Subject: Dialo Shooting
Author: Enid Lee
Date: 3/2/2000 7:58 pm PDT |
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For a moment, before the verdict came down,I was lulled into thinking that justice would be done. I was of course forgetting the history of injustice that Africans have faced in this country for centuries. How do we turn Black rage into liberation for our people? What has been the response to the verdict where you live? |
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Subject: RE: Diallo Shooting
Author: Enid Lee
Date: 3/2/2000 8:10 pm PDT |
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Enid Lee wrote:
-------------------------------
For a moment, before the verdict came down,I was lulled into thinking that justice would be done. I was of course forgetting the history of injustice that Africans have faced in this country for centuries. How do we turn Black rage into liberation for our people? What has been the response to the verdict where you live?
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Subject: RE: Dialo Shooting
Author: Deborah Gordon
Date: 5/3/2001 8:04 am PDT |
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Enid - How fantastic to see that you have your website up
and running. The last time I tried to find you it was not
yet posted.
I did not get to read the first part of the dialogue but I
too, am not surprised about injustices to Africans in the
Americas. Did you see the L. A. times article on 4/30 about
the negative view 1/3 of the people polled still have about
chinese-americans? Log on to latimes.com for another wakeup
call.
Enid, please send me the phone number to order "Beyond Heroes and Holidays." I showed it to a group of mentor
teachers and one of them took it!!! I can't seem to get
a hold of anyone who knows the appropriate order phone #.
Thanks, deborah gordon, intergroup office adviser - now
stranded in district c where I can't even get a good phone
number to order vital materials!!! |
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Subject: Proposition 21
Author: Enid Lee
Date: 3/6/2000 4:51 am PDT |
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Vote no on Prop21 .If passed it will result in 14 yr olds being tried in adult court. Translate that into the continued African genocide and many many African American and Latino youth will loose any opportunity they might have had to build useful lives |
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Subject: RE: Proposition 21
Author: Gigi Cronin
Date: 3/15/2000 9:22 pm PDT |
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I was very disappointed in the election results last week especially in the overwhelming support for Propostion 21. I must admit that I was naive to think that many voters were against it also for I actually thought it would be defeated. I am very proud of the youth who marched and rallied during the Week of Rage in opposition to this unjust proposition that will target youth of color. My hope for a socially conscious society rests on us and the future - our youth. |
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Subject: RE: Proposition 21
Author: Enid Lee
Date: 3/16/2000 10:16 am PDT |
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Yes, Gigi, I was disappointed too, but I am glad to see that the Week of Rage has continued.It seems as thought the organizers anticipated that continued action would be required and so the demonstrators have continued the protest. Another action would be to publicize the names of the major corporations who funded this proposition and withold our business from them and also let young people know who wants to see them go down. We must do everything we can to raise consciousness. Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now had a good program in which they named some of the main sponsors of the proposition.The work of the organizers against this proposition exemplify much needed organized resistance.
The website address for Pacifica Radio is http://www.pacifica.org.Check it out! |
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Subject: The War Continues
Author: Enid Lee
Date: 3/22/2000 7:13 am PDT |
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Can you imagine that any other group of people would be subject to such attacks with such silence ? Do you know who Patrick Dorismond is ? He is the 4th unarmed Black man to be shot to death by the New York Police Department in 13 months . How many will be added to the list? How much longer will we act as thought this is some accident.? It is not. We need to name this for what it is. A war against BLack People. The least we can do is say that we are under attack. |
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Subject: Tardy Students Arrested by Police
Author: Enid Lee
Date: 3/30/2000 1:57 pm PDT |
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Have you hear the latest ? Police arrested and charged 4 African American girls in a High School in Queen's New York.
One girl was charged with "having an attitude ", another with "attacking the police "after she had been summoned over to the police car as she rushed to school to make her class on time. There can be no doubt that all of this is part of the seamless web of police and state brutality to eliminate African people.The Diallo shooting, the Furgeson shooting, the Dorisman shooting. At least let us stop pretending that it isn't happening. The pattern is clear |
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Subject: Quiz of the Week -Zimbabwe
Author: Enid Lee
Date: 4/29/2000 7:32 am PDT |
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When thinking about the news from Zimbabwe ,ask yourself,
"Who is a farmer ? " A White person who has stolen the land of Black people.
"Who is a squatter? " A squatter is an Black African who is trying to get his peoples'land back.
Think about it.
A definition from Toronto, Canada. |
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Subject: Brazen Disregard For Blacks in Philly
Author: Enid Lee
Date: 7/19/2000 7:20 pm PDT |
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Two days after police brutally beat a Black man in Philadelphia and that beating was caught on videtape, a poice man was selling tee-shirts for $10.00 per piece depictig the beating with the words"Welcome America " on the shirt.
What is it that makes up such expendable citizens? Is it that we can be counted on to forgive and forget or is it that as a people we do not know how urgent and serious our situation is?. Help change this by spreasing the word about this and other atrocities like this. |
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Subject: Election Fiasco. |
Author: Enid Lee
Date: 12/1/2000 6:29 pm PDT |
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Can you imagine the words that would be floating around if the election fiasco that we are witnessing had taken place in parts of the world governed by people with dark skin? There would be no end to the newscasts about the incompetent,corrupt and underdeveloped nature of these people. I hope that the next time the United States feels the urge to go abroad to monitor elections that it will restratin itself or that the countries to be observed will firmly disinvite this Big Brother who really needs to stay home and clean its own house . |
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Subject: QUIZ OF THE WEEK- VOTES DO THEY COUNT ? |
Author: enid lee
Date: 12/30/2000 6:14 am PDT |
What are three of the ways in which African Americans were robbed of their democratic right to express their politacl will through the vote ?
If you vist this site and read this question, please leave your response and let us begin a dialogue on racism and ways to combat it. |
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Subject: War Isn't A Game After All - by Naomi Klein |
Author: Enid Lee
Date: 9/16/2001 10:01 am PDT |
Subject: War Isn't A Game After All - Naomi Klein
The Globe & Mail September 14, 2001
War Isn't A Game After All
by Naomi Klein
Now is the time in the game of war when we dehumanize our enemies. They are incomprehensible, their acts unimaginable, their motivation senseless. They are "madmen," their states are "rogue." Now is not the time for understanding just better intelligence.
These are the rules of the war game.
But war is not a game. It is real lives ripped in half; it is lost sons, daughters, mothers and fathers. Perhaps Sept. 11, 2001, will mark the end of the shameful era of the video-game war.
Watching the coverage this week was a stark contrast to the last time I sat glued to a television set watching a real-time war on CNN. The Space Invader battlefield of the Persian Gulf war had almost nothing in common with the destruction of Manhattan. Back then, we saw only sterile bomb's-eye views of concrete targets -- there, and then gone. Who was in those abstract polygons? We never found out.
Since the gulf war, U.S. foreign policy has been based on a single brutal fiction: that the U.S. military can intervene in conflicts around the world in Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan -- without suffering any U.S. casualties.
This is a country that believed in the ultimate oxymoron: a safe war. The safe-war logic is, of course, based on the technological ability to
wage a war exclusively from the air. But it also relies on the deep conviction that no one would dare mess with the U.S. -- the one remaining superpower on its own soil.
This conviction allowed Americans to remain blithely unaffected by even uninterested in -- international conflicts in which they are key protagonists. Americans don't get daily coverage on CNN of the ongoing bombings in Iraq, nor are they treated to human-interest stories on the devastating effects of economic sanctions on that country's children.
After the 1998 bombing of a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan (mistaken for a chemical weapons facility), there weren't too many follow-up reports about what the loss of vaccine manufacturing did to disease prevention in the region.
And when NATO bombed civilian targets in Yugoslavia -- markets,
hospitals refugee convoys, passenger trains, and a TV station -- NBC didn't do streeter" interviews with survivors about how shocked they were by the indiscriminate destruction.
The United States is expert in the art of sanitizing and dehumanizing acts of war committed elsewhere. No wonder Tuesday's attacks seemed to many Americans to have come less from another country than another planet. The events were reported not so much by journalists as by the new breed of brand-name celebrity anchors who have made countless cameos in Time Warner movies about apocalyptic terrorist attacks on the United States -- now,incongruously reporting the real thing.
The United States is a country that believed itself not just at peace but war-proof, a self-perception that would come as quite a surprise to most Iraqis, Palestinians and Colombians. Like an amnesiac, the U.S. has awakened in the middle of a war, only to find out it has been going on for years.
Did the United States deserve to be attacked? Of course not. But there's a different question that must be asked: Did U.S. foreign policy create the conditions in which such twisted logic could flourish, a war not so much on U.S. imperialism but on perceived U.S. imperviousness?
The era of the video-game war in which the U.S. is at the controls has produced a blinding rage in many parts of the world, a rage at the persistent asymmetry of suffering. This is the context in which twisted revenge-seekers make no other demand than that U.S. citizens share their pain.
A blinking message is up on our collective video-game console: game over. |
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Subject: MISLEADING IMAGES ? |
Author: enid lee
Date: 9/19/2001 6:30 am PDT |
>>>CNN USING 1991 FOOTAGE of celebrating Palistinians
>>>to manipulate public opinion.
>>>
>>>Márcio A. V. Carvalho
>>>State University of Campinas - Brazil
>>>
>>>All around the world we are subjected to 3 or
>>>4 huge news distributors, and one of them - as
>>>you well know - is CNN.
>>>
>>>Very well, I guess all of you have been seeing (just
>>>as I've been) images from this company, CNN.
>>>
>>>In particular, one set of images called :
>>>
>>>The Palestinians celebrating the US bombing, out on
>>>the streets, eating some cake and making
>>>funny faces for the camera.
>>>
>>>Well, THOSE IMAGES WERE SHOT BACK IN 1991!!!
>>>
>>>Those are images of Palestinians celebrating the
>>>invasion of Kuwait!
>>>
>>>It's simply unacceptable that a super-power of
>>>cummunications such as CNN uses images
>>>which do not correspond to present reality in
>>>talking about so serious an issue, to manipulate
>>>public opinion.
>>>
>>>A teacher of mine, here in Brazil, has
>>>videotapes recorded in 1991, with
>>>the very same images; he's been sending emails
>>>to CNN, Globo (the major TV network in Brazil)
>>>and newspapers, denouncing what I myself
>>>classify as a crime against the public opinion. If
>>>anyone of you has access to this
>>>kind of files, search for it.
>>>
>>>In the meantime, I'll try to 'put my hands' on a
>>>copy of this tape.
>>>
>>>But now, think for a moment about the impact of
>>>such images.
>>>
>>>People are hurt, emotionally fragile, and this
>>>kind broadcast has a very high
>>>possibility of causing waves of anger and rage
>>>against Palestinians.
>>>
>>>
>>>It's simply irresponsible to show images such
>>>as those.
>>>
>>>Finally, I'd like to say that we all regret and
>>>condemn all that has happened in the last days;
>>>
>>>There is a point here.
>>>
>>>I really don't want to be misunderstood here, but the
>>>truth is that the US government had
>>>shown no respect for other countries or cultures in the
>>>last decades.
>>>
>>>In the 60s and 70s they helped lots of military coups
>>>throughout the world (including Brazil in 64).
>>>
>>>Later, with Reagan and Bush Father,
>>>the Washington Consensus have been demolishing the
>>>bases of our economies, making us
>>>more and more dependant (and, many of us,
>>>preoccupied with this situation).
>>>
>>>The present US President quickly made things
>>>worse:
>>>
>>>Kioto Protocol,
>>>Star Wars,
>>>Colombia Plan,
>>>The exchange of rain
>>>forest for pieces of external debt,
>>>Tha abandonment of the position of third
>>>party in negotiations between IRA and England,
>>>And between Palestinians
>>>and Israel.
>>>
>>>All these mistakes in US foreign policies made
>>>the US more hatreful than before, and,
>>>of course, more vulnerable.
>>>
>>>I'm NOT justifying the terrorist
>>>actions that took place in the US,
>>>but it seems to me that, if the US leaders
>>>had come along another path of thoughts and actions,
>>>the US would not be suffering what they are
>>>now.
>>>
>>>Márcio A. V. Carvalho
>>>State University of Campinas - Brazil
>>>
>
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Subject: who is misleading who? |
Author: enid lee
Date: 9/19/2001 7:46 am PDT |
14 September 2001
Rumour alert: Various rumours circulating on the Internet -- alleging that the Reuters footage depicting Palestinians celebrating in the wake of the attacks in the U.S. was in fact footage from a different event -- are false. Still images, such as the Associated Press image above, were additionally shot by photographers from a variety of wire service agencies.
Reuters' International Editor, Anthony Williams, confirmed to The Electronic Intifada that "This material was shot on Tuesday. The suggestion that it was old is false." Mike Hanna, Jerusalem bureau chief of CNN, the media organisation named in many versions of the rumour, told us that, "I can unequivocally state that the footage shown on CNN of a small group of Palestinians "celebrating" was shot by a Reuters crew in East Jerusalem on Tuesday. The allegation that it was shot at any other time is contemptible."
A separate issue, The Electronic Intifada's statement about the media's misuse of these images, can be found here: The Palestinian people, as a whole, portrayed as supportive of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Right, one million Palestinian school children observed a minute's silence for the victims of the attacks in New York and Washington DC. Vigils continue throughout today.
If The Electronic Intifada was to post every message of condolence to Americans and condemnation of the attack and perpetrators made by Palestinian organisations and institutions in the last two days, we would be doing nothing else for the rest of the month. The U.S. Consulate in East Jerusalem reported that it had received a foot-thick pile of condolence faxes from Palestinian organisations. |
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Subject: the larger picture |
Author: enid lee
Date: 9/19/2001 8:02 am PDT |
A WORLD OUT OF TOUCH WITH ITSELF: WHERE THE VIOLENCE COMES FROM
by Rabbi Michael Lerner, Editor of TIKKUN Magazine
There is never any justification for acts of terror against innocent
civilians - it is the quintessential act of dehumanization and not
recognizing the sanctity of others, and a visible symbol of a world
increasingly irrational and out of control.
It's understandable why many of us, after grieving and consoling the
mourners, will feel anger. Demagogues will try to direct that anger at
various "target groups" (Muslims are in particular danger, though Yasir
Arafat and other Islamic leaders have unequivocally denounced these
terrorist acts). The militarists will use this as a moment to call for
increased defense spending at the expense of the needy. The right wing may
even seek to limit civil liberties, end restraints on spying, and move us
toward a militarized society.
President Bush will feel pressure to look "decisive" and take "strong"
action - phrases that can be manipulated toward irrational responses to an
irrational attack.
To counter that potential manipulation of our fear and anger for narrow
political ends, a well-meaning media will instead try to narrow our focus
solely on the task of finding and punishing the perpetrators. These
people, of course, should be caught and punished.
But in some ways this exclusive focus allows us to avoid dealing with the
underlying issues. When violence becomes so prevalent throughout the
planet, it's too easy to simply talk of "deranged minds." We need to ask
ourselves, "What is it in the way that we are living, organizing our societies, and
treating each other that makes violence seem plausible to so many people?"
We in the spiritual world will see this as a growing global incapacity to
recognize the spirit of God in each other - what we call the sanctity of
each human being. But even if you reject religious language, you can see
that the willingness of people to hurt each other to advance their own
interests has become a global problem, and it's only the dramatic level of
this particular attack that distinguishes it from the violence and
insensitivity to each other that is part of our daily lives.
We may tell ourselves that the current violence has "nothing to do" with
the way that we've learned to close our ears when told that one out of every
three people on this planet does not have enough food, and that one
billion are literally starving. We may reassure ourselves that the hoarding of the
world's resources by the richest society in world history, and our frantic
attempts to accelerate globalization with its attendant inequalities of
wealth, has nothing to do with the resentment that others feel toward us.
We may tell ourselves that the suffering of refugees and the oppressed have
nothing to do with us - that it's a different story that is going on
somewhere else. But we live in one world, increasingly interconnected with
everyone, and the forces that lead people to feel outrage, anger and
desperation eventually impact on our own daily lives.
The same sense of disconnection to the plight of others operates in the
minds of many of these terrorists. Raise children in circumstances where
no one is there to take care of them, or where they must live by begging or
selling their bodies in prostitution, put them in refugee camps and tell
them that that they have "no right of return" to their homes, treat them
as though they are less valuable and deserving of respect because they are
part of some despised national or ethnic group, surround them with a media that
extols the rich and makes everyone who is not economically successful and
physically trim and conventionally "beautiful" feel bad about themselves,
offer them jobs whose sole goal is to enrich the "bottom line" of someone
else, and teach them that "looking out for number one" is the only thing
anyone "really" cares about and that anyone who believes in love and
social justice are merely naive idealists who are destined to always remain
powerless, and you will produce a worldwide population of people feeling
depressed, angry, and in various ways dysfunctional.
Luckily most people don't act out in violent ways - they tend to act out
more against themselves, drowning themselves in alcohol or drugs or
personal despair. Others turn toward fundamentalist religions or ultra-nationalist
extremism. Still others find themselves acting out against people that
they love, acting angry or hurtful toward children or relationship partners.
Most Americans will feel puzzled by any reference to this "larger
picture."It seems baffling to imagine that somehow we are part of a world system
that is slowly destroying the life support system of the planet, and quickly
transferring the wealth of the world into our own pockets.
We don't feel personally responsible when an American corporation runs a
sweatshop in the Phillipines or crushes efforts of workers to organize in
Singapore. We don't see ourselves implicated when the U.S. refuses to
consider the plight of Palestinian refugees or uses the excuse of fighting
drugs to support repression in Colombia or other parts of Central America.
We don't even see the symbolism when terrorists attack America's military
center and our trade center - we talk of them as buildings, though others
see them as centers of the forces that are causing the world so much pain.
We have narrowed our own attention to "getting through" or "doing well" in
our own personal lives, and who has time to focus on all the rest of this?
Most of us are leading perfectly reasonable lives within the options that
we have available to us - so why should others be angry at us, much less
strike out against us? And the truth is, our anger is also understandable: the
striking out by others in acts of terror against us is just as irrational
as the world-system that it seeks to confront.
When people have learned to treat each other as means to our own ends, to
not feel the pain of those who are suffering, we end up creating a world
inwhich these kinds of terrible acts of violence become more common. And as
we've learned from the current phase of the Israel-Palestinian struggle,
responding to terror with more violence, rather than asking ourselves what
we could do to change the conditions that generated it in the first place,
will only ensure more violence in the future.
This is a world out of touch with itself, filled with people who have
forgotten how to recognize and respond to the sacred in each other because
we are so used to looking at others from the standpoint of what they can
do for us, how we can use them toward our own ends.
We should pray for the victims and the families of those who have been
hurt or murdered in these crazy acts. We should also pray that America does not
return to "business as usual," but rather turns to a period of reflection,
coming back into touch with our common humanity, asking ourselves how our
institutions can best embody our highest values. We may need a global day
of atonement and repentance dedicated to finding a way to turn the direction
of our society at every level, a return to the notion that every human life
is sacred, that "the bottom line" should be the creation of a world of love
and caring, and that the best way to prevent these kinds of acts is not to
turn ourselves into a police state, but turn ourselves into a society in which
social justice, love, and compassion are so prevalent that violence
becomes only a distant memory.
- Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of TIKKUN Magazine and rabbi of Beyt
Tikkun
Synagogue in San Francisco. He is the author of SPIRIT MATTERS: GLOBAL
HEALING AND THE WISDOM OF THE SOUL. You can read more from him at
www.tikkun.org.
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Subject: RE: the larger picture
Author: Pascal Joseph
Date: 9/22/2001 5:06 am PDT |
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This is a well-thought out article that touches on all the areas of thought that I have have but cannot give as eloquent voice to. While experiencing a great anguish at seeing how the lessons from the tragedy are being ignored, we can only hope and pray that enopugh people in power stand back and take time to assess a moe rational response.
We are indeed a global village and the hurts that exist elsewhere will be felt here where live. Will it make us strive more to be our brother's keeper? We can only pray that it does.
Thank you Rabbi, Enid. |
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Subject: When Our Sky Comes Tumbling Down
Author: Clem Marshall
Date: 9/23/2001 8:56 am PDT |
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“O sinnah man where you gonna run to
All on that day?” – Afrikan American spiritual.
I have avoided TV. I have not wanted to see my New York lying torn apart and bleeding over these last terrible days. I say “my” deliberately. As Afrikan survivors we can say “my” and “our” when we speak of New York because of the legacy we have in that city. The lights of Broadway were born in a cradle of Black culture and lit from within by Black music. Our Ancestors were forced to dig up the earth and lay the foundations of downtown Manhattan. Quite literally, their bones lie beneath the ground in the heart of the world’s financial empire. In fact plans for a fitting memorial, the Afrikan Burial Ground Project, are supported by community stalwarts and still unfolding as we speak.
Many of the descendants of those early New Yorkers are links in the caring chain today. Some are firefighters, while others are police officers and volunteers. Steadily and tirelessly they are removing the mountains of debris that now mark the place where so many new innocents breathed their last.
It is only natural that ideas and images of the burial ground and of family or friends from Harlem to Brooklyn should crowd our heads over these last days. And it is also natural that our minds flash forward to the future even as they feel the pull of memories from the distant past. What lessons should Afrikans across the globe learn from these tragic times? After we have wept, mourned and comforted the grieving, where do we go from there? Is there room in our hearts for the victims of earlier bombings against US symbols who are still suffering in Kenya, Tanzania and the Sudan? Will we continue to ignore them because their pain is hidden from our sight?
Random disaster cuts the ground from under our feet. Usually our first instinct is to clear away the destruction around us and then to rebuild where we stand. This time as moral beings we face another challenge. Because of the wounds they suffered in the embassy bombings there are mothers and fathers in Afrika who now must try to make a living for their families without arms or without eyes. There are boys and girls forced to live dangerous lives without parents or any means of support. Their governments cannot afford to give them the help they need. Those bruthas and sistahs in Afrika are also worthy of our tears and care. It is never too late to do the right thing. Let us raise our voices now for those who suffer voicelessly in another part of our indivisible Afrikan world!
After the recent catastrophe a teacher from Indiana wrote to me. She shared the doubts and fears of her grade five students. I took some time before I felt able to reply. First I turned instinctively to the memories of New York etched in my soul. I knew that in remembering New York I would draw comfort from sweet essences and heady energies that fueled my youth and growth over many years. And I believed that those happy shadows of my earlier life still wander their favorite haunts by the Hudson River. They still browse at the Liberation Bookstore on Malcolm X Boulevard, eat slow Sunday brunch on a patio in Greenwich Village and dance through the night without getting tired at SOB’s.
My remembering helped me to find my own center again. With my strength and hope renewed, I wrote to Julie, the grade five teacher and the precious beings in her charge!
Dear Julie,
Thanks for letting me know what the students are saying. We are probably all still sorting our feelings. It hurts to hear the news these days, every time. The sudden wrenching apart of all those lives feels as if arteries were ruptured from my own heart. I feel my own frailty and am grateful for my blessings.
These days I find myself thinking even more than usual of how and where I can seed meaning into my life. I hold three cities as close as family in my heart. Is it because a thread of Afrika binds them together? I definitely know that I live more intensely when I’m in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, in Paris, France and in Harlem - the vibrating spine of New York. Those spaces have shaped much of what are my taste, style and view of the world. I have had the joy of spending wonderful times in New York, and today the city looks like a wounded friend. To now visit the places where great theatre thrills and opening nights make our pulses race would bring not pleasure but pain. I fear it would feel like going to see a gold medal sprinter confined to a hospital bed.
One New Yorker I know who miraculously escaped the catastrophe is in fact still in hospital. He is a grandfather who was just talking in the lobby of his building to his minister when his sky fell in. He had once been so proud to invite us to his classy condo, I remember, in the shadow of the towers. If we were lucky, he had whispered, we might bump into one of the stars or models that lived there too.
His story reminds me that our delights are very much like oxygen. We need it to live. Yet a single flame can devour oxygen and our delights. My friend Hezi is now in hospital, after a harrowing, narrow escape from flying debris and fireballs of burning steel that chased him down the street. Is it just perception or does everyone suddenly age when these events hijack our lives?
I know why my imagination shrinks from scenes of inevitable devastation. The seven-year-old in me does not want to know. I am seduced by the belief that my world will always escape cataclysmic physical risk even as the wider world teeters on the edge of a skyscraper above a dizzying moral abyss. The only clarity I can hold on to is that confusion abounds. My only certainty is that I live inside troubling contradictions.
Presidents, prime ministers, bankers, bishops, crime bosses and rebel leaders make big decisions that shape millions of lives. For them those lives may seem little beside the large issues they confront. For us, workers, students, untitled women and men, those are the only lives we have. We bleed as individuals from decisions made for groups. Each of our many identities can feel real and equal. I know that I am both an individual and that I will always be marked by my Afrikan ancestry, always a member of my group. How do I cope?
I make it my duty to keep on finding out as much as I can about the events that shape our world. I value and defend our right to keep inquiring minds. For the protection of all I hold dear, I look back at our people’s history for glimpses of what might loom ahead. I draw close to the center of my own humanity. It is my most precious treasure and the lifejacket that my Ancestors have bequeathed to me. I search every crowd for reflections of our common Soul in the eyes of all I meet.
May all our spirits rise! May the flame of humanity in all of us warm the hearts of our children, especially the tender little ones! Ashay! (So be it!)
©MangaCom Inc. |
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Subject: Timothy Thomas.Do You Know Who HeWas?
Author: enid lee
Date: 9/27/2001 2:53 am PDT |
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Timothy Thomas, 19yrs old. Dead. Another Unarmed African American man shot by police. Yesterday the police involved in the shooting was acquitted by the Cincinati Courts.
"Unavoidable" , they say." Not surprising" , I say.Great will be the day in the United States when this kind of death will evoke national outrage. |
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Subject: 5th grade math
Author: Lori Giuttari Bicki
Date: 12/5/2001 4:54 am PDT |
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I highly recommend a book suggested to me by Aaliya Mahmoud called Agnesi to Zeno, by Sanderson Smith (Key Curriculum Press)....Over 100 Vignettes from the History of Math...IT'S JUST AWSOME and anyone interested in diversifying their math curriculum should check it out!!! |
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Subject: RE: 5th grade math
Author: enid lee
Date: 12/7/2001 4:46 pm PDT |
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Thanks Lori for posting this title. Please let us know what kind of responses you are getting from students as you use this book. And thanks too Alyiah for recommending the book at our Equity Institute this summer. We are always looking for titles especially in subjects like Math and Science that address the issue of equity, culture and race in terms of content.
Keep those comments coming. |
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Subject: Our Expanding Programmes
Author: enid lee
Date: 12/27/2001 9:36 am PDT |
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Enidlee Consultents is an organization guided by the principle that
racism must be confronted in orger to build multicultural organizations
and societies.We are a consulting company which assists urban school
districts and individual schools to restructure themselves for equitable
outcomes. We do this by addressing issues or race and racism in the
school communities.
Our umbrella program: Putting Race on the Table consists of five parts:
1. Creating Equity-Centred Classrooms
2. Equity Institutes
3. Cyberspace Equity - from on-site to on-line
4. Reversing the Tradition of Theft
5. Evaluation
For more information about any of our programs ,please e-mail us at Enidlee@aol.com
Happy Holidays.! Happy Kwanzaa. May the spirit last all year long |
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Subject: Letter From The Birmingham Jail
Author: enid lee
Date: 1/19/2002 7:31 pm PDT |
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"Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksnad of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity." P.19. Letters From The Birmigham Jail. Martin
Luther King ,Jr.1963
Yes , now is the time !
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Subject: networking to put race on the table with enidlee
Author: enid lee
Date: 3/23/2002 4:28 pm PDT |
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All the schools listed on the website map are making efforts to put race on the table in the education of all of their students and to ensure that racial equality is a part of every child's experience. This is ongoing, never-ending work . Watch this site for challenges and successes. If your school is putting race on the table , leave a note in our guest book telling us about your efforts . |
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Subject: A courageous principal
Author: enid lee
Date: 6/24/2002 7:48 am PDT |
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Please find below , a letter by Wendy Gudalewicz, the principal of Gilroy High School. This letter was written after Wendy made and stuck to the courageous decision of not introducing tracked classes in grades nine and ten of Gilroy High School.Wendy refused to participate in a system which would essentially maintian the achievement gap along racial and class lines . Because of her principled position she has resigned her position as principal of the school.
Read her letter and see how the struggle for racial equality is played out in one California school.
Your comments are invited.
"I was going to let last night be my last words, but Last night I was too emotional to say what I really wanted to say. I have spent four really great, actually FANTASTIC, years at Gilroy High School. They were tough years in that every change that has been made has been made with a fight. I have been willing to do whatever it takes to make Gilroy High School better for ALL students. My motto for the last four years has been that "we will make it work". We have made it work. By every indication, Gilroy High School is a better place for ALL students. We truly are on the path to excellence and I more than anyone else I know believed that we would meet our goals in 2004.
It was hard for me to hear last night that there was a recommendation being made for honors classes at the 9th grade level. The hardest part was to hear that it was being made after reviewing the data, which data I cannot figure out, and after hearing all those affected by the decision. The only people who were heard are those who will be positively affected by the decision and that is sad. If anyone really wanted to hear from those who might be negatively affected, the discussion would have been opened up to ALL families not just GATE families. Many will argue that "people" did know, but I beg to differ. A notice about Monday's meeting was sent home to GATE families only and it was advertised in the Dispatch as a follow-up meeting to the GATE parent meeting on June 4. My staff received a note in their boxes about the meeting, but it did not describe the issues. I was being loyal and trusting of the District and the "process" and therefore, did not rally the troops, I could have and now I believe that I should have. I feel I have done a disservice to the students, parents and staff of Gilroy HIgh School by not informing them about this issue.
I believe that everyone of us knows that this decision is not in the best interest of ALL students. Research tells us that tracking students is ineffective. Students in this District have been tracked K-8. In in fact this system of tracking is so effective then why do over half of our 9th graders come to us below grade level? Why is it that year after year the numbers of students in the "honors" classes at the middle schools stay relatively the same? Mani Corzo said that if we maintain open access policies the numbers will grow. I would like someone to show me the data that proves that true. We have fought to increase the numbers of students taking Advanced Placement classes and going on to college. This is not easy work because many of the students we have believe that they are not good enough. They have been educated in a system that continuously reminds them of this by segregating them from the "smarter" kids.
Diane Elia, Bob Bravo and I are being sent to the Harvard Principal's Institute by the Stupski Foundation. We received a packet of informamtion last week which contained a number of articles that we were to read prior to attending. Here is an excerpt from one of those articles:
"Maslow's hierarchy of needs not only reminds us how essential it is for people to live within the context of a community, but it also shows us that the need for self-actualization necessary implies that every person has abilities that warrant specific development within themselves. In our educational system, however, it is often assumed that only a minority of students are gifted or have an individual calling and are capable of self-actualization. Yet this minority has been artificially created to a large degree by the fact that most schools only see those students with exceptional academic, athletic, and artistic abilities as being deserving of the opportunity to develop these talents...........Consequently, it is only a few priveledged students who are granted the luxury to work and concentrate in areas in which they naturally excel. Ironically, because of the prevailing paradigm of our educational system, the pursuits of children identified as "gifted and talented" often occur in segregated programs that can have a negative impact upon the child's sense of belonging."
Why would our District send three of its principals to a program that would encourage us to NOT track students and one month prior to sending us tell us that we need to implement tracking at the 9th and 10th grade levels? I know it is easy to say that we are not tracking because it is "open access"; however, there is plenty of research out there to prove that open access is merely a way of making those who want to close access feel better about themselves. The argument is that if it is open then no one is responsible for locking anyone out. If a student doesn't "choose" the class then it is the students fault. Have any of you asked students how they feel about choosing into honors classes? I have and I know just how hard we have worked to convince students to try an Advanced Placement class and this is after they have been heterogeneously grouped.
Last night Mani Corzo posed and argument for homogeneous grouping. He appealled to the coaches in the room by stating that high school athletic teams are homogeneous. I loved his analogy because it actually supports heterogeneity. Think about the Gilroy High School Football program. We have a Freshmen team, a JV team and a Varsity team. Think of these three teams as an English 1 team and English 2 team and an English 3 team. Now think of the Varsity team with the elite players. Mani wants you to believe that they are somehow all the same; however, try operating a football team with 40 lineman. A lineman cannot be a wide receiver and a wide receiver cannot be a lineman. Each player on the team has a unique talent and when they all come together they make the team. I told people today that the Lakers could not have won the playoffs with only 5 Shaqs!
I want you all to know that I love my job, I love this high school and every student in it, but I can only implement what I believe in and what I believe in has to be good for ALL students. What we have done at this high school in the last four years has been great for ALL students and I am proud. I will leave this school with me head up high knowing that under my leadership this school is safer, has more students attending everyday, we met our API, we have more students taking Advanced Placement classes and more students passing the AP tests, we have more students being admitted to four year colleges and more students receiving scholarships. We have more Latino students than ever before enrolled in upper level science courses and meeting the A-G requirements for UC admisssion. I can also leave knowing that I will not be the one who has to re-track Gilroy High School.
I am committed to working through the summer to ensure a smooth transition for next year and will do anything that needs to be done. I want to thank you all for your support over the years and wish this District and ALL of its students the absolute best. I will definitely miss the students, the GHS staff and all of the beautiful human beings that I have been blessed to get to know over the past four years. " |
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Subject: RE: A courageous principal
Author: Marcia Smellie
Date: 9/15/2002 10:45 am PDT |
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Way to Go Girl!!!
I will share your letter with some Canadian School Teachers and Principals.
You have truly understood the notion of " equity for all" in public education today. I wish many more educators and school administrators would include this principle in their work on our schools today.
Cheers and all the best
Marcia |
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Subject: Quiz of the week Who is Donavan Jackson
Author: Enid Lee
Date: 7/15/2002 6:23 pm PDT |
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Who is Donavan Jackson ?If you know, please leave your answer at this website |
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Subject: Media Democracy Day
Author: enid lee
Date: 10/19/2002 0:11 am PDT |
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October 18th was Media Democracy Day. I guess you didn't hear much about it through your regular media. Not surprising. Why would they tell us that on this day and indeed on every day after this that we should be
1. critically questioning sources on which the media rely , 2. insisting on multiple voices, especially those that are typically missing,marginalized and misrepresented
3. creating a new information order based on the interests of the silenced.?
So now you know. Leave a message here about how you rescue your mind from media lies and conduct the uncommon activities of thinking for yourself and of creating and disseminating accounts of events that support the interest of your social group .
Thanks .
"Truth is proper and beautiful in all times and in all places."
Frederick Douglass |
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Subject: Keeping our minds free to discern the truth
Author: Enid Lee
Date: 11/9/2002 5:27 am PDT |
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The following eight points were part of an e-mail I received on understanding the workings of the media:
1. Demonize the attacked party by labeling and name calling
2. Speak in glittering generalities using emotionally positive words
3. When covering something up, don't use plain English, stall for time, distract
4. Get endorsements from celebrities, churches, sports figures, street people, anyone who has no expertise in the subject at hand
5. The plain folks' ruse, us billionaires are just like you
6. When minimizing outrage, don't say anything memorable
7. When minimizing outrage, point out the benefits of what just happened
8. When minimizing outrage, avoid moral issues.
Keep this list and check it as you analyze the media. |
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