kalamu on the road 9 oct 2005

Books by Kalamu ya Salaam

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public schools killed in new orleans

kalamu on the road 9 oct 2005

we will fight back. we will resist

it is hard. it ain't fair. but it is what it is. right now i'm in clemson, south carolina. seems like i've been traveling forever. last week i was in new york city. the week before i was at cornell in ithaca, new york.

i had planned to do reports and updates from the road. but it is extremely difficult to keep up. i will endeavor to do better, but i'm not making any promises, other than i'll do my best to at least let you know where i'm going and where i been.

the cornell gig turned out extremely well. myself and three others did a panel, "hurricane katrina and its aftermath: race, class and the environment" moderated by robert l. harris, professor of africana studies and vice provost for diversity and faculty development." it started with a newsclip from democracy now highlighting the unwillingess of the police, the military and other authorities refused to remove a dead body that lay in the streets for two weeks. this was in the algiers section of new orleans, which did not flood. during the report all manner of authorities past by and even talked with the reporter from democracy now, but all of them refused to deal with the body, invariably saying it was somebody else's responsibility.

syracuse university professor kishi animashaun, spoke on the enviornmental impacts in the greater new orleans region, detailing issues of toxicity and land erosion, significant issues whose impact will continue to be felt for years and years. malik rahim, a resident of the algiers section of new orleans, which did not flood, spoke about actively supporting the people. malik did not leave the city during the storm and in its aftermath organized local, national and international support for his neighbors and the general algiers community. malik is a former black panther who had run for office as a city councilman on the green party ticket.

i spoke third and opened with a poem "a system of thought," based on coltrane techniques with lyrics that reflected the katrina reality and then went on to detail our listen to the people project (a full report about listen to the people will be forthcoming this week). the program closed with quiet, albeit steel strong, testimony from folake akande, a graduate student in african feminist literature at tulane university who is now studying at cornell. folake spoke about how it was the elders who guided and protected her through her travails in the shelters and upon arriving to cornell.

at cornell i made a lot of good contacts, including ira revels who has agreed to take a leadership role in our listen to the people project. from cornell i returned to new orleans and then it was on to new york city. i was preceded by a long feature story in the new yorker about katrina. in that story i was quoted in some detail and given the last words of the article with a long quote about the forthcoming long, cold winter that new orleanians in exile will face. while in new york i had a couple of meetings during the day and made a poetry presentation at the bowery poetry club on friday night, followed by a discussion with a small audience at the caribbean cultural center.

we also did our first video interview for listen to the people with adrina kelly, an early graduate of our students at the center program and a graduate of harvard university who works in new york city as an editor at mcgraw hill publishing. although adrina graduated from high school before i joined the sac program, it turns out that i worked with adrina's mother at the black collegian magazine (when we discovered that, neither of us was surprised because in new orleans everybody knows somebody who knows somebody, at most there are two degrees of separation).

i reported on arriving into new york and never finished the report, time just was not there. it has been constant motion.

i'm way behind on a couple of writing assignments, pushing hard to maintain e-drum every day and breath of life every week, plus develop listen to the people and publicly launch the website, which will be up within six or seven day—will announce that shortly.

then, after three days, it was on to clemson, south carolina. students at the center gathered—high school students, sac graduates and staff for a retreat. we did writing workshops, planned for both the immediate as well as the long term future, were filmed at length for an upcoming feature on abc's good morning america, and in general felt good about seeing and embracing each other. we came from seven different states. only one of our folk who was scheduled to come did not make it—keva's flight was cancelled.

i won't go on at length about the sac get together, but i will say that i am more angry than i have been a long, long time. while we were meeting we got word (and downloaded a new orleans article online) about the latest bad news coming from the new orleans leadership. the orleans parish school board voted to turn all of the public schools on the west bank into charter schools. most of the schools on the east bank were flooded out. the board had previously voted to make charter schools out of two of the handful of east bank schools that were not flooded. all of this follows the termination of all of the teachers. effectively, they have killed public schools in new orleans. period.

i don't know if my comment will make it onto television, but i told the abc people: how much clearer can they make it that they hate us. the mayor's proposes to open up casinos up and down the major downtown and business district. the school board turns all the west bank schools into charter schools.

they've already evacuated damn near all of the black people. why don't they just shoot us and get it over with. and in case folk don't understand, this is the future of 21st century urban america. at this point the rebuilding of new orleans will not take place over 40 or 50 years and it will not be accidental. it will happen in 4 or 5 years and it will be planned. what the fuck kind of major american city are you going to build without a public school system?

my spirit says fight. not protest. fight. not draw up no list of demands to a white power structure and their negro henchmen (the school board is majority black), but fight. right now we are planning for a "homecoming" in new orleans, november 11- 13, 2005. homecoming as in a school celebration. homecoming as in a citywide bringing together of the people. we don't know how big it's going to be. we don't know nothing right now except we are going to have a homecoming, and even if they run us out at gunpoint... let me stop. i'm starting to just spout off... we will be in new orleans in november. we will have a homecoming... we have other plans... we will fight back. we will resist. it ain't over...

more in a minute...
a luta continua,
kalamu

posted 9 October 2005