Mumia
Abu-Jamal's Radio Broadcasts
The
Seller and the Sold
Long
version: mp3,
3.37 MBs, 4:09
Short version: mp3,
2.65 MBs, 3:15
Justice
Bruce Wright on Mumia;
mp3, 576
KBs, :39
[Col. Recorded.
11/9/03]
They saw
themselves as others had seen them. They had been formed by the
images made of them by those who had the deepest necessity to
despise them. — James Baldwin, *Notes of a Native Son*
Sometimes,
an honest examination of the institutions of a society tells us
deep truths about the nature of that society. Such an examination
reveals raw, uncomfortable, and hidden truths about what the unwritten
rules are, and why.
When we examine
the way that public schools have responded to the challenge of educating
African-American children, we must conclude that the education of
millions of such children are not the real priorities of this society.
Millions of such children emerge from public schools with little
notion of their place in the world, or how to move through the society
with sanity, with life-affirming rewards, and some semblance of
peace.
They leave,
far too often, early, and ungraduated. Others may graduate, but
their achievements are slighted because of the light and undemanding
nature of the studies. Whether one has graduated or not is not the
mark of whether one is educated or
not. Far too often, young Blacks are taught, if anything, how to
get a menial job; how to work for others; how to *sell* some meager
skill.
Meanwhile,
in schools where the well-to-do live, the young are taught critical
thinking; how to ask the right questions. Indeed, to question! They
are taught, not how to sell themselves, but how to produce things
to be bought by others, to secure and
amass wealth.
What the American
school system is, is a class-bound structure, that reproduces itself,
in the next generation.
One generation
is being trained to follow; the other generation is being taught
how to lead. In such a system, how can we wonder why things are
unchanged, from generation to generation?
As the late
educator, Murray Levin, suggested in one of his last books on the
dearth of instruction in Black and Latino schools in Roxbury, 'oppression
is the lesson.'
Why shouldn't
children, in a nation that claims to love liberty, be taught freedom?
Instead, they
are conditioned to obey, to follow orders, to not rock the boat,
to be ... passive.
True education
awakens, it does not darken the windows of perception. True education
enlivens, it does not dull the spirit.
This is what
the elders of every civilization on earth have struggled to do.
They tried to build young people who could take on the tasks of
defending, building, and expanding the community.
In this new
century, there are too many youngsters who are seen as expendable.
They are presumed to be ignorant. They are left to rot on the vine
of life, untaught and unproductive.
In a truly
humanistic society, no person is seen as expendable.
In a society
said to be based on 'rugged individualism', each individual is valued,
and given the materials necessary to make a valuable contribution
to the whole.
That isn't
happening now, and it is truly a scandal.
Young people
should be given, *as a social duty*, the wherewithal to grow in
knowledge and understanding of the world in which we live. They
are to be accorded a history that reflects their place in the world
that is, and the world to come.
To fail to
do so is to commit a kind of social suicide. It is cruel. It is
stupid. It is wrong.
If public schools
are not functioning in this country, then it is incumbent upon this
country to provide the materials necessary to transform the problematic
present into a system of promise.
Anyone who
questions the conditions of urban school districts should only peruse
a copy of Jonathan Kozol's *Savage Inequalities*. Schools shouldn't
reproduce social
and class inequities, but work to eradicate them. If it fails to
do this, then it merely reproduces the errors of the past, and leaves
serious work undone, for generations yet unborn.
Copyright
2003 Mumia Abu-Jamal
Check out Mumia's
NEW book:
"Faith of Our Fathers: An Examination of the Spiritual Life
of African and African-American People" at www.africanworld.com
The Power of Truth
is Final — Free Mumia!
PLEASE CONTACT:
International Concerned Family & Friends of MAJ
P.O. Box 19709
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Phone - 215-476-8812/ Fax - 215-476-6180
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OFFER YOUR SERVICES!
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WE WHO BELIEVE
IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!
Submitted by:
Sis. Marpessa
Text
© copyright 2003 by Mumia Abu-Jamal.
All rights reserved.
Reprinted by permission of the author.
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