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Books by Marvin X
Love and War: Poems /
In the Crazy House Called America /
Woman: Man's Best Friend /
Beyond Religion Toward Spirituality
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Bridging the Racial Gap in Education
By Marvin X
The American
educational system in general and the California
educational system in particular must be totally and
utterly dismantled and destroyed simply because it is
the main instrument of the perpetuation of domestic
colonialism otherwise known as white supremacy. This
past week’s Achievement Gap Summit to bridge the racial
divide called together by Jack O’Connell, State
Superintendent of Public Instruction, offered false hope
that the educational system can be saved despite the
cultural lag between the old Eurocentric paradigm and
the new racial reality of majority African, Latin and
Asian population.
The Eurocentric
system has been unable to inculcate its values
successfully into the so-called minority populations
that are rapidly becoming the majority. In short, the
system is a failure because it was created by
Frankenstein so that Afro-Latin peoples could assimilate
into the monsters needed by a white supremacy capitalist
regime. What are needed are wage slaves, up from chattel
slavery, but the system has been hard pressed to create
the dutiful slaves needed by a society whose purpose is
the domination and exploitation of the world.
The 1960s
revolution threw a monkey wrench in Frankenstein’s plan
and even though the revolution was aborted, enough
information made it through the Cointelpro operation to
alter the consciousness of a generation of students
whose children and grandchildren are now of age and even
in their unconsciousness are in rebellion against the
Eurocentric domestic colonial regime. The children know
something is very very wrong here and hence over fifty
per cent drop out of the school system before
graduation.
The irony is that
the students are not given credit for having the natural
intelligence to know that something is very very wrong,
that something stinks, but rather they are blamed for
being the problem, or their families, mothers, fathers,
or the lack thereof, their economic situation but never
is the system that is contrary to their cultural
identity blamed, never is the racist nature of the
content and presentation labeled the cause, for after
all, white supremacy is perfect and holy.
And so when the
system looks at the monkey in the zoo, it never occurs
to it that the monkey is looking at them. And this
tragic blindness can never be healed by reform but only
by revolution, the de-colonialization of the society in
general and education in particular. Thus, we must now
ask the question: is the society prepared to go beyond
nitpicking and cherry picking reformism into the reality
and necessity of revolution, concluding the revolution
that was begun forty years ago when black students went
to war to establish black studies, soon followed by
other ethnic groups calling for Latin, Asian and Native
American studies, even gender studies.
It most cases,
these programs were tolerated, but in the main they were
diluted, polluted and absorbed into the general
curriculum until they were meaningless, harmless and
totally reactionary, thus returning to the Eurocentric
status quo and the system smiled and was happy and
content once again, for its life was extended and the
rebellion of the natives was squelched.
After all, during
the 60s, the system had seen the danger of Johnny
reading books and thinking independent thoughts,
learning the craft of writing, even publishing books on
consciousness, and so he was made dumb again, told he
was incapable of mastering the King’s English, even
though the king had been dethroned long ago but somehow
his language remained as an instrument of terror and
trauma, thus even today when the natives try to
reconstruct viable communication in the language of
their oppressor, they are condemned as being illiterate
and uncivilized, even by their own culture police, such
as Cosby and others.
So again, Johnny
says to hell with the English language and the colonial
administrators and instructors say to hell with Johnny.
Get out of here, you do not fit, nothing about you is
acceptable, your speech, your poetry, your dress, your
music, nothing, and by the way, we have a cell ready for
you, a condo with a life estate. And rather than pay you
a minimum salary of fifty thousand dollars per year to
stop your mayhem in the hood—as we are now paying the
insurgents not to kill us in Iraq, we will hold you in
your cell or condo and make fifty thousand dollars per
inmate per year off you while you sit like a monkey in a
cage.
And even while
imprisoned when you request conscious literature, we
allow you, if at all possible, to read only material of
the urban or gangsta genre so you may continue in your
wretchedness and iniquity, and upon release spread more
psychopathology into the hood, along with HIV/AIDS and
other diseases from homosexuality, although you claim to
be a straight American Gangsta.
Of course we shall
continue to meet periodically to assess the racial
divide, the gap between the practice and the promise,
the reality and the dream. But the reality speaks
volumes about our real intentions which is that nothing
shall change fundamentally because it is about
domination and exploitation, it is about holding onto
our sense of reality until the end, and if necessary we
shall call out the troops, order them to use their guns
to prevent any radical change of the social order, in
particular the educational system which perpetuates the
values of the white supremacy culture.
We are both
privileged and blessed to have this Eurocentric white
supremacy culture so why should we, and for that matter
how can we, change? This would involve a radical
recovery from our racist heritage, a deconstruction of
our world view. We would need to detox from the magic
spell we have allowed to consume us for generations,
centuries; in short, our world would come to an end. But
perhaps we would discover who we really are as we
discovered ourselves as members rather than masters in
the global village.
We would then
accept Johnny, his language, his dress, his hair, his
culture as equal to ours. We would even accept his
thinking outside our box and he would not be penalized
for such since we now see him as our equal, as a man
among men, as a woman among women. When world events
happened, we would consult him for his views on the
matter.
We would not ignore
his opinion or refuse to implement his ideas that may
just happen to be sound and solid, based on a sense of
history and reality, contrary to our which is based on
illusionary hubris.
I slipped out one
of the workshops and sat down behind a desk in the hall
way of the Sacramento Convention Center. I was soon
joined by Zetha Nobles, the daughter of Dr. Wade Nobles,
the esteemed Afro-centric psychologist. Zetha is a
school teacher, and of course she has been taught many
things by her father. She thought the conference was a
joke. These white people are not prepared for serious
change, and this O’Connell is using the race card to run
for governor.
Where are the black
teachers, I asked her. She said there are none. Blacks
cannot survive on a teacher’s salary. These white women
teachers can do it because they have a husband who has a
real job. Can we close the racial divide, I asked. It
will mean nothing to achieve parity with whites because
the best of them are mediocre, she said. She said we
must close the divide between us, India and China. She
said she was putting her children in a Mandarin language
school.
As a matter of
fact, I left the Achievement Gap Summit early to attend
an Afro-Asian sponsored fund raiser for Merve Dymally
who is running for State Senator, even though he is
eighty years old. At the event I met and talked with
Asians who assured me they could get my books printed in
China, even translated into Chinese for the people of
China. And so it is, we must prepare for the world
beyond the white box of Americana that has been nothing
but a shallow grave for our people. But in the shallow
grave there is hope of resurrection, only if we are
willing to jump out in a hurry, yes, seize the time, for
time can be reversed.
Before leaving
Sacramento I watched a television program about a family
in Turkey who walked on all fours, a reversal of
evolution. And it was said at the conference on
education that this present black generation is the
worse ever, and thus we are perhaps witnessing a
reversal of evolution unless we make a great leap
forward. And indeed, this will involve revolutionary
changes in education, including the establishment of
independent institutions financed by ourselves so they
can remain independent, staffed by persons who teach
with love and a sense of service, as Mr. Tavis Smiley
said in his keynote address at the conference.
Tavis may not be
prepared for the revolution I speak about, but he is
correct about love and service. He also spoke about
fulfilling the promise, and we know the founding fathers
called upon the people to again make revolution if the
promise is not kept.
11/15/07
Dr. M is author of
How
to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy,
with a foreword by Dr. Nathan Hare and afterword by Ptah
Allah El, Black Bird Press, POB 1317, Paradise CA 95965,
$19.95. The next session of Dr. M’s Pan African Mental
Health Peer Group is Saturday, December 15, 4pm at the
Black Repertory Group Theatre, 3201 Adeline Street,
Berkeley, CA. No one turned away for lack of money but a
$25.00 donation is requested (includes copy of book HOW
TO RECOVER FROM THE ADDICTION TO WHITE SUPREMACY, A PAN
AFRICAN 12 STEP MODEL FOR A MENTAL HEALTH PEER GROUP).
For more information call 510-355-6339.
www.marvinxwrites.blogspot.com,
mrvnx@yahoo.com.
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Tonight, Friday,
November 16, 8pm, the BSU of San Francisco State
University will host a fund raiser to celebrate the 40th
celebration of the strike at SF State to establish the
first black studies program at a major
university--Humanist Hall, 27th and Telegraph, Oakland.
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posted 17 November
2007 |
