February 1, 2007 - Issue 215

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Oprah Winfrey opens a school for girls in the town of Henley-on-Klip, South Africa. "I wanted to give this opportunity to girls who had a light so bright that not even poverty could dim that light," Winfrey said. I recalled the collective memory of ancestors, kidnapped and forced into slavery in the Americas, and poorer than poor, yet who managed to carry a “light so bright” that neither the brutality of slavery nor the injustices of legalized segregation could “dim that light.” Oprah, too, recalled living with her grandmother as a young girl where electricity and water was scarce. What a great acknowledgment of resistance and determination to overcome the oppressive forces of enslavement or colonization.

But then I read further. In an interview with Newsweek, Oprah was asked why she did not open an inner-city school here in the U.S. Here is her response:

Is there truth to this statement? Yes. A sad truth. The “light” of education, that is, meaningful learning for transformation and for understanding, is sadly dimming for most of our children in this nation. Education has become a corporate business with “clients” who are educated to replace workers for mega-corporations. In the February 5, 2006 issue of The Nation, Oprah would find the article, “Goodbye, Horatio Alger” and a statement like this: “Evidence that high-quality preschool programs work to improve children’s educational capacities is now overwhelming. Thus, policies to make high-quality pre-K education universally available should be a high priority in America.” Yet, it is not a priority in this nation. Profiteering in war is a priority, however.

On the other hand, I would have expected Oprah to know the reality behind the statements of these inner-city Black youth. I would expect that she would know that these are the very children who need someone to invest 40 million dollars in a new school. These are the very children who, unlike those girls in Henley-on-Klip, have not so much lost the “light” but had it dimmed, indeed, extinguished in a systematic effort to undermine the gains and achievement of Black Americans after the death of Martin Luther King. No, some of our children do not have the light; they have the darkness of despair. They have been beleaguered within integrated educational institutions with the American Dream. The advertising and entertainment industry urges them as it does all Americans to shop, shop, shop. Buy, buy, buy. Our Black youth have been coerced into accepting individualism and the acquisition of material wealth as an indicator of one’s value on this planet. This is a far cry from our heritage of collective ingenuity and resistance. Stop! Remember the children who marched and risked their lives alongside King and Rev. James Bevel in the 1960’s?

Oprah’s comments are damaging to the image of Black Americans. Worse, it could likely stagger a vigorous response to empathize with the Black victims of Katrina. Oprah is certainly not the only Black American recognized by white America and accepted as one of the appropriate spokespersons for our people. But she should know that Black Americans have struggled between resistance and demoralization.

Fortunately, however bleak the situation looks from the outside, there are Black Americans working to repair the damage done in the wards of New Orleans after Katrina as well as face the challenge to re-establish lights not shining so brightly here at home.

Sakura Kone, Coordinator of Media for Common Ground in New Orleans, spoke to me about the crisis facing New Orleans’ Black youths without schools in the world’s wealthiest nation. According to Kone, “50 percent of the schools are not opened.” “We are starved for resources,” Kone said. “All the wards from 1 through 15 are 90 percent Black, working class, and poor;” yet, “there are no skills training programs and no recreational centers.” In the meantime, “kids are hanging out without guardians, raising themselves,” Kone adds. Most of these young people have returned to New Orleans without their parents. Common Ground has “adopted” O. Perry Walker High School in an effort to provide a place for educational opportunities, but, Kone adds, grassroots organizations providing assistance for these young people are overwhelmed because there are so many in need.

Some of the youth live 4 or 5 together under one roof, sometimes with girlfriends or boyfriends, said Kone. “The pregnancy rate is up by 5 times,” yet these young girls are still in school and some have jobs at MacDonald’s. “They have their hearts in the right place,” Kone said, even while they try to cope with dim demoralizing conditions.

Kone recounts one situation in which older adults responded to a developing crack house. Members of Common Ground and other grassroots organizations approached these youths, reminding them that the elders were organized to focus on assisting their parents and grandparents. “If you are remaining in New Orleans,” the youths were told, “we will get you skills training.” A few days later, the young people closed the crack house down themselves. “They want better,” said Kone.

Who wants to creep about on the “dark side”?

Common Ground has received funds from Dave Chappelle, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Moore, and Vets for Peace, but not enough money or attention has been sustained to rebuild the wards. Nevertheless, I hear the determination in Kone’s voice and I imagine the light in his eyes when I am reminded of what Martin Luther King observed more than 40 years ago: “the ghetto has hidden many things from whites, and not the least of these is the rampant racketeering that has a sanctuary in the slums and corrupts the ghetto’s already miserable life.”

Yes, on the one hand, there is profit in the continued degradation of Black America. Angela Davis has argued that Black children are educated for the prison industrial complex. If our Black, working class, and poor youth escape this fate, they are forced to volunteer as fodder for wars of oil. Blackwater is the first in New Orleans to receive no-bid contracts. Business is booming for Blackwater and Halliburton in Iraq where the cost of the war in Iraq could surpass 1 trillion and in New Orleans where money for construction is diminishing.

I would have expected Oprah to know this and more.

But, on the other hand, I will look to the people of Common Ground to remember who they are, to survive oppressive strategies and tactics because they have learned to stand against injustice, thereby stand in the space of resistance.

I asked Sakura Kone about Senator Barack Obama before I ended my conversation with him. That stands of resistance is what makes the difference! I asked him how he felt about the mainstream’s endorsement of Obama to run for president. “If you speak with Obama,” Kone said, “ask him this: who does he represent? If he represents Chicago and the state of Illinois, “why was there a white governor so amazed and embarrassed by a report from Northwestern University law students who discovered that 13 people on death row proved to be innocent?” “Why hasn’t Obama said anything about this?” Kone also referred to an activist organization’s investigation that revealed how the Chicago Police Department had conducted torture on Blacks in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. “Why hasn't Obama said anything about this?”

Yet, Obama cannot seem to take a firm stand against the war along with the majority of Black Americans. Who does he represent? Will he ultimately represent the site of resistance to injustices in Washington? Will Obama see within himself the “light” that will link him consciously and emotionally to recognize the connection between America’s foreign policy of aggression and its domestic policy of neglect in New Orleans?

In New Orleans, the birthplace of my maternal grandparents before they left for Chicago in 1929, members of Common Ground and the people they serve will stand in the space of the light even when the situation seems dim and downright dark. The rest of us will stand with them and fight with them. Contact Common Ground, for we are worth our own effort to resist the darkness and restore all our lights.

Dr. Jean Daniels writes a column for The City Capital Hues in Madison Wisconsin and is a Lecturer at Madison Area Technical College, MATC.. Click here to contact Dr. Daniels.

Your comments are always welcome.