How has this happened? How did black people, decendants of people whom developed the pursuit of knowledge in all of its forms, come to a point where we value that pursuit so little now? I think the answer to that question will give us insight into how we become so accepting of not just stereotypical imagery of us by us, but larger values that we accept in general, like our acquescence to captialism and inequality in general.
very interesting. from my experiences, we have have become extremely complacent with what society has dealt us and also we have allowed our focus to shift to things and issues that are far less irrelevant. it seems that more often than not, parents are not advocating effectively for our children. for whatever reason, they are leaving the education of their children completely up to the teachers and school system who may or may not care about the academic success of their child. there are many reasons for it and one that i can think of off hand is that schools are hiring employees disguised as teachers. these are people who for whatever reason have chosen to teach and do not understand what that entails. for example, a good friend of mine who is a principal, recently fired a teacher. why? when asked, "what made you go into teaching?" his response was along the lines of, " so i can get a paycheck and have my student loans paid" he included in that conversation that he really doesn't like kids and they should be seen and not heard. another teacher at this same school was having a hard time engaging her students on a particular subject. when asked what tools had she used to encourage dialogue and excitement on this subject, the teacher had none. these are the types of people that we have educating our children.
when i was a child, if my mother had not advocated for me, i would have been placed in one of those special ed classes you talked about blackwatch. as child my mother told me that i talked alot and did not pay attention. i sometimes seemed bored in class. i could have possibly been placed on ritalin by today's standards.
also, for a variety of reasons we are no longer our brother's keeper. we tend to go along our day not focused on the world around us and specifically what our kids are doing. last week, i was waiting a a bus stop and there were a number of kids there. this one girl, about 12 y.o. was trying to get the attention of this boy. during the course of the 'exchange', this girl blurted out something vulgar associated with her breasts. i went up to her, pulled her to the side and let her know that is not the type of language a young lady would use. my husband knows that i am infamous for talking to kids or pulling them to the side when they do something that is just plain wrong. sometimes he gets concerned for my safety; my response to him was "i must be an example. if there weren't folks on my block pulling me to the side when i did something wrong, who know where i could have been?"
we can't sit idly by and allow media images dictate our children. we need to teach them that there is more to life than play station, xbox, the upn, the latest r kelly album and the fine art of being a playa or a hootchie
. we are a great people. we come from kings and queen. we ruled continents! not the penal system.
thank you for the insight blackwatch!!!