[This is the first guest post I’ve ever had on Practical Theory in eight years of blogging. Today’s post was written by SLA senior and co-founder of Phresh Philadelphia Rashaun Williams. There’s been a lot of talk at SLA about the Gene Marks piece and how angry it made us. Rashaun’s piece speaks to how I’ve felt better than anything I’d written, so here it is. You can follow Rashaun on Twitter at @DJReezey.]
A Response to If I Were A Poor Black Kid by Gene Marks
by Rashaun Williams
If I were a wealthy man, I would ensure my children go to the most prestigious schools available. I would move to the suburbs, because then I could ensure safety, excellent property value, and always surround myself in beauty. I would be financially comfortable enough to take time from my work schedule, and participate greatly in my childs schooling, help my children with their homework every night, cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner for them daily, and help them financially all the way through college. I would show them the importance of home equity, maintaining great credit, balancing a check book, and how to be a man or a woman. In conclusion, they would be fed. They would be safe. They would be supported in every way imaginable. They would be American citizens. But Im not a wealthy man. I am a black kid in the inner city, and by some standards, you could even say Im a poor black kid. Considering all the experiences that have created my current station in life, being a model of success in a broken community hasnt seemed anything close to possible. But I still try.
There are parts of my city that are chronically susceptible to unemployment, low property value, illegal activity, informal markets and so many other things that plague minority communities in American cities. Unfortunately, decades of black settlement in the inner cities after the Great Migration havent yielded the promises of success so many people dreamed of when they fled an inhumane South. Many cannot afford to send their children to prestigious schools, and due to the mismanagement of public schooling, ensuring their safety is literally no longer in their hands. Our communities, the ones you allude to being a world away from you within the very same city, suffer in ways you and your children will hopefully never know. After all, you said you have been lucky enough to live an economically comfortable life, nor do you suffer from the generational struggle to ensure the education, well-being and proper growth of your children. You have had the luxury of not focusing on the bare essentials and the time to contemplate options beyond simply making monthly bills, paying rent. As you suggest, your salary has been more than suffice to set up a future.
As a people, African Americans have remained strong-willed, even after losing some of our greatest leaders in the most tragic and sickening ways. Weve continued to fight for success, even though barely a mediated allusion in our own Constitution, to the point where one of our own is able to sit in the White House. But what does one mans success, albeit empowering, mean to millions of others who are simply not afforded the same fundamental opportunities to pursue such lofty aspirations. Being black in this country, in 2012, still does carry a heavy weight. This has not been an easy struggle, and quite frankly, many of my people are tired of fighting. They are tired of being numb to daily reports of fresh violence against our own people. Tired of various forms of oppression, which now seem to be ever so invisible because a black man is at the helm of the nation. But this is no excuse for us to quit, and quit we have not. Being an inner city black kid in Philadelphia, I know that education is my liberation, but the journey to such a thing in a neighborhood where poverty grows almost exponentially with each seems less than possible.
In order to have a mind stable enough to interpret information, receive knowledge, and regularly apply oneself to school, one must have the proper necessities of living. When talking about those who are poor in the inner city, we must understand that they are experiencing multiple levels of poverty. A body without nourishment is a brain out of commission, and a brain without knowledge is a body without a mission. In response to what the number one priority is for most people living in poverty, it is a hot meal every time. Without it, its impossible to progress both as a student trying to learn without food, or as a teacher trying to nurture knowledge in those who simply cannot concentrate on the task at hand.
Yes, it does take the ability and the know-how to use the resources that are available to make progress, but what resources do individuals in poverty truly have? How can one be well- informed about what the Internet truly has to offer if they have no in-depth access to the world-wide web? Why would one even consider making time to go online when their mind is preoccupied with simple things like their next meal and/or survival? How can one think of a future via college, when simply traveling to high school is an issue? When does a school have time to give students external opportunities when overwhelmed with the process of teaching basic reading, writing, arithmetic to maintain foundational federal funding? How can a teacher help nurture a future citizen when their evaluation of progress is enslaved to standardized testing? Where does a school get the money to purchase the resources necessary for learning when city, state and federal governments consistently apply severe austerity measures? How can a city hog tie their most important resource to a property tax system when the property they tax is left to rot? How can a child utilize recreational facilities when their Mayor wants to cut funding that makes them available? How is a poor black kid supposed to access the Internet when their public library is closed more often than not? The answers to these questions lie deep within the structure and development of unsupported communities that struggle to develop conducive environments for learning, economic opportunity and business development.
Above all things, the most important question is, how do we restructure? This will takes brains. This will takes hard work. This will take a little luck. And a this will take a little help from others. Most importantly, this will take reform and action. In order to restructure communities where poor black kids live, education needs to be based on individuals. If our government creates districts to section regions of the nations states based on the individuals living in certain areas, why wouldnt the school system work the same way? If the needs of citizens vary based on their location and living essentials, why wouldnt the approach to education be fit for students as individuals? After all, we will eventually become engaged citizens.
Citizens develop jobs. Citizens become teachers. Citizens become parents, business owners, civic association members, citizens start for profit and non-profit organizations, citizen become politicians and citizens become our future leaders. If impoverished minority communities dont have the schooling that supports this type of localized citizen-growth and eventual harvest, we will still have people writing blogs about “if they were a poor black kid” from the inner city. Citizens arent just the very fabric of America, they are America. The real problem is that poor black kids arent treated like citizens. Maybe we should change that.
