Community Organizers Applauded as Great Patriots and Great Assets to America

Community Organizers Applauded as Great Patriots and Great Assets to America
THE HUFFINGTON POST

MONROE ANDERSON

Palin, GOP find community challenges a real hoot

At the expense of Barack Obama, community groups and their organizers were a running joke in St. Paul last week at the Republican National Convention.

Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani and much of the rest of the GOP apparently believe that small town mayoring is oh-so-important while community organizing is a real thigh-slapper.


Like much of what goes on among American conservatives, I suspect the marginalizing of the community organizing is just one more coded race reference. And, like much what goes on among the Republicans, George W. Bush and the Palin McCain campaign, it's obvious that this is another topsy-turvy twist on reality.

To assure that the community organizers are removed from the GOP's one-liner lists and moved back into the important things-to-do column, the AfroSpear, a collective of black bloggers across America, has called for a day of blogging in support of community organizing. I'm just one of dozens. This is my contribution.

Small town government, of course, does call for responsibilities. But, like volunteer fire departments, in many small towns, running it is only a part-time job--or should be. Community organizing in Chicago, on the other hand, is a full-time challenge that impacts lives of American citizens by the tens of thousands.

No one knows this to be true more than Phillip Jackson. At one time Jackson was the head of the Chicago Housing Authority. One of the housing projects he was in charge of, Robert Taylor Homes, was where 100,000 of Chicago poorest residents called home. When Jackson left the CHA in the mid-1990s, he founded The Black Star Project, a community group with a daunting task: to improve the quality of life in Black and Latino communities of Chicago and nationwide by eliminating the racial academic achievement gap.

Jackson boasts that The Black Star Project successfully spearheaded the Million Father March 2008 that "took place in 475 cities with about 600.000 men taking children to school--because of communities organizers in these cities."

If Palin, McCain, Giuliani and the gang think Jackson's mission is a laughing matter, then they've got another think coming. Although he's just one of a countless number of dedicated, patriotic citizens trying to improve the lot of the less fortunate in one great American city, his message is worth exploring.

Here's the latest of what Jackson, a community organizer, has had to say in his latest commentary:


Without High School Diplomas,
Young Black Men in America Are Expendable!


By Phillip Jackson, Executive Director of The Black Star Project

Less than fifty percent of young Black men graduated from high school in the United States during the 2005-2006 school year, according to a new report commissioned by the Schott Foundation for Public Education.

Dropping out of high school sentences young Black males to menial jobs, street-corner hustling, illicit activities, fathering children out of wedlock, drugs, gangs, crime, prison, violence, death and worse - these young Black men are literally being prepared to destroy the Black communities in which they live.

Inability to achieve becomes hopelessness. Hopelessness becomes despair. Despair becomes destruction.

Dropping out of school annihilates the concept of family in the Black community because young Black men without high school degrees seldom become good providers for their families and strong anchors for their communities. The fabric of the Black community becomes unwoven.

This is an unnatural disaster and a national disgrace with little-to-no effective response from the U.S. government or the Black community where this destruction is taking place.

The media and many foundations ignore this problem. The United States responds to catastrophes in China, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Sudan, Georgia and other parts of the world, but the media and our government will not constructively respond to the genocide of young Black men that is happening here in the United States. Young Black men in America have become expendable!

The poor quality of education for young Black men is an impending national catastrophe for the United States with international ramifications. The rest of the world sees the hypocrisy of the "rhetoric of concern" in the United States verses the lack of difference-making action. Why aren't we outraged? Why won't we do something?

Before information on the educational status of Black males in America was available, the question could have been, "Why don't we know this?" Now that we know, the question becomes "Why don't we care?"

Please see the estimated graduation rates for Black males in the lowest 28 districts in the United States with Black male enrollments of 8,000 or more during the 2005-2006 school year versus White male graduation rates in those cities and the 2003-2004 Black male graduation rates:

Black Male Black White Black Male
District Enrollment Male Male Gap 2003-04
Indianapolis, IN 11,539 19% 19% 0% 21%
Detroit, MI 59,807 20% 17% -3% 31%
Norfolk, VA 12,672 27% 44% 17% 30%
Rochester, NY 11,270 29% 36% 7% 32%
Pinellas County, FL 11,319 30% 50% 20% 21%
Richmond County, GA 12,091 31% 43% 12% 30%
Baltimore City, MD 38,966 31% 37% 6% 31%
Buffalo, NY 10,666 31% 50% 19% 33%
Milwaukee, WI 26,818 32% 46% 14% 34%
New York City, NY 159,555 32% 57% 24% 26%
Chatham County, GA 11,218 32% 42% 10% 25%
Palm Beach County, FL 26,259 33% 0% 26% 29%
Birmingham, AL 14,956 33% 21% -12% 38%
Charleston County, SC 11,489 34% 66% 32% 44%
Dade County, FL 51,188 34% 55% 21% 31%
Atlanta, GA 21,722 34% 58% 24% 35%
Cleveland, OH 20,894 34% 35% 1% 33%
St. Louis, MO 16,705 35% 38% 3% 37%
Memphis, TN 52,720 35% 64% 29% N/A
Clayton County, GA 19,605 36% 26% -10% 33%
Orange County, FL 25,367 37% 58% 21% 27%
Chicago, IL 102,185 37% 62% 25% 35%
Nashville-Davidson, TN 17,792 38% 60% 22% N/A
Broward County, FL 52,537 38% 55% 17% 36%
Jackson City, MS 15,736 38% 42% 4% 44%
Minneapolis, MN 8,044 38% 76% 38% N/A
Cincinnati, OH 12,834 38% 49% 11% 25%
Duval County, FL 28,608 38% 55% 17% 26%

Please consider these simple goals that can lead to solutions for fixing the problems of young Black men:

Short term
1) Teach all Black boys to read at grade level by the third grade and to embrace education.
2) Provide strong, positive Black male role models for Black boys.
3) Create a stable home environment for Black boys that includes contact with their fathers.
4) Ensure that Black boys have a strong spiritual base.
5) Control negative media influences on Black boys.
6) Teach Black boys to respect all girls and women.

Long term
1) Invest as much money in educating Black boys as in locking up Black men.
2) Help connect Black boys to a positive vision of them in the future.
3) Create high expectations and help Black boys live into those high expectations.
4) Build a positive peer culture for Black boys.
5) Teach Black boys self-discipline, cultural awareness and racial history.
6) Teach Black boys and the communities in which they live to embrace education and life-long learning.

Let's compare Palin's mayoral goals and accomplishments with Jackson's and then can decide who deserves the last laugh.

Monroe Anderson is an award-winning journalist who penned op-ed columns for both the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. Check out his blog at monroeanderson.typepad.com

www.ruffcommunications.com

Meeks, don’t use our children as pawns

by Rev. Luther Hicks

I have always admired Rev. James Meeks’ zeal for helping Black people. However, there are aspects of the second phase of his group’s proposed boycott that I find to be very disturbing. And I have not heard anyone talking about it.

On September 3-5, they want our children to attend ‘classes’ in the lobbies of places such as the Chicago Stock Exchange and Chase Bank. At a rally in the Loop, Rev. Meeks was quoted as saying, “I dare the business community to arrest our children and send them to jail because all they want is a quality education... If they won’t let us in (to their lobbies), we won’t go in, but I guess we’ll just sit on the sidewalk. That’s when we’ll protest. We’ll picket because then business will be showing their insensitivity to this crisis.”

We may all agree with getting better school funding, but it should bother us to see our children placed on the frontline, possibly against the police department, as was evident from Rev. Meeks’ personal ‘dare.’ Dr. Martin Luther King, and his ministers, never put children out front in matters of civil disobedience. Instead, Dr. King and other adults willingly accepted the arrests and the jail time for themselves. Perhaps the male ministers leading this venture should do likewise. It is certain that if anything happens to one of those children at the hands of a cop, even if by accident, all the ministers will be screaming bloody murder for decades. So, they would do well not to involve our youngsters in activities where unnecessary stress or stigma could befall them.

Besides, the children won’t be interloping into the lobbies of skyscrapers because of their own desire. The idea of sitting on germ-infested, cold, hard, marble or concrete floors—for four hours—is not their own! And, if our boys and girls “just sit on the sidewalk,” as Rev. Meeks said, then one couldn’t imagine them finding a filthier seat in too many other sections of our city. Aren’t they worth hauling in a sufficient number of tables and chairs for their physical and emotional comfort?

Further, the younger ones have a short attention span. They’ll need some breaks to use the bathroom or have a snack. What then? Will they be divided into groups to use the corporations’ public washrooms? Are the ministers going to buy all of them McDonald’s Happy Meals so they can eat lunch on the floor or sidewalk? Will the buildings’ security forces have a problem with all of that?

Additionally, Rev. Meeks’ army of retired teachers presumably are qualified but will know nothing about these students. That’s why they need to be where their year-long instructors, regular classmates, academic records and the teaching plans for their advancement are located. Even financially strapped schools have an established curriculum and lesson plan that is better geared toward their educational development than generic, makeshift ‘lessons’, which may not be of any value.

Our youth need their regular lunchrooms and bathrooms. They need to be among familiar faces, not a sea of unfamiliar people and personalities. Furthermore, our youngsters’ concentration will be distracted by the constant stares of thousands of strange, curious and, possibly, hostile passersby. Do we want them to be made into a spectacle? Will our darlings want to go back for a second and third day of such drama?

Finally, corporations are not obligated to finance public education. Our government is. Thus, Meeks’ individual desire for businessmen to help in “crafting a solution” may be regarded as totally irrelevant. Even if they personally are sensitive to our plight, their professional decisions must be based upon an overriding sensitivity to the wishes of stockholders and corporate bosses. That’s why clogging up their lobbies for three days will only antagonize them. They can’t be forced to contribute big bucks to the schools unless other, more powerful people agree. And, those other people are not likely to cower at coercive tactics that depend upon the use of our children.

It is my hope that this particular aspect of the boycott will be scrapped immediately or ignored by parents who see there is no point in turning their children over to such an endeavor. Our precious youth should not be used in such a reckless and cavalier fashion. They should not miss three days of legitimate school work to suffer such an uncomfortable and degrading experience.

Rev. Luther S. Hicks is an Attorney at Law.

www.ruffcommunications.com

Education, economic opportunity best defense against violence

by Cheryle R. Jackson

A 10-year-old girl was struck by a stray bullet as she knelt down to tie her blind sister’s shoes. A 13-year-old girl visiting Chicago fatally was wounded only hours before she was to board a bus with her family back to her East Coast home. A 16-year-old boy was shot in the back as he played basketball on a court a stone’s throw away from his house.

All three of these victims were caught in the crossfire of gang violence that seems to have erupted anew across the city. And all three, according to news reports, were looking forward to the first day of school. They never made it.

As I read these tragic stories, I was reminded again of the critical link between education and economic opportunity, or lack thereof, and the violence robbing our communities of our most precious resource: our children.

Last week, in his acceptance speech before the Republican National Convention, I was glad to hear Sen. John McCain say that education is the No. 1 civil rights issue of the 21st century. I agree with him wholeheartedly, but I would add to that economic opportunity–access to job training, good-paying careers and capital for start-up businesses–as essential to ending the cycle of violence in poor communities.

I am not making excuses for violent behavior, but violence, I believe, is a direct byproduct of undereducated people with no economic opportunities. We don’t need research studies to prove this point. We see it every day in neighborhoods around Illinois where schools are inadequately funded by a system that rewards students living in well-to-do communities and short changes everybody else.

Education funding reform is essential to reversing the cycle of violence in urban communities that are largely segregated by race. That is why the Chicago Urban League, together with the Quad County Urban League, filed a lawsuit against the State of Illinois and the Illinois State Board of Education last month asking the court to declare unconstitutional the state’s funding formula that leaves so many African American and Latino children behind.

McCain offered school choice as a solution. While the Chicago Urban League supports the innovation and success of charter schools with smaller class sizes, it is imperative that we fix the public education for the majority of children, not just a lucky few.

If we do not fight for equity in our schools, we will continue to set our children on a pathway leading to a life of crime, violence, poverty, drugs, unwanted pregnancy and long-term unemployment. In order to solve the violence problem, we have to concurrently tackle the problems of a poor educational system and lack of economic opportunities that breed violent offenders.

Students need better schools, true, but their parents also need better-paying jobs in order to create stable home environments for children to thrive in after the school bell chimes.

The Chicago Urban League is working hard to connect people to economic opportunities by creating job training programs, helping small businesses build capacity to create new jobs and smoothing the pathway to jobs in the corporate world. But all our efforts will be in vain if people do not have the basic educational skills to leverage those opportunities.

I want the best for Chicago’s children – all of them – and I believe that our lawsuit is an important step to changing the culture of violence that takes our attention away from the important issues to focus solely on survival.

The way I see it, the only thing worse than not fighting for our children’s education and for economic opportunities that will sustain them as adults is not fighting to ensure our children’s safety. What’s painfully clear is that you cannot have one without the other.

I pray that those in power will wake up and realize that reforming the state’s discriminatory educational funding system plays no small part in creating pathways to a better future for those who so desperately want to believe that the good life is within their reach.

www.ruffcommunications.com