My good friend, Dr. Walter Stafford, Professor of Sociology at New York
University, has described it well when he has stated "A black boy comes out of
the womb stamped GUILTY".
I watched the entire CNN special, "Black in America" and found its major
fault is that it presented no historical, socio/political context for the four
hours of mostly pain among Americans of African descent. Who labels that
newborn as guilty? And why? Aside from a few terms used sparingly such as
discrimination and racism, there was no effort to explain international white
supremacy, and unearned white privilege supported by institutional and governmental
white racism. There was only a feeble attempt to explain class and color
divisions among African Americans, divisions which emanated from the days of
enslavement when the children of slave masters received special privileges.
However, as I watched I was deeply touched by the depiction of many issues
we have experienced again and again.
As I always am I was moved by the issue of single mothers who raise their
children, almost fatherless. My own mother was such a mother, and my father
only in a separated background. There was no insightful explanation of why young
fathers often walk away abandoning their children, no recognition of the
criminal neglect of the educational system in preparing them for fatherhood and
work, no real discussion of the racist denial of employment, no understanding
of how employers dog them and refer to them as "boy", no criticism of the
media, film and the music which demean Black males, as well as females.
I was also moved by the data on HIV/AIDS, data with which I am very
familiar: women and children of African ancestry have the highest infection rates in
the country and people of African descent, as a whole, have the highest rate
of infection and deaths. I lost my best friend, many colleagues and students.
The story of the teenager who was paralyzed by gunshot wound was the story
of the present day tragedy where our youth are killed, often by each other, at
an epidemic rate. I could not help but remember a boy I met in the hospital.
I was in New York's Metropolitan Hospital for surgery on a broken wrist. It
was my birthday, and several friends brought me birthday cakes. When I
learned of a 17 year old paralyzed boy who was in the next ward I sent him a piece
of cake. Like the boy in the CNN story he had been shot. In this case he was
shot by a grocery store owner as he attempted to leave with a stolen piece of
pastry. He would never walk again. Two days after the piece of cake, the boy
wheeled himself into my room to say thank you. I was told it was the first
time he had spoken to anyone in three weeks in the hospital.
Like many of the African Americans in Black in America, I had grown up in
poverty, received public assistance and lived in a housing project. Of my own
choosing I taught for six years in an all-Black high school in Chicago, the
most meaningful professional experience of my life. These were the children who
came out of the same life circumstances as I did, and I loved them.
Yes, I was very moved by the stories of CNN, but there were no truthful
explanations of the causal circumstances or the posing of solutions. Bill
Cosby/Dr. Alvin Pousant and Senator Barack Obama are only partially correct, as was
Maya Angelou who was not able to state fully her concerns before being cut
off.
I fully support the idea that there are many things we must as a people do
to change the lives of all of our people. Some of these changes must be
political, social, educational, values and spiritual orientation. But Cosby,
Pousant and Obama do not factor in the historical, political and social
circumstances that have resulted in racist treatment of our people in health,
employment, economics, housing, education, politics and criminal justice. There can be no significant changes of the lives of the least of us until we confront
directly the factors in which over half of our children never finish high
school, in which 70% of Black inmates were school dropouts, in which young people
with criminal records cannot get jobs.
And this brings me to my final point. I have no quarrel with Dr. Roland
Fryer's experiment with paying economically disadvantaged children in New York
City for doing their homework and for attending school. Children from
advantaged economic circumstances receive ample rewards for the same efforts. Nor do I disagree with Dr. Pedro Noguera's emphasis on the necessity for "qualified"
teachers of the public schools' children, the majority of whom are of African
and Hispanic ancestry.
What I insist upon, however, is that the children be taught the glorious
history of their ancestry, that they are the proud descendants of that ancestry.
I do not accept the contention that any administrator or teacher who does
not know the history and culture of their student population and who does not
infuse that knowledge in pedagogy and curriculum can be designated as
"qualified". Our children must be taught critical thinking to be able to analyze
their present circumstances and to discover strategies to change those
circumstances.
The late scholars Dr. Asa G. Hilliard, III and Dr. Barbara A. Sizemore and
others wrote in the classic SAVING THE AFRICAN AMERICAN CHILD of the National
Alliance of Black School Educators: " Excellence in education must prepare a
student for self knowledge. . . no child can be ignorant of or lack respect
for his or her own unique cultural group and meet others in the world on an
equal footing. We believe that this type of excellence in education is a right
of the masses and is not merely for a small elite".
Donald H. Smith, Ph.D. Former chair, the New York City Board of Education's
Commission on Students of African Descent
Dr. Donald Hugh Smith is a native of Chicago. He was the founding director of the Center for Inner City Studies at Northeastern Illinois University and the University Community Educational Programs. He is credited for establishing the Malcolm Marcus Martin Scholarship Program at the University of Pittsburgh.
Dr. Smith is the founding president of the New York Alliance of Black School Educators. As past president of the National Alliance of Black School Educators he coined the term “Black Academic and Cultural Excellence” and commissioned NABSE’s seminal report, Saving the African American Child.
Dr. Smith received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. He is an active retired educator who resides in New York and Florida.
Posted By: Carmen Colon
Saturday, July 26th 2008 at 3:42AM
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