Consciousness Over Cookouts
By Gary L. Flowers
Executive Director & CEO
Black Leadership Forum, Inc.
July 26-July 3, 2011
“Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! Whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I [we] forget…’may my right hand forget her cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!...to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world.’”
Frederick Douglas
July 4, 1852
As the United States of America celebrates another Independence Day (July 4), recognizing a principled stand by early American colonists against the tyranny of England’s King George, we should learn from the words of Frederick Douglas who in 1852 eloquently cited the hypocrisy of our nation to celebrate the liberty of independence amidst the institution of slavery.
While African Americans are free from the brutality of physical bondage our minds, in the words of Douglas, seem to “…chime in with the popular theme…” of hot dogs, hamburgers, John Phillip Sousa, and fireworks.
In short, we need to place consciousness over cookouts.
Douglas’ contemporary, Harriet Tubman, reminds today’s African Americans that worse than the institution of slavery may have been the reality of many Black people who did not recognize their state of enslavement.
July 4, 2011 may well mark the most perilous position for Black people in America since slavery. For example:
• The first generation less educated than the previous since 1865
• 76% of seniors testing positive for HIV
• 70% of un-wed births
• 60% of U.S. home foreclosures
• 50% high-school drop out rates
• 50% of U.S. jail population
Yet, despite a fearsome fire burning our heritage house of honor we joyfully eat, drink, and be merry cooking outside in the yard. We must put the family fire out.
What must we do short of cancelling cookouts? First, we must know our history—tragic and triumphant. Second, we raise our conscious level from the basement of “Dancing with the Stars” and “American Idol” to the rooftop relevant pursuits that lift one another. Lastly, we must turn to each other and not on each other. WE is a lot stronger the ME.
If Black people to not recognize that all of us—the wealthy and the without—are still seen as the wretched by most of America we should have another cookout. Only this time we may find ourselves served up as seared slaves again.
Gary L. Flowers
Executive Director & CEO
Black Leadership Forum, Inc.
1290 Vermont Ave., NW
Suite 1290
Washington, DC 20005
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Friday, June 10, 2011
The NAACP is Right: Public Schools Should Be Supported
The NAACP is Right: Public Schools Should Be Supported
By Gary L. Flowers
Executive Director & CEO
Black Leadership Forum, Inc.
June 5-12, 2011
Last month, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)) filed a lawsuit in New York on behalf of students and their parents. In the words of Benjamin Todd Jealous, President and CEO, the lawsuit was filed because “Students are being grossly mistreated, their parents are being deeply disrespected and the entire community stands to suffer.” As a member of the Black Leadership Forum, I fully concur with NAACP’s educational position in New York.
The issue at hand is whether public school students in New York (and in other jurisdictions” are being treated as “second-class” students to charter school students.
For starters, and contrary to charter school advocates, public schools are not equal under the law. Public schools receive funding from the public sector (i.e. federal, state, and local government). Conversely, charter schools receive money from private investors who profit from the success of schools.
With such a backdrop, charter school students in New York seem to be favored over public school students who are stigmatized as “regular students.” For example:
• Charter students are placed in public school buildings causing extreme challenges for space
• Public students must eat lunch at 10:00 am so that charter students may eat lunch a 12 noon
• Public schools are restricted to four hours of library time compared to seven hours given to charter students
• Public students in some New York schools are forced to learn in basement hallways in order to make room for charter students
In addition to the issue of imposing charter schools within public schools the New York Public School system has failed honor the law by informing public school parents prior to making changes within the school district such as school closures.
I further agree with the NAACP and Benjamin Jealous when he asserts, “When one set of students is perceived as getting preferential treatment over another, or the city refuses to work with parents to fix problems at a school before closing it, the inequity leaves all our children suffering.” Yet, the educational issue in New York is much deeper.
The United States of America has never fully embraced a strong public school system. When public schools were established in 1853 the wealthy elite in many instances opposed public schools. After all, their children were educated in private academies.
Over the years, opposition for public schools has never waned. During the Reconstruction Period following the American Civil War public schools were burned and terrorized by the Ku Klux Klan on their un-Godly view that African Americans should not be educated. In 1954, southern Whites opposed the racial desegregation order of Brown v. Board of Education by creating private academies that only allowed Whites to attend. Twenty-five years later when the Brown ruling was enforced with mandatory busing of public school students, mass opposition to public schools reared its ugly head in American cities such as Boston, Massachusetts when African Americans and Latinos were bused to mostly White school districts. In each historical era in this nation’s history public has been under constant attack.
The broader American policy question is whether all students—regardless of race or resources—have a right, rather than a privilege to a high quality education. More particularly, the federal government must take a righteous stand against the privatization of public education by 1) Increasing the federal allotment to public education from the current 9%; and 2) Enshrining the right to high quality education for all American students in the U.S. Constitution.
As long as privateers pervert public education via charter schools while the federal government stands idly by, and public students and their parents are inferiorly treated, American education system is in need for remediation.
By Gary L. Flowers
Executive Director & CEO
Black Leadership Forum, Inc.
June 5-12, 2011
Last month, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)) filed a lawsuit in New York on behalf of students and their parents. In the words of Benjamin Todd Jealous, President and CEO, the lawsuit was filed because “Students are being grossly mistreated, their parents are being deeply disrespected and the entire community stands to suffer.” As a member of the Black Leadership Forum, I fully concur with NAACP’s educational position in New York.
The issue at hand is whether public school students in New York (and in other jurisdictions” are being treated as “second-class” students to charter school students.
For starters, and contrary to charter school advocates, public schools are not equal under the law. Public schools receive funding from the public sector (i.e. federal, state, and local government). Conversely, charter schools receive money from private investors who profit from the success of schools.
With such a backdrop, charter school students in New York seem to be favored over public school students who are stigmatized as “regular students.” For example:
• Charter students are placed in public school buildings causing extreme challenges for space
• Public students must eat lunch at 10:00 am so that charter students may eat lunch a 12 noon
• Public schools are restricted to four hours of library time compared to seven hours given to charter students
• Public students in some New York schools are forced to learn in basement hallways in order to make room for charter students
In addition to the issue of imposing charter schools within public schools the New York Public School system has failed honor the law by informing public school parents prior to making changes within the school district such as school closures.
I further agree with the NAACP and Benjamin Jealous when he asserts, “When one set of students is perceived as getting preferential treatment over another, or the city refuses to work with parents to fix problems at a school before closing it, the inequity leaves all our children suffering.” Yet, the educational issue in New York is much deeper.
The United States of America has never fully embraced a strong public school system. When public schools were established in 1853 the wealthy elite in many instances opposed public schools. After all, their children were educated in private academies.
Over the years, opposition for public schools has never waned. During the Reconstruction Period following the American Civil War public schools were burned and terrorized by the Ku Klux Klan on their un-Godly view that African Americans should not be educated. In 1954, southern Whites opposed the racial desegregation order of Brown v. Board of Education by creating private academies that only allowed Whites to attend. Twenty-five years later when the Brown ruling was enforced with mandatory busing of public school students, mass opposition to public schools reared its ugly head in American cities such as Boston, Massachusetts when African Americans and Latinos were bused to mostly White school districts. In each historical era in this nation’s history public has been under constant attack.
The broader American policy question is whether all students—regardless of race or resources—have a right, rather than a privilege to a high quality education. More particularly, the federal government must take a righteous stand against the privatization of public education by 1) Increasing the federal allotment to public education from the current 9%; and 2) Enshrining the right to high quality education for all American students in the U.S. Constitution.
As long as privateers pervert public education via charter schools while the federal government stands idly by, and public students and their parents are inferiorly treated, American education system is in need for remediation.
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