I
don’t know any other way to say it but... Black Students
nationwide are falling further and further behind their fellow White
students. Granted before the Covid Pandemic millions upon millions of
Black students were grade levels behind White students in the core
areas of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Not to mention, when it
comes to Black students’ Emotional
development” and
competency. Tragically yet predictably it coincides with their
academic success or lack of.
I've
labored and toiled in the trenches of public education for over two
decades, and there are a few conclusions I've come to which I can
unequivocally and without hesitation nor reservation stand by.
One,
the public education process is like making sausage or
McDonald's nuggets
- you don’t want to see it happen, you don’t want to go
behind closed classroom doors and see it being made - you’ll
throw up.
Two:
the lack of Black parental involvement is pathetic, pitiful, and
trifling. Sorry, there are no other words to describe it - we
(85%-90%) never show up to the schoolhouse unless Junior is in
trouble. End of story. Black Parent participation in everything from
attending back-to-school nights and Parent-teacher conferences is
sad. Attend a PTA meeting… negro please, the vast majority of
Black parents simply don’t. Supposedly everyone can’t
make it, they’re all at their 2nd or 3rd gig… negro
please, that sounds good, but it doesn’t hold up. The
Ethiopian, Sudanese and Nigerian Parents - who work 7 jobs, they show
up, Black Americans… We've left the education of our children
to White folks.
We
trust them I guess.
We
trust Trump-backing Teachers, administrators, counselors, and coaches
to dig this - prepare, Black kids for the corporate/capitalist rat
race to attain and maintain the American Dream.
This
tragic fact leads me to this observation: By far the worst move Black
America has made since 1619 is handing over, relinquishing,
abdicating, surrendering ...call it what you want - the
responsibility of enlightening
our
children to a system set-up and designed-by and for White folks…
who by and large, according to all facts, opinions, polls and voting
records do not like nor respect Black America as a whole.
Is
there a debate about that now, in 2021?
Look,
on one hand, you’ve got “Missionaries,” the
well-intentioned little White girls from Sunnyfield suburbia who just
want to help the poor, under-privileged Black and Brown Children, but
they are so socially disconnected from the cultures they simply
can’t. Then you’ve got the “get-tough”
disciplinarians who want to punish, suspend, expel and place on the
pre-school to state prison pipeline
- they claim to be helping the wayward students by throwing the book
at them now, over any and all infractions, because, when those kids
get in the
real world
it will be so less tolerable of Black kid’s antics - they're
really just trying to help the Black kids.
Together,
as a group they
fear
Black and Brown children, classroom management is just about
non-existent, it’s hard to maintain discipline and structure
when you’re scared and intimidated… wait, by kids who
want to scare and intimidate you, and their youthful parents, some
who were just in high school a decade earlier, many of whom simply
don’t respect teachers...of any color and have informed and
trained their kids to ignore and defy school rules.
They
hated school and wow, gee what do you know, their kids hate school.
Denver
Public schools, like most of America, are segregated because most,
not all, but most White “hipsters” want to live in a
revived urban center, but they don’t want their kids in “Black”
schools.
Classrooms
are segregated: IB, advanced, Honors whatever those classes are 90%
white, while mainstream classes, where 10th graders are doing
6th-grade fractions and still seeding about Jack and Jill went up the
hill. White classes, vastly quiet and working. Black and Latino
dominated classrooms… it's a clown show, on their phones,
socializing more than studying, almost leaving the class and then
just walking out. There are enough Black kids in the hallways
during
class to have a parade. Yet that underachieving is accepted and
tolerated because the Black parents don’t value the educational
process, and they trust the school to parent their child. The White
faculty has “gutter
low” educational and social expectations
for Black kids while they believe Black kids should be allowed to
behave in ways and manners my grandparents would never tolerate -
like the incorporation of the word Nigger
into
everyday conversation.
All-day
you've got Black kids yelling "Say Nigger, hey Nigger. Yo
nigger…" it's never-ending. "Nigger" this and
nigger that. Everyone's a nigger, The Jewish librarian, the Japanese
lady subbing in math, the White English teacher, and the Black
science teacher (they're as rare as a Black unicorn) are all branded
and called, to their face Nigger, "nigger, you can't take my
phone! I ain't got no homework to turn in, I don't do no homework…yep
2021 Colorado and I can't count the Black students who have the
vocabulary of an 1861 slave in Mississippi.
Our
participation in the arts, i.e., theater, band, and the choir is
wanting and lacking. Speech and debate… we don’t do
that. Science Club, Business club - for far too many of us, it’s
socializing time at the mall.
I’m
as serious as a stroke.
“Mr.
Cortez, nigger ain't no bad word, my momma and grandma use it all the
time."
I'm
a serious heart attack. They are days when I think I'm in an Iceberg
Slim
novel set in 1957 Chi-town. “Bitch,” “ho,”
“Trickbaby” and “Mofo” are thrown around like
“g-i-r-l- and m-a-n used to be.
Sure,
of course, White kids break rules, fight, drink, curse, and fail
classes, but as with all ills
and woes, when
it comes to this issue, White folks have a common cold, we Black
folks have stage 7 brain cancer.
Black
folks my age, straight out of the 20th century, in the building
hardly try anymore because the younger woke
MSNBC Black cocoa puffs offer endless rhyme, reason, and the
rationale why it's ok and not a big deal. And granted I think it's
ludicrous and ignorant to devalue yourself in a hostile nation that
wants to
put us back in chains.
Then
you’ve got the deliberately disconnected White teachers who are
there for just the perceived perks: off every holiday known to
humankind, the forgiveness of student loans and it looks good on the
ol’ resume when you can sight a few years behind enemy lines at
MLK
middle school or Booker T Washington High…
you garner immediate street creed with your peers from Stanford,
Liberty University or Idaho State.
Over
my years in working in three metropolitan Denver public school
systems, as well as having two kids, both in International
Baccalaureate programs attend public schools, I’ve encountered
the
same old same old over
and over again - the vast majority of Black students are merely being
warehoused until they move on to their prescribed place in US
society: either they’re working at Wal-Mart,
or
they’re in prison, or they’re in the cemetery.
My
answer: A national online Black school system, either as a primary
source or as a tutoring supplement, nevertheless we need help!
Additionally,
because of the fractured and dismantled status of the Black family we
need to pour our hearts into a Black Boy and Girls Scouts program -
our kids are in desperate, dire need of all the attributes and values
Scouting can supply, the hands-on involvement, the structure, the
attention to details, the responsibility it fosters, the problem
solving it contributes to, the teamwork it creates.
Now
understand, as I make these observations I will be branded both a
'racist" and a sell-out "Uncle Tom '' for criticizing Black
folks. My daddy said "tell the truth son" he didn't say
much about sparing their feelings.
