Sad but so true! I see this played out on a weekly basis when I teach chess at Dr. George Washington Carver Elementary School. They are centrally located in the notorious San Francisco neighborhood called Bayview Hunter’s Point. I have been teaching chess there for over nine years, and each year the struggle continues for the dedicated Teachers and staff that are committed to these wonderful children who are directly impacted by poverty, gang violence, and drugs in the community. The neighborhoods are blighted, and the threat of gentrification and closing down the school is always looming large. The Principal and I, Mrs. Emily Wade-Thompson, have become good friends over the years. She is an amazing African-American woman who runs her school like an African Village, instilling pride in her students by teaching them their history and heritage. The students are called “Achievers”, and taught a list of core values based on the Swahili language, for example Umoja, which means Unity in the community. Her plight, and that of her fellow educators, and those of each and every “Achiever” around this country is given nothing but lip service and chicanery by our elected officials, corporations, and parents, whom all want to blame the teachers. It takes a village to raise a child.
Wakiza McQueen
[Note: "Blame the Teacher Syndrome: A Misguided Education Policy" by Jack Random posted on Dissident Voice, March 15, 2010.]
Showing posts with label Wakiza's Wisdom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wakiza's Wisdom. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Wakiza's Wisdom: When will the wiser people wake up and make a stand? Sadly not anytime soon...
By Wakiza McQueen
There is truly a sickness plaguing the American people. Our society has become (maybe always has been) quite individualistic and self-effacing. One often wonders if Charles Darwin was not only a scientific forerunner, but a prophet describing the evolution of the human species, as it were, when he produced his seminal work, On the Origin of Species. For it is truly survival of the fittest in today's society. And the fit, in America, are the top 1% that control the wealth in this country, not excluding corporations. I am by no means an anarchist or a far-left wing zealot espousing the virtues of a socialist economy. I am an American first and foremost, and like our fore bearers, believe in a capitalistic economic system. However, as quoted by Arianna Huffington, capitalism requires a moral foundation with which to operate successfully:
"In capitalism as envisioned by its leading lights, including Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall, you need a moral foundation in order for free markets to work. And when a company fails, it fails. It doesn't get bailed out using trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. What we have right now is Corporatism. It's welfare for the rich. It's the government picking winners and losers. It's Wall Street having their taxpayer-funded cake and eating it too. It's socialized losses and privatized gains."
Indeed it is "Corporatism" and "socialized losses and privatized gains" that has infected our culture, and like a virulent retrovirus, it is destroying us from within and there seems to be no cure in sight, nay, not even a vaccination; we're all susceptible. Natural selection too is taking place, but not by the evolution of the best qualities for success being passed along, but by government intervention, call it "elitist selection", by which our government picks the winners and losers: AIG, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citi Bank, et al.
The solution is simple. We need to change Washington and enact a public campaign financing system that supersedes the existing private campaign financing system that corrupts our politics in this country. We need to change the for profit industrialization of healthcare, the military, and the prison system, that treat human beings as commodities to be bought and sold (I thought slavery was outlawed in this country with the emancipation proclamation). Finally, we need to elect politicians that represent their constituencies and care about the social welfare of this country, and legislate for the common needs and rights for all people in our society. Bertrand Russell said it best: "The problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubt." So the question remains, when will the wiser among us wake up and make a stand? I'm on my two feet, how about you?
wmcqueen@kpmg.com
There is truly a sickness plaguing the American people. Our society has become (maybe always has been) quite individualistic and self-effacing. One often wonders if Charles Darwin was not only a scientific forerunner, but a prophet describing the evolution of the human species, as it were, when he produced his seminal work, On the Origin of Species. For it is truly survival of the fittest in today's society. And the fit, in America, are the top 1% that control the wealth in this country, not excluding corporations. I am by no means an anarchist or a far-left wing zealot espousing the virtues of a socialist economy. I am an American first and foremost, and like our fore bearers, believe in a capitalistic economic system. However, as quoted by Arianna Huffington, capitalism requires a moral foundation with which to operate successfully:
"In capitalism as envisioned by its leading lights, including Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall, you need a moral foundation in order for free markets to work. And when a company fails, it fails. It doesn't get bailed out using trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. What we have right now is Corporatism. It's welfare for the rich. It's the government picking winners and losers. It's Wall Street having their taxpayer-funded cake and eating it too. It's socialized losses and privatized gains."
Indeed it is "Corporatism" and "socialized losses and privatized gains" that has infected our culture, and like a virulent retrovirus, it is destroying us from within and there seems to be no cure in sight, nay, not even a vaccination; we're all susceptible. Natural selection too is taking place, but not by the evolution of the best qualities for success being passed along, but by government intervention, call it "elitist selection", by which our government picks the winners and losers: AIG, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citi Bank, et al.
The solution is simple. We need to change Washington and enact a public campaign financing system that supersedes the existing private campaign financing system that corrupts our politics in this country. We need to change the for profit industrialization of healthcare, the military, and the prison system, that treat human beings as commodities to be bought and sold (I thought slavery was outlawed in this country with the emancipation proclamation). Finally, we need to elect politicians that represent their constituencies and care about the social welfare of this country, and legislate for the common needs and rights for all people in our society. Bertrand Russell said it best: "The problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubt." So the question remains, when will the wiser among us wake up and make a stand? I'm on my two feet, how about you?
wmcqueen@kpmg.com
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