The Tribune Online, 55

Diversity Challenged

http://theroanoketribune.com/catalog_91.html  

Beyond the Void...

My good buddy, Dr. Harold Ducloux, submitted an interesting article to our Alum Association website entitled "Teaching in a Vacuum". He discusses how the Dominican Nuns from Sinsinawa, Wisconsin came into this vacuum for poor, colored kids to free their minds to go on to more worldly goals. Of course, religiosity was a mandated part of the curriculum, but the disciplines of reading, writing, and arithmetic were likewise infused as well as wisdom such as "it's not how, but why."

Black Americans have been enslaved in a void since their being brought to these shores, not so much in a physically shackled society but that of a mentally displaced society, in a void lacking light from cradle to grave. It appears the only time "white society"got concerned about its chattel is or was when an individual went beyond that void in his or her thinking...which can be said of Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, Martin L. King, Jr and so many more that were either killed, imprisoned, or simply removed from our consciousness.

However, bits and pieces of wisdom managed to permeate that void, designed to keep a people subjugated to false religious, social and economic philosphies.  An example of such permeation would be the wisdom of Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, formerly of Morehouse College, who was the mentor to a young Dr. MLK, Jr, as quoted by Alabama Representative Joseph Mitchell: "The tragedy of life is often not in our failure, but rather in our complacency; not in our doing too much, but rather in our doing too little, not in our living above our ability, but rather in our living below our capacities."

Joseph Mitchell was selected to provide the introduction to the book "In Memory of You, An Educational Legacy"...and here's why, from an excerpt of his introduction:  "Many cultures of antiquity carved the names of their most esteemed ancesters on the hardest and most enduring geographical features of the environment. In the forests and woodlands of Europe and Asia, for example, the inhabitants of those ancient worlds carved the likeness and images of their departed kinspersons into living tree trunks. On other occasions, the tree trunk was brought into some common house. The common house was where the community gathered for prayer and education, feasts and ceremonies of war, weddings, births and deaths.

In arid mountainous parts of the world, people scratched drawings or painted onto rock and stone, the likenesses of departed wise men, priests, and priestesses, and those whom they would venerate. Great masses of stone were moved great distances using labor of generations of humans. Rock was piled and mortared to make places for the veneration of nature and therein also were placed effiges for human veneration. The ancient Egyptians carved into stone the life histories of their 'gods on earth,' and in doing so, left the moderns with the names and historic deeds of ancient wise men, rulers and nobles. The writings on stone columns in Greece were predated by writings on stone columns in North Africa. Both people, centuries apart in their development sought to have those who would follow, know of them and their deeds.

Modern science has only recently been able to have an appreciation of the extent to which our ancesters would go to keep the image of great people in the minds and hearts of future generations. No matter how antique the culture, its people will place value in those who have walked among them. Whether one has split a log rail or split the atom, their contributions to their community and to their time seldom go without notice. Name placement is a way of declaring to one's contemporaries and to the future generations that "by here has gone someone most esteemed."

President Obama Owes Black America?...wrong, again.

From BlackAmericaWeb Commentary:

"The President Owes His Young, Black Supporters", Wednesday, January 26,2011 by Tonyaa Weathersbee, BlackAmericaWeb.com.

"When Barack Obama won the White House in 2008, he won it with the votes of millions of young black people.

They were the kids who went from door-to-door, kids who wore T-shirts amd Kangol caps bearing his name-or his image and the word 'Hope.' Kids who, in seeing a black man become president of the world's foremost superpower, began to believe in the power of their dreams."

But now, the president needs to step up for them in the same way that they stepped out for him more than two years ago-because right now, their dreams are poised to be crushed beneath the oppressive weight of unemployment and underemployment."

Bobby Buck's Analysis:

Let me be the first to say that this is not my pouring water on a drowning man or woman, in this case a race...the Black American race; but, the aforementioned plea for help is an exaggerated precedent based on a false premise. It is the Black American race that owes President Obama, for he put his life, family, and fortune on the line to make a difference in the generational apathy exhibited by young black voters. Like so many with a kid-like mentality, they took this as a sprint and went back to doing what kids do...playing and partying.

This President was just the beginning of accomplishing something no man in history has been able to since its beginning, and that was to make all people a part of the effort to keep this nation in the role of a leading global power...which means work, and hard work by everyone on every level in every capacity to learn, to improve, to become more self-sufficient in making progress in our communities, etc., etc.

Those same young people did not show up during the mid-term election at his urging to vote for those candidates who might better assist him in the political mountain climb; consequently, this outcome is only the beginning of the wailing and gnashing of teeth. 

Resurrecting Ebonics??

Most of us remember the ploy some years back in California when black teachers said that many black students were unable to speak in a grammatically correct English format...thus, ebonics??

Well, it appears this same learning philosophy has reared its dumb and racially inferior head in Lancaster, PA as cited in the article: "School defends experiment to separate black students in a bid to boost their academic results." Daily Mail Reporter

Article reads: " A high school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is defending its decision to segregate its students by race and gender.

The scheme, at McCaskey East High School, separates black students from the rest of the school body, and then further breaks it down into black females and black males.

The segregation is only for a period--six minutes each day and 20 minutes twice a month-but it naturally drew criticism for bringing back the awful memory of racial segregation."

Bobby Buck's Analysis:

This principal should be fired immediately and the school board should be held accountable for allowing the remotest idea of racial inferiority in one's learning capacity.

I recall a related situation involving a public school in Roanoke; whereby, "slower" students were not tested during the SOL's given, thus to boost the overall test level outcomes...the principal was fired for trying to work the system to her administration's benefit and not to the overall benefit of the public school students. This is how Hitler got his program in health and learning started, which sprang from the application of "Eugenics in America"...need I say more? 

Preparing Young Black Folks for the Future

"What we should do in our schools is to turn out fewer job seekers and more job makers. Anyone can seek a job, but it requires a person of rare ability to create one." Booker T. Washington

As cited before and probably numerous more times, Booker T. Washington was  a man ahead of the times...for we are witnessing his mantra one hundred years later. I did an article entitled "Dislodging Stereotypes" about an educational dilemma in New Orleans  http://theroanoketribune.com/rich_text_40.html.

It appears that black lawmakers are upset with the fact that Southern University of New Orleans (HBCU) will be consolidated with the University of New Orleans. I went on to say that a former grade school alum of the all black Catholic grade school (by rule of segregation both civil and Catholic) in Mobile became a chair at UNO and established a diversity program for minority students pursuing engineering doctorates...and added, that this was real and true progress from the old Jim Crow days of the south.

As we progress into the future and due to the dire economic circumstances local, state, and federal, we can be assured of more of this type of consolidation...no if's, and's, or but's. Why? If educational institutions can't prove their merit by living up to a clarion call by Booker T. Washington...their days are numbered. http://www.infobuck.vpweb.com