In Search of the William Lynch Person

This Willie Lynch business keeps coming up in various conversations, and notably, in the fine movie produced by Oprah Winfrey, starring Denzel Washington and Forest Whitaker, The Great Debaters. When I first heard it shared by Min. Farakahn at the Million Man March in 1995, it immediately struck me as curious. A convienent way to explain the psychology of dis-unity among modern day Black folk. Too convenient! Later when I read what was supposed to be a copy of it distributed by a neighbor, I became suspicious.

Without going into all the details for my own suspician -- the fact that it came from the same Nation that gave us the big head scientist theory, the unlikely use of vanacular in the copy I received, and the sudden reference to it in the 1990s, after all the prior years of scholarship that had not unearthed it -- I refer you to the link below for a more depth analysis.

Our people are so want for a solution to our perpetual exploitation -- and we are so damn religious -- that we are perpetually ripe for embracing convenient explanations and obscure legends, with only slight possibilities. Remember how the Ku Klux Klan owned Churches Fried Chicken -- with nefarious aims for the general health of Black people in their business plan? [That was a hot one in the late 1980s.] Although, it never stopped us from buying that chicken.

My point is that there is enough hard evidence to prove the systematic exploitation of Black people in this country, and in other places. We do not have to champion baseless myths that further miseducate our children. Or stories that establish additional excuses for us not to overcome our own mistrust of one another. We need to make progressive change in our lives based on a proud and triumphant history. I quote Bob Marley, "Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, no one but ourselves can free our minds."


http://blackeducator.blogspot.com/2005/11/death-of-willie-lynch-speech.html

Marriage

Then Almitra spoke again and said, And what of Marriage, master? And he answered, saying:

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, shall you be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it be rather a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not of the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of the lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each others keeping.
For only the Hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not to near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.



By Kahlil Gibran from
The Prophet

Holy Muslim Wisdom

Bismillah:

Koran – PT. 4
Surah 9, An-Nisaa (The Women)
Verse 36.

Serve Allah, and join not any partners with Him; and do good – to parents, kinsfolk, orphans, those in need, neighbors who are of kin, neighbors who are strangers, the companion by your side, the way-farer (ye meet), and what your right hand possess; for Allah loveth not the arrogant, the vainglorious.

Koran – PT. 11
Surah 10, Jonah
Verse 108.

Say “O ye men! Now Truth hath reached you from your Lord! Those, who receive guidance, do so for the good of their own souls; those who stray, do so to their own loss; and I am not (set) over you to arrange your affairs.”

Koran – PT. 18
Surah 23, The Believers (Al – Muminum)
Verse 1 – 5.

Successful indeed are the Believers – Those who humble themselves in the in their prayers; who avoid vain talk; who are active in giving zakat; who guard their modesty.

Koran – PT. 28
Surah LVII, The Women Who Pleads

Verse 10.
Secret counsels are only (inspired) by Satan, in order that he may cause grief to the Believers; but he cannot harm in the least, except as Allah permits; and on Allah let the Believers put their trust.

And My Favorite…

Koran – PT. 13
Surah 14. Abraham (Ibrahim)

Verse 4.
We sent not a messenger except (to teach) in the language of his (own) people, in order to make (things) clear to them. So Allah leads those whom he pleases and guides whom he pleases and He is Exalted in power, Full of Wisdom.

Asalamu Alaikum!

What Is An Education?

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.

- Robert Frost

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Education, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men – the balance-wheel of the social machinery.

- Horace Mann

An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory. It’s knowing where to go to find what you need to know, and it’s knowing how to use the information you get.

- William Feather

Race Baiting In the American Media?...No Kidding!

I am enthralled with the 2008 primary election coverage in both parties. To say the least, there are some very interesting personalities in the contest. I am routing for Senator Barak Obama. A highly intelligent, capable candidate that can easily assume, and better, the role now played by President George W. Bush. And he happens to be a black man! I stopped being one of those Negroes who feels like we have to continue proving our worth to (white) people in this society. We have done that to my satisfaction long ago. The first black this or that does not excite me any longer. Barak Obama does.

Despite the professionalism with which Senator Obama carries himself, this easily mainstrean candidate is being corralled by the corporate media into their favorite saga -- the state of race relations among whites and blacks.

Barak Obama is too classy to take offense over such ridiculous questions as, "How do you respond to the notion of Bill Clinton as America's first black president? Obama handled the idiocy of the question with aplum. Yet, the nerve of it all! A ridiculous assertion by anyone, including Toni Morrison. Senator Obama has been subjected to this scheme from the start of his campaign. Indeed, many personalities on the African American cultural-political scene expressed early suspician over Obama's authenticity as a candiate representative of the aspirations of "the black community." Much of this had to do with his relatively late arrival on the national scene. Some of it to his popularity among whites in his home State of Illonis, but much of it was about their own jealousy of him. We even heard baffoonish comments from a former Atlanta mayor, Andrew Young, about Senator Obama's less than black-enough identity. Let me make one thing perfectly clear. There has never been a man in the history of these United States that looked like Barak Obama that was not considered (unequivacally) a black man.

Race not withstanding, Senator Obama has gone out of his way not to run a racially divisive campaign. He does not have to because he has broad apeal, and he is driven by a vision. Young voters across the nation are attracted to him. He is a huge favorite among white democrats in places like New Hamshire and Iowa. And tonight's outcome in South Carolina showed that he is preferred, by 1 in 4, among white voters there. Nevertheless his supporters, and hopefuls like me, have to listen to Tim Russert go on incessantly with a distracting racial analysis each night. Russert , Fox'Sean Hanity and race-intoxicated pundits like them, are ignoring the many prominent political endorsements for Senator Obama, as if they are not influential white people with diverse constituencies.

It is always hard for a black person to break the constraints of American racism and ascend to equitable ground. Frederick Douglass said that power concedes nothing without a demand. The Clintons are showing that to Barak Obama in this presidential campaign. Marcus Garvey explained the rascist tendencies of white supremacists to diminish the progress of the Negro race by redefining them as other than. Watch the mainstream media try to force Senator Obama to all but deny his heritage, before he can win the Democratic nomination for president.

Book Review: Red Moon Over China

Author Iris Chang is hearby lauded for her profoundly sobering book, The Rape of Nanking (1997). Obviously I am late getting to the book, having first heard of it when the author was interviewed on C-SPAN several years ago. I made a mental note to read it one day, and I finally got around to doing so last month. I am glad I did. In Nanking, Chang (pbuh), chronicles the Japanese invasion of China at the start of World War II in Asia -- several years prior to our participation in 1941. It is a horrifying account of how, in this contemporary area, man and his government armies can be so grossly inhumane to their opponents, war notwithstanding.

My own notion of Japan is probably not unlike that of most Americans. Japan was on the opposing side - but they were likely lackeys for Hitler and his army. Its shining moment was its sneak attack on Peal Harbor, but we quickly smeared that brazen grab at glory with deposits over two of their major cities. Attacks that not not only devastated Japan, but the entire world. Ironically, the United States' response to Pearl Harbor brought about international sympathy for a country that was a chief member of the original "axis of evil." It caused sustained periods of public guilt among Americans, and it obscured Japan's own heinous deeds with its pursuit of supremacy in Asia.

In Nanking, Iris Chang educates us about the true role of Japan during the war. She describes the mentality of a traditionally isolated nation whose culture, traditions and prior defeats spurred its nationalism and made it competitive in the arms race of that time. The Japanese enmity for the Chinese and their quest for expansion, lead them to commit some of the most gruesome atrocities of the war. Crimes against humanity that approximated those committed by the Nazis -- in deed if not in scale.

Chang went to great lengths to verify and document how Japanese armies pillaged and looted Shanghai and Nanking during their invasion at the start of the war (circa 1934). She bravely tells of brutality that is unfathumable to the average person, even today. Acts of rampant and grotesques rape, mass killings and torture. including killing for sport and experimentation. These acts occurred during the Japanese invasion and occupation. They were inhumane crimes on a grand scale committed against soldiers and many more civilians. In deed, I do the history an injustice with this telling. Read the book.

I found The Rape of Nanking was an important read for a few reasons. It has been said often that America's release of atomic bombs over Japan was as prudent an act of military strategy as it was punishing. To that, Chang describes the mentality of the common Japanese soldier and their commanders during this period in history. She gives credence to the notion that our troops would have suffered casualities during a land invasion of Japan that would have been both brutal and innumerable. And it would have prolonged our effort in the Pacific -- as the Japanses were loathe to surrender under any ordinary circumsatnces of war. Nanking gives context to the fears -- even paranoia -- of our government and its drastic action against Japanese citizens here in the U.S. during the war. Finally, and most important, it reminds me that such acts as described by the author have several antecedents, and when they combine to manifest such a virulent evil in men, there is no limit to what can occur.

A final word. Recently I have become accustomed to dropping a line of thanks via e-mail to authors whose books stir something inside me. And so I did with Iris Chang. However, just moments after finding a website where I could register a note in praise of her work, I discovered that she died a few years ago (2004). She did invaluable work for her people, and for all of humanity. All Praise is Due...

Education

There is much to say on this topic. In fact, because the term is so broad, it implies an almost unlimited number of possible subjects. For my purposes I am referring, specifically, to the subject of formal (public) education. And, generally, to the subject of education derived from individual, self-driven study. I make a life for myself as a public school administrator. So naturally, I have a perspective on education that manifests in a number of opinions on how our schools work for, or against, the pursuit of education. However, I thrive in this life as a result of my own self-driven pursuit of "true knowledge of self," and the peace and understanding that comes from that pursuit.

I must admit that I came into public education aimlessly. After a prior "career" on the fringes of public administration, I decided to cash in my certificate of eligibility from the New Jersey Department of Education and 'go into the classroom.' I was motivated by a latent activist spirit and the need to create a stable lifestyle for my yet unborn children to join in with me. The only real training I had were the models afforded me by a handful of my best teachers from elementary and secondary school. However, I was full of idealism from the charge to go forth and 'give back to your community' gotten from my HBCU experience. This, layered with a considerable survey of black nationalist literature, formed my approach to working in public education -- in the beginning.

In the past ten years, I have gone from an idealistic classroom teacher in an urban (IE., predominately black) school with almost missionary zeal, to an administrator in a suburban (predominantly white) school and back again. I now work in one of New Jersey's thirty plus "Abbott Schools." The state's supreme court ruled that Pleasantville, NJ is one of dozens of municipalities in the state that cannot provide a 'thorough and efficient' education to its residents do to economic inequalities that form the basis for school funding. Basically, the school district is on welfare so that it can educate its children to meet the state's standards. The students attending this school are overwhelmingly black and Hispanic. Not surprisingly, these experiences provide me an advantageous perspective on the topic of education which I plan to expound upon in subsequent installments. However, I will close this entry with a series of guiding questions derived from the experiences I've had so far in my career.

What is an education? What is the goal of public education? Are racial factors contributing to the (comparative) underachievement among blacks and Hispanics?...or is it a red herring? What should children be learning?