Including ALL of our history

Some things are just hard to believe.

I received a tweet from EIFdotorg the other day saying, "TX Conservatives seek to remove a woman, a Hispanic, and a Black man from Social Studies curriculum," and then referenced this article: Conservatives seek to shift focus of state social studies lessons.

Surely, they were exaggerating.

But, sure enough, here are some quotes from the article:

"To have César Chávez listed next to Ben Franklin" – as in the current standards – "is ludicrous," wrote evangelical minister Peter Marshall, one of six experts advising the state as it develops new curriculum standards for social studies classes and textbooks.

Marshall also questioned whether Thurgood Marshall, who argued the landmark case that resulted in school desegregation and was the first black U.S. Supreme Court justice, should be presented to Texas students as an important historical figure. He wrote that the late justice is "not a strong enough example" of such a figure.

Both Barton and Marshall also singled out as overrated Anne Hutchinson, a New England pioneer and early advocate of women's rights and religious freedom, who was tried and banished from her Puritan colony in Massachusetts because of her nontraditional views. "Anne Hutchinson does not belong in the company of these eminent gentlemen," he said, referring to colonial leaders William Penn, Roger Williams and others.

How can we continue to say that Black people, Hispanic people, and women have made no real contribution to our society? How can we claim that someone like Ben Franklin deserves to be in a history book, but César Chávez does not?

The arguments I've heard is that including diversity in the curriculum requires that we take out all of the "important people" in order to have enough room to include others (i.e. women and people of other ethnicities). Who originally determined who those "important people" are? Where is the rating scale and what do we look for to determine that? How does someone like Peter Marshall get to be the authority figure on what is and isn't important?

I'm not suggesting that Ben Franklin is any less important than César Chávez. There have been a lot of contributions to our society over the years. We wouldn't be in the position we are without all of those contributions. The light bulb, electricity, and the first president of the United States were important contributions. But so was the filament that goes in the light bulb, the stop light, windshield wipers, COBOL (a common computer language), Kevlar (the material that makes bullet proof vests bullet proof) , color television, and so many more--contributions made by women and people of color.

Including women and people of color in the text books aren't about excluding white men. It's about including the contributions of every sector of our society.

Spotlight: Gary Van

I always tell people Gary Van is my heart. I have known him since I moved to Dallas. He was 11 years old and shy when I met him.

The shyness didn't last long. As soon as he entered junior high, girls became his big past time. He became the "mac daddy," as the boys liked to call themselves.

Gary grew up in East Dallas, where I live. The "gang" in our neighborhood is 223. They wore red as much as possible and threw up a sign that meant "East Grand" (the street that ran through our neighborhood). I never sensed that these guys were dangerous. To me, they all seemed to be gang member wanna-be's. Some were more troublesome and annoying than others, but never in a way that threatened my safety.

Once in junior high, Gary seemed to go down hill. He began getting in trouble a lot at school. Each day after school he always had stories about what this or that teacher had said to him or how he had been kicked out of some teacher's class. He expressed his frustration that teachers would cuss at him. As a good adult, I tried to convince him that it must be something he was doing to provoke all of these teachers. Gary used to tell me he just wished he could have a recorder in his pocket so I could hear what the teachers said and the way they talked to him.

Now I know Gary was no angel at school. But it never made sense to me because I can only think of one time in the 14 years I've known him that he lost his temper in front of me (not at me, though) and wouldn't calm down when I asked him to. Gary's a comedian. Always has been. I wish I'd have had the connections to get him into stand up comedy. He's such a story teller...always making people laugh. But, from what he told me, the school started associating him with his neighborhood, East Grand.

In high school, when he walked into the school, they would pull him aside and check his nails to see if had been smoking weed. They made assumptions about him based on his friends and were constantly questioning him. He talked back to teachers and got into fights. He began getting shuffled from alternative school to alternative school. I found out later that he had also begun selling drugs during this time period.

After being sent to an alternative school in DeSoto, he gave up. He used to tell me that the teachers got rid of him because they didn't want to deal with him. While in DeSoto, he didn't get in trouble. He realized that he wasn't the bad kid they made him out to be. But his reputation followed him. He went to a different DISD school than he attended before DeSoto, only to find the assistant principal from his old school had transferred to the new school he was attending.

He ended up dropping out of school and getting his diploma by paying $350 to some online high school in Florida. They sent him a large test packet. Once completed, all he had to do was send it back in and, viola, he received a diploma.

I convinced him to enroll in community college. He did. But only lasted for a semester. Instead, he took a job at Sam's, where he works to this day. Gary is now 24-years old. He will have six years of service at Sam's next month. He has since gone back to school to become certified in air conditioning repair. He is working on going into business with a friend of his.

The other day he called me wanting to get a little boy into the summer program that we offer. He explained that he's been spending a lot of time with this little boy, helping with homework and trying to influence his behavior. He told me that the little boy's brothers all have dads that are involved in their life. This one little boy is the only one in the family who doesn't have that and so he acts out. I don't think Gary realizes how much that parallells his own situation.

Though I've known Gary and know what a great guy he is, I never expected him to mentor other children and take the role so seriously. But he is. Gary wants this child to have opportunity--educational and otherwise. He was very insistent about enrolling him in our summer program instead of just sending him to a rec center to play all summer. He remembered what the program was like when he was a part of it many years ago and wants this child to experience that as well.

Community. Resources. Relationships.

With the kids and adults I know who live in these communities, mentoring happens in ways we don't even realize or recognize. Sometimes all that is needed is knowledge of and access to additional resources that can help support those efforts.

What our future holds

Saturday evening, as we all got together for our pastor's anniversary dinner, I got a chance to see and talk to Fredrick.

He's home from Lamar University for a couple of weeks before he goes back to begin summer school and resume working. He only gets the chance to come home a few times each year because Beaumont is about 5 hours away.

As I watched Fredrick, I sat in awe.

Fredrick has been a part of Central Dallas Church since he was around 7 or 8. When Fredrick comes home, he blends back in as if he never left...except he has left...and he will be a junior at Lamar in the fall.

Not long after Fredrick arrived at the dinner, six little boys (all under the age of 7 and all cousins...but not related to Fredrick), came racing to the front door and tumbled into the community center. The boys chose their table nearly before their families even got in the door. Fredrick joined the boys. I don't recall him being asked to sit with them or to watch over them, but he did. ...Bathroom trips...dinner supervision...Fredrick was on the job. Afterward, he followed them to the games in the recreation area and hung out with them while they played.

I don't know that Fredrick realizes the impact of what he did and continues to do--from persevering through college challenges to role modeling for young children. He does it naturally and effortlessly. Whether he realizes it or not, I know he is making an impact.

I look forward to the day when some of the kids Fredrick has inadvertently mentored are in the same place he is...and turning around to mentor other kids just like Fredrick did them.

East Grand Place

My neighbors were sitting out on their porch when I got home yesterday evening. I love the spring. As the weather gets warmer, my neighborhood begins coming alive again in the perfect springtime evening weather.

I went over to ask them to help me think about a photography assignment I had been given to capture pictures about "The Dallas no mayor wants to see." As the four of us stood out on the porch talking--Kendrick (22), Onion (22), Chris (27), and myself--they, of course, came up with some good stuff: the broken up sidewalks in front of the houses, the lack of drainage on our street because the roads have been paved over and over so much it covers all of the drains, the corners where no stop signs exist, the concentration of liquor stores, the grown up alleys that no one can drive through and the fact that we have to set our trash out front instead of in the back of our house, and the way trash is dumped in some fields around us. It was interesting, though. It took all of us a while to start coming up with thoughts. When you live in a neighborhood where those issues exist, it tends to become "normal"...until you start thinking about other neighborhoods and comparing ours to theirs.

As we talked, Chris mused about how it would be nice to change our neighborhood around and have little signs around that say, "East Grand Place." He talked about how other neighborhoods have their graphic design posted around the neighborhood...like Jubilee Park, Swiss Avenue, Highland Park. Why don't we start "East Grand Place?"

We started thinking about what we could do with just us. We don't have the big money or the key people that back some of these other neighborhoods, but wouldn't it be nice if we worked toward addressing the issues of our neighborhood on our own? What if we came together and worked toward figuring out how to change the reality for people like Tim through our efforts to be positive change agents in the community? It would be a complete grass roots effort.

We didn't schedule any neighborhood association meeting or anything like that, but, as Chris said, "This is how big ideas get started...by talking about them." True. We've got to start somewhere.

Chris isn't the only one who has brought that idea up to me. I had a conversation not long ago with Quinton, another 22 year old who grew up in this neighborhood. Without any prompting from me, he brought up the same idea as Chris had...getting all of the people their age together and working toward making a change.

A picture can't capture that. People who never frequent our neighborhood or get to know the people in them will never know that there are a group of 20-30 year old African-American males who are interested in making their community different, but just aren't sure how to do it yet.

I know this can happen. I have hope this will happen. Maybe not today, but I believe the seed is there.
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"Revolutions begin when people who are defined as problems achieve the power to redefine the problem." ~John McKnight, The Careless Society

Hope is alive!

I was at home getting ready to go to work yesterday morning when I got a knock at my door. Through the peek hole I recognized the tall, slender guy and the way he shifted his weight back and forth. It was Kevin and I hadn't seen him in a very long time.

I met Kevin when he was probably 15 or 16. I don't even remember how or why. Maybe he and his friends came to church a few times. He came in and out of my life for various reasons. His entire family is/was caught up in drugs. When he was around 17, I tried to get he and his cousin re-enrolled in school because they had moved and his sister, who was his guardian, was too hooked on drugs to care if they got back in school or not. Kevin explained to me that 22 people lived in their economy apartment. At 6'1", his bed was the bathtub.

He ended up dropping out of school.

I lost track of him again until he was caught and charged with possession, or something to that effect. He went to jail for a while. He got out. He messed up again. He went back to jail. He got out...this time with 10 years probation, a lot of probation fees, and an assignment to a treatment center.

I remember driving him to the treatment center. I'll never forget our conversation. As we talked about what he needed to do to make his life different he explained with a sense of resignation and defeat, "Janet, drugs are all I've known since I was 6 months old!"

He completed the treatment center, but ended up back in the system...this time prison...only months later. He served his time from 2002-2004. So he's been out for 3 years now. Every once in a while I wonder how he's doing. I know the rest of his family hasn't changed. His sister is still strung out and his cousins still sell.

As I invited him into my house, he offered me a hug and then sat down in the living room to tell me what he's been up to. Last time we talked, he had gotten a job at Walmart. He still has that job. It's been almost a year now and in a few more weeks he will be up for his first vacation. He explained that he is now making $9.45 and hour...up from the $8 something he started at. You could tell he was very proud of his incremental raises over the last year. He is now "off papers"...meaning he no longer has to make regular visits to his parole officer.

Kevin explained to me that each time he went back to jail or prison he truly wanted to do the right thing when he got out. But going back to his family...the people he knows best...always landed him in trouble. It takes a lot of courage to figure out how to break free from that. He is working to change his reality:

In 2000, 65 percent of black male high school dropouts in their 20s were jobless - unable to find work, not seeking it or incarcerated.

By 2004, the share had grown to 72 percent, compared with 34 percent of white dropouts and 19 percent of Hispanic dropouts.

Even when high school graduates were included, half of black men in their 20s were jobless in 2004, up from 46 percent in 2000.

Incarceration rates climbed in the 1990s and reached historic highs in the last few years. In 1995, 16 percent of black men in their 20s who did not attend college were in jail or prison; by 2004, 21 percent were incarcerated. By their mid-30s, 6 in 10 black men who dropped out of school have spent time in prison.

In the inner cities, more than half of all black men do not finish high school.

Kevin is 27 years old. He is right in the age range for all of those statistics. He's still got a long, tough road ahead, but so far he's on the right path and he's doing a great job.