Insights of a Writer

When I awoke this morning, I had the words of my title in mind, but I was remembering an old Negro spiritual we used to sing in church. “How I got over. How I got over. My soul looks back and wonders, how I got over.” I remember my mother, grandmother and others singing it with gusto, thanking God for helping them to “make it through.” Then I typed in the words on YouTube, and found this song by The Roots, and it changed my whole attitude.

Rather than praise and worship, the words, music and images took my heart and mind into a totally different mood of distress, despair and disturbance. Tears began to flow, and my heart began to ache. For I remember, can almost smell and feel, the sensations of the people portrayed in the video; because it wasn’t too long ago that their plight was my own, and it hit too close to home.

I sit now, at my computer, with my heater going full blast in my cozy third-floor apartment overlooking a majestic oak tree, while the capitol building of the state of California is at the end of my block. There are limos, Lamborghini-es, and other luxury cars nightly pulling up to the restaurants, coffee houses and cafes that line my street.

Happy people sitting outside having lunch, dinner or just over coffee fill the air with their laughter and content. They smile and some even nod as I pass, thinking and accepting me as one of them, an equal. But I wonder what they would think about me if they knew that it wasn’t too long ago that I was homeless, living in a shelter with my two kids…friendless and alone? Would their looks be diverted away from me?

This is not the way I envisioned my day going when I woke up full of gratitude and rejoicing this morning. I had no intention of spending my morning revisiting an episode in my life that I seldom visit anymore. Not that I am trying to forget it, because I think it plays a significant part in my current sense of empathy. But today was not going to be one of those days when it would come back to me with such force, with a video as stark evidence that what happened then was real to me, just as now it’s very real to others.

But now that I think of it, both the rejoicing and the pain belong to me. I embrace them as value which has been added to my life. For without the pain there would be no joy. I would not know that it is possible to overcome and not be genuine in sharing that hopeful message with others. I would also not be able to serve as an example to those who think themselves above and beyond the possibilities of becoming like their less fortunate neighbors. It can happen to anyone.

There is a message for all of us in this, I think. For me, reminiscing keeps me grounded. For those who are struggling, I wish them God’s best. For those who are reading this, I hope it stirs something in you to reach out to even one in whatever way you can to those disenfranchised by the state of their birth or whatever life has thrown their way. A simple smile of encouragement will go a long way, and with just a little help one day those who are suffering won’t have to wonder how they got over, they will know.

This is my first video blog. I have met so many great friends and have received such wonderful comments, I wanted to let you see and hear me. Take care.

Many times in our lives, occasion to be conflicted arise. I am experiencing one of those occasions, because of some of the methods proposed to be used in the push in America to reform our school system. Test scores have shown that many of our students are failing or barely holding on, and will be unable to compete with others in the global marketplace. Many young people have given up and settled for or given in to lives of idleness, dependence on government handouts, and/or criminal activity.

Students from every ethnic group are included, but my observation is focused on low income youth, particularly black or African-American. Being black myself draws my attention, but my concern is for all children, and how to address this problem is where my conflict lies.

Education reform extends all the way to the White House with President Obama being actively involved. Along with government, many very wealthy individuals, like Bill Gates, are contributing millions of dollars. Unfortunately, with all the funds being made available, many objectionable concepts of how to provide a “quality” education for our students is being tried and promoted, especially the idea of exclusionary charter schools.

Charter schools are not a new idea, having been used by many different organizations, such as religious groups, to promote their ideology as well as educate their members. This scary culturally controlled character seems to be what is also being offered presently by private organizations in order to obtain and maintain funding.

To insure that their students display the highest achievements, certain kids with disabilities, including learning, are being excluded and expelled by some charter schools. There are also schools which intend to segregate poor, black children from other children in order to change their “culture,” meaning their ways of wearing certain hair styles and clothing, for example. These types of selective schools are the ones which are causing me the most concern and conflict.

Since the civil rights movement in the 60s, we as a nation have fought, and some have died, to allow children of all ethnicities to attend school together in an integrated environment. Yet we know that even under the best circumstances racism still flourishes. Also, rampant bullying by all groups has recently flared which has caused the suicidal death of a number of children.

These conditions of separating children by ethnicity, social status, and physical or mental ability, which will set them apart from their peers, can only cause a backlash. Low self-esteem, further acting out, withdrawal, mistrust, anger, and possibly violence, both on the part of those students displaced and seemingly rejected, as well as the development of superior attitudes by those who are allowed to attend other schools can and will result.

My conflict is in wanting a “quality” education for black children, and disabled children, but not at the expense of their cultural identity, acceptance or sense of belonging. None of us wants to feel set apart. Regardless of our differences and/or abilities, we all want the to be loved and respected for our humanity, for the life that flows through us. How can taking children back to a way which we found wrong and wanting in the past be thought to be beneficial in the present? And how will the experience of separation and rejection affect these children in the future?

Since the beginning of man‘s history, humans have struggled with division and control of one group over the other. It has always ended in tragedy, and will continue to do so. Therefore, to solve a conflict, the decision must be made for the greater good, and not the most money.

To expect a different outcome from repeating a misjudgment is insane. So, now that the occasion to change direction in educating children has presented itself, there should be no conflict of how to guarantee that all our children get the best chance at a “quality” education. I believe that open enrollment in charter schools is a viable solution, as long as we alter our ways of doing and thinking, because going back is not a forward move.

In a recent article appearing in the Sacramento Bee, dated October 10, 2010, a proposal to remove black children from traditional integrated schools and place them in segregated charter schools has been suggested. This proposal has been made by a black person, Margaret Fortune, who has operated a similar school in Sacramento.

Ms. Fortune suggests that up to 5,000 black children, who are also considered low-income, and beginning with K thru 3rd graders, would benefit from receiving an education in a school set apart from their peers of the same age. To me, this is absurd as this nation has and continues to fight long and hard to diminish and extinguish the ugliness of segregation in all of its stigmatizing forms, in all systems of our society.

To consider returning to the dysfunctional method of segregation in our system of education is not only frightful but downright bizarre. Poor, black children already suffer from two strikes against them. To put them in a situation which sets them apart will not only affect their self-esteem, but may also cause them to suffer the pain of being stigmatized for not attending an integrated school with other children who are different from them.

A great part of one’s education, particularly as access to the global community is opening up to anyone who may chose to explore it, is to be socialized to understand, tolerate and accept the differences between us. How can that be accomplished when one begins their educational experience with only faces of one’s own kind? How can one perceive a different reflection of how the world is made up if one only sees one image, the same as oneself ?

I can understand the intent of providing a more intense educational experience for children, but the effort should be open to all children, not focused on any particular ethnic group. As for the children being low-income, there are low-income children in every ethnic group who need and require a quality education. For a black person to focus this attempt to obtain funding for charter schools by selling out black children is shameful.

If tax-payer money is used to fund charter schools, representative children from every group should be represented. Placing black children in segregated schools is a backward move and should not be considered as being in the best interest of those children.

http://www.sacbee.com/2010/10/10/3093039/former-st-hope-leader-begins-push.html

When I attended school in the southern part of the U.S. during the Jim Crow days of the mid 40s and 50s, my father placed me and my siblings in Catholic school. Although he and my mother were Baptists, he felt that we could and would get a better education at the hands of the nuns, rather than attend the segregated all-black public schools.

Whether or not that was true, the difference between our school and the others was the teachers. All of our students were black, but all of our teachers were white nuns. So not only did we get an education laced with religious instructions, although prayer was still a mainstay in the public schools, our social education was given from a totally different perspective oftentimes based on the racial differences of student and teacher.

I imagine the nuns felt it was their “Christian duty” to inspire confidence in us to counter the racism we faced day-to-day. Even to some of the protocol our parents insisted we show to the whites with which we came in contact, the nuns added stipulations. We were not to say “yes,” or “no, mam” to anyone who was not as old as our grandparents, including the nuns.

The nuns’ influence made an indelible impression on me, and probably my two sisters and brother also. So much so, that our father relocated the family to California for more than financial reasons. In great part, I expect, it was to protect us from the authority we had learned to defy.

I recently heard the statistics that 75% of teachers in the U.S. are white, and the schools have been integrated since the 60s. But there is something as sinister as segregation afoot in our school system. Many of our children are struggling, particularly in the area of social skills, and there are a number of things which have attributed to this situation.

For one, the banishment of prayer and along with it the teaching of good and bad. I too believe in religious privacy, but now children learn about actions and consequences, and everyone’s rights must be respected. It seems they are getting the message that if it feels right to them then they can do it, as long as they are willing to face the consequences. Our jails and prisons are filling up with criminals, many wealthy and famous, who acted on their feelings rather than whether what they were doing was right or wrong.

It seems to go back to the teachings of the nuns that we were supposed to respect our rights regardless of how others were disrespecting us. But somewhere in there was also the lesson that others had rights too, and it was wrong if we did not respect them.

With everyone seeming to go for themselves lately, along the way we, especially our children, have become lost. It seems that a return to treating others as we want to be treated is in order, but this concept can only be learned. Whether from our caregivers’ laps or in the classroom, social skills training and empathy for others is crucial for a civilized society. We must relearn the values that contribute to an appropriate way of life, and education is the key.

Here is a great video of children learning social skills rules in class. Thanks to the students and their teachers for this effort.

Lying awake in my bed one morning at 5:00 a.m., my mind became clouded with all the sorrowful things that were going on in my life, and fear began to creep in. Fear has been described as “false expectations appearing real.” Considering that definition, I now realize that it was not fear with which I was struggling. My contender is time.

I have been diagnosed with breast and bone cancer; my relationship had dwindled to an occasional call or e-mail; one of my children (the most difficult one) needed to move in for awhile (with his wife and 2 children); my business needs a completely new revamping (the recently published book for children is being redesigned and republished); my neighbors, the government and the world all seem to be in turmoil; even the seasons seem to have lost their direction.

Despite all those situations, and more, the one important factor I did not consider as I lay there was time. In Ecclesiastics 3, we are told by Solomon that time is the one relevant ingredient, both positive and negative, in all our affairs. It is not the circumstances, or the requirements, or the components of the affairs in which we are entangled. Rather, our primary consideration should be the time we need because time is the one thing we cannot control. We can neither speed it up nor slow it down nor stop it.

As we are helpless in defending ourselves against the fleeting or ravaging of time, why then should we fear anything? Time will take care of all our problems. If we are ill, we will simply run out of time despite our state of wellness, and our relationships will either change or end. In any eventuality, every situation we think is so important and worry about will either continue as is, improve, or be eliminated…in time.

Therefore, if there is anything to fear, it is whether or not we are making the most of our time. Are we moving forward in our mission and purpose or are we allowing our circumstances, fears, and situations to immobilize us? We speak of seeking the truth, and there is this one…it is that life, and all its state of affairs, is only a matter of time.

History has shown that when one chooses to live life as a spiritual mission, one must first fall in order to rise again; to die to the self in order to rise in the spirit. Examples are Joan of Arc, Jesus, Moses, Martin L. King, Jr., and Malcolm X, just to name a few. Often the novitiate messenger has difficulty explaining what is stirring in them during the transition, only that “something is happening to me.” The transformation from flesh- to spirit-rule is traumatic.

It is not until the cocoon is cracked and the breath of life is allowed to touch the inner is the outer allowed to drop away. It was not until my involvement in a child abuse case threatened the loss of my children did I change the direction of my life completely. To the observant, the example of the butterfly is an ingenious way nature has provided us to recognize spiritual renewal and explain our metamorphosis to others.

Once we are able to grasp the implications of responsibility to our fellow human beings, our “calling” as it were, the picture becomes clearer. The fears of life dwindle in comparison to the brilliance of purpose that looms ahead. The scripture, “though you slay me, yet will I live” becomes the anthem of one’s existence. It is the attraction of the moth to the flame. The pull to get closer to the source by our willingness becomes over-whelming and draws one nearer to the light which is death of the flesh, but rebirth of the spirit…revival.

To enlighten others about the possibilities available to all human beings for as long as possible before the time arrives to depart this world becomes the mission. Once the seal is broken, the purposes and realities related to everyone you meet become clear. Their roles and yours becomes pieces of the puzzle which start to fit, and the picture begins to look like the top of the box. You can see where you’re headed and what the outcome will be.

We accept that everyone and everything comes into our lives for a reason and a season, not to stay forever because there is no such thing; all being temporary. Though the scenery and the players change, the story of revival remains the same…one of rejuvenation, redemption and reconciliation.