The Sound of Silence

I guess my biggest enlightenment from our Youth Council trip to Sacramento was not the interviews with the State Superintendent of Public Instruction or the Mayor, it did not come from insights offered by the staff of Speaker emeritus Karen Bass, nor did it emanate from the words of other state senators and lobbyist that we encountered. My biggest enlightenment came in the few minutes we spent in the empty chambers of the California State Assembly and State Senate. Despite being in day 30 of a fiscal year with no budget, and despite the loss of 50 million dollars a day and countless state jobs, the members of the state congress, we were told, were on "recess." What some might call vacation! So a week off for the state assembly and senate will cost us another 350 million dollars. Nevermind that paltry sum, we're told the Governor might not sign a budget at all this year. Given that it is only the first of August, someone add up that dollar figure. To save time just multiply 1.5 billion dollars by the remaining number of months (5) and you will have the 7.5 billion dollars that we will lose added to the 1.5 billion we have already wasted and...you get the picture. When I say that my moment of illumination happened while in the state assembly chamber I should be more specific; I say it was the sound of silence that got to me, but not only the silence of the chamber itself, but the quiet outside of the chamber, outside of the Capitol, through the streets of Sacramento, and ultimately across the state. It was the absence of protest, the absence of revolt that was the most disquieting of all. Of course most Californians are upset and the delay may cost some representatives their job, but the anger, while palpable, has not translated into a coalesced movement or a collective demand for justice. After all, the state of California boasts a 1.8 trillion dollar annual gross domestic product, making us the 8th most powerful economy in the world, and we cannot pass what would be a 100 billion dollar budget? As I pondered these numbers while sitting in the echoed halls looking down on 80 empty seats along with a group of 15-17 year olds who were wondering whether their teachers would be returning in the fall, I longed for a little more chaos!

Thank You, South Africa!

The boys are up at 7 watching Invictus and talking about Mandela and Apartheid and change. I thank the South Africans for being amazing hosts, but most of all for their dignified and humanizing public media pedagogy. For teaching the next generation why we should pay attention to the past, present, and future of this great nation.

G20 Summit: Economic Recovery or Economic Hegemony?

The G20 (i.e. Group of Twenty Nations) collectively control 85% of the world's GDP and 80% of the world's trade. Collectively they also create 99.8% of the world's waste, pollution, and chaos. As a group however, when they meet today and tomorrow in Toronto, they are generally working to figure out how to maintain their collective economic hegemony. Under the guise of a debate between "austerity" (this word in quotes because the median citizen of the globe would hold a far different definition of the term austere) and "stimulus", they collectively avoid any conversation about the responsibility that comes along with privilege. The agenda is one that frames economics as the science of understanding financial markets and not the politics of accumulation and alienation that have configured so much power and wealth in the hands of so few and at the expense of so many. Even in these democratic nations many many people are denied access to this accumulated wealth. So the protests at the event are warranted, and I wish the organizers and activist luck in this regard. Because under the pretense of security the organizers of this event are doing everything they can to eliminate civil disobedience and the democratic imperative. The long-term goal, however, requires us to create an agenda that redefines economy to include the science of the impacts of capital accumulation on the lives of real people! Here are a few items that might be included in a more authentic G20 Summit:
1. The concentration of global poverty in black and brown and female bodies
2. The concentration of global poverty in Africa and Asia
3. The increasing gap between rich and poor in the G20 nations
4. The impact of corporate hegemony on the environment
5. The economics of war
6. Educational attainment and economic power
7. Service
Not that I don't care about the Dow Jones, but I believe there are other indices of economic health that are far less abstract and far more essential to our global recovery.

Remember Selma, 1965?

Remember Selma? Remember "Bloody Sunday?" Remember the Women's Suffrage Movement? All of that energy, all of those lives gladly sacrificed to give us a right we all too frequently take for granted. Please find the time to be heard tomorrow. Vote, for all of those who would have and couldn't and for those who still can only dream.

Acts of Love

Trapped in a chamber of wood and stone
Distanced by miles and orientation
Drowned in white sheets of perspiration
Rocked by the rattle and hum

The gentle lies, blind to the maelstrom
Baptized in symbolic initiation
Deaf to the cries of those who’d fallen
Amid the shouts of those reborn

Guitar strums sacred notes of freedom
Pages turned versed emancipation
Murals sprayed resistance and rebellion
Opened his palms raised them towards the son

Acts of love refuel a generation
Acts of love reverse the destination

Civil Disobedience and the Democratic Privilege

The story of the youth being detained for peacefully declaring their right to exist. National coverage, but what they need is justice, and that will not happen unless we exercise our democratic privilege. YES, I said privilege! For if we fail to exercise our privilege, we are no better off than the people who's actions we so happily denigrate in the comfort of our peaceful existences. Because evil requires the complicity of the silent majority, we cannot be among them. Speak your discontent, speak it loudly and often to all who will listen and all who need to hear.

Below are a number of sites that are carrying the story. What we need to do is create our own stories. We are the media that we've been waiting all this time for.

http://www.detnews.com/article/20100518/METRO/5180404/1409/Officials-want-Michigan-student-in-custody-in-immigration-protest

http://vivirlatino.com/2010/05/18/update-on-dream-act-students-arrested-in-sit-in-at-john-mccains-office.php

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/us/18dream.html?emc=

http://kasamaproject.org/2010/05/18/undocumented-students-arrested-at-arizona-protest/

http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2010/05/undocumented-students-arrested-at.html

http://community.livejournal.com/ontd_political/6217064.html

http://www.detnews.com/article/20100518/METRO/5180404/1361/Michigan-student-arrested-in-Arizona-immigration-protest

http://www.chasingevil.org/2010/05/courage-undocumented-students-arrested.html

http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/chicanisima/2010/05/immigrant-students-arrested-at-mccains-office-to-be-arraigned-tuesday-chicagos-tania-unzueta-not-arrested.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-ralls/a-gay-immigrant-reaches-f_b_579488.html

http://www.kgun9.com/Global/story.asp?S=12502141

http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/Valdez/83648

College Access for Public Service

Black teachers comprise only 8 percent of teachers nationwide and Black males only comprise 2 percent of teachers nationwide. We need a diverse teaching force to serve in our increasingly diverse schools. College access isn't only about bolstering the economy; it is also about expanding the pipeline to public service. Currently the United States ranks 12th amongst nations in percentage of 25-34 year olds receiving college degrees (College Board, 2008). Generally, this crisis in college access is talked about in terms of economic capital. While I am all for job creation and developing a competent workforce, I believe we also need to look at this crisis in terms of the loss of human capital. A lack of a college education means that you cannot become a teacher, or a principal, or a school counselor, or an educational researcher, or any number of jobs in education that are needed if we are to effectively reach and teach the next generation. I'm with Arne Duncan on this one; we need to step up and recruit, educate, and mentor a new generation of culturally diverse, intellectually curious, competent, and committed teachers to join the ranks of America's schools.