Commentary
Robinswing, Black Kos Editor

I found that leaving the plantation wasn't that hard. For one thing nothing on the plantation was mine anyways. I left the plantation the selfsame moment I realized that hard work is not truly valued. Leisure is what's valuable. Folks who can live in leisure are the respected folks. They are the envy and aspiration of the American Dream. All that bizness about how Americans value working is just so much bullshit. If work had any value, black folks would be treated better. Four hundred years of unpaid working ought to engender a lot of respect. If work was the object of the exercise.

We leave the plantation every time we refuse to buy into the narrative that we are helpless. Each time we are able to see through to the truth we are in effect running away from the plantation. When we stand up for what is right and decent and just we build community. We move off the plantation. Black folks are not the only ones who have to do this. There are fewer of us still on the plantation.


Years ago I met a man who talked about how his family fled Mississippi and share cropping. They loaded their piece of car and pushed it several miles to the highway, started it up and headed north. Leaving the plantation.

During slavery we sang to let folks know when we were leaving. Swing Low Sweet Chariot gave musical notice to everyone but the Boss-man. Music. A huge part of leaving the plantation. Still is. That's what rap is really about.
For the last couple of weeks I have been doing a lot of singing in my head. Music is the way that I deal with life and the things that life offers up to a blackwoman. Stuff you have to. Music is the way I have to.

I don't usually do the blues. I think that there are two kinds of folks in the world. Those who sing the blues and those who inspire others to do so. I like to think of myself as inspirational.

I love jazz and gospel and R&B and classical and I listen to operas and rap. There is always music playing either through the sound system or my head.

The music in my head this week past has run the gamut. One moment I'm hearing Lift every voice and sing, next moment, it's Mama say knock you out!!!

It appears that the week is ending with Trane's A Love Supreme. Winter is over. There is enough possibility in the air that folks that want to can taste it.

Pat Buchanan has up and disappeared. I know that some of you think it is because you wrote those emails and sent all those letter calling attention to his racist rants. No doubt that helped. I'm hoping my spell is working. You know, Backatcha.!!!

Do good, Backatcha. Do wrong Backatcha.

I'm watching the spell of Backatcha ping ponging all over the place.
Bill. Hillary. 'Nough said.

I find myself wondering if living is anything more serious than finding the spell that works for you. All of my life, I passed over the opportunity to seek revenge by invoking the spell of Backatcha. I refuse to let anger and hatred rent out space that ought to be occupied with love and hope. That's what my candidate is all about.

Where I live, love and hope are the fuels of transcendence. Barack never needed to transcend race. I wonder if folks who use the word transcendent even understand that it is an energetic. Obama never had to rise above race. He only needs to rise above racist.

The sound of the last few weeks' worth of media madness was the voice over the loudspeaker proclaiming. Attention, Obama is not on the plantation.

Backatcha.

The Urban Educational System
Sephius1, Black Kos Editor

In America, we tout our education system as the best in world. But in recent years America has been slipping. We were in the top 5, then top 10, then 20. And after that it really doesn’t matter, since we are claiming to be the best and their are 20 or so countries ahead of you. And with test scores fluctuating up and down, overcrowded classrooms, and no across the board standards, it’s no wonder we are slipping. So in starting this series I have decided to talk about this from several different perspectives but all through the lens of the public inner city school systems, which seems to be having a harder time than suburban, and private schools. I will highlight issues, and propose solutions. This is Part I – Strategy At The School Level. Each part will have several sub sections that I present separately each "Week In Review".

There are several prongs of attack, but there must be some method to the madness. And some of the issues I layout will overlap into parts of the series that will be coming.

As I see it, for a youth to be at their best when it comes to academics, it requires an environment that is safe, a school with resources to not only to pay teachers comparable salaries, but to ensure that students have the most up to date books and supplies, one set testing standard that’s not a teach-to-the-test standard, and of course watching the students socioeconomic status. So the subsections I’m going to outline are:

Safety, Health, and the Environment - this includes drugs and other substances that can be abuse, sexually abuse, bullying, dilapidated housing, school buildings and community infrastructures.

Financial Resources - this includes the poverty levels of the students, surrounding community, and the resources the school has available.

People Resources - this includes the identifying the different learning levels of students early, their socio-economic status, those who play parental roles, inter-personal relationships, self-image.

This also includes hiring compotent teachers, having a reward process in place for teachers who do well in the classroom, instead linking a teachers livelyhood to the number of students they pass, getting teachers to think out of the box, and have more robust training for teachers to keep their skill up to date.

Solutions - I wil propose solutions in this section to help develop a strategy at the school level


1.1 Safety, Health, and the Environment


If there is one thing on an inner city kid's mind it is safety. From the time they leave home until they get to school, they are already displaying some of life's survival skills. Sometimes even the home isn't a safe haven. If it is not a struggling single parent home, then one of the parents is a substance abuser, or has a criminal record. And if that isn't the case then the parents work unusual hours, which leave the kids alone for long periods of time, and undoubtedly can cause them to develop unhealthy relationships with things and/or people to compensate for the parents not being there. And if the parent(s) are fortunate enough to have a "babysitter", sometimes the sitter turns out to be incompetent at the very least, or at worst dangerous (eg. child predator, substance abuser, or have a unknown criminal record). And all this is before the child even leaves home. As a matter of fact, the reported cases of child abuse is (on average) 3 million a year but experts says that the actual number is closer to 3 times that amount:

Statistics

• A report of child abuse is made every 10 seconds
  


• 36.7% of all women, and 14.4% of all men, in prison in the US were abused as children
  


• Children who have been sexually abused are 2.5 times more likely to abuse alcohol and 3.8 times more likely to become addicted to drugs
  


• One third of abused and neglected children will later abuse their children

Then the kid has to leave home and pass several run-down buildings which have become nothing but havens for drug dealers, prostitutions rings, and other criminal activities. It is such a problem that alot of inner city kids have learned how to take the "long" route to school. And it's not always the same route each day. These kids have to plan their day to a degree no kid going to a suburban, or private school would have -- how to dodge the drug area, a prostitution area, or other criminal hot spots, and still stop at the store to pick a carton of milk that the kids mother told him to pick when he leaves school because the stores are closed by the time she gets off work. We call this process logistics, or less formal, assessing the situation, and developing a plan. This is a skill set that children will eventually need but inner city kids seem to be introduced to it too soon, and on a level more sophisticated, and more appropriate for adults.

Now, on a more abstract level, imagine having to see a run down community on a daily basis on your way to school. You see the good/bad/ugly, but mainly the bad and ugly. There was a time when the neighborhood kept the value of its surroundings up and watched out for all the kids. I remember one time trying to set some dry leaves on fire with a magnifying glass. I was on the side my house that didn't have windows, so my mom couldn't see me. All of a sudden my mother came out screaming "What are doing...get yo ass in the house...right now....wait til I tell you daddy...". Needless to say I got the whippin' of my life (what if one of those dry leaves had blown into someone else's lawn). I later found out that one of my moms good friends, that stayed in the house facing that side of my house, saw what I was doing and call my mother. Nowadays, if you do something like that my moms friend may have been assaulted, possibly shot. The mentality in most inner city neighborhoods now, is "You leave me alone, I'll leave you alone". And forget reporting a crime. Most will watch but will swear up and and down they saw nothing. No one is watching out for their fellow man's safety, and what does this teach our young people about character, and responsibility.

Finally, the kid gets to school. And the first thing they notice are the old rusty lockers, the ceiling panels are stained, and moldy from years leaking when it rains. The air condition has been broke all year, not that you would want actual air blowing through the ventilation system since it hasn't been cleaned in years, either. The pipes are old and falling apart. The desk are old and rusty (and truth be told, not suitable for any one to sit in; c'mon when was the last time you saw someone clean a desk....and I mean with an anti-bacterial cleaner). Classrooms in the inner city schools are more like incubators than places for learning. Rates of respiratory ailments like asthma are higher for inner city children. And it's not only asthma, and it has become generational (especially with "babies having babies"). You now have multiple members within a family unit being diagnosed with asthma, or not being resistant to certain bacterial infections, like staph.

It's hard to wrap your head around everything since there are so many tentacles. Not only must or children have suitable learning facilities, but we must ensure their "route" to educational success. We have our work cut out for us, but it is not hopeless.

Next Week >> Section 1.2, Financial Resources








After watching the Rev. Wright "discussion" I am certain the media will bring this up down the road. Although this article includes too many conservative talking points for my liking, it's a good starting point to begine talking about this issue.(dopper0189)

Slate.com ≫ Affirmative action is probably the most difficult race issue [Obama] will have to face.

In an interview last May on ABC's This Week With George Stephanopoulos, he was asked whether his own daughters should someday receive preferences in college admissions. His response was unexpected: "I think that my daughters should probably be treated by any admissions officer as folks who are pretty advantaged." He added, "I think that we should take into account white kids who have been disadvantaged and have grown up in poverty and shown themselves to have what it takes to succeed." His comments lit up the blogosphere with speculation that as president he might spearhead a major policy change, shifting the basis of affirmative action from race to class disparities.

The ABC statement fits into Obama's record on the issue, which has never been black and white. As a 28-year-old at Harvard, Obama attended meetings of the Black Law Students Association and spoke at at least one event, demanding greater diversity on campus. But his classmate David Troutt, now a law professor at Rutgers, says he was no militant. "There are a lot of people that spent a tremendous amount of time on that issue. They sued the school. They camped out at the dean's office," says Troutt. Obama wasn't among them. His head was in a different place....... More ►

This is something I have long suspected, this article sadly confirms many of my hypothesis.(dopper0189)

NYTimes ≫ Race and the Social Contract

In 1893, Friedrich Engels wrote from London to Friedrich Adolph Sorge, another German Communist then living in New York, lamenting how America's diversity hindered efforts to establish a workers' party in the United States. Was it possible to unify Poles, Germans, Irish, the many small groups, each of which understands only itself? All the bourgeoisie had to do was wait, and the dissimilar elements of the working class fall apart again.

America's mix of peoples has changed in its 200-plus years. Yet when Barack Obama delivered his bracing speech on race, he was grappling with a similar challenge. Realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams, he said. Investing in the health, welfare and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

It is a tall order. Ten years ago, William Julius Wilson wrote that American whites rebelled against welfare because they saw it as using their hard-earned taxes to give blacks medical and legal services that many of them could not afford for their own families...... More ►

NYTimes ≫ The Topic Is Race; the Art Is Fearless

In the 1970s the African-American artist Adrian Piper donned an Afro wig and a fake mustache and prowled the streets of various cities in the scowling, muttering guise of the Mythic Being, a performance-art version of a prevailing stereotype, the black male as a mugger, hustler, gangsta.

On Race and Art In the photographs that resulted you can see what she was up to. In an era when some politicians and much of the popular press seemed to be stoking racial fear, she was turning fear into farce but serious, and disturbing, farce, intended to punch a hole in pervasive fictions while acknowledging their power.
...... More ►

Just for a different flavor.....

Ebony / Jet ≫ Toumast :The music of African nomads finds a comfortable place on contemporary playlists

Toumast founder Moussa Ag Keyna fought for four years with guns. When he was injured and a bullet ripped an open fracture in his leg, he picked up his other weapon, his guitar. The result is Ishumar (Real World Records), an impressive debut of rolling guitar rhythms layered with trance undertones and melancholy lyrics. Enveloped by traditional melodies and contagious electric blues riffs borrowed from Jimi Hendrix and B.B.King, Toumast's music offers the freshest take on the growing genre of Tuareg desert blues.

Formed in 1990, Toumast represents the second generation of Tuareg ishumar musicians. The term derives from the French word for unemployed and was the label given to displaced young Tuaregs searching for work. Clustered in refugee camps, military camps and shanty towns, the young people began to produce music reflecting their fight for freedom....... More ►

((youtube tZqS3xEVaJQ))

Let's hope this ends peacefully, and Mugabe's reign is at an end

BBC ≫ Mugabe's Zanu-PF loses majority

Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party took 97 of the 210 seats, while the opposition MDC won 99, final official results showed.
Presidential election results have yet to be declared, but the MDC said its leader had won the election. Zanu-PF said this was "wishful thinking".

The MDC released its own results to back up its claim of victory in the presidential poll.

MDC Party Secretary General Tendai Biti said its leader Morgan Tsvangirai had won 50.3% of the vote to President Robert Mugabe's 43.8%, so avoiding a presidential run-off....... More ►

As a Jamaican-American with strong ties to the island (frequent visitor, own land, married a girl from there) I sadly must say the next story is true. Jamaica is doing a much better job of protecting tourist, but not the people of it's large cities (Kingston, Spanish Town, Portmore).

BBC ≫ Jamaica's poor have been abandoned by the government and left to the mercy of violent criminal gangs, Amnesty International says in a new report.

The human rights group said inner-city Jamaicans were being "held hostage" in the battle between gangs and the state.

Amnesty said Jamaican authorities had stigmatised and "wilfully neglected" inner-city communities....... More ►

Education In America......More ►
┗ by Muzikal203 (Sephius1)

One Black Perspective on the Wright Discussion and Race......More ►
┗ by Vyan (Sephius1)

In Praise of Condi Rice...... More ►
┗ Bandaloo (Sephius1 -- While I don't agree everything, I offer it in the spirit of discussion)

Does the D in MyDD stand for Dixiecrat?......More ►
┗ by Deoliver47 (Dopper0189)

Series by StormBear (The continuation of a great series. - Dopper0189)
┗ Black History: Slave Market of Charleston......More ►
┗ Black History: Inside the Seasoning Camps......More ►

Race, the Rust Belt, and Me......More ►
┗ by paintblue (Dopper0189)

NEW REPORT: The Race Chasm & the Clinton Firewall......More ►
┗ by davidsirota (Dopper0189)


IN CLOSING

As a 26 year old man living in our "post-racial" society I'm often struck at just how far we still have to go. I mean, clearly, I'm not looking to forcibly integrate neighborhoods. But I am looking to equal the playing field completely. A simple acknowledgment of American slavery would work for me. And so it goes.

But I am indeed lucky to live in a time where we've sort of narrowed the gap (as the white Right paternalistically notes and whines about at our alleged ungratefulness). Sort of is still not good enough.

I am not going to turn this into a candidate diary, so I won't go into the many reasons as to why I wholeheartedly support Senator Barack Obama. I will note that whether he wins the nomination and then the Presidency or not, his A More Perfect Union speech is the most brilliant speech in 40 years. It has the ability to make us sit down and just think, and just listen, and then just act.
We are indeed just one nation, and now it's time to sit down, think, listen, and act.

I admit I have much frustration in my almost 3 years here at Daily Kos that our periodic conversations on race fall flat, and some deep annoyance at the naivety of some and the harshness of a few others, whether they were being deliberately hurtful or not. The problem was we simply weren't thinking, or listening. Again, now with A More Perfect Union as our guide, I am hoping that we can.

Sit down, think, listen, and act. - Terrypinder, Black Kos Editor

REMEMBER MLK TODAY for what he lived for, as well as what he died for!