NO 1 ISSUE 30
BRINGING YOU ENLIGHTENING, EDUCATIONAL, EMPOWERING, INSPIRING, THOUGHT-PROVOKING INFORMATION
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT...
Present-day lynch mobs I want Black youth to hear this message, because police authorities are the same today as they were during slavery. In fact, this is how policing began. Police Hon. Min. Louis Farrakhan were formed to catch runaway slaves, bring them back to their masters and make examples of them to throw fear into other slaves. It’s the same today. Police authorities are trained to kill, as well as to protect. But where Black people are concerned, police legitimize their mob attacks under the name of “back up.” Police back up is often no different than the lynch mobs 100 years ago. The killing of our people, shooting them with many bullets when one would have done the job. And then, that deliberative body which is to discuss the brutal murder of our people by looking into the facts, comes away calling it justifiable homicide. In Chicago recently, a young, Black Brother was shot down by the police and the parents are aggrieved. The police said the young Brother was running and he had something in his hands, but the witnesses will tell you, “He didn’t have anything in his hands; he was just shot down.” And the body of persons in a deliberative process to determine the facts that is supposed to address this, just says, “Well, we’re looking into it.” But when they look into it, the verdict comes back as “Another dead Negro—justifiable homicide.” *** Injustice, as I said in the Holy Day of Atonement speech from Atlanta on Oct. 16, brings its natural response no matter how long it takes. Injustice has to be answered by justice, and justice demands that what a man sows, he must eventually reap. Jesus said it well—Did he say those who live by the sword will die by marches? He didn’t say that. Did he say those who live by the sword will die by massive protest?; that those who live by the sword will die by prayers in front of public buildings and kneeling and begging and pleading? Did he say that? What did he say? Jesus said those who kill by the sword will die by the very sword that they used to kill others. Is there sacredness and value to human life? Listen to me carefully, young Brothers and Sisters. Is there only sacredness and value to White life, and not Brown, Red and Black life? Is there value to a dog in this society, and yet no value on the life of a human being such that people can go to jail for mistreating a dog, and the same person who kills a Black youth can go home to dinner with his children with no feeling of having done something wrong, because in his own heart and mind, he did society a favor by killing another Black person? What do you think God has to say about this? [Editor’s note: With the attacks and wholesale killings of primarily Black, Red and Brown youth increasing in the United States, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan delivered a message of guidance and instruction to youth in cities across America on Sunday, October 28, 2007 via live webcast from Mosque Maryam in Chicago, Illinois. This is an excerpt of that address.
PAGE 4
!
APRIL 6, 2012
School suspension policy in Chicago brutal, unfair By Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. I Messenger
Trayvon Martin was shot to death in Sanford, Fla. He was there visiting his father while suspended from school. He was suspended last month after school officials claimed to have found marijuana “residue” in his book bag. No actual contraband was found; no arrest or citations were issued by police. When news of the suspension was leaked, Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon’s mother, was understandably outraged. “They killed my son,” she said, “and now they are trying to kill his reputation.” But in part because the man who killed Trayvon remains uncharged and at large, the leak served mostly to shine a glaring spotlight on the racially skewed suspension policies in our public schools. Early last month, the U.S. Department of Education released a report on school equity issues that revealed that minority students face “much harsher discipline” than whites in our public schools. African Americans were more than 3 1/2 times more likely to be suspended or expelled than white students. More than 70 percent of students arrested or handed over to law enforcement in school were black or Hispanic. Chicago’s schools rank among the worst in racial discrepancy. AfricanAmerican students represented 42 percent of the Chicago Public School enrollment in 2009-10, but 76 percent of students receiving at least one outof-school suspension that year. African-American students were five times as likely to be suspended as their white classmates. Students from Voices of Youth in Chicago Education calculated that students lost a stunning 306,731 days of school last year due to out-of-school suspensions. VOYCE made the common sense conclusion: Public schools are too quick to suspend, particularly for nonviolent incidents, and too seldom talk out problems with students.
“We need a discipline code that works for all students, not one that sends black and Latino students a path to prison,” said Victor Alquicera, a Roosevelt High School student. (The protests have had an effect, with expulsion rate dropping 43 percent compared to last year, according to school officials.) Alquicera has it right: five- and 10-day suspensions are brutal punishments. They put kids on the street. They put them behind in class work. They label them for trouble. There is a range of positive interventions that could be done — including personal meetings, restorative justice, classroom management and a range of in-school discipline. The vast bulk of the suspensions are for disruptive, nonviolent behavior. These are kids in need of discipline, not in need of suspension. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan admitted he was “troubled” by the data.
“The undeniable truth is that the everyday education experience for many students of color violates the principle of equity at the heart of the American promise,” he said. “It is our collective duty to change that.” We have moved to a multiracial society, but we have not moved beyond disparate treatment. It is time to revisit the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights; it has been noticeably absent in this crisis in Sanford. In the great legacy of Theodore Hesburgh and Mary Frances Berry, I would appeal to the president to take this opportunity to reconstruct and revitalize the commission and charge it once more with investigating discriminatory practices, rousing public concern and forcing the pace of reform. The effort to diminish Trayvon Martin’s reputation succeeds only in raising questions about whether young African-American men can gain equal protection under the law.
“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. !
!
IMESSENGER