“So the removal of racial barriers creates the greatest opportunities for the more trained and educated minority members. People develop resources because of the advantages associated with family background and the resources that the parents passed on to the children, financial means, family stability, and peer groups, so on. All of these things place more advantaged minorities in a position where they can compete with other individuals of society when racial barriers are removed. A lot of people back then didn't realize that.” William Julius Wilson, a conversation with Henry L. Gates on the topic of Brown v Board of Education
I witnessed three independent schools holistically educate Black children. These children ranged from those who were expelled from their neighborhood schools because of behavioral problems, to children who were tracked into resource-remedial classes, to children whose parents simply wanted an alternative to traditional American public schools. All of these children were (re)enrolled into one of these *Umojah Academies where they impressively thrived. Their successes were not only attributed to a lower teacher-to-student ratio or to an empowering curriculum that acknowledged their heritage’s contribution to civilization, but fundamentally their successes were due to being taught, nurtured and disciplined by teachers who genuinely cared about the success of their students. These teachers lived within the same communities as their students which afforded them a greater understanding of the environmental factors influencing their student’s behaviors, as well as the local community’s educational needs. Teachers were personally invested in the level of achievement within their classrooms because their own children, nieces, cousins and siblings were enrolled within the Academy. These independent school’s Staff were culturally conscious administrators, dedicated to investing the required levels of commitment necessary to build and maintain programming serving the best interest of their clients; to develop children into thinking, analyzing and skilled citizens. These selected professionals within these independent schools were educators by personal choice, not because of a necessity for an ‘easy’ paycheck.
There is much evidence supporting the claim that public schools are no longer able to serve the best interests of Black communities. With an exception of suburban schools that are predominately White and within majority White neighborhoods, the schools Black children attend are underfunded, understaffed and underprepared for educating them to achieve academic excellence. The Department of Education, The Children’s Defense Fund and The National Urban League financed research for statistical evidence to determine the levels of student success within majority Black neighborhoods, and all organizations determined the present state of urban education inadequately lacking. Granted, not every school fails in it mission. There are Principals deeply invested in their school’s surrounding community, who are able to locate and extract those necessary resources for optimal instructional programming. But they are the exceptionally innovative. These exemplarily talented Principals are also most likely to run their schools much like the independents, constantly pushing against the line of conventional leadership methods.
During the 1950’s, Black Americans chose to abandon local schools within our communities for federally mandated, integrated ‘Majority’ schools. While Brown v Board did much to advance the struggle for equity within American society, in retrospect and in consideration of our own schools, we also did ourselves a grave disservice. Our Elders often reminisce over the condition of Black education before-and-after Brown v Board, and many agree. They prayed for the demise of Separate-but-Equal, Jim Crow social conventions, yet in actuality school integration only aided a speedy, counter-productive assimilation into the historically racist ways of White society. This assimilation translated into Black children not only learning from a curriculum detrimental to their Black psyche, but Black children were also subjected by a pedagogy that discouraged their valuation of and commitment to building and maintaining their own (our own) independently viable institutions. It is as if Blacks were taught within White schools that nothing good could come from Black-owned, Black-operated establishments. Fast forward to 2009 and where are our Black businesses? What conditions are they in? Are they supported by our communities? Rather, where are the Black businesses that remain within Black communities? Indeed we have multi-million dollar corporations, but where are they physically located and who benefits from their tax revenues? (Where do these multi-million dollar business owners send their children to school?) Where are our culturally Black schools? How is it that we completely abandoned the ‘school houses’ that loved our Black selves enough to feed, teach, nurture and care for us when White public schools, justified by the Courts and enforced by the National Guard, refused? How deep is our self-hatred?
It is time we took an honest look at ourselves and our values as Black people. We must stop pretending that race doesn’t matter, because it does. It matters to every other group of people who understand the necessity of forming alliances and collectively organizing in America. Only Black people naively discard their ethnic identity in the hopes of rising above racism. And in a perfect world, there is no such thing as race because skin color is simply a biological occurrence. But this is far from a perfect world, this is the United States. And Black school-aged children depend on us to make healthy, informed decisions on their behalves. We must wing ourselves off the welfare system of public education and build and maintain our own independent schools. We must resurrect our sense of community pride and faith in our ability to create quality curriculums and programming that not only compares to but excels that taught in public and private institutions. It is peculiar that we have not a problem trusting and paying predominately White private schools to educate our children, such as Montessori and Catholic schools, but we refuse to allow our children to attend Umojah Academies. We are capable. And successful models already exist. Besides, whose responsibility is it to educate Our children anyways?
*Umojah Academy is term for Chartered Independent Schools that educate their pupils into model citizens. Introduced by M. Karenga as the Kwaanza principle, Umoja. The letter (h) is added by the author to emphasis the stressed -Jah sound that is a traditional African phonic "We are enslaved. The reason we are enslaved is because all of our life sustaining institutions are controlled by Whites. That’s slavery.” Dr. Bobby E. White (1980), guest speaker at a Moorehouse University (HBCU) Lecture Series
...and this too shall pass...
There is much evidence supporting the claim that public schools are no longer able to serve the best interests of Black communities. With an exception of suburban schools that are predominately White and within majority White neighborhoods, the schools Black children attend are underfunded, understaffed and underprepared for educating them to achieve academic excellence. The Department of Education, The Children’s Defense Fund and The National Urban League financed research for statistical evidence to determine the levels of student success within majority Black neighborhoods, and all organizations determined the present state of urban education inadequately lacking. Granted, not every school fails in it mission. There are Principals deeply invested in their school’s surrounding community, who are able to locate and extract those necessary resources for optimal instructional programming. But they are the exceptionally innovative. These exemplarily talented Principals are also most likely to run their schools much like the independents, constantly pushing against the line of conventional leadership methods.
During the 1950’s, Black Americans chose to abandon local schools within our communities for federally mandated, integrated ‘Majority’ schools. While Brown v Board did much to advance the struggle for equity within American society, in retrospect and in consideration of our own schools, we also did ourselves a grave disservice. Our Elders often reminisce over the condition of Black education before-and-after Brown v Board, and many agree. They prayed for the demise of Separate-but-Equal, Jim Crow social conventions, yet in actuality school integration only aided a speedy, counter-productive assimilation into the historically racist ways of White society. This assimilation translated into Black children not only learning from a curriculum detrimental to their Black psyche, but Black children were also subjected by a pedagogy that discouraged their valuation of and commitment to building and maintaining their own (our own) independently viable institutions. It is as if Blacks were taught within White schools that nothing good could come from Black-owned, Black-operated establishments. Fast forward to 2009 and where are our Black businesses? What conditions are they in? Are they supported by our communities? Rather, where are the Black businesses that remain within Black communities? Indeed we have multi-million dollar corporations, but where are they physically located and who benefits from their tax revenues? (Where do these multi-million dollar business owners send their children to school?) Where are our culturally Black schools? How is it that we completely abandoned the ‘school houses’ that loved our Black selves enough to feed, teach, nurture and care for us when White public schools, justified by the Courts and enforced by the National Guard, refused? How deep is our self-hatred?
It is time we took an honest look at ourselves and our values as Black people. We must stop pretending that race doesn’t matter, because it does. It matters to every other group of people who understand the necessity of forming alliances and collectively organizing in America. Only Black people naively discard their ethnic identity in the hopes of rising above racism. And in a perfect world, there is no such thing as race because skin color is simply a biological occurrence. But this is far from a perfect world, this is the United States. And Black school-aged children depend on us to make healthy, informed decisions on their behalves. We must wing ourselves off the welfare system of public education and build and maintain our own independent schools. We must resurrect our sense of community pride and faith in our ability to create quality curriculums and programming that not only compares to but excels that taught in public and private institutions. It is peculiar that we have not a problem trusting and paying predominately White private schools to educate our children, such as Montessori and Catholic schools, but we refuse to allow our children to attend Umojah Academies. We are capable. And successful models already exist. Besides, whose responsibility is it to educate Our children anyways?
*Umojah Academy is term for Chartered Independent Schools that educate their pupils into model citizens. Introduced by M. Karenga as the Kwaanza principle, Umoja. The letter (h) is added by the author to emphasis the stressed -Jah sound that is a traditional African phonic "We are enslaved. The reason we are enslaved is because all of our life sustaining institutions are controlled by Whites. That’s slavery.” Dr. Bobby E. White (1980), guest speaker at a Moorehouse University (HBCU) Lecture Series
...and this too shall pass...
![omowale32](http://www.mochasuite.com/images/avatar/thumb_dc1654dd8f785df217420615.jpg "omowale32::When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his "proper place" and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary. - Carter G. Woodson<br/><hr noshade=\"noshade\" height=\"1\"/><img style=\"vertical-align:middle;padding: 0px 4px;\" src=\"http://www.mochasuite.com/components/com_community/assets/status_offline.png\" />Offline | <img style=\"vertical-align:middle;padding: 0px 4px;\" src=\"http://www.mochasuite.com/components/com_community/assets/default-favicon.png\" />0 friends"){kind=small}
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