Saccharin or sugar?

A letter to *us*:

It really does not matter if you proudly proclaim your allyship, wear Malcolm X t-shirts, march with thousands of others, or openly weep for fallen social warriors.

It really does not matter if you count your friends of color on more than one hand, count your tax deductions to the NAACP, count the number of people killed by angry, frightened cops.

It really does not matter if you groove to the Sun Ra Arkestra, Kendrick Lamar, or The Ink Spots.
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None of it matters unless you do the things that need doing, in your loop, right now.

Ms. Garner had a more poetic way of summing this up--she got straight to the point, one of her many strengths.

Erica Garner (credit Aaron Stewart-Ahn via Twitter)

Yep, it may cost you more than that psychic hairshirt you wear a tad too proudly. Nope, you don't get any points.

Yep, your social circle may cinch up a bit. Nope, no one cares. Erica Garner reminded us what it means to hurt, to fight, to live.

Want to be sugar? Do what you need to do. What you already know needs to be done (but keep asking anyway hoping maybe saccharine is enough).

You can still wear that Malcolm X t-shirt, but keep it hidden under your clothes. Might make you feel a little bit like Clark Kent. You got the power, but nobody needs to know it.

Except you.

Bigots ain't the problem....

*We* are tone deaf, color blind, and oblivious. But God knows *we* are polite.

This is a sanctuary question--it gives *us* a place to hide while ignoring the systemic cultural oppression.

#Edchat, a large community for teachers on Twitter, put this up as a possible topic this week. There should be no need for discussion, yet here *we* offer *our* rejection of the straw man as an act of atonement.

It's not the "bigots" that are the problem, as problematic as they are--it's *our* need to be civil when civility is the subtle tool *we* use to maintain a status quo that has resulted in a society where low SES becomes a synonym for black or brown..

Today marks the anniversary of Dr. King's "I Have A Dream" speech. *We* eat it like a casserole at a potluck church dinner--soothing, warm, down-to-earth meal served in the local church basement, sharing food with the others. Then we go home.

Today also marks the murder of 14 year old Emmett Till. This is not a coincidence. But I bet more whites will celebrate King's speech than acknowledge Emmett Till's murder.

"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will."

Dr. King, Letter From a Birmingham Jail

So here we are again, another school year, another year of hand-wringing over the test score gap--either you believe that children of color are inferior, or you believe something else might be going on.

Unless *we* believe a bigot here or there has this much effect on "our" children, *we* have to do more than out the "bigots" among us.

Right now the bigots are doing *us* a favor, relieving too many of us from our duty to dig deeper into the bigger problems.