AMERICA'S GOT ITS PRIORITIES CONFUSED - WE SHOULD PAY OUR TEACHERS LIKE POLITICIANS, AND POLITICIANS MINIMUM WAGE

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

AMERICA'S GOT ITS PRIORITIES CONFUSED - WE SHOULD PAY OUR TEACHERS LIKE POLITICIANS, AND POLITICIANS MINIMUM WAGE

.

Contrary to popular belief, surviving the adversity of the Black community requires the ability to think. When I look back upon my life I can only imagine the contributions that some of my friends could have made to this society had they not succumb to the adversity of having to survive the Black experience. The only reason that I survived was through a combination of luck, and the fact that I lacked the personal courage that many of my friends were blessed with, so I was willing to put up with many of the things that they were prepared to either lay their lives on the line to fight, or they found so unbearable that they essentially committed suicide through the use of drugs or by other means.
.
But I wasn’t the smartest of my friends by a long shot - in fact, when I was in elementary school I was about to be placed in "Special Training" because I couldn’t keep up. The only reason I wasn’t was because my teacher at the time, Ms. Lady Lee, convinced the principal, Mr. DiTonto, to give her a semester to work with me, and during that semester, she taught me the key to being a survivor - it’s all about self-concept.
.
Ms. Lee was a statuesque, dignified lady. She was also a concert-quality pianist. In any event, she pulled me to the side, and said, "Eric, let’s play a game. For the rest of the year I want you to pretend to be the smartest person in class," and I agreed. It didn’t make sense to me, but I was willing to do anything to avoid the humiliation of being segregated from the rest of the "normal" students and put into the "Dummy Brigade" - which, by the way, is a practice they should do away with. That’s a horrible assault on a child’s self-esteem.
.
So from that point on, instead of simply being my teacher, Ms. Lee became my fellow conspirator. We "conspired" to pull off one of the biggest hoaxes ever perpetrated against Holmes Ave. Elementary School, and she had a plan that was brilliant in its simplicity. All I had to do was stay a chapter ahead of the rest of the class so I'd be the only one who had the answer to the questions that she'd put to us. I was amazed at how devious this lady was. I was also amazed that she would help me pull off such an elaborate hoax on all my unsuspecting classmates. But what made me feel especially close to her was that we shared a secret that nobody else knew about. That made me feel special.
.
Before long I began to notice that people started treating me differently - in fact, the most sought-after girl in class - a girl who wouldn’t even speak to any of the boys in class - casually walked up to me during lunch one day and said, "Hi, Eric. Can I sit here?" That started a friendship that lasted through high school.  In fact, when we became teenagers she even wanted to take it to the next level, but by that time I'd met the young girl who was later to become my wife and the mother of my children.
.
But it wasn’t only Freddie (that was her name) who was treating me differently, by the end of the semester I noticed that I was being treated differently by everyone, peers and grownups alike. Even as a nine year-old kid, I noticed that people seemed to treat me with more respect. Yet, I was the very same person that everyone used to dismiss as dim-witted. I hadn’t changed a bit. The only difference in me was the new respect that I had for myself, and the fact that I would always come home and read a chapter ahead of the rest of the class to maintain the fraud that I was perpetrating.
.
After a while I began to cherish this newfound respect that I was getting from others. In fact, I had become so used to it that I knew that I could never go back to the way things had been before, so I use to be constantly afraid that I was going to be found out. But gradually I began to see the light - I had absolutely nothing to worry about, because most "smart" people are perpetrating a hoax.  They realize that the key to making people think you're smart is to simply remain a chapter ahead of the rest of the class, or in this case, society.  It's the confidence you exude by staying informed that makes others think you're smart, and your intelligence grows to accommodate your newfound interests.  I thank God that I learned that as a kid, because I've been using it to pull the wool over people's eyes ever since.
.
Thank you, Ms. Lee.
.
Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com

Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)

Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sphere: Related Content

AN ENLIGHTENED BRAIN CAN'T BE WASHED

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

AN ENLIGHTENED BRAIN CAN'T BE WASHED

.

While government has a role in improving conditions in the Black community, the ROOT of our problem is a lack of education and knowledge, and we can't wait for the government to address that issue, because the GOP has dedicated their very existence to dumbing America down, and with good reason - enlightened people don't vote Republican.
.
But we could turn their malevolence into our advantage if we're smart. While they're hard at work dumbing the rest of America down, we should double-down on educating ourselves and making the pursuit of knowledge a way of life. That way we can level the playing field. We could make ourselves some of the most literate people in America, because our problem is not a lack of intelligence, it's an indifference toward knowledge. We need to become knowledge junkies.
.
We must also educate one another in the wisdom of an enlightened way of life, just like we currently educate one another in our current toxic way of life. I've seen it done before, in the sixties - I'm a product of that environment. When I was in elementary school they were about to place me in "Special Training."  I like to had a fit, because Special Training students were separated in their own little bungalow at the very back of the school, and they marched in formation everywhere they went - the rest of the kids used to call them the Retard Brigade. I became so distraught over the idea of being placed in Special Training that my teacher, Ms. Lady Lee, convinced the principal, Mr. DeTonto, to give her the rest of the year to work with me.
.

ONE GOOD TEACHER IS WORTH A BOATLOAD
OF POLITICIANS

But in the end, all she did was teach me that you ARE what you think (that's why it's so important not to think of ourselves as victims). And then she gave me a tip: She said the key to looking, and BEING, smart was to ALWAYS stay one chapter ahead of the class (that forced me to start studying and taking my homework more seriously). I was so determined to stay out of Special Training that I made studying a way of life.  I started outlining our textbooks, and giving each point they made its own place in the outline. Within a month I had outlined all of our textbooks and knew their content backwards and forward. I suspect that's why I'm a writer today, because without knowing it, I fell in love with compositional structure in the process.
.
But thereafter, Ms. Lee started asking questions in class that she knew I was the only one who could answer, and I did.  At first, my classmates were amazed, and then finally, they started treating me with a new respect (and so did my mother), and that reinforced my understanding of the value of knowledge. So at the end of the semester, instead of going into Special Training, I went into an advanced class with students who were a year ahead of me, and I've been fooling people by using Ms. Lee's tip every since - because life is not about how brilliant you are, but how knowledgeable.
.

Then during the sixties, the Black community went through a similar process. We spun on a dime (or maybe I should say "they spun on a dime," because I was a little late getting on board - I was "doing time" in the Marine Corps). But the community went from being filled with street gangs and crime, to being filled with dashiki-wearing street philosophers. Former gangsters became Black Panthers and joined other organizations to help enlighten and feed the poor. We recognized that we had to do these things ourselves in order to gain the political clout to FORCE the government to change its ways - and eventually it did, and the community began to rapidly move forward. Ford, General Motors, and other major corporations began to open their doors to Black workers, giving them access to the middle class, and the government began to PAY people to be educated and trained.
.
We made it cool to be knowledgeable.  If a brother wasn't enlightened, he couldn't even get a girlfriend. It became so hip to be Black that White folks were trying to nap their hair up and wear naturals, and White girls were walking around in cornrows. That's how the Rock and hippie revolution got started. Before that, White musicians were going on stage in black suits and ties singing "Rock Around the Clock," and "Venus" - so we've already demonstrated that we can influence the world.
.

ALL WE NEED TO SUCCEED IS
THE DESIRE

But we tend to always allow the White establishment to think 10 years ahead of us (that's why I'm so big on making education our number one priority). They introduced acid, speed, and other drugs into the mix, and the lure of these drugs began to drag us back down. Then in the eighties Ronald Reagan abolished the "Fairness Doctrine" - one of the nation's primary educational tools, which forced network and radio stations to give equal time to opposing voices every time they tried to spew conservative propaganda - and then Reagan flooded the inner cities with crack ("Just say no!!!!?"). That devastated two generations of Black people. As a result, that severed the connection of the third generation from their Black cultural heritage, because the parents who were supposed to be teaching them about their culture were crackheads. Then the establishment used the media, with things like MTV and BET to serve as a re-education tool, which brings us to where we are today.
.
Thus, it is essential that the Black community come together and re-establish our connection with our cultural roots. It's no accident that we no longer see people like Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, or Ray Charles coming out of the Black community anymore. The reason for that is we now have a generation of young Black people where many are just as remote from their Black roots as many White people. Yes, they have Black skin, but thanks to the machinations of the White establishment, they aren't anything like Black people once were. They're like cardboard, imitation Blacks who are reminiscent of real Black people.
.
Think about it - isn't it ironic that, with the exception of people like Janet Jackson, Tyrese, Mariah, and a handful of others, one of the closest examples of old-school Black soul currently in the public domain is being put out by Robin Thick? - and I know, because I'm a lifelong jazz musician, so I'm listening . . . and Robin sounds good!  And the same is true in jazz.  If you go to a concert where they're playing REAL jazz, it looks like a Tea Party convention, because this generation of Black people don't support, or even KNOW, their own culture. (http://wattree.blogspot.com/2012/07/relections-on-stanley-crouch-mtume.html)
.
So we'd better wake up, or 50 years from now the only people who are going to have the musical skills to play Black music are gonna be White, because they're devouring our music in music schools and conservatories all over the world as we speak, while we've been seduced by the dollar to spew vulgar nursery rhymes to the beat of electronic drum machines.
.
That's what I mean by addressing our cultural infrastructure. We've got to stop thinking of ourselves as victims.  The word "victim" suggests weakness, and Black people are not weak. The adversity that we've endured has made us MORE, rather than less. We simply have to recognize that fact, and be PROACTIVE  in addressing our issues instead of simply reacting to cultural assaults. The bottom line is, we've got to stop telegraphing everything that's on our minds by screaming and grabbing microphones. No one is impressed by that; it just makes us look like reckless idiots. We've got to begin to use our minds to forge innovative and thoughtful approaches to resolving our issues, and we have the resources within our community to do that, right now.  And we must always keep in mind the words of Frederick Douglass - "Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave."
.

"THE SAME BOILING WATER THAT SOFTENS THE POTATO, HARDENS THE EGG.  SO IT'S NOT ABOUT YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES, IT'S ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE MADE OF."

Eric L. Wattree 
Http://wattree.blogspot.com 
Ewattree@Gmail.com
.
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sphere: Related Content

One Good Teacher is Worth a Boatload of Politicians

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

One Good Teacher is Worth a Boatload of Politicians

.

Contrary to popular belief, surviving the adversity of the Black community requires the ability to think. When I look back upon my life I can only imagine the contributions that some of my friends could have made to this society had they not succumb to the adversity of having to survive the Black experience. The only reason that I survived was through a combination of luck, and the fact that I lacked the personal courage that many of my friends were blessed with, so I was willing to put up with many of the things that they were prepared to either lay their lives on the line to fight, or they found so unbearable that they essentially committed suicide through the use of drugs or other means.
.
I wasn’t the smartest of my friends by a long shot - in fact, when I was in elementary school I was about to be placed in "Special Training" because I couldn’t keep up. The only reason I wasn’t was because my teacher at the time, Ms. Lady Lee, convinced the principal, Mr. DeTonto, to give her a semester to work with me, and during that semester, she taught me the key to being a survivor. It’s all about self-concept - you are what you think. Jews have convinced themselves that they're "God's chosen people," so they tend to excel in science and intellectual pursuits; Black people believe that "we have soul," so we tend to become great musicians and entertainers. That’s the way it works – you are what you think, and Ms. Lee taught me to look at myself differently. 
.
Ms. Lee was a statuesque, and dignified lady. She was also a concert-quality pianist. In any event, she pulled me to the side, and said, "Eric, let’s play a game. For the rest of the year I want you to pretend to be the smartest person in class," and I agreed. It didn’t make sense to me, but I was willing to do anything to avoid the humiliation of being segregated from the rest of the "normal" students and put into the "Dummy Brigade" - which, by the way, is a practice they should do away with. That’s a horrible assault on a child’s self-esteem.
.
So from that point on, instead of simply being my teacher, Ms. Lee became my fellow conspirator. We "conspired" to pull off one of the biggest hoaxes ever perpetrated against Holmes Ave. Elementary School, and she had a plan that was brilliant in its simplicity. All I had to do was stay a chapter ahead of the rest of the class so I'd be the only one who had the answer to the questions that she'd put to us. I was amazed at how devious this lady was. I was also amazed that she would help me pull off such an elaborate hoax on all my unsuspecting classmates. But what made me feel especially close to her was that we shared a secret that nobody else knew about. That made me feel special.
.
Before long I began to notice that people started treating me differently - in fact, the prettiest, smartest, and the most sought-after girl in class, a girl who wouldn’t even speak to any of the boys in class - casually walked up to me during lunch one day and said, "Hi, Eric. Can I sit here?"
.

Wow! That did it. From that day on I decided I was gonna trick people into thinking I was the world's greatest intellectual. That started a friendship between Freddie (that was her name) and I that lasted through high school.  In fact, when we became teenagers she even wanted to take it to the next level, but by that time I'd met the young girl who was later to become my wife and the mother of my children.
.
But it wasn’t only Freddie who was treating me differently, by the end of the semester I noticed that I was being treated differently by everyone, peers and grownups alike. Even as a nine year-old kid I noticed that people seemed to treat me with more respect. Yet, I was the very same person that everyone used to dismiss as dim-witted. I hadn’t changed a bit. The only difference in me was the new respect that I had for myself, and the fact that I would always come home and read a chapter ahead of the rest of the class to maintain the fraud that I was perpetrating.
.
After awhile I began to cherish this newfound respect that I was getting from others. In fact, I had become so used to it that I knew that I could never go back to the way things had been before, so I used to be constantly afraid that I was going to be found out. But gradually I began to see the light - I had absolutely nothing to worry about, because most "smart" people are perpetrating a fraud. For the most part we're all equally intelligent, in one area or another, the only difference is some people take more pride in their intelligence than others.  They also recognize that the key to making people think you're smart is to simply remain a chapter ahead of everyone else. Ms. Lee's brilliance resided in the fact that she had the insight to recognize that she only had to introduce a child to the tremendous self-esteem that accompanies knowledge, and the child would do the rest. I thank God that I learned that as a kid, because I've been pulling the wool over people's eyes ever since . . . but don't tell nobody.
.
Thank you, Ms. Lee.
.
Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com

Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)

Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

Sphere: Related Content