wears the stereotyping costume of a PoC culture), “y’all are being oversensitive/overemotional/hostile,” “you’re the racist for calling out my racism,” and other derailing techniques.

Some of the Derailing/Apologist/Other-Blaming hits and remixes?

From “Jerry Stein” at Autostraddle

OMG, get a life. This is pathetic. Would an Asian woman be OK to go as a Geisha on Halloween? If not why not? And if so are we now saying that only people of the exact origin or race can have fun dressed as a CHARACTER on Halloween? Stop being so sensitive. If America is to get passed all of this nonsense then it needs to get some perspective and start smiling again.

Watch any movie or TV show and you will see a racial stereotype. Are all stereotypes negative NO! Why is it that this campaign only sees that.

This country is dividing itself. Nobody wants to be American. Everyone is so narcissistic and self important it makes me sick to my stomach. Bring back people with humility and a sense of humor before we all end up selfish deluded idiots thinking the world owes them something.

Based on this all costumes which feature Cowboys, Irish Leprechauns, Michael Jackson, Lady GaGa, Bin Laden, OJ Simpson, Madonna, Jersey Shore cast members will all now be banned because they offend the Irish, African Americans, Italians and Muslims. Thats pretty much Halloween cancelled.

This country is becoming a laughing stock for the wrong reasons.

Mohamhead from GOOD

I am not white myself but I don’t see what’s wrong with people doing that kind on stuff on Halloween. I might even dress up as a white guy. Is that racist too? Or is it only racist if white people do it? Hypocrites.

didimydoe3, also at GOOD

I don’t mind stereotypical costumes of my race because I’m mature enough to know it’s a costume.

Sometimes it is offensive. Mine is. It’s the only reason I’m doing it. I’m going blackface.

Oh, I could go on and on and on with these kinds of comments–because these comments are out there ad nauseum–but you get the jist.

But see, here’s the thing, People Who Defend Racist Costumes: you all are proving STARS’—and Racialicious’—point…and quite well. You’re welcome.

As Bitch’s headline says, don’t mess up as you dress up, and have a Happy Halloween!

Image credits: Uproxx and Hard to Be Humble When You Stuntin on a Jumbotron

By Guest Contributor Jen Wang, cross-posted from Disgrasian

The Chinese Progressive Association organizes low income and working class Chinese immigrants in San Francisco. Some of their youth members have come together to tell their stories in solidarity with the Occupy movement, and I keep seeing their photos shared on Facebook. Their stories are heartbreaking, enraging, depressing, and, at the same time, inspiring. These kids should be wallowing in despair but instead they’re still fighting for a better future for themselves and their families.

A reality check for all of us, especially in light of the backlash against the Occupy movement and this kind of bullshit.

[Chinese Progressive Association website]
[Chinese Progressive Association on FB]

Reader Keisha tipped us to a new joint initiative between Michael Bloomberg and George Soros. The New York Times reports:

The administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, in a blunt acknowledgment that thousands of young black and Latino men are cut off from New York’s civic, educational and economic life, plans to spend nearly $130 million on far-reaching measures to improve their circumstances.

The program, the most ambitious policy push of Mr. Bloomberg’s third term, would overhaul how the government interacts with a population of about 315,000 New Yorkers who are disproportionately undereducated, incarcerated and unemployed.

To pay for the endeavor in a time of fiscal austerity, the city is relying on an unusual source: Mr. Bloomberg himself, who intends to use his personal fortune to cover about a quarter of the cost, city officials said. A $30 million contribution from Mr. Bloomberg’s foundation would be matched by that of a fellow billionaire, George Soros, a hedge fund manager, with the remainder being paid for by the city.

Starting this fall, the administration said it would place job-recruitment centers in public-housing complexes where many young black and Latino men live, retrain probation officers in an effort to reduce recidivism, establish new fatherhood classes and assess schools on the academic progress of male black and Latino students.

Talk about a jump start. While many of the experts quoted remain overwhelmed and slightly pessimistic at the turn of events, there are some really great ideas in the initiative: a focus on practical needs, like payment for participation in programs, retraining parole officers, and creating school based initiatives around the achievement gap. I hope Bloomberg and Soros can make a dent with this plan – however, they are throwing millions and millions of dollars at what is a billion dollar problem. The racial wealth gap and the opportunity gaps take an outsized toll on children of color, and the Insight Center for Community Economic Development has published dozens of studies on how everything from access to child care to the nature of low wage work contribute to many of these issues. And even if this program succeeds in NYC, is there enough political will to replicate it in needed areas?

Still, it’s easy to get overly worried about the future. Bloomberg’s other initiatives have done exceedingly well and translated to other, nationwide projects and legislation – here’s to hoping the program is successful and it reignites a national conversation on the resource gaps in our communities.

(Image Credit: New York Times)

If you saw Part I yesterday, you saw that the Black Panel, traditionally held on Saturdays, had made its’ way to the Friday morning line-up. Luckily, more panels have stepped up to fill the POC void on Saturday, and Sunday looks to be book-ended by some interesting stuff. Not that we’re too biased. The line-up is under the cut.

SATURDAY

11:00 a.m. – Noon: Spotlight on Ernie Chan. A celebration of the nearly 30-year career of Chan, who broke into the industry with DC Comics, where he got to work on various Batman comics before moving to Marvel, where he worked on characters ranging from Dr. Strange to Luke Cage to Conan. Room 4.

11:00 a.m. – Noon: Avatar: The Last Airbender Fan Gathering. Enjoy the company of fellow fans and discuss the original series, upcoming Dark Horse comics, and the future Legend of Korra. Moderator Avatar_Mom chats with MC Victor Sgroi (Cabbage Merchant), Michael Kirkpatrick (Props), Kevin Coppa(Puppetbenders), fan artist Kim Miranda (Isaia), writer John O’Bryan (Avatar the Last Airbender), and storyboard artist Ian B. Graham (Avatar the Last Airbender). Come for the conversation and stay for the cosplay contest. Santa Rosa Room, Marriott Marquis & Marina

12:30-1:30 p.m.: Diversity in Young Adult Works. Cindy Pon (Fury of the Phoenix) and Gene Luen Yang (Level Up) will be among the panelists looking at genres and characters in YA fiction that are, thankfully, not sparkly vampires or the werewolves they’re feuding against. Malinda Lo (Huntress) will serve as the moderator. Room 8.

Celeb Sightings: Donald Glover, Yvette Nicole Brown, Danny Pudi and Ken Jeong bring the lulz at the Community panel in the Hilton San Diego Bayfront’s Indigo Ballroom, starting at 1 p.m. At 2:15 p.m., though, Pudi is slated to be at Hall H for the Knights of Badassdom panel. Bonus points to anybody who can film Pudi’s mad dash from one room to the other.

1:30 – 2:30 p.m.: Spotlight on Tsuneo Goda.
So what the heck is Domo-kun? Goda probably won’t spill the beans, but he probably will share some of the origin of his signature creation, as well as talk about new projects. Room 5AB.

2:00 – 3:00 p.m.: Spotlight on Jamal Igle. Igle and actor/writer/moderator Keith Dallas will discuss Igle’s rise from an internship at DC Comics to his current status as one of the company’s Executive Artists. Room 4.

2:00-3:30 p.m. Comics Arts Conference Session #12 — Poster Session. Want to go in depth with a comics scholar? Or a whole room of comics scholars? Rather than presenting from the stage, the Poster Session scholars will be ranged around the room to discuss their presentations in small-group and one-on-one discussions. Real-World Consequences Poster Group: Kalani Largusa (School of the Art Institute of Chicago) explores the significance of Kato in his role as the Green Hornet’s sidekick and the shaping of Asian identity; Nathan Wilson(The Comics Journal) looks at the real-world consequences of the representation of Native Americans in comics. Room 26AB.

Queer Poster Group: Courtney Schneider (School of the Art Institute of Chicago) compares the treatment of homosexuality in mainstream and non-mainstream serialized media; Ashley Pitcock (Henderson State University) asks whether Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s movement into bisexuality was a sign of the times or a gimmick to sell Season Eight comics;Michael Harrison (Monmouth College) investigates how Spanish comics authors La Penya in Mondo Lirondo and Ivan Garcia in Capitan Eclipse use fantasy in distinct ways to communicate a 21st century queer Spanish identity. Room 26AB.

2:30 – 5:00 p.m.: Comic-Con How-To — Mixing Color with Felipe Echevarria. Artists looking for a more in-depth workshop should give this a shot, as Echevarria, a registered teacher at the Michael Wilcox School of Color, demonstrates the school’s Wilcox Bias Color Wheel system, recommended for artists of any skill level with any pigmented media (watercolors, oils, acrylics, printer’s inks, gouache, etc). Room 28DE.

4:00 – 5:00 p.m.: Bent Comix — The Next Wave of Gay Cartooning. A year after expanding their creative community into Bent Con, the world’s first queer comics show, the people behind the Bent movement (note: link contains NSFW cartoons) discuss where their distribution network goes from here. Room 4.

4:00 – 5:00 p.m. Finally! Nickelodeon: The Last Airbender: Legend of Korra — Exclusive First Look. The team behind Avatar reconvenes to discuss the next chapter in the saga, which Ay-leen the Peacemaker first alerted us to back in January. Room 6BC.

Creator Alert: At 4:30 p.m., DC Entertainment co-publisher Jim Lee gets a solo spotlight in his own “DC Focus” session, where he’ll no doubt dish on the company’s September relaunch and his work on the DC Universe MMO game. Room 6DE.

5:30 – 7:00 p.m.: Gays in Comics: Year 24! Prism Comics hosts its’ annual celebration of LGBT characters in the comics realm, with this year’s guest-list including Dan Parent, who created Archie Comics’ first gay character, Kevin Keller, Prism Queer Press grant recipient Jon Macy, writer Greg Pak (Incredible Hulks, Herc, Alpha Flight) and a video appearance from Batwoman artist/co-writer J.H. Williams III. After the panel, Prism will hold a mixer and silent auction. Room 6A.

Celeb Sighting: Maggie Q’s Nikita is still around? Well go fig. Get the scoop on the show’s second season at 6 p.m. in Room 6BCF.

8:00 – 9:00 p.m.: Mushroom Clouds and Mushroom Men — Ishiro Honda. If you ever saw the original Japanese version of Godzilla, you know that it’s a genuinely scary piece of work, and Honda was the man who made that vision come to the screen. In this session, Peter H. Brothers, author of the Honda biography Mushroom Clouds and Mushroom Men: The Fantastic Cinema of Ishiro Honda, revisits the director’s career. Room 9.

SUNDAY

10:00-11:00 a.m.: Diversity and Fandom 102: How You Can Make a Difference. We talked about this Monday morning – Racebending and The R come together to discuss what we can do as fans and consumers to make our voices matter in an increasingly fragmented geek media spectrum. Racebending’s Mike Le will serve as moderator, with the panel featuring actor Dante Basco (Hook, Avatar: The Last Airbender); showrunner/writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach (The Middleman); author Malinda Lo; blogger and event promoter Phil Yu (AngryAsianMan.com); USC Professor Henry Jenkins and yours truly. Room 24ABC.

10 -11 a.m.: Teen Comics Workshop. Gene Luen Yang and Thien Pham, the team behind Level Up, will be among the panelists in this workshop for teenagers looking to tell their stories in a comic-book format. Room 30CDE.

Creator Alerts: At 11:15 a.m., writer Marjorie Liu will be part of Marvel Comics’ “Women of Marvel” panel in Room 5AB; you can catch her Marvel colleagues Greg Pak and Axel Alonso discussing the company’s Fear Itself crossover at 12:30 p.m. in Room 6DE. That afternoon at 2 p.m., Buffy the Vampire Slayer cover artist Jo Chen joins Chan in Room 25ABC for “Cover Story: The Art of the Cover;” and DC’s Jim Lee hosts a How-To panel for fans of his artwork in Room 28DE, starting at 3 p.m.

12:00 – 1:00 p.m.: The Philippine Invasion. A look at the Filipino artists who broke into the American comic-book scene in the 1970s, including Ernie Chan, Tony DeZuniga, and Alex Niño, as well as one of their successors, Gerry Alanguilan, hosted by writer/editor Mark Waid. Room 4.

12:00 – 1:30 p.m.: Comics Arts Conference Session #14 — Manga Censorship. What sets Japanese comic-books apart from their American cousins, from a regulatory standpoint? How do these differences play out in the legal arena? And what role did the 1960s magazine Garo play in developing manga as a vehicle for social criticism? Room 26AB.

1:30 – 2:30 p.m.: Comics Arts Conference Session #15: The Comic Book Project — Creativity, Comics, and Academic Success in the Imperial Valley. Over the past three years, students in grades K-12 from Imperial County, California, have been creating comics in their social studies, science, English, and math classrooms as part of a U.S. Department of Education grant. They are using the Comic Book Project to boost academic skills, test scores, and individual success. This presentation features the work of participating students alongside demos from students, teachers, and coordinators. Lori Campos (Imperial County Office of Education), Anthony Arevalo (Imperial County Office of Education), Imperial County student Hallie Campos, and Shaila Mulholland (San Diego State University) will introduce the process and products of this unique educational model and provide tools and strategies for replication in any other school. Michael Bitz (Center for Educational Pathways), founder of the Comic Book Project, will be present to introduce the program and describe the successes and challenges of comics in school classrooms. Room 26AB.

3:45 – 4:45 p.m.: The Holocaust Through the Eyes of a Child, Animated by a Child. Bill Plympton (two-time Oscar-nominated animator, Idiots and Angels), 11-year-old prodigy animator and child film critic Perry Chen, his mother Dr. Zhu Shen (producer), Karina Bessoudo (Toon Boom Animation, vice president of marketing and communications), and Kevin Sean Michaels (director) share insight and a sneak preview of the film “Ingrid Pitt: Beyond The Forest” and the cross-generational collaboration that was formed to create it. The short animated film illustrates the miraculous true story of the late actress Ingrid Pitt (Where Eagles Dare) who, in 1945, escaped at age 8 from a Nazi concentration camp in Poland to later become one of the UK’s biggest movie stars. Also screening will be a trailer for the new documentary on animator Bill Plympton, “Adventures in Plymptoons!” Moderated by Pat Swinney Kaufman (executive director for the New York State Governor’s Office for Motion Picture & Television Development) and Lloyd Kaufman (president/co-founder of Troma Entertainment, author of Sell Your Own Damn Movie). Room 5AB

The public school system in DC has fallen out of the national conversation since the departure of Michelle Rhee.

But locally, the debate rages on.

The Washington Post just posted a profile of Bill Kerlina, a young principal initially lured to DC from Montgomery County who has now resigned to open a gourmet cupcake shop.

If anyone had a shot at making it in DCPS, it was Kerlina. He was placed at one of the few high performing elementary schools in the system. In stark contrast to most of DCPS, Hearst Elementary School is beloved by parents and the majority of students are proficient in math and reading. (DCPS averages are dismal, with about 50% of kids in any given school meeting proficiency.)

After enticing Kerlina with promises of a promotion (Montgomery County has low turnover rates for principals) and dangling the mission to close the black-white achievement gap, the transition proved to be rough. While Kerlina loved the students and parents, the lack of support for teachers combined with a school reform that was more hype that action proved to be too much. Compensation factored into his decision. However, Kerlina also shared one more fascinating detail:

A few days before he quit, Kerlina received his annual evaluation from Instructional Superintendent Amanda Alexander. It was a positive appraisal, school officials confirmed, and Henderson sent Kerlina a letter of reappointment. But Alexander raised a concern, he said: Why were there not more white families at Hearst?

The question is sensitive in the D.C. system, where only about a third of students attend neighborhood schools. It is especially sensitive in affluent and largely white areas of Northwest Washington. At Hearst, 70 percent of the 241 students come from outside the neighborhood. Most are African Americans.

D.C. officials say they simply want more neighbors in neighborhood schools. But Kerlina took offense at Alexander’s question, which implied that as a white male, he should have been more successful at recruiting. The next day, in an e-mail to Alexander that he wrote but decided not to send, he laid out a taxonomy of Northwest parents in an effort to show the hurdles to recruiting more neighborhood families.

The well-to-do private school families, “the majority” in the neighborhood, he wrote, were a lost cause. “I have not courted them and do not plan to do so, since they will never consider DCPS,” Kerlina wrote. [...]

Finally, he wrote, there were families with racial prejudices. He said this conclusion came from a series of conversations he had with prospective neighborhood parents “that delicately asked about the number of out-of-boundary families and made reference to the ‘diversity’ of Hearst.”

“They will never come to Hearst because of the number of out-of-boundary black families,” he wrote.

One way to lure neighboring families — restricting the number of out-of-boundary seats — would be a “horrible mistake,” Kerlina wrote, as “the diversity at Hearst is what makes it a great school.”

The comments, as usual on education pieces, are a mix of outright racism, commentary on racism, and conversations about class:

cleancut77
Finally, he wrote, there were families with racial prejudices. He said this conclusion came from a series of conversations he had with prospective neighborhood parents “that delicately asked about the number of out-of-boundary families and made reference to the ‘diversity’ of Hearst
+++++++++++++++++++++++

Shocking!! So the white liberals in DC are not big on “diversity” either. Then why are they pushing it on everyone else? Also how is a school 70% Black “diverse”?

cheetahcats
Perhaps it’s just that many parents choose not to risk their children’s safety by exposing them to bused thugs who have been deemed “behavior nightmares.”

commonsense42
As a former teacher, “behavior nightmares” come in all shades of the rainbow. Don’t kid yourselves and think that only black students are problems….and that only white students are perfect little angels with high GPAs.

thetensionmakesitwork
Very true CS. Could we go further and not make it a race issue? My experience is that children with behavior issues generally come from households with single parents, low prior academic attainments, and low incomes. The amount of melanin, which is based primarily on where their ancestors lived relative to the equator, has nothing to do with behavior.

gusaxa
Kerlina speaks of the problem of out of bound students who are behavior problems and disrupt the school. But when white neighborhood parents speak of these same issues – well, they’re racist and obviously don’t understand the value of “diversity.” WaPo, please for the love of god strike the use of the word “diversity” from the paper. It means nothing. Diversity in what? income? race? education level? ethnicity? Or, is it code for “low-income blacks”? If it’s that, then just say it. Maybe it’s about time DCPS focus on educating children, period. Create a SAFE, STABLE, and ENGAGING education environment and they will come. Unfortunately, too many DC Public Schools reflect the dysfunctions of the communities they serve. No one can blame a white, black, hispanic family for sending their child to Sidwell Friends if afforded the option. And, yes, there are black DC families who send their children to elite private schools.

LuvDCArea
Things like this are why we left D.C. and moved to the Maryland suburbs. We couldn’t afford private schools, for our children, when we lived in D.C., and even though we lived in a good neighborhood, in D.C., the public schools were terrible.
It’s a shame that the system puts good teachers and principals in a double-bind; do well but we won’t give you the resources and training to do so. This sounds about right, from what we experienced, a dysfunctional system, even though there were some very dedicated, talented educators who were trying their best to make the situation better, they were fighting a huge uphill battle, which they couldn’t win.
This makes me continue to support D.C. Statehood. Perhaps, then, some of these problems would lessen.

cutsdeep
and then… that’s why I left montgomery county….

we could afford private school…. but were disgusted funding both our child’s education AND that of another….

So we moved.

where is that tax base coming from next year, maryland?

to issues of bullying and violence (which generally didn’t factor into the out of towner take):

POLOinDC
I went to DCPS from elementary school to high school, and finally graduated in 1985, without getting killed, thank God. After reading this article it would seem nothing has changed. The problems described in this article are the same ones that were present back then, most notably bad students with behavioral problems. I don’t know why school systems allow these bad apples to remain in school and basically turn the entire school up side down. It seems like school systems are more concerned with the rights of the few bad students then what is best for all of the students as a whole. There is a reason why some schools have so many out of boundary students, most of the neighborhood schools, especially in SE, are overrun with bullies and thugs. I begged my mom to send me to Gonzaga, but unfortunately we had no way to afford that, so I just crossed my fingers each day and hoped I would make it back home safe. And going home wasn’t all that better either, because after navigating the thugs and bullies at school you had to do it all over again once you got back to your neighborhood. When I read that some White families didn’t want their kids going to school with some of these kids, I can’t really blame them and while some it might be due to racism, trust me not all of it is. Some of these kids are just off the chart bad and I mean kids in first and second grade who are already showing signs of thuggery and aggressiveness. And a lot of times when you meet the parents you say to yourself ahhhh now I see where it comes from.

Until DCPS wakes up and deals with this menace, nothing will ever change. All the teacher evaluations in the world can not not make up for having to deal with these little terrorist on a daily basis.There is hardly any learning going on when the school day is constantly being interrupted with chaos and shenanigans. I don’t know how the remaining teachers do it, but I couldn’t at least not without a stun gun or some other weapon near by at all times. Teacher burn out is not the exception with DCPS but the norm. Good luck to those that stay, because there are truly some wonderful teachers in the system. Students like myself, who were trapped due to economics, appreciate your toughness to remain.

Clifton Galloway
H.D Woodson class of 85

to a take down of the issues with DC’s infrastructure:

lulu99
It should be acknowledged that Kerlina was nearly kind in his assessment of DCPS central office staff and their practices. The whole truth would be unprintable. The issues he raises wouldn’t even make water cooler conversation at my school. If we had a water cooler that is. Every teacher at my school sees more inane, ill conceived nonsense from Admin every day than he touched on. From parents, students and DCPS central office staff. Teachers are often little more than sh-t filters for all the crap showered on them.
Most well functioning systems do a national search for their Superintendent (our Chancellor). DC? No way, lets give another newbie a chance. Most well functioning school system have a curriculum for teachers to work with. DC? No. Most good system have alignment between Standards and classroom materials. DC? No way. We get random new stuff willy nilly. Why is it nobody is writing about these serious shorcomings? Ledership? Nonexistent in DC.

mr_silverman
What lulu99 mentions at the end of the post is easy to miss but important. When I worked at DCPS there were storage closets packed 15 feet deep and 8 feet high with the jumbled remnants of bygone curriculum materials. I spent one evening wading though the mess and found the scraps of dozens of different programs–much of the material still in the box. Some teacher’s editions and science programs dated back 20 or 30 years. One of the least examined problems in DCPS is that near-constant turnover in leadership is accompanied by near-constant turnover in curriculum. The system, as a result, is completely schizophrenic. As one of the 30-year veterans put it when confronted in a staff meeting by yet another new “curriculum specialist” with yet another new acronym-based reading program, “I was here before that bulls-it, and I’ll be here after it.” S-it filters, indeed.

If Rhee’s approach–get rid of the bad teachers–had beed successful, Fenty would be mayor today, there’s no question about it. But you can’t hope to reform teaching without first reforming a dysfunctional system. I don’t claim to know how to fix DCPS, but at least I know the law of gravity works: s-it still rolls down hill.

DC public schools have been in the spotlight for a few decades now, for various reasons. When I was younger, I remember reports on the news about Maryland residents trying to sneak their children into elementary schools in DC, which caused a lot of problems.

But for this piece, I want to focus on how diversity has become a code word, depending on the person using the term.

I went to three different elementary schools as a kid: Harmony Hills (Wheaton, MD); Anne Beers (Washington, DC), and Weller Road (Silver Spring, MD).

It should go without saying, but my mother moved to Montgomery County in hopes of providing us with a better education. Montgomery County, at the time, prided itself on progressive principles. I’ve written about the housing policies enacted in the 1970s and their influence on counteracting gentrification. When I was in school there, multiculturalism was a huge deal. I remember, from kindergarden on, that we were all told that differences make us special, and we should expect to have diversity in our lives. (I lived on the southern side of Montgomery County in a heavily urban area – the messages may have been different on the richer, northern side and the more rural areas.) So for me, diversity was always presented as something to strive for.

However, as I got older, I noticed people using the term diversity in a negative way, as some of the commenters on the Washington Post site did. They don’t feel as though they have gained anything from diversity. They don’t feel like it is of particular value to them. And they don’t want to pay for the education of those “others.”

But here’s what I find fascinating about the whole thing – the numbers and the attitudes do not lie.

DC has always struggled with segregation in the city, with clear race and class divisions. (What, you think the Gold Coasters didn’t have problems with class?) Montgomery County is starting to feel the same thing, just on a more delayed time schedule. But if you click on the links that I provided for the schools I attended, an interesting pattern begins to emerge. In DC, where people generally stick to their own, you have a dismal educational system, where gains mean that around 60% of students are at a proficient level in reading and math skills. This is considered a huge leap of progress.

In Montgomery County, where roughly 80% of kids hit proficiency markers, there are crisis and improvement plans on the website. Educators noticed that Latino students, special education students, and students with English as a Second Language were dipping below grade level with about 53% proficiency for targets in some groups. So there is an action plan to fix the problems.

Education is a community wide problem. If the community is fractured around the importance of this issue, it should not be a surprise why the problems persist.

If diversity is seen as the problem (“my child deserves a better education than those other kids”), all the solutions will involve things like charter schools, private schools, privatization of public schools, restriction of out of boundary seats at the schools that parents already desperately fight over.

However, if the idea of diversity is embraced, as in “all children deserve a good education”, the entire community benefits. Diversity means acknowleding, as Jane Van Galen writes for the Classism Exposed blog, that different starting points influence children’s outcomes. And all children just do not have the same types of access:

[A New York Times] article describes how in elite schools in New York City, wealthy parents anxious about grades and college admissions are investing tens of thousands of dollars in private tutors to sustain their children’s competitive edge. One parent concedes that her children’s tutoring bill climbed to six figures in a recent year. The schools are discouraging this for multiple reasons, but the parents will not be dissuaded from hiring “stealth” outside support for their own children.

As one of the tutoring providers explains:

It’s no longer O.K. to have one-on-one coaching for sailing but not academics.

The teachers with whom I work are not preparing children for recreational sailing.

They’re charged with preparing diverse children for a productive place in the raveling economic fabric in their communities, to be confident and vocal citizens, to be ready to go on to whatever forms of higher education they choose. And increasingly, they are preparing children for cruel competition for access to any of these things.

And if these children do not eventually find productive and dignified work, find their voices in the public square, or thrive in college, blame will fall on the shoulders of their weary teachers, as blame is falling on them now when test scores predict the odds against their students doing any of these things.

Yet as this article illustrates so vividly, academic achievement is not, and never has been, primarily about what teachers do within the four walls of their classrooms.

Many of my teacher education students will start internships in the fall in schools in which families move mid-week because the eviction notice has been posted, multiple languages are spoken at home, parents struggle to sustain dignity after years of unemployment, and ever-more crowded classrooms are taught be ever-more exhausted teachers.

As someone who lives in DC, it’s disappointing to see the choices made in this city, time and time again.

(Image Credit: IsThatLegal)

Sometimes there’s love in laughter. And the cast and crew bringing the new web series East Willy B have a lot of love for the real-life neighborhood of Bushwick, Brooklyn, and (most) of the fictional characters.

The series’ heart is Willie Reyes, Jr. (Flaco Navaja) the 30-something Puerto Rican-proud bar owner who inherited the business from his dad, including the barfly crushing on him, Giselle (Caridad “La Bruja” de la Cruz). Wille is trying to keep his bar, which has served as the nabe’s hangout and nerve center, from closing down due gentrification in the form of his ex-girlfriend Maggie (April Hernandez) and her new white beau (and Willie’s longtime rival), Albert (Danny Hoch), and the incoming white hipsters looking for cheap(er) rent.

Transcript of the premiere episode after the jump.

(Music plays in the background. Willy and Gisele laugh. )

Willie: What do you need, Gisele?

Gisele: What I need or what I want? ‘Cause, if you ask me what I want, I’ll tell you.

Willie: OK, what do you want?

Gisele: I want me…a little bit of what you got going on right down there.

Willie: You’re crazy! You want another one?

Gisele: You asked me what I need? (Laughs)

Willie: (under his breath) Jesus!

Gisele: (Grabs for Willy) Oooo-hooo—

Willie: Hey hey heeeey! I’m working here!

(Gisele laughs)

Maggie: …yeah. (Laughs.) Si, mi amor. I’ll talk to you later. ‘Bye. (Blows kiss. Sighs.) I saw you, Willie.

Willie: Maa-ggiiiie!

Maggie: We need to talk.

Willie: Yeah, I’m sure we do.

Maggie: So. I was thinking: I have some ideas on bringing this bar alive.

Willie: Yeah, where’d you get ‘em? From your mom?

Maggie: Funny. OK? You know I’ve been taking classes—

Willie: Where at? Nuyorican College? That shit ain’t school.

(Maggie sighs)

Willie: That’s like ghetto babysitting or something.

Maggie: (exasperated) OK, anyway. Listen: I’m thinking…we can make this bar? More. Emo.

Willie: What the fuck is “emo”?!

Maggie: “Emotional!” You know: slightly depressive dive. We can have some 80s video games, some confederate flags. You also need to start selling $6 malt liquors. Those rich white hipsters love that shit!

Willie: This is still a Latin bar, aiight? I don’t know why everybody’s trippin’.

Maggie: Because no one cares, Willy. OK? You need to let go.

Ceci: Oh hell no! The dog run is around the corner.

Maggie: Whatever, Ceci.

Ceci: Por favor, Willie. You’re not still sweating this bougie-ass bitch, are you? She dumped your ass! Really?

(To Maggie) Looook, whatever it is you’re selling? We ain’t buying it.

Maggie: Shouldn’t you be chasing dudes with tattoos and bulldogs?

Ceci: Are you going to kick her out or do I gotta to do everything around here?

Maggie: Look! Mama? I own half this bar, and I’ll come here whenever I want.

(To Willie) This is what I’m talking about. If you want more people, get rid of these hoodrats.

Gisele: You bitch! (Screams)

Maggie: You know what? I don’t need this ghetto shit anymore! As a matter of fact, I’m gonna sue your ass.

Willie: For what?!?

Maggie: I am going to get controlling interest in this bar.

Willie: Like hell you are!

Maggie: Yeah? OK. You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.

Willie: Fine! All right? ‘Cause I got your Colby and Meyers, and they got TV commercials and all that. So bring it!!

Ceci: Yeah? When you gonna grow your balls back?

Gisele: Don’chu worry, Willie. I’ma get her next time!

I’ll admit it: it took me a minute to get into East Willy B. Part of it is simply being an ethnic outsider: I’m not Latina and felt odd laughing with—and sometimes at—the jokes. Then I had to check myself: like I couldn’t recognize That Alcoholic Lecherous Auntie in Giselle (don’t lie: I know some of y’all Racializens have a Giselle in your fam and y’all love her antics at the family gathering); got-your-back (and sometimes gotta-be-in-your-face) Ceci (played by EWB co-creator Julia Ahumada Grob) ; or even soft-hearted-though-over-his-head Willie. And like I couldn’t recognize laughing in the face of New York City’s ongoing gentrification.

What I think East Willy B does best is put a biting laugh on the class politics aggravated by gentrification, ongoing colorism and “authenticity”, and ethnic pride (which comes out sometimes as ethnic chauvinism). Yes, there’s the leitmotif of the white hipsters seen as invading Bushwick, but for the most part, they are a joke in absentia. (And we can argue about the presence of hipsters and other gentrifiers of color.  However, it’s also real that the face of this demographics shift is white for quite a few communities. This definitely holds true for Bushwick.)  And Albert, the “token white guy,” isn’t viewed as “white” (the website describes him as “browner-than-thou,” complete with Latina girlfriend). White gentrification, says East Willy B, is aided and abetted by people from within the community who may see the financial and social upsides of it but may get caught up in some form of false consciousness due to getting some post-high school education (Maggie) or just overall sleaze (John the Realtor). (It’s also that awkward relationship with education that’s my biggest critique of East Willy B.)

And what I love about East Willy B is that it’s a complete online experience, reflecting Internet use among Latin@s. Yes, there’s the show and a vid of the on-camera and off-camera crews, but there are spot-on commercial spoofs and an emerging web series about the real Bushwick, with local activists speaking about the changes. (I like what Jesus says in the vid: “We’d love to have more people come by and see us, but don’t replace us.” I think the same holds true for enjoying East Willy B.) More importantly, the viewer is invited to be a part of East Willy B, both online and offline: the creators asks us to get the word out about the new web series (they have more episodes lined up for the summer) by hosting viewing parties and attending upcoming East Willy B-related events during the summer.

If the events (and the viewing parties) are anything like the series, then I think you’ll have a great time.

Photo Credit: John Walder

The reunions started more than half a century ago as a way to maintain friendships. But Gray said the students later used the events to collect scholarship money for Dunbar students who planned to go to college and to recognize the vast accomplishments of their former classmates.

For example, when Sen. Edward W. Brooke III, the first black person to be elected by popular vote to the U.S. Senate, wrote in a book that the reunion was used as an opportunity to hear about his writings.

The same was done for Adelaide Cromwell, a professor emeritus at Boston University, who had written a book examining Boston’s black upper class from 1750 to 1950.

“This was African American history told through the mouths of those who experienced it,” said Betty Hewlett, who attended last week’s event in memory of her mother, Marjorie Phillips Hewlett, who died five years ago.

“I don’t think they even realize how special they are,” said Hewlett, a lawyer in Prince George’s County. “They are nothing short of amazing.”

- From The Washington Post, May 12

A first grade teacher in Paterson, New Jersey was recently put on administrative leave after she took to the internet to vent her frustrations about work. According to NBC New York, the teacher was suspended for “allegedly making Facebook comments that her six-year-old students are “future criminals” and referring to herself as a “warden,” according to school officials.”

Much of the handwringing over at Jezebel concerned the fate of the poor, poor teacher who probably just had a bad day. At Jezebel, Margaret Hartmann concludes her piece by saying:

It’s horrible to hear about an adult disrespecting the children in her care, but it also casts a bad light on teachers, who for the most part, got into the profession because they want to help children succeed. But that’s not news — that’s their job, and they do it every single day.

Are teachers definitely our undersung heroes? Yes.  Do they often work long hours at thankless tasks in order to make their children’s lives better?  Oh yes.

But do all teachers treat all children the same? No, no, no.

My radar pinged when I heard the term criminals employed, so I checked the demographics of Paterson.  And my suspicions were borne out.  According to Neighborhood Scout:

Paterson is a blue-collar town, with 35.4% of people working in blue-collar occupations, while the average in America is just 24.7%. Overall, Paterson is a city of sales and office workers, service providers, and production and manufacturing workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Paterson who work in office and administrative support jobs (18.20%), sales jobs (9.45%), and building maintenance and grounds keeping (6.25%).

The population of Paterson has a very low overall level of education: only 8.19% of people over 25 hold a 4-year college degree or higher.

The per capita income in Paterson in 2000 was $13,257, which is low income relative to New Jersey and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $53,028 for a family of four.

Paterson is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Paterson home come from a variety of different races and ancestries. People of Hispanic or Latino origin are the most prevalent group in Paterson, accounting for 50.17% of the city’s residents (people of Hispanic or Latino origin can be of any race). The most prevalent race in Paterson is White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Paterson include Italian and Jamaican.

Paterson also has a high percentage of its population that was born in another country: 32.79%.

The most common language spoken in Paterson is Spanish. Some people also speak English.

But that’s just a coincidence, right?

Maybe this was just a bad day for this teacher – but the problem is that bad days in public serving positions can have huge, lingering consequences.  And from what other administrators and school advocates are saying, the suspended teacher wasn’t the only one.

The New York Times provides more background information, explaining:

Irene Sterling, president of the Paterson Education Fund, a nonprofit group that supports the local school community, said parents were angry about the teacher’s comments because anyone, including her own students, could have read the negative characterizations. She said it highlighted a lack of commitment by some teachers. “It’s horrible,” she said. “And unfortunately, I don’t think she’s the only teacher in Paterson who thinks that way.”

The Paterson district, with 28,000 students and 2,425 teachers, has long been one of New Jersey’s most troubled school systems; it was taken over by the state in 1991 because of fiscal mismanagement and poor academic performance.

And NBC NY quotes the Board of Education president who makes other saddening disclosures:

Paterson Board of Education President Thomas Best said the alleged comments were “disheartening and unacceptable.”

“I think it’s extremely disappointing that we have teachers in the classroom who are responsible for ensuring that their students have a bright future not even giving those children a chance,” he said.

It’s also not the first time a teacher has made such comments about students, he said.

“Overall we have a good teaching force, but I’ve heard comments like this before,” said Best. “It’s not on Facebook, but a lot of times the kids are referred to as ‘animals.’”

If we like to believe the tales that it just takes one teacher to make a difference, one shining light acting as a beacon out of the darkness for children struggling in school and in life, then why is it so hard to apply that logic to teachers who make negative comments? That their dismissal could act like a wrecking ball? That some teachers could negatively impact the lives of their students?

When you call a six-year old a “future criminal,” you are speeding that child along a path that is tough to escape – the school to prison pipeline.  Impacting low income students of color the hardest, here’s how the pipeline manifests in different communities.

From the New York Civil Liberties Union:

The School to Prison Pipeline (STPP) is a nationwide system of local, state, and federal education and public safety policies that pushes students out of school  and into the criminal justice system. The system disproportionately targets youth of color and youth with disabilities. Inequities in areas such as school discipline, policing practices, high-stakes testing, wealth and healthcare distribution, school “grading” systems, and the prison-industrial complex all contribute to the Pipeline.

The STPP operates directly and indirectly. Directly, schools send their students into the Pipeline through zero tolerance policies, and involving the police in minor discipline incidents. All too often school rules are enforced through metal detectors, pat-downs and frisks, arrests, and referrals to the juvenile justice system. And schools pressured to raise graduation and testing numbers can sometimes artificially achieve this by pushing out low-performing students into GED programs and the juvenile justice system.

Indirectly, schools push students towards the criminal justice system by excluding them from the learning environment and isolating them from their peer groups through suspension, expulsion, ineffective retention policies, transfers, and high-stakes testing requirements. [...]

Suspensions indirectly feed the Pipeline

• A child who has been suspended is more likely to fall behind in school, be retained a grade, drop out of high school, commit a crime, and become incarcerated as an adult[3]

• The best demographic indicators of children who will be suspended are not the type or severity of the crime, but the color of their skin, their special education status, the school they go to, and whether they have been suspended before[4]

From California Rural Legal Assistance:

CRLA has identified educational disparities in our communities of service that affect Latino children and children of limited English proficiency, in particular.  When school- and district-wide statistics relating to discipline, class assignment, dropout rate, graduation and enrollment in college are tracked by race, ethnicity and language it is clear that a disproportionate number of Latinos and limited English speaking children are not succeeding in California’s rural schools.  Education experts and advocates throughout the country have acknowledged similar disparities affecting other children of color and children enrolled in special education programs and numerous studies have demonstrated a positive correlation between failure in school and a higher chance of ending up in the criminal justice system and called this trend the “school to prison pipeline.”  CRLA is committed to addressing these disparities which result, not only in an increased chance of incarceration, but limit the work and life opportunities for these children.

From the LA Progressive, reporting on “Plugging Pasedena’s School-to-Prison Pipeline“:

“A black boy born in 2001 in America has a one in three chance of going to prison,” said moderator Saudeka Shabazz. “For a Latino boy, the odds are one in six.”

The school-to-prison pipeline is a set of policies combined with failing institutions that lead young men of color to prison or violent early death, according to Shabazz, a Berkeley grad who worked in gang intervention before becoming an outreach coordinator for the Children’s Defense Fund. She cited two early factors that put children into the pipeline:

• Health and mental health access: “Low birth weigh children often have learning delays or disabilities,” she said. “And poor mothers get less prenatal care, which leads to these problems.”

• Early childhood education: Children who get early education are higher achievers later on in life, according to Shabazz. “Teachers mark children early if they can’t keep up.”

Poverty works hand-in-glove with racial discrimination to put children of color behind the eight ball long before they reach high school.

From Reclaiming Futures’ report on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s publication “”Suspended Education: Urban Middle Schools in Crisis:”

[A]fter reviewing over 30 years of data from nearly 10,000 middle schools nationwide, it concludes that suspension is over-used as a disciplinary tool, and that youth of color — black males especially — are suspended far out of proportion to their numbers.

The authors looked specifically at types of suspensions where school staff could exercise discretion — incidents of fighting, disruptive behavior, and so on. They analyzed how many youth were suspended and broke down differences by race/ethnicity, and gender. What they learned was appalling: suspension rates have nearly doubled for students of all races/ethnicities since 1973; African American, Latino, and American Indian youth were suspended at higher rates than White youth; six percent of all black students were suspended in 1973, compared with 15 percent in 2006; and a breathtaking 28.3% of black males were suspended in 2006, compared with 10% of White males.

When researchers looked at the 18 largest urban school districts, they found that most “had several schools that suspended more than 50% of a given racial/gender group.” They even found schools that suspended more than half of their White and Hispanic female students. [...]

The disparate impact on youth of color, and black youth in particular, makes this a civil rights issue, the authors say. Here’s why:

Research on student behavior, race, and discipline has found no evidence that African-American over-representation in school suspension is due to higher rates of misbehavior (McCarthy and Hoge, 1987; McFadden et al., 1992; Shaw & Braden, 1990; Wu et al., 1982). Skiba et al. (2002) reviewed racial and gender disparities in school punishments in an urban setting, and found that White students were referred to the office significantly more frequently for offenses that appear more capable of objective documentation (e.g., smoking, vandalism, leaving without permission, and obscene language). African-American students, however, were referred more often for disrespect, excessive noise, threat, and loitering - behaviors that would seem to require more subjective judgment on the part of the referring agent. In short, there is no evidence that racial disparities in school discipline can be explained through higher rates of disruption among African-American students.

And from Fairtest.org’s position paper on No Child Left Behind and The School to Prison Pipeline, released March 2011:

In the nine years since Congress reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), startling growth has occurred in what is often described as the “School-to-Prison Pipeline”1 – the use of educational policies and practices that have the effect of pushing students, especially students of color and students with disabilities, out of schools and toward the juve- nile and criminal justice systems. This phenomenon has proved incredibly damaging to students, families, and communities. It has also proved tremendously costly, not only in terms of lost human potential but also in dollars, as states struggle with the soaring costs of police, courts, and incarceration amidst continuing economic difficulties. Yet far too little emphasis is being placed upon the pipeline crisis, its causes, and its consequences within most of the discussion around federal education policy and the reauthorization of the ESEA.
The swelling of the pipeline has many causes. But as Congress works to reauthorize the ESEA, it is essential to examine how NCLB itself has contributed to the pipeline phenomenon. Congress designed NCLB to hold schools accountable for student performance, correctly paying specific attention to differentials in outcomes by race, socioeconomic status, disability, and English language proficiency. However, the law focused its accountability frame- work almost exclusively on students’ standardized test performance, placed punitive sanctions on struggling schools without providing enough tools to actually improve their performance, and failed to address significant funding and resource disparities among our nation’s schools. As a result, NCLB had the effect of encouraging low-performing schools to meet benchmarks by narrowing curriculum and instruction and de-prioritizing the educational opportunities of many students. Indeed, No Child Left Behind’s “get-tough” approach to accountability has led to more students being left even further behind, thus feeding the dropout crisis and the School-to-Prison Pipeline. [...]

The sharp rise in the use of all of these practices in communities across the country over the last decade represents a prioritization of swift and severe punishment of students over the thoughtful consideration of how to better meet their educational needs, such as through academic and disciplinary interventions, counseling services, health services, special education programs, and other “wraparound” services. As a result, huge numbers of students have been put on a path to academic failure that is difficult to interrupt and often has devastating long-term consequences.

Teachers are often unjustly blamed for the failures of an overburdened and underfunded system.  However, let’s not pretend that all students are on a level and equal playing field, or that racism and perception of a student’s background can’t play a role in how we describe, view, or treat these kids.  First graders are six years old.  Six. Years. Old. No one’s life is set in stone at any age, much less the tender childhood years.  So let’s take a second to think of the children before immediately jumping to the teacher’s defense.

(Image Credit: The Youth Justice Coalition via Suspension Stories)

Our multi-talented homegirl Jessica Yee just edited and published her first anthology.  Called Feminism for Real: Deconstructing the Academic Industrial Complex of Feminism, Yee and her contributors (including myself and Andrea Plaid) keep it raw by illuminating the some of the issues people of color (particularly Indigenous people) encounter when entering feminist spaces.  In honor of International Women’s Day, we are going to share short excerpts of some of the essays in the book.

Jessica Yee: “Introduction”

[W]e’re not really equal when we’re STILL supposed to uncritically and obediently cheer when white women are praised for winning “women’s rights,” and to painfully forget the Indigenous women and women of colour who were hurt in that same process.  We are not equal when in the name of “feminism” so-called “women’s only” spaces are created and get to police and regulate who is and isn’t a woman based on their interpretation of your body parts and gender presentation, and not your own. We are not equal when initatives to support gender equality have reverted yet again to “saving” people and making decisions for them, rather than supporting their right to self-determination, whether it’s engaging in sex work or wearing a niqab.  So when feminism itself has become it’s own form of oppression, what do we have to say about it? [...]

[I']ve lost count the amount of times I’ve been asked by others and asked the question myself, what is now the main title of this book, “But what is feminism, for real?”

The responses I received when putting this very question out there to create the book demonstrated resoundingly that people did want to talk about this notion of “the academic industrial complex of feminism” – the conflicts between what feminism means at school as opposed to at homer, the frustrations of trying to relate to definitions of feminism that will never fit no matter how much you try to change yourself to fit them, and the anger and frustration of changing a system while being in the system yourself.

Krysta Williams and Erin Konsmo: “Resistance to Indigenous Feminism”

E & K: What does it mean for an individual to be considered “liberated?”  What does it mean for indigenous communities to be “liberated?”  I think the pictures we think of as Native women are very different than the end goals expressed in a lot of feminist literature.  In other words, there needs to be more space given to community-based solutions and the hard work that everyone, especially women in our communities do every day.

In academia (and in general) there’s still the problem of tokenism.    Including one article or person of colour, or Indigenous person into feminist curriculum is not enough.  This needs to be fully integrated into all women’s studies curriculum (which is still inherently racist).

E: One crucial element that non-Indigenous academia needs to accept is that no matter how much you read the journals of Columbus, a Native Chief, or through interviews of Native people, you do not have the blood memory that we have within us.   Sorry, if this ruins your PhD on Native people but you don’t have the blood memory experiences that I do and so the internal “validity” of your research will never compare!

K: Internal validity has never been so literal…It also needs to be said that including folks after the fact just doesn’t cut it.  White supremacy exists within institutions and this can’t be changed  by just putting Indigenous bodies in chairs.  There are structural changes that we have been calling for since forever!

Shaunga Tagore: “A Slam on Feminism in Academia (poem)

your ideal graduate student is
someone who doesn’t have to experience community organizing
because you’ve already assigned them five chapters to read about it

your ideal graduate student is
someone who can’t talk about positionality or privilege
without referencing some article

your ideal graduate student is
rich enough
white enough
straight enough
able-bodied and -minded enough
to be given luxury of enjoying sitting in a corner reading 900 pages a week
(with their fair trade starbucks coffee in hand and their lulu lemon track pants on ass)

your ideal graduate student
IS NOT ME

so WHY did you let me through these doors in the first place
if you were just gonna turn around and shove me out?

to fill some quote for affirmative action?
to appear like a progressive program without putting in the effort of actually being one?

Latoya Peterson: The Feminist Existential Crisis (Dark Child Remix)

(If) I think (about gender, access, and equality), therefore I am (by definition, a feminist).

It should all be so simple, right? But in the immortal words of Lauryn Hill in “Ex-Factor:”

but you had to make it hard/loving you is like a battle/and we both end up with scars 

tell me who I have to be/to get some reciprocity

To accept an identity as a “professional” feminist is to accept the layers of baggage associated with the label feminist. Added to the class and race parcels I carry, I find myself changing into Erykah Badu’s metaphorical bag lady – even while I’m trying to let it go and let love heal some of these wounds. If I make my living unpacking racism and sexism, why willingly take on more?

But one thing is clear – the culture of professional feminism is crowding my space. [...]

Now, it’s always a different world than where you come from. But this was way different. It was wealthier, whiter, full of events and fetes and conferences. It was earnest. It was aware. But not too aware, since I always felt like I wore the cloak of the outsider. I’ve made a lot of wonderful friends through feminism, and got to meet so many more amazing women, and yet I always had this feeling that I still hadn’t quite landed where I was supposed to be. It was as if I was on this path, but it was leading away from where I was trying to go. Somehow, I always ended up feeling isolated.

Louis Esme Cruz: “Medicine Bundle of Contradictions: Female-man, Mi’kmaq/Acadian/Irish Diasporas, Invisible disAbilities, masculine-Feminist”

I write this to you, making something beautiful in this shared space between us, making it difficult for invasion to take root here. When we recognize each other, it is easier for both of us to relax.  We build what Lee Maracle, recognized Sto:lo author, describes as the golden rainbow between us.  Maracle says that when we build this arch, we are actively resisting invasion because no two objects can occupy the same space at the same time. [...]

Two-Spirit people are not allowed to participate in societies as our full selves and then we are shamed and blamed for the ways we are hurt by this.  When people say that a space is “women-only” they are assuming that women are always sensitive to each other’s needs, are always able to understand each other’s experiences, these experiences are always the same, and women are not violent.  Explicitly, this says all women are safe; all men are unsafe.  The inclusion of Two-Spirit people in women only space is arbitrary, shifting with who has the power to define the space.  This person in power is rarely Native.  From what I have seen, women who parade feminist ideals are the ones who decide who experiences gender-oppression.  Two-Spirit people can talk about our oppression only when it parallels women’s experiences.   When our lives get too complicated we are judged, ignored, punished, humiliated.  Whether it’s women-only or men-only space, the naming of a space as only one gender encourages invasion and conquest because they don’t allow people to be the complex creatures we are.  This pushes Two-Spirit people to the margins simply because we are not one thing or another.  We need liberation from the confines of gender baggage, too.  This parallels the larger call from Indigenous sovereignty movements asking for our Native Nations to be seen as distinct, sovereign entities.  We are necessarily unique and complex for a reason.

Ghadeer M. (of the AQSAzine Collective): “A Rant: Ya si sayed”

Insecure about your power, hungry for more, you throw a fit, feet in the air and scream out loud hoping to drown out the voices of objections, questions, and inquiries.

Listen to me – no longer will you allow yourself to tell me what to do.  What to cover or not cover, what messages my body will carry for you.

Things are going to change around here.

And I know that you are afraid, and that your violence only foster because of shame of your own mistakes.

But so you should be…

Tremble and quiver from the thought of your cold fate approaching you.

Then sit still and surrender as chaos from soles rubbing on pavements and streets turn into rubble and settle lightly on the shoulders of your pride.

Alone and desolate…like all captured kings.

Dethrones, de-powered. Ropes cut through your throat.

You’ve lost.

Because I’m woman – and I do what I want.

 

Shabiki Crane: “Pride from Behind”

[...] I was truly “done” with women’s studies after my professor announced to the class that when white women like Britney Spears presented themselves in a sexual manner it was because they were asserting their sexuality; however when black women, like Beyonce did, they were simply being puppets and degrading themselves.  I couldn’t understand the way that both images wouldn’t invoke the same reaction regardless of whether it was seen as empowerment or degradation, but why not the same? I saw two women singing, shaking, shimmying and to my horror, recognized it would never be the same.  It just reiterated the feelings of dis-empowerment I had harboured throughout the years of my life.

Feminism dictates that women deserve to be equal to men; but the truth is it’s telling us that some women are more deserving than others.

Megan Lee: “Maybe I’m Not Class-Mobile; Maybe I’m Class-Queer”

The current model of “class-mobility” reinforces separatism and a class-hierarchy because it posits that in order to escape oppression, one must become an oppressor – and universities do not merely mediate the boundary between professional and laborer, they teach the body of knowledge, the worldview, the values that mark a person as professional, as “belonging” to the middle- or upper-class.

Universities teach us to renounce our sense of identification with the poor; they teach us this by mainly ignoring the existence of poor people  and by treating us as “other” when we do become the subject of discussion.  Universities teach us not to care too much, because it will undermine our professional role.   Universities teach that we are separate from where we came from, that we are “qualified” (which suggests our families and peers are not), that we are justified in having power over people, in speaking for the subjects of our study.  Universities teach us that we are “too good” to wait tables and clean houses, with the implication that those who do those jobs are “not good enough” to deserve better.

Poor people tend to see university as a way out for their kids, but university is also a way in to the class of people whose success is premised on the oppression of the poor.  [...]For a kid to become educated meant that he or she would live an easier life that was premised on the oppression and invisibility of the very communities s/he came from.  This left a foul taste in many mouths.

I have had that foul taste in my mouth for years, and I have come to the conclusion that it is the taste of injustice – of being forced to choose between the indignity of remaining poor and the ethically repellent strategy of privilege seeking.  To a poor kid who has the chance to go to college or university, participating in an institution that she identifies as oppressive (either before attending or in the course of her education) might seem like the best choice with regards to her survival, but it is a conflicted survival.

Andrea Plaid: ” ‘No, I Would Follow the Porn Star’s Advice’: A Case Study in Educational Privilege and Kyriarchy”

I could have easily benefited from the feminist-academic complex.  I concentrated on women’s studies as part of my liberal-arts degree and my Independent Study project when I was getting my master’s degree in library science – since writing a master’s thesis was not an option at the time – was on founding and operating a sex-positive library, though I did not specifically study sex as an undergraduate or graduate student.  The fact that I have a bachelor’s and master’s degree allows me to be taken slightly more seriously because they signal that I know certain “privilege codes and signals” gotten from about seven years of beyond high school education, like knowing about or having “the right” books on my bookshelf or in my e-reader (Paulo Friere’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider, anything and just about everything by bell hooks, some Barbara Ehrenreich and Naomi Klein, etc.), having seen or heard about the “right” movies (anything Pedro Almodovar and Mira Nair, Outfoxed, Matrix, etc.) and the “right” music (usually some form of “alternative” hip-hop, rock, and country).  It also means I know the “right” places to meet other like-minded educated people offline (coffee shops, poetry readings, film screenings, panel discussions, galleries and museums, and so on.) In other words, my stating that I’m degreed lets others know that I’m the kind of “culturedness” that only a bachelor’s and master’s degree “can give” (translation: “can pay for” – which, really, is what educational privilege is welded with and signals)…and if I wasn’t exposed to these things, I can damn sure learn it quickly because I know the “right” places to go find such things, including the “right” Internet sources and from those adjunct and tenured types.

The linchpin in all of this and what I’m signaling to others by my degrees is that I’m capable of talking about complex ideas and issues, like the various schools of feminism, because I’m trained to do it, based on the “virtue” of the “right” knowledge and furthermore, take my complex notions to “the masses” who need to hear it and embrace it as part of their lives.  (This notion is one of the rawest forms of educational privilege.) Because that, from what we’re told in these social-class incubators called four-year colleges and advanced degrees, is the great responsibility that comes from the great advantage – and promise – of being an “educated person.”  The more subtle lesson passed to us in college is The Degreed are the only ones worth listening to – the more degreed, the more you’re worth listening to, because you’re an “expert” due to all those years of studying.

Robyn Maynard: Fuck the Glass Ceiling!

[L]et’s examine [the word] ‘marginalization.’ I’ve always felt wary about the community sector’s use of the word ‘marginalized populations’, but I didn’t always understand why I felt it was so dubious.  Now I do: ‘exploitation has always been a better term that ‘marginalization’, because where marginalization just means that people are pushed into, or exist already in, the margins of society, it doesn’t explain how or why.  The process of marginalization isn’t intrinsic to the meaning of the word, and ‘margins’ seem to pre-exist, as a natural location for people to inhabit in a society,  It seems like something that just accidentally happens, and needs to be fixed by pulling people into some kind of imaginary ‘centre,’ which I imagine is meant to be the middle class or something to that effect.  It is a watered down description of the extreme hardships and daily violence experienced by those living in extreme poverty and facing the harshest realities of racism in our society, and it also disguises the reasons for why it takes place. [...]

The ever-decreasing ability for the poor, racialized, and Indigenous to access the basic food and shelter needs that ‘marginalize’ people is not addressed and ‘marginalization’ seems to be a phenomenon that just is. The word ‘exploitation’ is clearer. The process of exploitation is inside of this word, it contains, in its definition, the fact that somebody is being exploited for the benefit of somebody else; it is describing a relationship.  And this makes it easier to understand what is meant in stating that the status of racialized, Indigenous, and immigrant women today is ‘structural.’

 

Interested in reading the rest of the book? You can order Feminism for Real here.

Not only do many falsely believe that slavery did not happen in Canada, far too many are unaware that Jim Crow laws existed here as well.  In 1946, Viola Desmond was arrested for daring to sit in the White section of a movie house.  She was dragged out of the theater by two men, injuring her knee in the process.  To further shame Desmond, after her arrest, she was held in a male cell block.  Eventually, she was charged with tax evasion because of the difference in price between White seats and Blacks seats.  It was a difference of one cent.  With the help of the NSACCP (The Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Coloured People), Desmond would take her fight to the supreme court of Nova Scotia.  Desmond was a trailblazer and instead of being recognized as such, the Canadian government recently sought to pardon her, as though her arrest was actually a stain on her life, instead of the government itself.

Growing up and attending Canadian schools, I never learned a single word about Desmond and I believe that this was to continue the indoctrination that Canada is a tolerant, racially just society.  I did not learn about the porters strike.  I most certainly did not learn about the destruction of Africville.  As a child, it forced me to look southward to find examples of people of the African diaspora to function as role models, rather than in my own country.  I would continue to live in ignorance, had I not made a great effort to look beyond the lack of education I had been given in schools.

Black history month was intended to be inclusive, and teach about the sacrifices of people of the African Diaspora and instead, in my education, it served to further White supremacy — because specific events were chosen to frame Canada as a nation of tolerance. If we factor in that Black history month creates Black history as an additive, because it is not deemed important enough to focus on throughout the year, with the fact that it is often structured in such a manner that places importance on reducing the effect of White supremacy, the very existence of the month is problematic. It is hardly surprising that White supremacy would effect the celebration of our history, given that there is nothing outside its purview in North America.

- Read the full post at Womanist Musings

By Arturo R. García

Kelley Williams-Bolar was released from jail on Thursday, a day ahead of schedule. But the attention – and outrage – over her case shows no sign of ending anytime soon, even garnering notice from some celebrities.

Williams-Bolar had originally been sentenced to 10 days in jail, out of a possible five years, on Jan. 18 after being convicted of forging documentation allowing her children could attend school in a more affluent, mostly white school district than the one she resides in in Akron. Williams was also required to two years of probation, and ordered to complete 80 hours of community service.

According to Change.org, which has been petitioning Ohio Governor John Kasich to pardon Williams-Bolar, her father said her decision to enroll her children in another district was made because of concerns over their safety – her house had been broken into, he said, and she’d had to file 12 different police reports because of crime in her neighborhood – and not the educational quality of her local schools.  Williams-Bolar told WEWS-TV, “When my home got broken into, I felt it was my duty to do something else.”

Judge Patricia A. Cosgrove, who delivered the sentence, told the Akron Beacon Journal that Williams-Bolar received jail time because local county prosecutors rejected lesser sentences:

Cosgrove said the county prosecutor’s office refused to consider reducing the charges to misdemeanors, and that all closed-door talks to resolve the case — outside of court — met with failure [...]

Cosgrove said numerous pretrial hearings were held since last summer.

”The state would not move, would not budge, and offer Ms. Williams-Bolar to plead to a misdemeanor,” the judge said in an interview Wednesday.

”Of course, I can’t put a gun to anybody’s head and force the state to offer a plea bargain.”

County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh declined requests from the Beacon Journal to respond to the judge’s comments.

Cosgrove also said she was not responsible for Williams-Bolar’s conviction preventing her from earning her teaching license, a process she was 12 credits shy of completing, and that she would write a letter to the Ohio Board of Education asking it not to revoke her license.

‘I did not mandate or order that her teaching license be suspended or revoked,” Cosgrove said Wednesday. ”That is absolutely inaccurate.”

Cosgrove said Williams-Bolar’s nonviolent felony offenses do not necessarily mean that she will lose her teaching certificate. She said Ohio law only states that a felony conviction ”may” be grounds for such action.

The judge said the Ohio Department of Education will hold a hearing and make the final decision ”whether or not they will revoke her license.”

”I have nothing to do with that as a matter of law. Once she was convicted by a jury of any felony, that conviction has to be reported to the state, and then it’s up to the state at that point in time to decide whether or not they’re going to revoke her license,” Cosgrove said. ”This is the Ohio legislature who wrote this law, not [this] court.”

Cosgrove said her reading of the statute leaves open the possibility Williams-Bolar can be a teacher ”because she was not convicted of an offense of violence [or] offenses of moral turpitude.”

In the week-plus after Williams-Bolar’s initial sentencing, her case became the latest cause célèbre out of Ohio, following the Ted Williams story late last year. Actor Donald Glover discussed his own empathy for her on both Twitter and tumblr:

This really hit me close to home because my mom did the exact same thing to make sure I got into a school where I could experience something as small as going to a county fair or just studying around people and places I felt safe.

One day the school found out and kicked me out. My mom argued with the principal for an hour, but I ended up going to a very shitty school for a couple years.  It sucked.

This sucks FAR more.  It really makes no sense.

Questlove, the twitter-active drummer for The Roots, also drew attention to the Change.org petition:

In the wake of her release, Williams-Bolar will reportedly seek to appeal her conviction, while the Akron chapter of the National Action Network has started a donation drive to pay for her legal fees. In another indication of how much attention the case has gotten, the Rev. Al Sharpton has agreed to help the Akron NAN in its’ efforts.

I thought about The Wire in context of the controversy over Huckleberry Finn for this reason. The n-word is used constantly. So is the f-word. Take away those two words and half the script would disappear. Black gangsters use the n-word freely to describe one another; so do the cops. To my knowledge, no one has protested to HBO or the producers. This is popular culture, so who cares?

This is a strange juxtaposition: Our schools are cleansed of all that is troubling, offensive, and challenging, while our popular culture deals bluntly, graphically, and harshly with the ugliest realities of our time. I would not want our schools to include all the vulgarity and obscenity that is commonplace in the popular culture. Indeed, I wish that our schools would elevate the popular culture and give young people a taste for something finer than what they see on television and in the movies. In my dreams, the schools would teach the best that has been known and said in the world.

They cannot do that by bowdlerizing classic literature, by pretending that bad things never happened and that we live in a cotton-candy world. Bad things have happened.

- Diane Ravitch, Research Professor of Education, New York University, Education Week, Jan. 11

by Latoya Peterson

Hardass Asian Parents have hit the mainstream – and they came with a healthy heap of stale stereotypes:

A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it’s like inside the family, and whether they could do it too.

That’s Amy Chua, writing for the Wall Street Journal‘s Life section. Her article, “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior,” garnered over 1000 comments – and countless discussions over the nature of the model minority stereotype.

Chua tries to broaden the umbrella early on in the piece:

I’m using the term “Chinese mother” loosely. I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian parents who qualify too. Conversely, I know some mothers of Chinese heritage, almost always born in the West, who are not Chinese mothers, by choice or otherwise. I’m also using the term “Western parents” loosely. Western parents come in all varieties.

But it is passages like this that push Chua’s tongue-in-cheek explanation of cultural differences in parenting too far:

Chinese parents can get away with things that Western parents can’t. Once when I was young—maybe more than once—when I was extremely disrespectful to my mother, my father angrily called me “garbage” in our native Hokkien dialect. It worked really well. I felt terrible and deeply ashamed of what I had done. But it didn’t damage my self-esteem or anything like that. I knew exactly how highly he thought of me. I didn’t actually think I was worthless or feel like a piece of garbage.

As an adult, I once did the same thing to Sophia, calling her garbage in English when she acted extremely disrespectfully toward me. When I mentioned that I had done this at a dinner party, I was immediately ostracized. One guest named Marcy got so upset she broke down in tears and had to leave early. My friend Susan, the host, tried to rehabilitate me with the remaining guests.

The fact is that Chinese parents can do things that would seem unimaginable—even legally actionable—to Westerners. Chinese mothers can say to their daughters, “Hey fatty—lose some weight.” By contrast, Western parents have to tiptoe around the issue, talking in terms of “health” and never ever mentioning the f-word, and their kids still end up in therapy for eating disorders and negative self-image. (I also once heard a Western father toast his adult daughter by calling her “beautiful and incredibly competent.” She later told me that made her feel like garbage.)

Chinese parents can order their kids to get straight As. Western parents can only ask their kids to try their best. Chinese parents can say, “You’re lazy. All your classmates are getting ahead of you.” By contrast, Western parents have to struggle with their own conflicted feelings about achievement, and try to persuade themselves that they’re not disappointed about how their kids turned out.

While I recoiled from some of Chua’s ends-justify-the-means tactics, some applauded her stance. More than a few of my 1.5 gen, black identified friends shared links, pointing to this passage in particular:

Western parents are concerned about their children’s psyches. Chinese parents aren’t. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently.

And Terry Hong, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, paints a broader picture of Chua, using her forthcoming book to fill in the gaps left by her article:

“This is a story about a mother, two daughters, and two dogs,” the book’s cover declares. “This was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones. But instead, it’s about a bitter clash of cultures, a fleeting taste of glory, and how I was humbled by a thirteen-year-old.” [...]

With two gifted daughters, Chua is determined to reverse the predictable “family decline” she sees as a “remarkably common pattern among Chinese immigrants fortunate enough to come to the United States as graduate students or skilled workers over the last fifty years”: The immigrant first generation sacrifices all (never scrimping on strictness) for the children’s education and expected future success; the second generation will “typically be high-achieving” but less draconian with the children; the privileged third generation “will feel that they have individual rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution,” leading to disrespect and disobedience … and guaranteed generational decline.

“Well, not on my watch,” Chua decides.

But that’s the nicest of the responses -others start to take Chua to the woodshed.

Many of the commenters at the WSJ were horrified at both the premise of the article and the description of coercion Chua proudly positions as normal. One commenter snarkily said something along the lines of “Asia Carrera [the former adult film star] was playing Carnegie Hall at age 15 – look at how she turned out.”

Interestingly enough, Carrera does talk about her life and experiences – and mentions fleeing from a household similar to the one Chua describes. On her blog, she reveals:

OK, we all know I was an academically gifted little girl. What I don’t publicize, is that I was not an especially motivated one. I was an overachiever only through a)genetic luck, and b)incredible pressure from my parents. My parents wanted me to go to Harvard and be a doctor or a lawyer, and I wanted to play piano and hang out with friends.

Needless to say, my parents and I butted heads. My father was born in Japan, and my mother was born in Germany. They were from the “old school”, strong on discipline, and overachievers themselves, so they were in no way being hypocritical with their demands on me. (My dad went to Caltech on full academic scholarship for math and physics. He’s the biggest nerd I know)

I was grounded for every “B” I got, and beaten for getting anything lower than that. I was not allowed to socialize at all, or go to parties, because they said there’d be time for that after I got into a good college. Well, I did what any red-blooded American kid would do, I’d sneak out. And get caught. And get beaten. And get grounded again. Without launching into too much detail, let’s just say I was unhappy. (I tried to kill myself a lot) (Asian kids everywhere have e-mailed me to verify that this is standard practice in Asian households – what a relief to find out I’m normal, huh!)

Shortly before my seventeenth birthday, I ran away from home. I stayed where I could, with a rock’n'roll band, with friends, with strangers, in hotels, at one point in a tent. I worked when I could, but I couldn’t do much at seventeen, so I had no money. I had friends drive me to school every day, and I begged people to bring me Doritos so I’d have something to eat. Everything I owned fit in two garbage bags. Sometimes I fucked people I didn’t want to, so I could have a place to sleep, or a good meal. I gritted my teeth a lot, and did what I had to, rather than crawl back home and grovel for my folks’ forgiveness.

But it isn’t just Asia Carrera speaking out.

Both Arturo and I have been amazed, dismayed, and impressed with the level of candor exhibited Hyphen Magazine’s “Ask a Model Minority Suicide” series.

Sam, the writer, pulls powerful stats:

To save communal face, we don’t allow each other to admit publicly that sometimes the pressure is too much. The options are too narrow. Standards are too high and the demands to meet them, too lonely.

We can’t so much as talk about it?

Meanwhile, Asian American women have achieved the highest rate of suicide of any race/ethnicity between the ages of 15 to 24.

You do the math.

The CNN article Sam links to specifically notes:

First and foremost, they say “model minority” pressure — the pressure some Asian-American families put on children to be high achievers at school and professionally — helps explain the problem.

“In my study, the model minority pressure is a huge factor,” says Noh, who studied 41 Asian-American women who’d attempted or contemplated suicide. “Sometimes it’s very overt — parents say, ‘You must choose this major or this type of job’ or ‘You should not bring home As and Bs, only As,” she says. “And girls have to be the perfect mother and daughter and wife as well.”

Clearly, this type of pressure isn’t just brushed off, the way Chua suggests. And there are even more nefarious issues at play. But thank goodness for Resistance, who put up the most eloquent, Cee-lo Green style takedown we’ve seen yet:

So fuck you, Amy Chua, for reinforcing that tired old model minority stereotype. For speaking for an entire group of people and ascribing your abusive parenting to your culture. [...]

And fuck you again, Amy Chua, when I think about the high rates of suicides among Asian Americans, especially young women. Fuck you for the fifty percent of crisis calls at the university from Asian American students.

Fuck you for every person who expresses surprise at my chosen profession. Because we don’t do that. [...]

Fuck you for the kids who are made to feel like idiots because they are not geniuses. Or musical prodigies. Or the kids who are told that our people don’t speak out, don’t protest, aren’t politically active, aren’t activists. [...]

Fuck you for perpetuating racism. And fuck the Wall Street Journal for promoting your majority view voice.

(Thanks to readers Elton, Elaine, and Emjaybee for the tip!)

Thanks to Angry Asian Man for pointing out this story in Georgia: When youth football coach Frank Samuelson isn’t leading the 10-year-old squad for the Brookwood Football Association, he apparently likes to share his adventures around Snellville on Facebook (spelling his):

I was dining in an Asian buffet today [big surpise], and I heard this morning how Asian students are suppodely so much smarter than American kids. My personal observation is that those fishheads still eat with chopsticks. It took Western ingenuity to invent the fork. I’m just saying. … they a’int that friggin’ smart.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Samuelson (who is thankfully not an English teacher by trade) also served on the board of the association, a position which, one would think, enabled him to see that POC kids make up half of the league’s participants. Not that he didn’t “admire” some skills beyond the gridiron in another post:

How to solve illegal immigration: Arrest the 30+ million illegals that are here first. Have them build a huge brick wall across the border [those guys do great brick work], and make them build it from the Mexican side of the border. Mount 50 calibre machine guns across the top and shoot anyone trying to climb over.

Samuelson has also been quoted as calling South Asians “red dots” and Mexicans “beaners.”

At a meeting Tuesday night, the newly-lawyered-up Samuelson stepped down from the board – though not his coaching position – and apologized for his outbursts, saying they were taken out of context, which led to this exchange with WGCL-TV reporter Michelle Marsh:

Marsh: In what context would those statements have been appropriate?
Samuelson: It’s, you know, it’s, they were friends of mine.

Samuelson’s take was fleshed out in his apology letter, which was quoted by the Georgia Daily News:

The things I remarked about were meant to be humorous or at least thought provoking in front of the eyes of my friends who make up a variety of different people of from every walk of life, race and many national origins. It really, really bothered me to think that people were offended by any of this because if anything, it was meant to either respond to some of my friend’s posts or poke at them in turn. It was never the intention of mine to make anyone feel offended.

Change.org already has a petition up calling for Samuelson’s removal from the sidelines, but whether it happens is anybody’s guess: on one hand, CNN reported that he had his own contingent of supporters at Monday’s meeting.

On the other, if the dispute lingers on, it could hurt the league where it hurts – in the wallet. The Journal-Constitution noted that the BFA has brought in more than $1 million in revenue over the past five years. And perhaps even more importantly than that, in a region of the country where football really is king, it’s an early development system for the area high schools. Given the specter of neighborhood and economic pressure, the BFA might well decide this guy isn’t worth the trouble.