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Not Your Normal Valentine’s Day Message! For sure, we have been here before. When people were taken out of their own history, and instead they became a storyline of savage-led brutal slavery. When anti-Christians practiced their false Christianity in cruel … Continue reading
Yes indeed, things do look pretty bad! Things look bad, as they should, or would you steal fire from the making of steel? We are not presently being unmade as a nation; instead, we are being made into something greater, … Continue reading
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The Anti-Good Samaritan Law. “A (California) Bay Area city voted Tuesday to criminalize “aiding” or “abetting” homeless camps, an apparent first-of-its-kind measure that could make it harder for unhoused people to receive food, medical care and other services.” —Washington Post, … Continue reading
BiBi Working Hard to Restart a War…with Anybody (Iran will do fine)!
So much is done in
undoing humanity—
crude insanity.
So little is done
to shun self-inflicted pain—
we need a new same.
So much little are
relationships that hurt me
and help you hurt you.
It was just a matter of finding a way to cancel the peace deal. A little continued bombing here, some blocking food and aid assistance there. An international body should have facilitated the “peace deal.” Hamas, wrongly, never understood the rules of the game. It was never about eliminating them, which is why Hamas, Iran, et al, keep making bad tactical decisions. Their positions are based on a wrong assumption that the “West” makes a distinction between ordinary people of color and political actors of color; there are no civilian casualties in Gaza because that would suggest that the world recognizes the residents of Gaza as fully human citizens innately endowed with access to human rights recognition, which is why removing the people of Gaza is spoken of in such casual terms by the POTUS, even though “ethnic cleansing” is designated as a crime against humanity by every international body and court system.
The world held hostage
to a swirl of bad song acts,
written by playwrongs.
The world as stand-ins
for walk-ins of bad actors—
who owns our stories?
The Oscar’s “controversy,” the Superbowl, the Grammys, MLB/NFL/NBA “mega” or minor trades. The well-staged distractions of mass commercialization. And in my Morpheus voice (see, I had to use a popular movie!): All of this manufactured and marketed energy is designed to turn you into a fan girl/boy who, and this is the point, will spend a great deal of (time) money immersed in the off-screen, off-field, off-court, off-stage drama lives of invented fictional characters while leaving your own living and breathing creative life dead and dormant.
We’re celebrity,
in our creativity—
billions of stars shine.
You love unreal
people while real people
you love go unloved.
The real art, is
doing works-of-love for it’s
own rewarding heart.
The day after “The Big Game”
After fun dreams crash,
none of us working class is
what like us should be.
Us need be at war,
resisting the stealing of
souls from sublime paths.
Old men could share things
but who listens to mirrors,
not unseen beings.
As I listen to Coltrane’s rendition of “I’m Old Fashioned,” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMqOA7qN9B4). I realize politically that’s presently who and what I am. That’s because I don’t get this new sense of forgetting and forgiveness of evil behaviors (Democratic politicians: “I’ll work with Beelzebub on the things we agree on” —really, is that where we are now?). Yes, ultimately, “we gonna be alright,” but I’m still at war, or how do we ever get all ourselves right, get all of our internal selves right, get America right? Especially since the 2024 elective and collective confederacy are anti-DEI riding hard, while hiding hard their true bigotry under normalized hoods of racist rationalizations. My prime “beef” will never be with a fellow sunson (or sundaughter), who is simply trying to survive the plantation, even if they resists Harriet’s call to escape; I just don’t want them to tell massa we be leavin, even after we bin long gone.
The enemy of
peace is nothing like us, for
he’s called to sow grief.
Going to Rutgers today and worrying about all those many outstanding students who, like me, were blessed with parents who said, “Let’s move away from the places we hold dear, from the faces who show care when they see us walking down roads of remembering every turn. Let’s try something frighteningly new; let’s give our kids a chance to win in a world that has marked them for loss.” Will ICE show up on campus today and freeze their dreams to death?
The term “alien” used
to create an “other than”
unseen, unpeople.
“They’re from outer spaces
stealing places, the faces
of grand replacement!”
What if they’re earthlings,
with normal right yearnings and
yearlings seeking flight.
“The Big Game”
This writing exercise begins on a quiet Sunday evening, February 9, 2025, at 9:PM with my observation of the “big game,” the ‘big game’ being the lopsided scoring one that has been played since inauguration day between the DNC JV-Fecklers and the GOP Pro-Brobigots. Sadly, so far, the box score stats are not even close (signing onto the faux Laken Riley Act early in the 1st quarter was not a promising sign). As a former high school principal, I remember a rule many school districts follow. This rule is primarily in place to protect the emotional well-being of young people. After all, the purpose of varsity sports is to foster character development, physical fitness, leadership skills, and teamwork and not serve as a source of despair and participation discouragement. Therefore, in any junior varsity or varsity sports competition, if one team significantly “runs up the score” to the point where the other team has no chance of coming back, the game is mercifully ended. The high-scoring team is declared the official winner, even if the game has not reached its scheduled conclusion in terms of innings, quarters/periods, or time on the clock. The principal part of me wants to call an end to this ugly political mismatched game our nation is suffering from and then, just award the GOP Pro-Brobigots the “National Hegemony” championship trophy. But the principled part of me says,
Facts—many are, will
suffer, die for DEI lies
and cold callous acts.
Too many can’t feel
legal protection, love and
simple compassion.
Many othered by
legislation, dismissed and
targeted by class.
But I won’t sit tight
watching the left out least lose
all their human rights.
And the game isn’t quite
over as long as there are
brave bold acts in play.
(I guess, one question:
will black folks still save the day?
methinks that’s a yes!)
Some kinships are built
to carry love even in
a sea of hatred.
What part of the tragic history of Germany in the 1930s and 1940s did we not learn in high school?: The collectiveness and interconnectedness of suffering
Recently, I have read and listened to many sad testimonies in the news that begin with phrases like, “But I had no idea that…” or “Wait, I thought they meant ‘them,’ and not ‘me.'” And as the old church folks would say, “If you stop your car to pick up a hitchhiking satan, know that he is not content to stay in the passenger seat; no, he wants to get behind the steering wheel!” So, what lessons from the tragic history of Germany in the 1930s and 1940s did we miss in world history class?
Ultimately, the guilty will always suffer for their evil acts. No matter how many and how fast Adolph Hitler penned executive orders, eventually he was defeated. However, in the meantime (and later into the future), the innocent will suffer horribly due to the actions of the guilty. Moreover, the innocent will also suffer from their own inactions, as sometimes, not taking a positive stand can lead to short and long-term suffering. It always starts out with “them,” and not me being the target, until it’s my turn to be the target!
Two remarkable people have provided me with insight into our current national pain. Pauline Johnson often said, “The good will suffer with the bad.” A former superintendent-mentor taught me that: “Every principal gets the union (UFT) chapter leader they deserve!”
I did not fully understand the former concept until I got older and experienced more of life. I didn’t completely grasp the latter until I became a superintendent and faced challenges from principals who expected me to clean up the messes caused by their poor people-management decisions. These experiences have made me acutely aware of the heavy responsibility that individual decision-making particularly for school leaders—and actions that pretend to be (and are never) neutral carry in shaping critical outcomes. We are what we decide to be as a person or nation, not what we pretend to be.
I recalled my visit aboard an active-duty Navy nuclear submarine, where the captain explained that the personnel screening process is intensely evaluative. This is because one single incompetent act could lead to the deaths of the entire crew and the loss of both the nuclear weapons and the nuclear reactor powering the submarine, which could have catastrophic environmental consequences. The Navy does not lower its standards to assign just any warm body; instead, it selects personnel who best meet the rigorous requirements.
Now, let’s raise our hands if you prefer an average class size of thirty-four students in public elementary, middle, or high schools rather than a size of twenty-four. Great, it seems no one raised their hands. This highlights the issue we are facing.
The main problem is that educational interventions, such as the current trend of “reducing class sizes,” do not effectively challenge the entrenched bureaucratic systems that prioritize adult employment needs over student learning outcomes. As a result, these initiatives tend to produce only minimal improvements in academic performance. And unfortunately, the most significant negative impact of these “appealing but ineffective” initiatives is felt by our most politically disenfranchised and academically challenged students.
But because the ‘reducing class size movement’ is a noncontroversial win for elected officials and can actually significantly improve student learning outcomes for financially and politically entitled schools and districts, where high expectations and quality teaching and learning environments already exist, it’s one of the preferred paths of least resistance when the topic of ‘school improvement’ comes up.
One of the games of oppressive domination is to convince the dominated and oppressed that they are the authors of their own wretched existence, active directors in their self-produced living hell narrative play. Therefore, the teaching of Black history is to blame, Black neighborhoods are to blame, Black parents are to blame, and ultimately, Black students themselves are the cause of their own missing and inadequate education.
Highly valued school-building leaders, especially in academically successful Title-I schools, take considerable risks to establish a high-quality teaching and learning environment. They advocate passionately for their students to receive not only high levels of diversified quality education but also a substantial amount of it. These school leaders foster a teaching staff that holds both themselves and their students to high standards of instructional and learning practices, driven by a strong belief in their capabilities and high expectations for success.
As a principal, I have observed that placing highly effective teachers in classrooms, whether with 34 students or 24, consistently leads to significant academic progress for the students. Ultimately, the quality of teaching and learning is what truly matters most!
So, go ahead and lower the graduation standards and reduce the average class sizes all you want. Still, one day, Black parents are going to realize that they are being ‘latest school improvement gimmick’ played, and their children’s educational futures are playing out in the paying out of a lot of money to a lot of adults who pretend that they are serious about educating all children.
For those of us who have successfully completed our work in a profession we love, Jimmy Carter showed us that we can find peace and joy in serving others through compassionate second-act works.
Keep creating art, keep recreating yourself…
“Ask him about “The Godfather” and he’ll tell you how Paramount Pictures fought him all the way. They didn’t want Marlon Brando or Pacino. They didn’t want it to be a period movie because it cost too much. Then it was a massive hit, and they wanted another one. “They said, basically, ‘Francis, you’ve made Coca-Cola. You’re gonna stop making colas?’” —“I think grief is the price we pay for love. It’s worth it.”
