Thoughts on Sean Bell--We're Not Innocent, Either

This is a little off-topic for the blog, but as a former Bronx schoolteacher, and a New Yorker, and a feminist, I had to comment, briefly.

Above all, I blame the Sean Bell killing on a bunch of trigger-happy, racist cops, and a horribly racist judge, and unfair laws, and a fascist police state, and a white supremacist society.

But I also can't deflect blame from most Americans--yep, even us well-meaning bourgeois liberals, and our presidential candidates--for not calling any attention to our ghettos, our inner-cities, our youth of color, except when somebody gets shot. It's a huge injustice, but it builds off of smaller injustices that happen every day, injustices that we let slide.

And I ask these questions of those who are comfortable in our skins, literally:

*Would we be willing to see our suburban and prep schools lose fancy trimmings in order to have true educational parity? Really?

*Would we be willing to stop blaming violence on hip=hop and confront the deep, deep history of violence our country was built on? I'm talking about slavery and genocide, and how those violences, and the violence of our foreign policy and our leaders, has just as much if not more effect than a video which 99% of kids are smart enough to understand is just art?

*Would we ever be willing to accept the premise that drunken white fratboys at strip clubs engaging in violence-tinged braggadaccio deserve be shot because their behavior was uncouth? Or it's unfortunate that they were shot but look at what they were doing!

*If it's okay for cops to shoot young people of color, whom will it be okay for them to shoot next?


I include myself in this challenge.

The Sean Bells of this city are brought into a world that has no place for them but prison or death. I will never forget the looks on the faces of the young men in my class--even the ones who were always trying to convince me they were "hard"--when I said they were "nice" or "good" kids. Over and over again, those two words brought the most genuine smiles, the most unaffected reaction, I saw throughout those long months. To be told they were good when society tells them they are bad, bad, all the time, was the most positive thing they could hear. I'm not trying to paint myself as some sort of crusading white saint. I fled my teaching post because I felt that the authoritarian-ness required to be effective would crush my soul, but also because it was too depressing.

I'm just saying what I learned from those small interactions profoundly touched me. Sean Bell lived in a society where people did not accept that he could be "good" because of the color of his skin and where he was born. And now he's dead, and he's still being demonized.

How much of our own comfortable lives will we be willing to change to make sure this doesn't happen again? Because we're going to have to tip our society upside down to really change things. No more band-aids.

Here's some more Bruce, cause he's always right for the occasion.

Barbara Ehrenreich Unleashes Her Fury on Abstinence-Only Education...

And she's so fucking brilliant comme toujours. (Have you ever read her take-down of the breast-cancer phenemenon? OMG, readership, OMG).

The best part of her critique of the Abs-Only movement is this farcical suggestion:

Here's my advice for the abstinence training industry and any novice abstinence
trainers: First, leave the teenagers alone and focus on the vast neglected
demographic of middle-aged and elderly people, including the married. Many of them have thought they just weren't getting any, so imagine how happy they will be to see their lifestyle affirmed as a noble, pro-active, choice! Think of the market for silver chastity rings in nursing homes and other long term care facilities!

Secondly, and I realize that this may be more controversial: The abstinent training profession should be restricted to abstinent people. Would you undergo computer training with someone who hasn't touched a computer since 1987? Would you hire a flabby, out-of-shape, personal fitness trainer? No, nor do I think you should study abstinence with someone who behaves "like an animal" in bed.

Oh, Babs! By satirically highlighting the blatant hypocrisy of the abstinence-only movement, she has given us fighting feminists a moment to ponder the ridiculous absurdity of our enemies' raison d'etre. It's a lesson in double-speak and twisted logic.

A "Pro-Lifer" follows the following rules:

• You must hate the act of aborting fetuses, but refuse to acknowledge medically-responsible ways to prevent creating unwanted fetuses in the first place.


• You claim to love the unborn fetus, but refuse to provide benefits, health-care, or day-care for a child once it's passed through the err-threshold of life.


• You must scoff and balk at the idea of giving potentially fetus-saving knowledge to teenagers who are at risk to create fetuses, chastity vow or not.


• You must "Call abortion murder in a medical building/ but [you] don't give a shit about bombin' Iraqi children."*

I'm a former HS teacher at a Bronx school where sex-ed was not taught til 12th grade (!!!) at which point a significant percentage of the kids had already gotten pregnant, become fathers, and/or had aboritons. I had one or two heartbreaking instances of kids coming up to me asking for advice about sex. One boy used his fingers to demosntrate how far he'd (unsafely) penetrated his girlfriend and asked me if he was at risk to get her pregnant.

Another student of a friend of mine came in and announced to me and her teacher that she was "going to get that abortion," and we shouldn't worry. I was comforted similarly by a 9th (!!!) grader who dropped out of 9th grade because she was pregnant and promised me that everything was okay and she hoped to have a healthy baby at the end of her 9th grade year. One senior student discovered that her boyfriend was a cheat and tearfully took a day off for an AIDS test.

It was painful and uncomfortable for me to talk about sex with my kids because I felt unarmed with all the knowledge and expertise they needed, but mostly because of the idea that no one else had done it yet. It was staggering. At my liberal parochial school, sex ed started in 5th and 6th grades. And I'm glad it did. Because the fact of the matter is that KIDS WANT TO TALK ABOUT SEX. They want to talk about it with grown-ups, or younger adults who can give them honest, real advice. Does this mean they will follow that advice? Not necessarily. But at least they're armed.

And for that matter, I agree (sortakinda) with the wingnuts that in our society women can be taken advantage of sexually--but obviously that's due to misogyny, not some sort of inherent difference. I think some sex-ed classes should be gender-segregated and deal with issues of power-dynamics and self-confidence in relationships, date rape and setting boundaries--even the emotional stuff--as well as the nitty-gritty physical. But as long as it's medically accurate, health classes are absolutely fucking essential.

*Immortal Technique featuring Chuck D," Bin Laden" Remix

Education

I'm suffering from the results of my jet-lag induced 7am risings but I thought I'd get back into the swing of things by spilling some haphazard thoughts.

One of the pieces of news I was most disappointed to catch up on upon my reimmersion into our glorious American culture (and there were many, believe me) was the SCOTUS decision on school segregation that essentially, for all intents and purposes, overturned Brown. Funnily enough, this educational inequality issue has really been bugging me lately because of an article of mine that got published while I was frittering about in Europe. Writing it really stirred up all the anger that dogged me all during my time as a teacher and still irks me during the school year when I work with students from different backgrounds (which I still do part time) and see how vastly opposed their experiences are.

For a really heartfelt and cogent analysis of the ridiculousness of the Supremes' decision and some excellent discussion from commenters, see Samhita's post on feministing.

Now that Michael Moore has taken on Health care, I feel like education is the last silent crisis facing our country.