I am no longer blogging at Depraved Mindset. I am now focusing on a racial justice newsletter in Hartford. The blog has already been launched, and the print edition will be out in February. Please check it out.Click on the banner, and you will be taken to the Hart Monitor.
Every two weeks I go to “mobile foodshare” sites around the city I live in. It is a program that shares fresh fruit and vegetables with people who are unable to afford them independently. Since my food stamp allowance has been reduced significantly since I moved, I have been taking advantage of this service to prepare healthier meals. Since they distribute enough food for a large family to each individual, I usually take some of what I am given and give “care packages” to other friends in need
The other day, the people at the foodshare site were giving out cases of yogurt. The people in the front of the line were given one case each, while towards the end of the line, everyone was given two cases, since the people running the site knew how many people that needed to feed by that point. I was given one case, but when I walked past the site again while waiting for my bus, one of the women volunteering offered me a second case, which I gladly took. Then, as I was still waiting for the bus, a Black man was expressing his anger that he had received only one case of yogurt. He was told that since he had already passed through the line, he could not go back again and get another case. He said “I see how it is....you all only want to take care of your own people!” (all of the foodshare volunteers at this specific site are Latino/a as are most of the people who use the service) Since I live alone, I offered this man my second case of yogurt. At first he declined, but when I offered it again, he did take the yogurt and left the site. And I went home thinking I had done the right thing. So, I went home and began thinking about the situation in more depth. My automatic first response was that this was NOT about race, this man simply received only one case of yogurt because he was in the front of the line, before they began to distribute two cases to each person. But then I realized that I was given a second case even though I had already been through the line, while HE was turned down because he had already received his allotted food.
Did you hear the news? Apparently, the racial achievement gap in
education has ALMOST NOTHING to do with racism!! Yes, this is the news I
received from Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra . I posed a questions about
the achievement gap at a recent "Town Meeting" focusing on education. Of
course, since Hartford is a majority minority city, the achievement gap
was one of the primary focuses of the meeting. And according to Mayor
Segarra, racism is only a nominal contributing factor to the well
documented achievement gap between white, Black and Hispanic students.
Apparently, the primary reasons for the gap are economics, inadequate
housing and nutrition, and parental neglect/ineptitude. And of course,
none of these factors have racism as their root cause, right?
Of
course, we can all just ignore the statistical evidence that shows that
the achievement gap persists even among suburban, upper income, two
parent minority students. No, the achievement gap has NOTHING to do with
white teachers who have lower expectations of Black and Hispanic
students. It is unrelated to a school curriculum that almost entirely
ignores the achievements of Black and Hispanic people in history. It is
minimally impacted by teachers who have no cultural sensitivity towards
Black and Hispanic students. Teachers who claim that Black and Hispanic
student "cannot be taught" are not the problem. Apparently, the blame
rests mainly on the shoulders of the dysfunctional Black and Hispanic
familial and cultural institutions. Yes, the achievement gap can be
attributed to those damned poor, single Black and Hispanic moms.
David
Chambers, principal of the nursing academy at Hartford Public High
School, stood up and said that children need to be taught from first
grade that two parents in the home are a requirement to produce high
achieving Black and Hispanic students. He basically asserted that Black
and Hispanic families have a cultural value system that is fundamentally
flawed and THAT is why Black and Hispanic students perform poorly in
school. Then he went on to explain that he tells his students that they
have NO EXCUSES for not succeeding in life, since we have a Black
president and a Hispanic Supreme Court justice. (I guess he is a
believer in a "post racial America"?) I would have expected that a
Black, male educator would be familiar with the studies that prove that
Black and Hispanic students perform better when they are taught by Black
and Hispanic teachers, and that white teachers are often totally
incapable of teaching Black and Hispanic students due to inherent, deep
seated biases. Apparently, I was wrong.
OK, so one thing I will never understand…. How is it that people can call themselves “counter-racists” and claim that they want to “replace white supremacy with justice” AT THE SAME TIME that they are parroting all of the negative images of Black people trumpeted by the folks over at websites like “Stormfront”?
I was on the COWS (Context of White Supremacy) Facebook group a few days ago. Someone had posted a video of V-Nasty, a member of the “White Girl Mob” who likes to throw around the N-word like it is going out of style. She takes pride in the fact that she has been arrested multiple times for fighting, claims that she is “real” because she has done prison time, and works closely with Kreayshawn, who is the “mastermind” behind the materialistic anthem “Gucci Gucci”. One of the members of the group made the comment “wow white girls think they are black and trying to take hip hop over”.
Well, I made a comment back in the group, that reflects my way of thinking about the concept of “acting Black/acting white”. I said “those girls do not "think they are Black"... they are promoting an image that they want people to believe is what "being Black" is about. Acting like a person without any morals, values, or class is not about "acting Black".... it is about promoting an image of what the white supremacists want ALL PEOPLE to believe is "Black". Think about it... if these girls were discussing issues that many Black people consider important and choose to speak on, issues which white people almost always ignore or pretend do not exist... they would not be looked at as "acting Black"... it is only when white girls act in a way that white people do not consider "appropriate" that they are deemed to be "acting Black"..... in truth they are acting in a way that the white media chooses to identify as "acting Black" based on racist stereotypes and programming..…” I really thought that a group full of people who are dedicated to ending white supremacy would understand the relationship between racism/white supremacy and the adoption/promotion of stereotypical images of Black people among white youth. I thought it would be obvious to the people who listen to COWS that the “White Girl Mob” is nothing but a modern day minstrel show. Apparently, I was wrong.
Well, I have been reluctant to say officially that I am taking a break from my blog, especially since I have all of these pretty little business cards that have my information and a link to my site on them. But, I have to do it. I was writing every day while I was in New York, but I find that now that I am in Hartford, I have so many other things going on, I have been unable to attend to Depraved Mindset as much as I would like to. So, I am officially on break right now. Although I have already been in my new home for 2 1/2 months, I am still trying to get acclimated to having so many more things on my plate. I have been going to community meetings, and I have more friends who I see on a regular basis than ever before.
Bottom line is this: I have so many projects I want to work on that I do not have time at this moment to dedicate to blogging. I am going to make a very sincere effort to start back up later in the summer, or maybe in September. By then, I should be used to my new schedule and able to dedicate more time to this project. Right now I am trying to go from someone who writes about what is going on to someone who participates in and impacts what is going on. Hopefully, within a few months, I will be able to both participate and write. I just need to get used to my new life.
I apologize to anyone who will miss my blog, but I will be back. Of that you can be sure.
Drugs, White Folks, Fools and Politics
by Guest Blogger Carey
Hell has no fury like a woman scorned and I am not looking forward to being anything like the babie’s daddy who was seen on Facebook in the arms of momma’s next door neighbor. I mean, the last time I did a guest post, I had over 70 women stick their foot way up my ass.
Well, actually, there was over 70 comments but many of them were mine. Sh*t, they were hitting me in my gut so hard, I was crying like a b*tch and telling them I was so sorry. But listen, to this day I don’t know why they were so mad at me because I was just telling the truth.
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