What will school look like in September? It’s a question that’s at the top of most people’s minds, especially educators. This is typically the time of year most educators spend reflecting on their practice, spending time with family and in some cases attending professional development to engage in learning communities to share best practices. However, this year things are different. We’re in the midst of a global pandemic with questions that can’t be answered, with the most pressing question being, “Do we return to school for face to face instruction, or do we go completely virtual?”While the answer seems pretty clear, many districts are planning to return to school for face to face instruction in September, and with the threat of losing out on federal funding for not returning, it seems as if this is their only option.
Face to face instruction for large student populations poses a health risk for anyone working in the building, especially educators and students, and quite frankly, with cases on the rise this option just doesn’t make sense. Teachers will now be responsible for things such as cleaning the desks, supplies, and anything else that may have been used before students enter their room all while managing and ensuring student use of PPE and teaching with students sitting 6 feet apart. Let’s remember, this is merely one layer and does not begin to address the nuanced interactions educators and students have at school.
Although virtual learning is the most viable option, it still comes with drawbacks. Not all families have access to the internet or devices to support the students in the household, not to mention working from home is not an option for many parents and neither is leaving their child at home unattended for the workday. Furthermore, we all know that learning is social, and without intentional planning and adequate teacher training, students will lose important critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
Although there are obvious health risks in returning to school for face to face instruction, there are other long-lasting issues that if unchecked, will continue to decimate the already frail educational structure. In my humble opinion, it’s time for a complete overhaul and restructuring of what education should look and feel like.
Despite being in the eye of the storm, we can still find peace. Returning to school for face to face instruction quite frankly is too dangerous and will inherently be the cause of more outbreaks. It’s time for a complete overhaul and it begins with the community. For example, communities could start homeschooling co-ops that mirror what more affluent districts are doing. There would be individualized instruction, smaller class sizes and classes could be held outdoors and in other non-traditional settings. Companies like Tailor Made Learning, based in Detroit, MI, do a great job of sitting with families and designing an educational experience that truly allows families to have a say in HOW their young person learns. Community Activists and educators such as Nikala Asante, based in Houston, TX, are creating and building opportunities for virtual African-Centered homeschooling. There are options.
We live in a capitalist society and it’s time we understood what that truly means. All too often the people impacted the most by these decisions are not at the table, yet we have yet to realize we are the ones with the real power. Sending your child back to school in September for face to face instruction is not safe. The world of education is changing and it’s time we started designing experiences that teach our young people how to think critically and problem solve in ways that positively impact OUR communities. Yes, it takes hard work, but the outcomes are worthwhile and most importantly long-lasting.
U.S. Congressman and Civil Rights activist John Lewis passed away last weekend at the age of 80. He famously spoke at the Great March on Washington on August 28, 1963, the youngest of all the speakers that day, before a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people. Despite the agony of walking and standing under the scorching August Washington D.C. Sun, history would be made thanks to the speeches given by greats such as John Lewis, Roy Wilkins, and of course, the famous “I have a dream” speech by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
In the present tense, we claim to honor those greats by “continuing their legacy,” but that simply isn’t true.
We are not doing enough. Period. We, meaning we as Americans as a collective, haven’t done enough to ensure the hard work of Congressman Lewis doesn’t have to be done all over again. 2020 has fully exposed our complacency for pushing for needed change in this country. From the handling of the Coronavirus pandemic to the murder of George Floyd, both expose America’s glaring need to no longer ignore systematic ills. Though the systematic ills of America are nothing new to Black people, the “ills” are sometimes not as clear as we may want to think.
When Congressman Lewis was figurately and literally (he had his skull mashed into by a Police Officer) fighting systematic racism in the 1960s, the obstacles were more direct. Under the protection of “states rights,” states could enact systematic white supremacist measures like Jim Crow laws. The works of the 1960’s Civil Rights movement led to hallmark acts like the Civil Rights Voting Act, Voting Rights Act, and the Housing Rights Act, VISIBLY desegregated America. However, as we most certainly know, the true work resided in the post segregated America. Measures not so direct and noticeable. You do not “see” a doctor neglecting the prenatal needs of a Black woman in favor of a White woman. You do not “see” qualified Black candidates get passed over by their lesser qualified White peers in the same manner you “saw” a young John Lewis get physically assaulted by a Police Officer.
2020 has shown the long neglect to address failures in the healthcare system, criminal justice system, and education simply cannot continue. The need to apply true pressure to elected officials to make drastic and impacting change is the legacy Congressman John Lewis wanted to create. He said it best…
“I appeal to all of you to get into this great revolution that is sweeping this nation. Get in and stay in the streets of every city, every village and hamlet of this nation until true freedom comes, until the revolution of 1776 is complete.”
We cannot allow the call for Black Lives Matter, Equality, and Justice to morph into nothing more than a bumper sticker or hashtag. The consequences are too much to allow that to happen. Let’s vote, let’s stay on the elected officials we elect to do their job of progressing the cause of all people and let’s keep doing it… until the revolution of 1776 is complete!
A few nights ago I had a conversation with a family whose history is as complex and colorful as many of ours. Their parents came to this country with nothing to their names and built a life that allowed their children to achieve more than their parents could ever imagine. So as I sat in their lovely living room drinking a glass of wine discussing my own history and learning about theirs, the topic of DACA came up, most specifically, the decision that was made by the Supreme court on June 18th, 2020.
Before diving into the decision that was made on June 18th, let us understand how did this program become a focal point of divide between the Democrats and Republicans, and what exactly is DACA and who are the Dreamers.
When did this battle for the dreamers take place
On September 5, 2017, President Trump ordered an end to the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. This program protected a percentage of young undocumented immigrants —who usually arrived at a very young age in situations and circumstances beyond their control—from deportation. Going back even further, In 2012, President Obama issued the DACA executive order after the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act failed to pass in Congress continually. The young people impacted by DACA and the DREAM Act are often referred to as “Dreamers.”
In making the announcement, the then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions proclaimed that the Trump administration was ending the DACA program. This decision meant that over a period of time, 800,000 young adults brought to the U.S. as children who qualified for the program, would become eligible for deportation and lose access to education and work visas.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions argued that “the executive branch, through DACA, deliberately pursued to achieve what the legislative branch specifically refused to authorize on multiple occasions. His logic stated that such an open-ended circumvention of immigration laws was an unconstitutional exercise of authority by the Executive Branch.”
After the Trump administration ordered an end to DACA in 2017, a large number of lawsuits were filed against the termination of DACA. At this time, two federal appellate courts ruled against the administration, allowing previous DACA recipients to renew their deferred action, and the Supreme Court agreed to review the legal challenges.
What is DACA and who are the Dreamers?
DACA or Deferred Action on Child Arrivals is a program that allows young people who may have been born here by illegal parents or came here to the United States under illegal means to remain here and grow up as Americans without the fear of being sent back to a country they hold no allegiance to. These are individuals who have grown up American, speak English, and have no memory of any other place besides the United States.
Many of these individuals do not even know they were unauthorized immigrants until they were teenagers… Usually when they cannot get a driver’s license or receive financial aid because they do not have Social Security numbers. The dream act is meant to provide these individuals with a pathway to U.S. citizenship who are or wish to go to college or the military and have a clean record.
Just to be clear, the program is by no stretch of the imagination easy to get into or to be accepted. DACA enables certain people who came to the U.S. as children and are successful in meeting several key guidelines to request consideration for deferred action. It allows non-U.S. citizens who qualify to remain in the country for two years, which is then subject to renewal. When accepted, recipients are eligible for work authorization and other benefits and are shielded from deportation. The fee to request DACA is $495 every two years.
What happened on June 18th, 2020?
On June 18, 2020, the Supreme Court blocked Trump’s administration’s attempt to end DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) in a 5-4 ruling. The ruling stabilizes the program and allows DACA recipients to renew membership, which offers them work authorization and temporary protection from deportation. Unfortunately, the ruling creates the possibility that the Administration could still remove DACA in the future if they provide a more comprehensive justification.
Since its inception, DACA has approved 787,580 individuals for its program
91% of DACA recipients are employed
The average hourly wage for a DACA recipient is $17.46
45% of DACA recipients are currently enrolled in school
72% of those recipients who are enrolled in school are currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree.
The average age of a DACA recipient is 24 years old
In conclusion
For a recipient who is a dreamer, all they have ever known is what surrounds them in this country. They are American through and through, and their allegiance lies in the very environment that has raised them and cultivated their mindsets and characteristics.
Isn’t that what this nation was founded on? A place where you can leave the old paradigms behind and reinvent yourself? To follow what gives you purpose, what makes you successful, safe, and happy? At the end of it all, isn’t that exactly what we all are trying to pursue? Purpose and contentment? Why can’t we provide those liberties to all and not just a select group of the privileged?
The moment we start to believe that our freedom and right to pursue our dreams is unique to only a select few is the day we stop being American.
Spring has come and the Covid-19 is still with us, filling news reports and front pages. Bodies pile up in hospitals in some countries, in others extreme lockdown measures have enabled the virus spread to be limited, and the medical staff handles the situation bravely. The number of deaths all over the world is soon reaching, as I write, an appalling 200,000, for almost 3 million diagnosed cases. The USA amounts for a fourth of the fatal cases.
Trump’s daily briefing points are an embarrassing comic relief in the tragedy whose ending is still unpredictable. He has now decided these press points are not “worth the effort,” and I do not know whether to be thankful or desolate. At a time when leadership and trust is most crucial, he fails to embody the strength and good sense Europeans relied on so many times in the past. It is like watching a gutter TV reality show, and obviously he knows a lot more about that than about empathy. Erratic syntax, limited vocabulary, references to absurdities like disinfectant injections (justified as sarcasm on the next day, ha ha) and promoting non-tested miracle cures, tantrums whenever the question is not to his liking, blatant lies and disinformation… all of these offer a sharp contrast with many (not all, looking at you, Brazil) governments’ response to the pandemic.
In Switzerland, the federal councillor in charge of the Interior, Alain Berset, has uttered a phrase that is now the epitome of the crisis, “As quickly as possible, as slowly as necessary.” It is true that the idea of not rushing things is quintessentially Swiss, and we are often mocked for our slowness in many matters (driving, speaking or making decisions being a few). However, despite the crisis affecting many entrepreneurs and businesses, small and big alike, the Swiss people stick to this motto and mostly follow the recommendations as strictly as they did following the March 13th lockdown. Some shops are scheduled to open on April 27th, such as garden centres and hair salons, providing yet another test of the popular compliance with emergency circumstances.
Unlike in several American states, there are no demonstrations in the streets accusing our authorities of turning into tyrants or asking for our freedom back. No one here thinks we have been robbed of our liberty or imposed some sort of slavery, which is something I read on an American protester’s placard. As for now, the moment, the streets and parks are empty, in the supermarkets the distance rules are observed and students are patiently waiting for a decision to be made by the federal council about whether or not they will sit their matura exams (= high-school diploma, A levels). The decision will be made and announced this week, as quickly as possible, as slowly as necessary. Younger students will already go back to school on May 11, while high schoolers will have to wait until June 8th.
As a teacher, I am looking forward to going back to school and seeing my students again. It’s been a month and a half now, and distance teaching/learning has become my new routine.I will not linger on how much time I spend adapting resources or modifying documents, trying to reach students who do not reply to emails or submit work for assessment. It is my job, and I do it in whatever conditions this crisis has imposed on us. I do it with my own children at home, waiting for me to entertain and play with them all day long. I do it in between baking and cooking, finger painting and seed planting, floor mopping and laundry folding, hide and seek and car playing. I do it at night, when the kids and my partner sleep. I do it.
Nevertheless, I have observed what I already knew, but did not see in such proportion before: the amount of people who think teachers are lazybones who deserve their pay to be cut down for doing nothing all day and ostensibly bragging about it on their balcony or in their garden while others still go to work as normal. It looks like half the population thinks this way, judging by the comment sections of online newspapers. And they do not use words as kind as the ones I have chosen above to express their grudge. It saddens me to witness this lack of faith and trust in people who, after all, sometimes have to neglect their own children to make sure others’ get their daily or weekly supply of knowledge. I have no access to my school buildings (homeless people have been accommodated in them), and I have over 100 students. I cannot, unlike my children’s primary school teachers, print and send, or deliver, files. We rely on the internet and the distance learning tools and programmes our department has chosen for us to work with. In just a week, we had to learn how to use them, get organised, alter programmes and adapt whatever was planned to this new situation. We did it. Well, to be honest, most of us did.
Yet some parents (and some non-parents) are unhappy about our incongruous right to a salary when working from home. I read a mother accuse teachers of being Nazis in disguise for wanted to send her children to the gas chamber, aka the classroom. Of course I find it unbelievable to have the nerve to compare the final solution with trying to teach kids. But what I also cannot believe is the idea that the teachers have their word to say in this. We are employees, we do what our hierarchy tells us to do, (in that case, going to work), which is why another fraction of the population hates on us right now: we are like the blind SS, obeying orders against the general good. I did not choose the job thinking I was going to get praise and statues, but I am still stupefied by the constant outbreaks of hate and criticism. As teachers, our role today is to maintain a sort of normality, a routine of learning and understanding the world we live in, through remote connection with all these pupils and students whose parents have to worry about other concerns. We try to make sure they are OK, we let them know they can reach out to us in any case, and we reassure them. We give them homework, set up video calls and formative tests so they can move on and feel they are doing their part. We tell them they are important because they are the future, so they need to know things to make the right decision when it comes to them being in charge.
I have already thought about the perfect activity for my students to practise their own criticism skills: I am going to show them a few pictures of these American protesters, and ask them what they think of that. Would they rather live in “dangerous freedom” rather than “peaceful slavery”? Why does the US resonate as some dystopian setting, reminding us alternatively of “The Handmaid’s Tale” when some compare the right to abortion to social distancing and wearing a mask, or “The Giver,” a novel by Lois Lowry presenting a society in which all differences have been suppressed —suggesting they fuel dangerous behaviours and crime—hence leading to a safe, but deprived of any free will, civilization. Inequalities are more than ever palpable amidst the pandemic, with the poorer populations paying too dear a price for their leaders’ lack of action. If only this crisis could make things change for the greater good, and erase some of these differences instead of intensifying them…
The 6th American president, John Quincy Adams, said “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” In that respect, today’s teachers are much more real leaders than some presidents.
I can hear mom’s voice battling with God in prayer. It’s the first thing I can hear even before I can open my eyes to start the day.
My bedroom is underneath my parents’ bedroom in the basement of the house.
Some mornings the murmurings of her voice cajoles me out of my sleep. Some mornings it jolts me out of my sleep. Some mornings her syncopation consoles me back into sleep.
She prays like someone having an argument on the telephone.
You know when you can’t hear the person on the other side of the phone call but you know that the side you can hear is winning because the passion in their tone is increasing?
This was the voice that woke me up. Every. Single. Weekday. At 6 am.
“LORD GOD, I’M COMING TO YOU IN THE NAME OF JESUS…”
I bet you her fists are balled right now, I think.
“YOU SAID IN YOUR WORD, OH GOD…”
Yep, she is definitely wagging her index finger in the air right now.
“HEAR THE CRY OF MY HEART, OH GOD…”
Ah, she’s slapping her chest again.
“BRING BACK MY HUSBAND, LORD! HEAL MY MARRIAGE! RESTORE THE YEARS THE LOCUSTS HAVE EATEN…”
Welp, that shit’s neva’ gonna happen.
“Time to get up for basketball practice,” I think to myself as I get out of bed.
I could hear that she was crying again. But unlike at night when she would wail herself to sleep, I could hear the fight in her voice in the morning. I could hear her grappling for her marriage, for her sanity, and for her survival at dawn.
I mean, how else can you manage raising four children playing sports, a full time job as a NYC public school teacher, studying for your Master’s Degree in English in the evenings, and emotionally reconcile with the implications of a wayward husband in the late 90s without seeking daily divine intervention?
(Silverback’s Note: Welcome back y’all! There’s so much to say about the global public health crisis that has most of us currently confined to our homes. Until we are safe to roam free, I am reminded that Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years and if Madiba could endure, then so can we. Blessings to you and your loved ones.
My last piece, “Music Is Life” triggered healing conversations and reflections for a lot of folks. I am so grateful for your feedback, thank you. The piece also unlocked my ability to share stories about what fueled my drive and focus on the basketball court.
If my father’s absence was the antagonist in my life story, then my mother’s presence was the protagonist. I am excited to share my love for my mother, the game of basketball, and most importantly, the love for a lifelong journey I have embraced through therapy. Please enjoy reading this very special 3-part series. For the first time ever, we present Power of Love.
P.S. – Click on the section hyperlinks to listen to the tunes.)
It was around 1996 when we learned of my father’s infidelity. This news was a devastating blow to our home. I was unable to fully contextualize the damage but I knew that my dad was with another woman. Their explosive arguments were burning hotter by the week.
Raising four young children, effectively as a single parent, was taking its toll on mom and she had ballooned to 330 pounds.
I learned one morning that her nightly tears often continued well into her twenty-five minute drive into work. She was a public school English teacher and on the days that I had off from Catholic school, I would witness how she began most mornings in the car.
The northbound drive from East Flatbush to Bedford Stuyvesant in the late 90s was not pleasant.
I wanted to listen to this new rapper named Jay-Z on the radio but Mom always wanted to listen to the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir. She loved this one particular album on cassette, God Is Working. Oh man, did she love this one song called “More Than Enough.”
She couldn’t sing worth a lick but she would rewind that song over and over. She used to say that one day she was going to audition for the church’s Grammy-award winning choir.
Fat chance.
Sometimes her singing would be so off putting that I’d just tune out her words. Until, about five minutes into the drive, I’d begin to hear sniffles.
The drive would take us past the cross street where my dad’s other woman and their two young children lived. The sight of the block was too much to bear for my mother. The tears would fall.
Then she’d turn up the volume, as the rumble of the piano keys welcomed us to her favorite song, the sound of the keystrokes pierced through the silence in the minivan.
“Jehovah Jireh” the soloist would sing. “My provider…”
On one of our rides, I remember approaching the intersection where Ebbets Field formerly stood. There was a painted mural of my idol, Jackie Robinson, to commemorate his becoming MLB’s first Black baseball player.
“Look!” I pointed. “Did you know that Jackie broke the color barrier in 1947 playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers?” I ask, attempting to distract her from her sadness.
Ignoring my attempts at a diversion, mom would continue to sing along with the choir with more vigor, “Jehovah Shamma,” she continued through her tears. “You supply all my needs…”
By this time on our drive, we were stopped at a red light and her eyes were closed. Suddenly, a knock came to the window. Startled, we realized it was a panhandler from the men’s homeless shelter looking to squeegee our front windshield in exchange for small change.
“You know I really wanna get better at basketball,” I continue blabbering, ignoring the strange man at the window. “I am excited for my teams tournament this weekend. You think Dad will come?”
She kept singing her heart out without responding. She was in her own world.
Those drives were tough for me to experience from the passenger seat but even more painful for her to experience as the driver but we both were looking for inspiration to get us through the day.
As our old minivan puttered and squealed to a halt in front of the burgundy clay colored doors of Primary School 308, Madi would begin to transform out of her sadness.
“Come on Madi, you gotta focus now,” she’d say to herself in the sun visor mirror.
“Lord, you are more than enough…”
She turned off the ignition.
“You are more than enough for me.”
I too was struggling with feeling that I wasn’t enough. Mom had discovered her resolve in the mountains of Puerto Rico. A resolve that I was lacking.
Where did she develop such resolve? I wondered.
Instead of telling you, I’ll step aside and let Mama Soulful share her own journey with you.
Mama, tell us about those dreams you had about “La Isla del Encanto.”
OYE COMO VA.
I open my eyes wondering if I’m in my Tío Felito’s house in Puerto Rico. As I look around the room, I remember, Oh, I’m in my dorm at Stony Brook.
Why do I keep having those dreams?
In my dream, my Tío Felito, the quintessential Catholic, keeps warning me to go to church.
Why? What does he mean?
Somehow I knew in my gut that God was calling me to serve Him, but I kept pushing that thought to the recesses of my mind.
I knew that I could not serve God and date Jordache — my unbelieving boyfriend — at the same time. In my mind it was either God or Jordache. Of course, I chose the love of my life, Jordache. That one decision led me to speed through my blossoming girly college days into unanticipated womanhood.
During the course of one week in May of 1984, my life changed dramatically: I graduated from Stony Brook University on Sunday, May 20th. Three days later, I turned 22, and three days after that, this emotionally immature woman had become a wife.
It would take a few more dreams and many, many more explosive arguments with my husband that would lead me to the altar of the Brooklyn Tabernacle in March of 1986.
I was so disheartened. It was at that altar that two young women approached me, as tears of pain were streaming down my face. They sympathetically asked me if I wanted to accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior and say a prayer of confession with them.
I said, “Yes.”
Of course, I had no idea what I was doing and the tremendous lifelong impact that one decision would have on me and my little two month baby, Neville Andrés (Andy). A decision that I can honestly say transformed me from a weak, emotionally immature woman to a mighty warrior for Jesus Christ. My heart is saturated with profound gratitude as I recognize that I am still evolving, still growing and still seeking God’s truth to define who I am. As I reflect upon my metamorphose into womanhood, I know that this journey of faith began long before my college years. It began when I was just a little girl.
“Ouch,” I whispered in pain as my mom pinched me.
She did this sneakily under her crossed arms as the church choir sang, “Hear, O Lord the sound of my call.”
She was always nudging me to pay attention as the priest gave the liturgy. I can remember from the time I was a little girl how Mami adamantly taught me and my two older sisters to fear and love God. She insisted we pray before a meal; reminded us to always say, “if God wills it” when we made plans; or urged us to kneel by our bedside to recite The Lord’s Prayer. She made sure we received all the sacraments and attended church every Sunday despite the cold temperatures or our grumpy adolescent attitudes that only desired to sleep in on Sunday mornings.
Despite my religious conversion to a nondenominational Christian Church at the age of 23, I am extremely grateful for my Catholic upbringing. This orthodox foundation was the cornerstone upon which my faith has thrived on for decades.
In 1950 my beautiful mother, Isidra Natal, prematurely left her home in the country at the tender age of 18. She arrived after two days of weary travels from Puerto Rico then to Florida and finally to her final destination, New York, a strange city she had never encountered.
While living in a two bedroom apartment with her three cousins near Albee Square Mall in Brooklyn, she is acquainted with a young, handsome brown skinned man with soft straight black hair from the island of Cape Verde, located on the West Coast of Africa.
Shortly after my parents met, they got married and eventually had three daughters: Antonia, Leda, and Madeline. I am a proud, native Brooklynite born in the early 1960s when it was very popular for Cape Verdeans to marry Puerto Ricans for a green card.
During my early years, I can vividly remember the instability of my home. Growing up, my dad would always argue with my mom for many different reasons. It was either the house was not cleaned well enough or we had company visiting without his approval or simply lies that my dad’s family spewed out to enrage my father against my mother. Most of these arguments would always end in some sort of abuse. The arguments were constant and fervent while living in Brooklyn and continued even more when my parents bought a house and moved the family to Hazlet, New Jersey.
As one of fifteen siblings, my mom is the matriarch of our family. Over the course of their marriage she endured emotional and physical abuse as well as infidelity until she could no longer tolerate it. She tried to keep the family intact as best as she could, but the abuse was more than she could handle. In spite of the chaos in our home, Mami shielded us by keeping us girls as close to her as possible.
In 1975, she decided to move to Puerto Rico with my sister, Leda, and me in order to file for divorce. Despite the many years of loneliness and neglect, my mom was and is strong and resilient. She made sure we did well in school, attended every parent teacher conference, put food on the table, exposed us to the world of travel, and even made sure we maintained very close family ties. She taught us that family relationships are fundamental, and the importance of supporting each other and staying connected. My mom is a woman of character, as my grandmother would say. She instilled the will, drive, determination, and the gift of civic pride that women during her era were not sufficiently accredited for. Her fortitude of character can be easily traced back to my grandmother, Petrona Adorno Natal.
“Madelina, olvidate de esa gente que familia tienes demás aquí,” my grandmother would lovingly remind me to forget about my father’s side of the family because my maternal side of the family was more than enough.
She’d tell me this every time I’d pour out my anger, pain, and frustration of how my father’s family treated my mom, my sisters, and me. She assured me that their rejection meant nothing because of the enormous family in Puerto Rico that loved us deeply.
The rejection and my father’s violent temper led me to reject my Cape Verdean roots. I wanted nothing to do with any of them. They shunned us, and I buried the memory of this abusive family into the deepest part of my recollection.
That is why the move to Puerto Rico was critical to my identity. Who was I? Where did I self-identify? It was there in the mountains of Puerto Rico that I found true familial love.
It was there that I found a part of my identity as a New Yorican as I embraced the vibrant education, the Spanish language, the rich culture, and the delicious food.
Every morning abuela brewed a steamy pot of fragrant coffee. She’d always make sure my tacita de café was on the table ready for me to drink before going to school. This was the beginning of my lifetime love of having una tacita de cafè every morning except now they are not tacitas they are large mugs of coffee.
The caffeine fueled me, late into the night, to study books that were written in a language that was very unfamiliar to me until I slowly and arduously adopted it as my second language. The pay off of those long exhausting nights of studying finally came the day I graduated from 9th grade as the valedictorian of the graduating class. A distinction I embraced because many kids in the class did not like that a New Yorican, who had arrived two years prior, snatched up this prestigious title.
Life there was rich, peaceful, and filled with wonderful, new experiences that I didn’t always appreciate at that moment, but learned to treasure them as an adult.
In the summer of 1977 Leda and I arrived in Brooklyn before my mom. We stayed between my father’s house in New Jersey and my paternal grandmother’s house in Brooklyn. In preparation for my mother’s arrival to New York, I took on the responsibility of trying to find a place for us to live because after all my parents were divorced, and I did not want to go back to living in the house in New Jersey where so much suffering had taken place. So at 15, I was able to find an apartment for Mami to look into upon her return.
When she arrived she secured our three-bedroom apartment in Flatbush. I was registered in the 10th grade at Erasmus Hall High School, and Leda was enrolled at Brooklyn College. Antonia had graduated from William Paterson University and was living in New Jersey in her own apartment. Mami then found a secretarial job at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. My father continued living in the house my parents had purchased in Jersey and would visit us regularly. Despite the divorce, he always stayed connected to the family.
I was reacclimating myself to my native Brooklyn roots and like most teenagers at the time, I was consumed by school, friends, disco music, and my first part time job.
Working at Tasty Twin, a small sandwich hero shop, taught me a different level of responsibility that I had never experienced. The owners, Juan and Manuel, were two elderly gentlemen from Spain who simply adored and trusted me, but they worked me like a dog for a mere $2.50 an hour. In their absence, I managed this modest sandwich shop where the Off Track Betting gamblers and commercial workers on Flatbush Ave would sit, socialize and build community relationships. As the cashier, I made sure all monies were counted and secured while Willy, the sandwich maker, cleaned up the shop before closing. My meager earnings allowed me to purchase things I knew my mom couldn’t afford to buy.
The late 70’s were the years of Elvis Presely’s passing, Jimmy Carter’s 39th inauguration as president, and watching and mimicking Soul Train dance lines. Disco music was blazing everywhere from the radio to people walking down the block with boom boxes on their shoulders blasting their music. When Saturday Night Fever came out in the movie theater, it was a hit of monumental proportions that also contributed to the disco fever of the day.
Next door to Tasty Twin was a movie theater where Leda worked the concession stand. The manager there favored Leda and I, and she always gave me free passes to see Saturday Night Fever at least half a dozen times. My goodness, I spent so much time trying to learn John Trovolta’s dance moves. Simultaneously, roller disco was also en vogue and everyone was trying flashy moves on their skates.
Every Friday night, Antonia, and I would hang out at the Empire Roller Skating Rink across from Ebbets Field. The DJ would blast the music and the skaters would skilfully roll to some of the sweetest, most soulful music of that era. Skating was so much fun, in spite of my ungraceful moves. Antonia was a talented skater, and I was just trying to copy her graceful moves as any little sister would do.
While at Erasmus, I was the president of Arista, the national honor society. I was also the vice president of student government. These roles allowed me to develop leadership skills that I did not possess.
Academically, the years in Puerto Rico had revealed that I in fact had some gaps in my education in comparison with other students. However, out of a class of 723 seniors, I graduated number 23. This sweet accomplishment was a reflection of my deliberate determination and effort to excel in my education.
Erasmus Hall blessed me with my life-long friends: Judy, Annmarie, Magally, and Janine. They were all high academic achievers that challenged me to be the best version of myself and to always stay on task and overachieve. As the years passed, my relationship with these very successful ladies has grown very deep roots that have gone beyond friendship. We are family!
Sadly, Janine passed away four years ago of pancreatic cancer. I was so broken-hearted to the point of almost missing her funeral because I was not prepared to face her death. I would have missed out on the biggest surprise of my life had my husband and my son, David, not continued to coax me to fly down to Georgia to say my final goodbyes.
Prior to Janine’s passing, she had arranged her entire funeral service. Unbeknownst to me, she had planned for me to offer words of comfort during the service. I was shocked, honored, and extremely grateful that I was present to fulfill her last wish.
Sleep well until we meet again at the pearly gates, my friend.
In 1980, I started a new chapter of my life at Stony Brook University on Long Island. My parents were very hesitant about allowing me to attend because they wanted me to live at home, but they finally relented with a little coercing from my college counselor.
I guess they feared I would go wild and not come home; however, that was the furthest thing from my mind. I went to all my classes, got involved in the Hispanic club, and pretty much stuck to the books all the time. Every weekend I went home to see my family and to work a part-time job at my local Key Food supermarket.
All was pretty much quiet, until April of 1981 when Mr. Cool and Confident danced into my life at Annmarie’s birthday party. After that first dance with Jordache, I was smitten.
(Roughly a year ago I suggested Bloomberg would probably run, and here we are…)
Former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg fired the first shot over the bow this week in the Democratic Presidential Primary with his record $1.8Bn gift to Johns Hopkins – a gift designed to ensure that future JH students can be considered for admission with no regard for ability to pay.
In doing so, Bloomberg seals his legacy of philanthropy around education, gun violence, and equal opportunity, takes “first-mover advantage” and makes clear to other primary challengers that he’s backing this with his own money and all in. That’s a single step of “clearing the field” if I ever saw it.
For those who would say a NY billionaire who switched parties and is rife with complicated financial dealings would be unelectable, may I direct your attention to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
I have my own serious issues with Bloomberg, but at least by “checkmark” his issues and point on the spectrum are very closely aligned with most Americans. In many ways, he mirrors many of the issues President Trump highlights as his own qualities while being the anti-Trump in many others. Meanwhile, his history for being cantankerous and outright impetuous are at least reduced by comparison, and his all-out war with the NRA may be OK in an environment where the President has mostly locked up the heartland anyhow.
I dunno guys… he’s maybe not the one you’d thought would be the one to beat, but just from what I’ve seen watching the US Senate sessions these last couple years, he’s not a bad option.
This article was originally published on 20 November 2018.
Blackface, brownface, any face other than your own is wildly offensive. Maybe we can take solace in the fact that nobody is doing it today (at least we hope not), and every time it comes up it’s an old photo or from someone’s high school yearbook. But, when you consider the photo or yearbook is fairly recent (2001 recent), and not from the early 1900s, you still have to pause. Most of these images appear to be at parties where, of course, none of the Black or Brown people being portrayed are present.
The most recent brownfacer is Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who decided to do it at a party at a private school… where he was teaching. Yeah. At the time, Trudeau was 29-years-old, not necessarily the high school kid in the Deep South who claimed not to know better. Similar to all who get exposed in this act, he followed the textbook response, whether genuine or not he immediately apologized. He also just began his re-election campaign which makes the timing of such news awful.
If you’re a person of color in Canada, if you’ve supported Trudeau in the past, do you continue to support him? Victims of racism, usually minorities with Black or Brown skin, have grown weary of Black and Brownface, as well as monkeys and other animals and caricatures used to mock them. Images often from the 21st century. Excusing such behavior, especially from adults like Trudeau, is unacceptable.
Will Trudeau be forced to pay a debt to society, will he be forced to reconcile his past other than a quick apology? Probably not, and therein lies the problem. Rarely are politicians or those in positions of power made to make amends for their racist behavior, and if society and global communities are ever going to improve, that has to change.
This is the iconic question that The Joker, played by the legendary Jack Nicholson, posed to his victims in Tim Burton’s 1989 film, Batman. You see, what The Joker is asking Bruce is if he’s ever wrestled with fate. Moreover, did that tangle with fate deliver grief and sorrow to his life experience.
I sure have danced with that devil in the pale moonlight.
Late in the summer of 2011, I ventured out with my roommate to Queens (NY) on a school night in an attempt to lift his spirits as he was dealing with a breakup. I offered to be the designated driver for the night so he could take his mind off the emotions of the breakup and have a good time.
Coming out of the club that morning, as fate would have it, my roommate began to say that there were Angels all around us and that he could see them. I affirmed his vision to appease him and wondered to myself how much he had to drink. Seconds later each of us had the barrels of loaded guns pressed against our torsos. Our initial response was to push the guns away, to which our assailants threatened that they would shoot us. They stole our jewelry and then ran off into the night.
We quickly moved to the car and drove off towards flashing police lights in the distance. Thinking that we were trying to chase them, one of the robbers opened fire on our car eight times at close range. Similar to the photo above, I’ll never forget ducking down and looking back to see flames coming out of the muzzle of the gun. As I turned my gaze forward, the back windshield of the car in front of us shattered. Luckily the car was empty and we sped off towards the police lights. Thankfully, he was a terrible shooter and not one bullet struck our vehicle. The Angels that my roommate saw that evening and the availing prayers of my Mother had truly prevented us from being yet another fatality in America’s gun violence epidemic.
Hearing the gunfire, the NYPD acted quickly and ultimately apprehended the young men with our jewelry in their possession. We were a little shaken but the Officers asked that we return to the precinct to identify the shooters later that day.
The Officers had investigated the crime scene and determined that whoever was in the passenger seat would have been struck between the head and chest area – I was in the passenger seat.
With that in mind, the Officers then crammed six young black men into a small room and asked that I select the men who robbed us. Looking through a one-way mirror where they could not see me, I looked at these young men in the eyes and was overcome with strong feelings of empathy and sadness.
What could have transpired in the lives of these young men to bring them to this room? Was it low wages and poverty that brought them to this room? Was it the poor public education system that brought them to this room? Was it the American government backed distribution of crack cocaine to black neighborhoods that brought them to this room? Was it mass incarceration and the fatherless homes that those policies left in its wake that brought them to this room?
Having an understanding of the pitfalls in the area in which I grew up in Brooklyn, I had a surreal feeling knowing that there was a pane of glass separating me from an alternate life that I could have lived. In fact, I would later find out that one of the young men who robbed us lived in the neighborhood I grew up in. Here I was, a young black man working for American Express, living on my own, but wondering what I could do to prevent other young men from being in this room. In a way, I felt and feel a sense of survivors guilt. I walked away from that room muttering to myself, “there but for the grace of God go I.”
I know those young men went to jail and I think about them from time to time. I wish blessings on their lives and I hope that they can overcome the mistakes of their youth and the unrelenting punishment of the American prison system.
It has taken me a few months to complete this series on American gun violence and share my own personal experience with guns. Sadly, as time passed, I knew that before I completed this series that there would be another mass shooting. As I write this piece, I received yet another Notification of Death that ten people have been gunned down in a Texas High School.
Why do we need gun reform in America? Quite simply, too many Americans are having to dance with the devil in the pale moonlight… it needs to stop.
This article was originally published on 22 May 2017.
This is America. Where a President can insult a city of 600,000 residents over his own conflicts with Representative Elijah Cummings. The truth is, our border is being run with wild incompetence and cruelty. The harder truth is, so is the city of Baltimore. Don’t all jump at once – I am a firm supporter of Baltimore, but the city has been left behind time and time again. It has seen its share of scandals and – wait, am I talking about Baltimore or our president? Truth is there are gross similarities here. And let’s get one thing straight, Washington, DC, where Trump calls home, is experiencing a historic rat infestation all over the city. Like, real rats, not the folks cycling in and out of the White house tearing our democracy apart and then running to the hills when they realize the president is Master Shredder.
As a very wise Facebooker recently said, “Baltimore deserves our own AOC or Ilhan Omar.” It is time for someone to FIGHT for the people of Baltimore and challenge the status quo. Cummings has retained support by relying on voters in Baltimore being uninformed and voting against their own self-interests. This is also how our president maintains a 40% approval rating on average – it has been reported that the educational level of Trump’s supporters averages an 8th-grade reading level. Our democracy is no longer based on facts, truth, and real issues. And Trump attacking Cummings because he has not been a strong enough advocate for Baltimore is interesting considering our country is the laughing stock of the developed world.
So what can we do? Well, we need to get informed. Those that are informed need to take an Each One, Teach Twenty-One approach. We don’t have time to just hope for the best. It is time that we as a nation get the facts, learn the issues, and challenge those who we vote into office to DO WHAT WE NEED THEM TO DO. This includes every level of elected office starting with the school PTA, city and county council, state legislatures, and our national elected officials. You want to stop having to deal with Trump and Cummings? VOTE THEM OUT. We have a rat infestation. Not just in Baltimore, not just in DC or New York – we have an infestation of rats who have pimped all of us into electing them so they can do as they please with the power we hand them. Trump is dead wrong. And now that we know better, we are dead wrong if we do nothing to change the fabric of our nation, including Baltimore.
Reparations are defined as “the making of amends for a wrong one has done, by paying money to or otherwise helping those who have been wronged.” Throughout history, numerous wrongs have been committed towards African-Americans, including (but not limited to) unequal education access, medical racism, housing discrimination, mass incarceration, etc., and yet no attempt to make amends has been made.
In 2009, The Senate issued an apology for slavery plus the years of oppression that followed, and expressed commitment to “rectify the lingering consequences of the misdeeds committed against African Americans under slavery and Jim Crow and to stop the occurrence of human rights violations in the future.” However, the apology remains empty since the rectification is nowhere to be found.The United States of America refuses to sufficiently acknowledge its’ long history of oppressing, dehumanizing and exploiting Black folks, and restitution is long overdue. The Compensated Emancipation Act was passed in 1862 to repay slave owners for the income they would lose once their slaves were freed. If reparations could be given to repay slave owners for lost wages, then why is giving reparations to the descendants of slavery for centuries’ worth of lost wages viewed as unthinkable?
Reparations continues to be a pressing issue due “to a series of changes that have occurred in recent years — namely, the increased academic understanding of and public attention to the ways a history of slavery and discrimination has fueled disparities like theracial wealth gap, which shows that the median white householdis 10 times wealthier than the median black one.” (The 2020 Democratic Primary Debate Over Reparations, Explained) People are aware of the glaring racial wealth gap, and that slavery, plus the centuries of disenfranchisement that came after, have fueled it.
Furthermore, America has never acknowledged that slavery can’t be an issue of the past when it still impacts the present. The harms of slavery didn’t just go away with emancipation. When slavery was abolished, it evolved into other forms of oppression. Black people were denied educational opportunities, adequate housing, good jobs with decent wages, discriminated against by businesses, and their labor was once again exploited through the prison system. Harassment from police and White residents was common, and the subjugation of Black people continued, taking a toll on the entire community. This toll still exists in the present day.
It is not logical to enslave a group of people for over two hundred years, repeatedly railroad them into less than adequate schools and neighborhoods, incarcerate them at unnecessarily high rates as well as repeatedly brutalize them by those who are sworn to “serve and protect”, only to tell them that they are “undeserving” of proper repayment in any form. The United States has done nothing to help Black Americans recover from centuries worth of marginalization, which needs to change. Reparations have proven to be an important issue among Black constituents for the 2020 election, and a hearing was held last month to discuss a bill (H.R.40) that would establish a commission to study and develop reparations proposals. It is obvious that the demand for reparations is not going away anytime soon, nor should it. The impact of slavery is still something that negatively impacts the Black community on the social, political, and economic levels, proving that reparations are long overdue.
