Wednesday, June 30, 2010

My New school - Opens in the fall

2nd Street El Stop





















In case you were wondering where you were.

The Thunderbolt




I'm getting old because I remember this...

6 Degrees of William Lodge

I always thought the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon game to be stupid. First, 7 degrees is the maximum separation, I believe, between any two people on the planet. Second, if you read the post below you'll have seen that I am only two degrees from Nelson Mandela.

I'm also probably 6 degrees from Kevin Bacon myself.

Glass sculpture at the National Liberty Museum

This place was important to me.


















Why would I put a picture of a bench here? Why is it important? This was the place where i committed myself to being a teacher. Actually, this is where I got to decide teaching is what I wanted to do.

I was going to switch majors, and get a different masters degree. I needed a job, so I went to the National Liberty Museum to try to get a job as a docent.

There I met an amazing woman. She was director of education for the museum. Previously, she had worked for Nelson Mandela. We sat on this bench and talked.

I talked about students I had known while working in schools as a sub and literacy aide. Kids I had known as a "stay at home mom." Kids I had known while student teaching. And she told me I was only feeling nervous, and she told me that not only could i become a teacher, I had to become a teacher.

She saw me as better than I saw myself. And she said she would not hire me, because I had to go into the schools and teach.

It meant a lot to me and it's something I never forgot.

Self Portrait On The El Platform

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Being raised fundamentalist

Funny - but for the second time this week I had to haul out some old bible knowledge that I gained in dear old Vacation Bible School!

It has me thinking about religion and what it means to me and what it means to the world. More later but:

It is weird to have been raised hard core Christian and now find myself semi agnostic liberal in the city.

Muslims and freedom of speech.

I am not here to defend Islam. It needs no defense from me. The fundamentalists who blow up buildings are no more a representation of Islam than Fred Phelps and the Westboro baptist Church are Christianity. I want to address the reaction by Muslims to disrespect to the Prophet Muhammad.

Really - if you depict the Prophet, you will upset Muslims. The only purpose for a "Draw Muhammad Day" on facebook is to piss off Muslims. Period.

Muslims do not want to see images of the prophet. And they are attacked for this. I can understand the attacks from people on the left, who would burn a flag and break a cross just as easily. It's consistent. What I don't get it people who think this is wrong - and are on the right.

They attack Islam for wanting to protect the prophet. This is wrong - what about free speech? My answer is simple - if you are ok with depicting the Prophet, then I can burn a flag.

It's that simple. If upsetting Millions of Muslims matters not, then I can burn flags. After all, I am expressing myself. Or maybe I will dress a crucifix in a clown costume. How about that? Somehow I think the Repuglican'ts will not be ok with free expression when it is directed at them. Somehow I think that they will be angry - and I might get death threats. All because I did something that I knew, going in, would upset Americans.

If you set out to upset people, why be surprised if you succeed? If we in the west try harder to upset Muslims than we do to understand them, we end up convinced "They hate us for our freedom" and raging mad the next time someone overseas dares to burn a flag. I mean - how dare they?

Near the Huntingdon El stop





















These are the kids of details that can be seen on buildings - if you care to look. I love the "established 1904 erected 1909" thing. There's a story there.

It was a bank, I think.

The John W. Brown









Waiting for a King

Not that kind of King. I mean another reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr.

As most of you know, I teach African American history. When my students come into the room, there are a few bits of knowledge I can be sure they bring in the room with them. They know about slavery - that it existed. They have heard of Frederick Douglass, Booker T Washington, Madam C.J. Walker (maybe you haven't but they have) and they know a lot about Rosa Parks and King.

I don't spend weeks on King and Parks. One reason is that they know a fair amount about both of these people already. the other reason is that to focus on King and Parks buys into the myth. What myth? Let me tell you.

The same myth that says, regarding slavery, "Those poor slaves, they got whupped n whupped then Lincoln freed them." Or, if someone is enlightened, they will think about the rare special person that was Harriet Tubman, who led the poor slaves to freedom. Better, yes, but thousands made it north without Tubman.

Harriet Tubman was special and heroic, let there be no doubt about that. However, she was not unique. Many people fought slavery in many ways. And if you think Tubman was unique, you will only see Tubman, and not the thousands of others who fought for their freedom.

What does this have to do with King? Many look at the modern civil rights era and sum it up this way. "Rosa stood up by sitting down, and Martin marched so Obama could run." And it is true. But it is an incomplete story.

It leaves out A. Phillip Randolph, E.D. Nixon, Thurgood Marshall, Ida B. Wells Barnett, Jackie Robinson, Fannie Lou Hamer and hundreds of thousands more. It leaves you thinking that Parks was the first person ever to be arrested for sitting in the wrong spot when Sojourner Truth, Homer Plessey, Ida B. Wells Barnett and Jackie Robinson were all arrested for the same thing.

And it leaves you thinking there was no African American leader before King. It leaves you thinking that he organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott, when E.D. Nixon and others did. It leaves you thinking that King organized the Birmingham campaign when Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth did. It leaves you not knowing that A. Phillip Randolph and Baynard Rustin were deeply involved in planning the 1963 march on Washington.

If all you know is King, then you see King as an aberration and not as one of many people fighting racism and Jim Crow. He is unique, and there will never be another like him.

Maybe. King was an amazingly talented brave man who accomplished much in a life that was too short. However, it is simply wrong to think of him as the only African American fighting for rights. There were millions of them. Millions.

King was a great leader but he was not the only one. People like Medger Evers died fighting for rights for African Americans. A. Philip Randolph and Thurgood Marshall helped get rights for African Americans.

Why say this? Why make the point that King, although special, was not unique? Simple - If you think King was indispensable, you will wait for another King to fix the problems we are facing. You will think what can I do? I am not a King! I can only do what I can do!

King stood on a platform built by others and spoke of a dream he had, and the mountaintop he stood on. he reached higher because millions were below him, holding him up.

We wait for another King because we are told that what is needed is another King. King did not wait for a new Douglass or Randolph, he did what he could do and he won many victories. Little victories add up to major change.

Do not wait for King. Do what you have to do today to make things better and know that in the end you will have made a difference.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010