And they lived happily ever after... Let me tell you how it goes in the 'Hood in the 4th largest school district in the nation, today. I've taught in the inner city for the last 15 years. Last year a teacher was jumped outside his classroom after school when he was tutoring kids on his own time to help them prep for the state mandated exams. He was jumped by an entire family of sorts: Crack addict mother, daughter and brother by different fathers. Brother was a golden gloves champ. They busted the teacher's jaw in three places. Happened right across from my room. I was out with the flu that day.
Another time I was out I got a frantic call on my cell from a buddy in another part of the building asking if I had a clear view of the bullet riddled body lying in the street outside my second floor class. They were on a code red lockdown and he wanted to know what I saw. He didn't know I was at home.
Then about three years ago, right across the street from school, one of my former students was ambling along the sidewalk with an AK47 (stock folded) when he caught sight of a member of an opposition gang headed his way. He dove into a barbershop. The Off Duty Cop in plainclothes thought the gang banger was there for HIM and as he tried to simultaneously dive to the floor from the chair AND draw from an ankle holster he got tangled up in the barber's sheet. The kid realized the weird customer was probably a cop and he darted out of the store. He was nabbed a block away with two full 30 rd mags in his ultra deep rear pockets and a round chambered in the AK.
I have a list of former students that I got from an article in the news. I had it laminated. They belonged to one of the most savage Haitian gangs in the area. It says which ones are dead, which are in prison and which of those are on death row. Before I laminated the article I put the results of MY interactions with them on each pic. Which ones I had expelled, or failed or in one rare case, which one got a decent grade in my class.
Most of the real hard cases still circle the school perimeter like sharks, looking for victims upon which to feed.
The ones I teach are for the most part smart, capable and really want to learn. They REALLY want to escape the 'Hood. Some of them are struggling with frightening situations at home. Alcoholic parents. One of my brightest just learned his dad is being sentenced to sixty five years in prison for drug dealing. This kid is so filled with grief and RAGE that he couldn't comprehend why. He said it in class, kind of yowling scream: It's not like he killed anybody! I had to get him to the TRUST counselor for some serious therapy.
I teach A.P. American Government. You should see the anger and RAGE that bubbles to the surface when the name Bush is raised. You should then see the angelic looks that Obama's name then engenders. He does more than walk on water for these kids. Nothing he does will ever cause them to turn on HIM. Nothing. To them he really is the Saviour. EXCEPT.... when you bring up his record on some certain issues. Most of these kids are also very devout Christians. They go to Bible studies and church dinners and they're involved in the youth groups. But they're also pretty well schooled in what goes and doesn't go when it comes to certain behaviors. For example, Gay marriage, adoption, or gay anything doesn't "go" for them. Same thing for abortion. None of them had ever heard of partial birth abortion. EVER. One kid went so far as to ask his own doctor about the procedure who denied it EVER was done. I went online and found a bunch of sources and a sequential series of hand drawn illustrations as to what happens and how often and I gave it to the kid to take to the doc with the admonition that I would promise to never practice medicine if the Doc promised to stay the Hell AWAY from social studies. I never heard another word from that kid or the Doc.
Every year, it's part of my job to sign kids who are eligible to vote. Universally, they choose democrat. Yet about 35% often will choose INDEPENDENT. To me that means they have really listened and not only learned but actually gone so far as to actually do that which I continually exhort them to do: CHECK IT ALL OUT ON THEIR OWN!
I make it clear at the start of the year that while I might have called myself a "Republican" since 1975, I'm a conservative that is about to resign from that party because it seems to have "UP" and left me! I affirm to them my own personal bottom line: I'm a Christian first and a conservative thereafter. That seems to resonate. I could go on and on, but this seems to be a good place to stop so I will. Here endeth the lesson.
God bless you bullet-dodging teachers!
Buddy, you’ve got a hard thankless job. Good to know there a few honest teachers out there not towing the “party line.”
You oughtta rite a book!
the solution won’t come via politics. the root answer is a spirtual & mental revival that will CLEANSE EYES & allow the underclass to see how politics itself, both parties, have enslaved them inside a modern plantation game in wh/ both sides feed freely from.
Peoples, we SHOULD worry. if this & other boards on this particular issue are any barometer, we’re on the verge of cultural implosion.
many here feel threatened, angered & are burning w/ vengence. that friends will lead to a form of anarchy you’ll surely regret. modern day Watts massacres would scar this nation into a tempest of hate beyond what we saw in the ‘60’s.
that said, these raw feelings DO reflect a deeper TRUTH. It cant be further smothered or cynically manipulated for gain. It must be dealt straight dope & w/ urgency. Right now our body politic is as polorized on race as we were in the late ‘50’s-early ‘70’s. & as is the unbalanced nature of the blade, the political pendulum has swung too far now vrs whites. Just as it did from 1878-1963 vrs blacks.
what whites though, must understand, is that the same anger MLK warned angry blacks of in the ‘50’s, is the same type of potential nitro that will beget only higher & higher flames.
We HAVE to find a way to the table of goodwill & reason as Americans foremost, or this house will go up in flames.
imo, as was the impetus of foward change on whites of the ‘50’s, today African Americans of fair will must stand & look w/in themselves & realize they hold the ball now. Whites of goodwill & faith should work to the solution, but the step across the rapids now must be advanced by Blacks.
Politics on both sides of this issue has been a device of manipulation. as in MLK’s time, solutions will be found first in deeper resevoirs before politics itself can follow suit. This fundamentally must begin as an issue of the Heart.
African Americans must get honest. Their victimhood paradigm has corroded their culture into critical status. Men HAVE to find a path back to the mentality of leadership & pride in an intact FAMILY...
at any cost-—>>> NOW.
stop being played by: enabling hustler politics; a manipulative entertainment industry playing you as minstral man-children; bs paths out via street cred blood stands; seeing educ as uncle tom whitey sell out; & ignoring the route of capital growth.
CALL OUT all the above in your neighborhoods & demand a change of mind. Ridicule enablers of any form or kind: black, white, dem or GOP. They are as dangerous as the whitiest of whitey Klansmen. They undermine you more then any country club republican huddled in their most gated of gated communities. live out Malcom’s vision of self sufficiency thru Pride in family, community, God & ones own gifts.
Politics at this point as the first step is no solution. That die has been cast for over 40 years, both parties now suck your blood from both sides.
Alter the paridigm within & real political solution will follow. Free your mind & pathes will be open.
Anything less at this critical point will only make the racist smile & the vengenful of both races lick their lips in anticpation of the blood that will fall.