truth and reconciliation

Part of what i am interested in seeing in south africa is how folks talk about the truth and reconciliation process the country went through as a way of public sense making of apartheid.

and yet part of me is also very wary about privileging the voices of those who have done horrible acts of violence. for example, how does the world make sense of dumisani rebombo and his coming forward asking for reconciliation for raping a woman 35 years ago? how do we reconcile horrid acts, knowing many among us have engaged in horrid acts?

my initial reaction was to dismiss mr. rebombo, but then i had to temper myself; isn't the world we are fighting for one where people reconcile our biggest worst parts, in public? and yet reading about men who rape is difficult, ugly work. but how else do we support our human peers, especially men, as we recognize privilege, the violence that has shaped us and that we have smashed into others? would the world rather have locked mr. rebombo up for 5, 9, 27 years?

obvious

in gearing up for my trip to south africa
i came across a corporate mining giant with a history of
pro-apartheid practices:

Anglo American.

And then I had to laugh.
Hard.
"Anglo American?" Really?

Who should be surprised if the company Anglo American was racist?
And the part of me that wants white people to admit their racism almost jumped for joy: at least this company is clear about their focus and purpose.

English Only Protestors?

At the Oakland Unified School Board meeting tonight, educators protesting the proposed (and I believe accepted) cuts to adult education efforts in downtown Oakland held signs that proclaimed:

"We Need English in Chinatown"

And while we should never ever cut adult education for low income communities who can learn English through such programs (which they need to survive in our racist country that does not tolerate accents, much less multiple languages), we also should ensure our adult educators know better than to make protest signs that read like English Only signs.

funky math

Incoming Oakland Unified Superintedent Tony Smith was just hired at $275000 which is a lot more than the 43 SEIU workers who were just laid off by Oakland Unified will make off of unemployment wages. As I said while on I sat on school boards, leaders of districts and colleges should not be paid 5, 6, 7, or 10 times the least paid full time person on campus or in the district if anyone in is to make any claims about being equitable or democratic or equal.

out of jail

i just spoke with a young student i used to work with
he just got out of prison, he was arrested for his involvement in what he called "police-dictated gang-related violence"
i asked him what that meant and he elaborated:

"i'm not saying what i did wasn't stupid. i was an idiot, never should have been there, never should have been so damn violent. i know that. man i got so much rage in me now, though. but listen:

we [him and his 4 mexican friends] were in a fight with a bunch of black kids
and we put one of them in the hospital and they put one of us in the hospital
and the police said we were all in gangs
but none of us were
until we went to prison and now 3 of my 4 friends are now Nortenos.

but the real thing, Chris, is what about my rage
what can i do with this rage burning up my insides
mad at the world mad at the police mad at my mom for not being there
mad at my teachers for not caring or for failing me
mad angry pissed off what do i do to stop feeling this way
i know i messed up, but now the rest of my life is fucked?
how do i not be so pissed about that, knowing i can't even get a job at taco fucking bell?"

this is after 2 years in prison; he's 21. no job prospects, cannot get financial aid because he has felony assault on his record. i gave him my new journal (all i had written in it were the words: 'writing rage' just before i ran into him in front of a cafe in oakland), and he reminded me that he is why we fight, struggle, push schools to deepen because while
he was a 'bad' student who didn't come to school very often
he was deep, caring, knowledgeable, and not all that mad
so now what?

obama mania

in a typical day i usually see about 50 obama bumper stickers, maybe more. and many of the schools i visit in oakland or hayward or san francisco (but not orinda or layfayette or walnut creek or brentwood) have a number of obama posters, praising the nation's first black president as essentially us living in a new racially just world.

and yet, how quiet we are about his continued reliance upon standardizing education, upon assessing schools rather than shifting what we do in schools, and upon initiating a revamped war in afghanistan.

somedays, i ask educators if they talk about what obama is (not) doing for places like oakland, hayward, and hunter's point in san francisco, but typically i get responses about how he demonstrates that all people of color can become president one day, or about how he shows that anyone, no matter how poor, how broken of a home, or how of color they are, can "make it."

i had hoped obama mania would shift into what we typically do: critique our leaders when they slip, when they go against their campaign promises, when they do what we had previously protested, but as a general rule, america seems pretty dang content with a well spoken, thoughtful pro-colonial education system war mongering president. yet again.

perhaps president obama should re-read Dreams of My Father, and remind himself of why he is where he is...

the director of special education

for an as yet unnamed school district
told me that the reason there are more
"Afri...Afro...Black African American students"
(oh how I love when white people can't name a racial group they fear)
in special education is because
"they have higher rates of drug use"

and i asked him which drugs, in particular, he thought African American 5 or 6 or 7 year olds placed into special education were using

he replied:

"i mean the parents use drugs."

and i guess he intended to mean black parents use some vague undefined drug that is much much worse than viagra or powdered cocaine or martinis or prozac or zoloft or the pain killers many white people are addicted to but instead of pushing that point i asked him what parent drug use has to do with their children being designated into special education
and I dont know if he learned this during his Master's in Educational Psychology from an ivy league school but he replied:

"drugs cause brain problems in kids"

i told him to read Racial Inequality in Special Education (or look here) and to look at the racial disparities in his own district (which apparently he had not yet done).

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