Preparing a Future for You to Harvest

Preparing a Future for You to Harvest

While some grandmothers choose to rock and knit, others stand boldly on the broad shoulders of ancestors who left powerful legacies and embrace them forthrightly.  Not cut from a singular cloth, millions of grandmothers, abuelas, jaddat and nanas in the 21^st century are building legacies reflective of the truths and powers in which we now stand.  And, we’re continuing the practice of turning the world on the axis of affirmation and empowerment, driven by visions of the kind of a safer and saner world we really want to leave our grandchildren.   

It’s not about attempting to leave perfection.  For so many of us this has been about preparing a future for our grandchildren to harvest in a world that reflected how much we cherish Mother Earth and their future.  The sounds of laughter, smells of things freshly harvested from the garden; the time and support to grow you into and through the completion of your childhood; and just more of the tastes of the sweetness of life are what millions of us work tirelessly for you to inherit:  Not bombs and bullets whizzing through urban enclaves or  thousand-year old villages; genetically modified food depleted of the nutrients needed to grow your minds and bodies strongly; nor turning multiple generations into the streets to flail and fend for themselves.

 There are those who spend time creating halcyon memories with our grandchildren taking them on vacation, teaching them to read (while they teach us to program our phones and computers) and providing them with fantasy driven, overly corporatized, birthday parties.  There are millions of others, well into their 70s, who continue to work and scrape together funds for college tuitions, housing and support for the most horrific and unimaginable medical crisis.  Then there are those who were attacked by dogs, beaten, tear gassed and jailed while peacefully seeking to secure rights for you and your future.

 Almost to a grandmother, we each have a vision or ideas for a world we took to the streets, founded companies and advocated to local, national and global legislative bodies on behalf of your futures.  We come to this table, complete with our well seasoned and sometimes wisdom-filled minds and spirits, as activists, teachers, healers, artists, writers and presidents of countries.  Some of us even rock the mic as poets, singers and comediennes.   From war torn villages in Somalia where we rock you through the sounds of gunfire to fields in Sri Lanka where we pick tea to multi-generational family compounds in Suriname (where ancestral stories about the Djukas and Amerindians are shared) and classrooms in Kenya, the United States and Cuba from which we teach physics, literatures of the Diaspora, languages on the verge of extinction or labs where we conduct cutting-edge research, we remain mindful of the perils plaguing the world.

We continue to work earnestly to share the awe, wonders and treasures of living the human experience, for where ever we stand (or sit) in the world, billions of grandmothers carry their grandchildren purposefully in their hearts and spirits each step of the day.

Daphne Muse is a writer, social commentator and poet.  Her commentaries have aired on NPR and been published at Portside, the Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle.  You can read her commentaries at www.daphnemuse.blogspot.com or email her at msmusewriter@gmail.com.

Leo Branton: A Sterling Brown Kind of Strong Man who Litigated Freedom for Angela Davis

Leo Branton:  A Sterling Brown Kind of Strong Man who Litigated Freedom for Angela Davis

Walk togedder, chillen,

 Dontcha git weary. . . .

The strong men keep a-comin’ on

 The strong men git stronger.

They point with pride to the roads you built for them,

They ride in comfort over the rails you laid for them.

They put hammers in your hand

And said ⎯ Drive so much before sundown

  (excerpted from Sterling Brown’s 1931 poem “Strong Men.”

In 1972, it took a world-wide movement, scores of legal and lay volunteers, a cadre of psychologists and psychiatrists, and most importantly a highly skilled defense team to secure freedom for radical black activist and former UCLA professor Angela Davis.  Davis was brought up on charges of murder, kidnapping and criminal conspiracy related to a shootout at the Marin County Jail.  Civil Rights attorney Howard Moore Jr. was retained by Davis and he in turn assembled a formidable defense team that included Leo Branton, Margaret Burnham and Doris Brin Walker:  Burnham, also an activist, grew up with Davis; Walker was a member of the Communist Party USA; and Branton was a highly-skilled civil rights and entertainment litigator with a storied history that included serving as counsel for Academy-Award winning blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo, actress Dorothy Dandridge, legendary jazz musician Miles Davis and the estate of musical icon Jimi Hendrix. Branton also was part of a team of lawyers who argued Stack v. Boyle, a case involving the arrest of twelve members of the Communist Party, before the US Supreme Court. Born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas in 1922, Branton became an ancestor on April 19, 2013.

He was one of the first to hire consultants to develop psychological profiles of jurors and demand fairer diversity of juries.  Psychologist Dr. Tom Hilliard, Anne Ashmore (Poussaint-Hudson) and psychiatrist Price Cobb, Jr. were part of the team who contributed their expertise to voir dire potential jurors.  As secretaries for the defense team, Marlene Cassel and I came to witness his brilliance, legal acumen and forthrightness everyday of that trial.  During a “do wrong” rite of passage related to my personal life, a rather publically embarrassing moment occurred in which a man who’d ridden across country on his motor cycle tried to retake my heart and another woman involved in the trial publicly claimed him within mere hours of his arrival.  Both Branton and Moore pulled me aside to inquire about my well-being.  I simply was stunned, for in the midst of the tumultuous whirlwind to secure freedom for Ms. Davis; they would demonstrate such concern for my heart then so torn apart. I thought it would never again beat with the love for any other man. But I knew that I could not miss a beat in providing the administrative responsibilities and support that came with working for the defense team.

Branton’s confidence was unbridled and although I was not in the courtroom on the day of his closing argument, Howard was ecstatic with the words so strategically crafted and the dramatic tenor of the argument delivered to free Davis. Howard reveled in the fact that he got to walk and work alongside this pioneering legal icon, for those ten months of the trial.  Branton always swooped through the office in suits that bespoke the unbridled and astute confidence and experience he possessed.  He turned litigation into well crafted performance art; after all it was his desire to be an actor that paved the way for him to become a lawyer.  He was exemplary in his ability to cross examine witnesses and during the trial, he put eye witness testimony in a tailspin and as a result, a witness pointed out Kendra Alexander as the woman he saw in the Marin Courtroom and not Angela.  He was so masterful in the courtroom that his legal charisma mesmerized the presiding Judge Richard E. Arnosan, the bailiffs, jurors, spectators and many members of the press; it also totally flummoxed Prosecutor Albert Harris, Jr. and his team.  Harris looked as though he’d been bricked with a brief, the day of the verdict.  I often wonder if the jurors knew that Leo was black.  He had that kind of racial ambiguity, for some, where he could represent either or.

With thirty-six spectator seats available, entry into Courtroom Number one of the Santa Clara County Courthouse in San Jose, California were at a premium and hundreds of people jostled for positions each day to get in on a first come, first-served basis.  On the one occasion Howard was able to get me in, I witnessed firsthand the jaw dropping performance Branton brought into the hallowed halls of that courtroom filled with an historical tension quite like none ever witnessed before in the United States. With so many precedents set in litigating the Angela Davis Trial, it really was indeed one of the major trials of the century.  I’m sure John Jay (first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court), Clarence Darrow (attorney for the legendary, early 20^th century Scopes Trial) and Charlotte E. Ray (first known African American woman lawyer) all a turning in afterlife awe.  The power of his closing argument still resonates beyond that chamber into curricula in law schools throughout the United States. The trial transcript of the closing argument (May 30 to June 1, 1972) is available at the Bancroft Library, UC, Berkeley, and the Angela Davis Papers and in the Howard Moore Jr. Papers, Woodruff Library, Manuscripts and Rare Books, Emory University, Atlanta, GA.

We are so indeed each other’s harvest.  In December 2012, I invited him to a holiday party that my dear friend Mary Louise Patterson and I gave in LA home.   At 90, he was still litigating and his mind remained legally brilliant.  He spoke eloquently on why that trial set the significant milestones and precedents that it did.  It meant the world to me and others in the room that Branton was there, for there were those for whom Angela Davis was a name that rang familiar, but the associated history unknown.  His presence and words brought a serious dimension of reality to that history.  With a world-wide movement mobilized and upon being acquitted, Branton told Angela that she was the most powerful woman in the world. He felt that dissociating from the Communist Party would make her even more powerful. But her history, values and commitment rested in its ideology to which she remained loyal for decades after her acquittal. To this day, Davis remains unwavering in her commitment to the freedom of political prisoners around the world and still uses her vision and voice as a freedom fighter for social justice, especially as it relates to women.  You can listen to Branton speak at the party by going to this link by videographer Mateenah Floyd-Okanlawon at You Tube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvErKfaD7oA

On his 91^st birthday, there was a screening of Shola Lynch’s riveting documentary “Free Angela Davis and All Political Prisoners.” Leo Branton got to see and hear his crucial role, reflected in the compelling historical drama of black and white.  The film poignantly captures and reflects the legal brilliance and unwavering compassion of Branton as one of Sterling Brown’s “Strong Men.”

Daphne Muse is a writer, poet and social commentator.  You can read her blogs at:  www.daphnemuseblogspot.com.

©Daphne Muse, Oakland, California 2013

I'mo Go Squat in Barack and Michelle's House

I’mo Go Squat in Barack and Michelle’s House

Since President Obama has betrayed, and I don’t use that word lightly, us by forging ahead with his let them eat cat food legislation as he proposes robbing Social Security with the “CPI Chain Assault Weapon,” I’ve decided I’mo squat at his pad.  I hope First Lady Obama, and First Grandmother Robinson can bring their understanding and compassion to the table on this matter.  But, he’s leaving millions of us no choice, as we stock our cupboards with cat food, before the price skyrockets and we can’t even afford that.  I still don’t even understand how he and/or Congress can go in and gut SS. It’s nothing short of grand theft, diminishing us down to our last dime. I remember my husband, who was an economics professor, saying back in 2008 that Obama would be a “Five Star Republican.”  He was crystal clear on who was about to ascend the presidential throne.

I’ve been paying into SS since I got my first job in 1959, as a teenager with DC Parks and Recreation.  Even during the leanest of my freelance years, and I mean some of them were bone on bone lean, I paid into Social Security, so I would have a little somefin’ somefin’ in addition to monies invested in a retirement plan.  He seduced us on the campaign trail and now is turning around and slitting our throats with belligerent Beltway and K Street hocus pocus, after nickel and diming us to support his campaign, while finding even more ways to suck up even more dollars out of every economic orifice we thought was ours. Protecting the one percent at all costs to the poor and middle class has become the country’s primary mission, as the United States has been developed into a full-fledged corporation.

  According to those who righteously crunch the numbers related to Social Security, many retiring now could see their overall benefits decrease by $18,000.00 while those already retired will feel the pain as well.  Under the chain, those already minimal cost of living adjustments would go down.  No matter how these 21^st century robber barons try to spin it, Social Security is completely self-funded through the payroll tax and does not contribute to the deficit.

While the view inside the Obama digs will be great and we won’t have to worry about getting “droned,” the view outside the windows will be filled with all those people betrayed. So when you find me and a whole posse of my peeps squattin’ up in your pad President Obama, you’ll know that your Beltway policies had everything to do with it.  By the way, do you think you could make us another batch of those brownies we had last night?  They tasted like they had something really special in them.

Daphne Muse is a writer, social commentator and poet.  You can read her blogs at www.daphnemuse.blogspot.com

Our Week with Rosa Parks:  Her Presence Remains a Gift in Our Hearts and Home

On this the 100^th anniversary of the birth of Rosa Parks and in conjunction with the National Day of Courage, the U.S. Postal Service will host a pair of unveiling ceremonies for a stamp in her honor at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, and the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich.  But I want to turn your attention to a piece of Oakland history related to Rosa Parks. 

Everyday history is made by people whose names remain unknown, as well as those who become eternal icons. In May of 1980, a woman who forever changed our country spent a week in our home. The East Bay Area Friends of Highlander Research and Education Center joined with founder Myles Horton to honor two of the Civil Rights Movements most courageous pioneers: Rosa Parks and Septima Clark. The event was held at His Lordships in Berkeley, California.   On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake's order that she give up her seat in the colored section to a white passenger, after the white section was full. Parks was not the first person to resist bus segregation. Others had taken similar steps in the twentieth century, including Irene Morgan in 1946, Sarah Louise Keys in 1955, and Claudette Colvin nine months before Parks.

Ms. Clark broke ground as a pioneering force in citizenship training and voter education.  As a formidable educator based in South Carolina, she developed the literacy and citizenship workshops that played a key role in the drive for voting and civil rights for African Americans.   The two women met at Highlander in 1955, a place where my own mother-in-law Margaret Lamont Landes, a long time peace and civil rights activist, also was trained there.

Founded in 1932, Highlander is a civil rights training school located on a 104-acre farm atop Bays Mountain, near New Market, Tennessee. Over the course of its history, Highlander has played important roles in many major political movements, including the Southern labor movements of the 1930s, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1940s-60s, and the Appalachian people's movements of the 1970s-80s and circling back to the labor movement. Through books in our home library, her teachers and my own work as a writer, Anyania knew about the role Ms. Parks played in changing the course of history.

Like millions of other African Americans, Mrs. Parks was tired of the racism, segregation and Jim Crow laws of the times. But that was a strategic kind of weariness.  Through her commitment to freedom and training at Highlander Research and Education Center, her refusal to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama on December 1, 1955, spawned a movement. Parks took a seat in the section of a Montgomery city bus designated for whites. She was arrested, tried and fined for violating a city ordinance. Mrs. Parks, a seamstress, often had run-ins with bus drivers and had been evicted from buses. Getting on the front of the bus to pay her fare and then getting off going to the back door was so humiliating. There were times the driver simply shut the door and drove off. Her very conscious decision turned into an economically crippling, politically dynamic boycott and a major victory towards ending legal segregation in America. A three hundred and eighty two day bus boycott followed her morally correct and courageous act.

In the course of preparing for Ms. Parks' visit, she noted to members of the committee that hotels just didn't suit her spirit and she preferred the tradition extended through southern hospitality that included putting people up in your home. She then asked if I would mind if she could be our guest during her week-long stay in Oakland. She made only one request of us: that we keep her presence a secret. She and her long time friend Elaine Steele were eager to be in a place where they could relax, listen to music and eat great food without being disturbed. The disturbed part was my greatest concern for between the bullet blasting drug wars and the press, I was eager to bring them the greatest comforts that our home could provide, while maintaining the agreement.

Our modest home in the Fruitvale community of Oakland, California had served as a cultural center and refuge to many writers, filmmakers, artists and activists including Sweet Honey in the Rock, novelist Alice Walker and poet Gwendolyn Brooks. Although we'd never even met, when Rosa Parks walked through our front door, she instantly became family. She and my then almost seven-year-old daughter Anyania melted into one another's arms like a grandmother seeing her grandchild for the first time. That hug lasted a long time and would be repeated numerous times during the course of her visit. The next morning, Mrs. Parks was delighted to arrive at a breakfast table where fried apples, salmon croquettes and fresh squeezed orange juice were amongst the offerings.

As Anyania was about to take off for school, the button on her dress popped off. It was a jumper, made by my mother's own hands and filled with multi-ethnic images of children. Mrs. Parks asked if I had a sewing box, threaded the needle and sewed the button back on. I had a major case of the big weepies, as my spirit spilled over and I burst into tears that poured out of my eyes like water from a fountain.

Anyania was so good at keeping the secret.  She did not tell a soul.  I, on the other hand, wanted to blurt out to my family, friends and my students at Mills College "Guess who's sleeping in my bed?" Generally good at keeping secrets, this one was one of the most challenging I’ve ever had to hold on to.  One evening, Mrs. Parks read selections from Eloise Greenfield's Honey, I love and other Poems to Anya. On another, she poured through our record collection and listened to everybody from Aretha Franklin and Sarah Vaughan to the Freedom Singers and Miles Davis. Her shyness vanished, as she got “way down inside the music, let it take her spin her around and make her.”  We got to experience Mrs. Parks far beyond who she was as an historical icon.  We watched her pop her fingers as she got down in the music, laugh at Anyania’s stories about her imaginary friend Autographer and share meals with us.

Back in the late nineties, a former a neighbor came by to pay a visit and started searching the scores of photographs hanging on the walls in our living room. She stopped, turned around and blurted out, "No that isn't." I instantly knew the photograph to which she was referring. Along with pictures of Fannie Lou Hamer, Eleanor Holmes Norton and Jim Forman hangs a very precious photograph of Rosa Parks surrounded by my then seven-year-old daughter and her playmate Kai Beard. Dottie was simply undone that in all the years she'd come into our home, she like so many others simply thought the woman sitting next to Anyania was her grandmother. A few weeks after she returned to Detroit, Ms. Parks sent Anyania an exquisite portrait of her painted by Paul Collins. That portrait now hangs in Anya's home, where the steady gaze of Ms. Parks shines on my grandchildren Maelia and Elijah every day.  Anya got to hear history right from Ms. Parks’ lips and she shared history with her during each day of her visit.  She told her about people like CD Nixon, Myles and Zetha Horton, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  She spoke of what it was like to take a stand and sit down on the bus for the future of our people.

She made this little light of mine shine, shine, shine.  Now when people enter our home, one of the first things we introduce them to is a photograph of Ms. Parks holding the hands of two girls who grew into womanhood shaped by the vision and courage of Rosa Parks.

 A version of this piece was read into The Congressional Record by Congresswoman Barbara Lee in 2005.

African Americans are on the Money, too

African Americans are on the Money, too!
By Daphne Muse
      It is sometimes said that the history of a country is reflected in its money and like much of black history, the images of African Americans on US coins and currency remains a relatively obscure fact.  But African Americans are on U.S. money, too in ways that will both surprise and astonish most people. In the more than two hundred year history of this country, Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, Jackie Robinson and Crispus Attucks are the only known African American’s whose images have ever appeared on money minted in the United States. The faces of Washington and Washington and Carver look up off U.S. half dollar coins minted between 1946 and 1951 and 1951 to 1954. Scientist, inventor and scholar Carver and pioneering educator and founder of Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute Washington were honored for their roles in advancing the nation’s social and economic development. Barrier breaking Major League Baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson appears on a silver dollar minted in 1997. Revolutionary War patriot and merchant Crispus Attucks appears on a silver dollar. In 1996, President Clinton enacted a Black Patriots Coin Law to commemorate African American contributions to the founding of America. The coin was struck in 1998, the 275th anniversary of the birth of Crispus Attucks.  Born in 1723, Attucks was 1723 – March 5, 1770) was the first of five people killed in the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770 in Boston, Massachusetts.  He is recognized as the first martyr of the American Revolution and is the only Boston Massacre victim whose name is commonly remembered.
      The Booker T. Washington coin was issued to perpetuate his self-reliant ideals and teachings, and to construct what was hoped to be a lasting memorial to his work.  Three million of the five million coins authorized were minted and in August of 1951, the authority for the issue of the coin expired.  These coins were issued in much the same way as the John F. Kennedy, Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea coins were issued. 
      The Booker T. Washington Birthplace Memorial Association in conjunction with the George Washington Carver National Monument Foundation then sponsored a bill to honor artist, educator, agricultural chemist and peanut butter inventor George Washington Carver and Booker T. Washington on one coin.  The bill may have failed, but for a proviso stating that the profits had to be used “to oppose the spread of Communism among Negroes in the interest of National defense.”
      Dr. Daniel Williams, archivist at Tuskegee laughed at the notion that the containing the image of Washington and Carver was issued to combat communism.  “My word, this nation certainly had more to worry about at that point in history than Negroes becoming Communists.” 
      In the thick of the McCarthy Era and afraid to appear soft on Communism, Congress endorsed the measure, which was signed by former President Harry S. Truman on September 1, 1951. The coin, containing the images of both Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver, was issued at a time when several prominent African Americans, including world renowned novelist Langston Hughes, had been subpoenaed by the House on Un-American Activities, unfortunately, the coin failed to gain widespread popularity.  Hughes portrait now graces a 2002, thirty-four cents US stamp.
      Paper money bears the signatures of four African American men who served as Registers of the Treasury (Blanche K. Bruce, Judson W. Lyons, William T. Vernon, and James C. Napier) and one African American woman who served as Treasurer of the United States (Azie Taylor Morton).  In the mid-19^th century there was a widespread use of slaves on Confederate and Southern states money.  Though not discussed in textbooks, that practice is well documented in Confederate Currency the Color of Money:  Images of Slavery in Confederate and Southern States Currency with paintings by John W. Jones and edited by Gretchen Barbatsis (New Directions Publishing 2002).  “Confederate Currency the Color of Money…” was also a traveling exhibit of paintings by Jones that toured the US and came to the African American Library and Museum in Oakland in May of 2002.
      Currently out of general circulation, the Washington and Washington/Carver coins still can be found in numismatics (coin) shops and flea markets across the county.  When I mention these coins or other images of blacks on US money, the vast majority of people are dumbfounded.  My grandfather, Juandoff  J. Jones, gave me my first one in 1970. He had converted one of the Washington coins into a money clip.  On rare occasions, they pop up as change in transactions. Oakland-based conflict resolution consultant Nell Myhand noted that her mother received a Washington coin as change after paying for some dry cleaning in the early 80's.  The Washington and Washington Carver coins now range in value from $10.00 to $800.00, depending on when and where they were minted, and their condition.  The Robinson coin easily fetches a $700.00 asking price.  The Crispus Attucks coins appear at online auction sites for prices that range from $165.00- $189.00.
        Now housed mostly in private and institutional collections across the United States and around the world, these coins serve as a testimony to four Black men whose legacies still impact the lives of all Americans.  Who knows, in the future the image of Hip Hop Mogul and humanitarian Russell Simmons, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, astronaut Dr. Mae Jemison, public intellectual Dr. Cornel West, media mogul Oprah Winfrey or even you may well be on the money, too.

Daphne Muse
Copyright Oakland, CA 2006
msmusewriter@gmail.com


A version of this was first published on the Business Page of the Oakland Tribune in 1991.

Gifts of Gratitude and Support for Our Teachers

Gifts of Gratitude and Support for Our Teachers

By Daphne Muse

As the holiday season emerges and families, friends, colleagues and community members come together to celebrate let’s support our teachers and what they bring to the table.  There are some very creative and practical gifts people can share that may well take a bit of a load off your professional lives.  With budgets diminishing on an almost daily basis and the need for supplies and other resources growing exponentially, what teacher would not appreciate a gift certificate from a retail or second-hand outlet to bring more books, equipment or art supplies into the classroom?  Along with major outlets, non-profits including Goodwill, American Cancer Society Thrift Stores and Salvation Army are good places to find every kind of supply imaginable for the classroom or resource center from books to art supplies and furniture. As you purge your garages, homes and storage units invite the teachers in your community to select what might work in their classrooms or resource centers.

Almost every family has someone who is retired and whose skill set would be a great match for some of your classroom needs, including serving as a volunteer for a field trip, assisting with the re-organization of your class or providing research to assist you with ideas for teaching the curriculum.  There are numerous organizations that you can tap into, if you don’t have a family member or neighbor who can assist including AARP, your local senior citizens community center, fraternal organization or sorority.  There are also reputable people who have to do community service.  You can contact the court in your local jurisdiction to find out how to access people from that pool to access their expertise.  College interns are often in search of interesting and creative projects and your classroom could prove to be one.  Through the division of student services at your local college or university, you may be able to connect a teacher with an intern.  While serving as an editor for Children's Advocate News Magazine, I was able to secure the services of two members of the Junior League who totally redesign of the publication.  Other gifts that might prove to be welcomed include:

·        Gel pads for shoes and gel cushions to make the feet and chair more comfortable

·        Working recycled technology including cameras, computers and DVD players

·        A Gift Certificate of a designated amount of time from a retiree or working professional whose message and skills can connect with young people

·        Donation of healthy fruits and snacks at designated for special classroom occasions

·        A First Aid Kit, board games, books and software

·        Funds to underwrite a classroom field trip

As brilliant and creative as our children may be, remember often they are taught into their callings by teachers.  Cherish the gifts they bring to the table and the work you do in guiding them onto and along their paths.

Links:  The Junior League of Oakland/East Bay http://www.jloeb.org/

East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse http://www.creativereuse.org/

www.SalvationArmy.com

www.Goodwill.com

Oakland Cancer Society Thrift Store http://discoveryshop-oakland.org

Daphne Muse is a writer, social commentator and consultant who blogs for the Alameda County Office of Education.  You also can read her blog at www.daphnemuse.blogspot.com.

Quality Education:  An Inalienable Right

By Daphne Muse

Quality education should be an inalienable right, whether it’s grounded and sourced in Afro-centrism, dual immersion or common core standards.  Educator and activist Dr. Robert (Bob) Moses and his contributing editors address this deftly in Quality Education as a Constitutional Right (Beacon Press, 2010).  Educating the whole child to become the fully realized adult, complete with solid skills and a mind primed to engage, is a goal that I imagine we all want to carry in our hearts and practice as educators.  But we clearly recognize how daunting this is to deliver especially to our black and brown students, as the school to prison pipeline bursts at the seams and the data related to dropout rate grows more disparaging. 

Despite the disparaging data young people of color demonstrated just how smart they are, as a whole new generation was empowered to go to the polls. Overall voters 18-29 made up 19 percent of the electorate.  Teachers had a lot to do with them making and living this history.   Putting what is possible up front and center can keep some of them out of the pipeline and on course to realize greater goals.  I think all too often we forget that what we do in our classrooms does not always translate immediately, especially given the propensity to measure achievement almost exclusively through testing and not other more creative and reflective paradigms of performance.  Even through oral histories (though not empirical) or surveys, it would be interesting to see what students feel they learned in school.  Asking alums of Alameda County schools to post stories at the website about how their education translated into their future, might be one way of culling information and data as tools for measurement.

          I never thought geometry would play a relevant role in my life, until one day about twenty-five years ago I had to position a chair through a door.  I was about to take the door off the hinges, when I heard the voice of Ms. Lattimore, my ninth grade Geometry teacher, say spatial relations Muse, spatial relations.  I positioned the chair understanding that I was working to move a non-rectangular object through an opening that was a rectangle and did not have to remove the door from its hinges.  In that moment, I realized that what we learn manifests across time, experiences and circumstances.  Each new set of skills and learning builds upon the pedagogy laid down beforehand. 

Across the continuum, there are multiple paradigms and practices for ensuring that all our children and young people are well educated and empowered.  Education really is not a one size fits all practice and we must look at how educators in other regions of the country and around the world are implementing best practices and claiming success.   It is clear that our young people recognize the fact that while many of them may live and work in their respective neighborhoods for the rest of their lives, as a result of the breadth and capacities of technology, they are crossing “boarders” economically, culturally and politically.  That crossover allows them to venture into global metropolises and villages thousands of miles away from their neighborhoods.  It is imperative that we educate them accordingly and keep our pulse on the ways in which certain learning modalities excite and inform them.  There is no singular lens or paradigm for elevating their lives and preparing them for the workforce and to become vitally engaged participants in this larger, increasingly innovative global, society. 

We cannot continue practices that contribute to the genocide of black males or any other group.  Our best practices must be even more dynamic, inclusive and innovative to grow the minds, creativity and leadership of future generations.  You may be training the doctor who will develop a cure for cancer, Nobel Prize-winning author, Alameda County teacher of the year or future president of the United States.

Daphne Muse is a writer, social commentator and consultant who blogs for the Alameda County Office of Education.  You also can read her blogs at www.daphnemuse.blogspot.com.  She can be reached at msmusewriter@gmail.com.