Education101Class#4 Educational Priorities An Educator's Message To Black Students

New Education Principles 101 Textbook: New Education Principles 101 will revolve around a list of Educational Priorities and selected online essays. Find essays by scrolling down this page. Instructor: Mba Mbulu

Class #4

MORE EDUCATIONAL PRIORITIES

(1) We must make certain that Black students see themselves and their people playing typically progressive human roles in typically human developments and appropriate historical developments.

(2) Black teachers must make young people realize that teaching the truth is not an illegal activity. Black teachers must not be afraid to teach the truth.

(3) Black teachers must make young people realize that the truth supercedes financial considerations.

Class Assignment

Read the following essay [Message To Black Students]. Be able to relate that essay to the educational priorities listed above. Also critically evaluate Sentence #1, Sentence #2 and Sentence #3.

Essay #4: An Educator's Message To Black Students

All of Us are students and all of Us are teachers. These are two vital roles that each person plays because each person is a receiver and transmitter of information. As a student, information is coming at each of Us non-stop from all angles, and We are consciously and subconsciously analyzing it. This information, needless to say, is influencing Our behavior. Therefore, We must be careful to analyze as much of this information as thoroughly as possible, and maximize Our ability to distinguish between good information (a good lesson) and bad information (a bad lesson). Likewise, as teachers, each individual is consciously and subconsciously sending out information and messages to whomever might be watching or listening. Therefore, somebody is always learning a good lesson or a bad lesson from each of Us. For that reason, each of Us must be careful about what he/she says or does, and thereby maximize Our chances of teaching good lessons to others.

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In the United States, there are very few educators who are willing to buck the system in order to teach Black students what Black students need to know. Most educators will take the easy way out because it involves less stress and leads to bigger and bigger paychecks. They will not teach Black students what Black students need to know (that is, educate Black students) because educated Black students would use their knowledge to make Black People powerful.

Why is that? Because one of the natural roles of students is to make their people a powerful people. If their people are already powerful, one of their roles to to keep their people powerful. By selling out to the powers that be, Black educators fail to give Black students the opportunity to carry out one of their natural functions. As such, Black educators rob Black students of their most important mission in life and contribution to society. In order to recover from this robbery, Black students must seek out the educators that will tell them what they need to know (the nonconformist professors and independent writers and researchers) and listen to them carefully. What they will tell you will be very similar to what you read in this essay.

Students, take heed: Nature thrives on simplicity. The complications in life are man-made. In order to bring this lesson home to you, I am going to introduce three very simple sentences. However, if We were to break each of these sentences down and define its key terms to finer and finer degrees, these simple sentences would begin to appear extremely complex. I said they would begin to appear complex. In reality, they would remain simple (Nature thrives on simplicity), but they would appear complex because human beings are prone to react to appearances as if they were the real thing. Reality and appearances are two entirely different existencies that represent entirely different manifestations of energy. We, Black People, can ill afford to take an appearance and treat it as if it were real, nor can We afford to take a real thing and treat it as if were an appearance. How do We tell which is which? It helps if We remember that reality is always simple.

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Reality is always simple and the solutions to reality's problems, if put into effect when they should be put into effect, are always simple. But the fact that reality is always simple does not mean that reality is always kind. There are times when someone or something will have to suffer, and We have to face up to this unpleasant fact. As educated persons, We have to recognize that suffering is part of the life process, but We also have to make sure that excessive suffering among Our people is not due to unnatural imbalances. If Our People suffer due to an unnatural imbalance, then it is the role of educated Blacks to help eliminate the cause of that unnatural imbalance. We have to devise strategies whereby the suffering is transferred from victims to abusers. This is a critical process, indeed, since victims suffer excessively because an unnatural imbalance has been generated, while abusers suffer excessively when an unnatural imbalance is being corrected. [Top][Education101][BuyBooks][TheBlackEye]

Sentence #1: There is a Black way and there is a white way.*

What is a way? A way is a systematic manner of doing X, Y or Z. Since society uses institutions to carry out functions, a way is a combination of institutions that make up a complete social system. The Black way includes a Black system of Government, Religion and Economics. The Black way includes a Black system of education, a Black approach to Health and Nutrition, a Black system of developing and maintaining Family Relations, Community Relations and Interpersonal Contact (dating, marriage, community events, sports activities, etc.). There are Black ways to handle all of these areas of human contact, but Black People in the United States don't know anything about them. If one talks to Black People in the United States about government, they respond by bringing up the president, the congress, the mayor and the constitution. If one talks to Black People about economics, all they can relate to is getting a job and looking out for #1. If one talks to them about religion, they come back with Jesus Christ, Baptists and Catholic sentiments. And so it goes throughout. There is a Black way and there is a white way, but Black People in this country know only about the white way, even if they tend to colorize it from time to time.

Why don't Black People know as much about the Black way as We know about the white way? Shouldn't Black People be practitioners of the Black way instead of the white way? I think so.

Sentence #2: In the United States of America there is only one way-- the white way.

We are all taught about George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and Patrick Henry, etc. These men, all white, played major roles representing the right of the white colonists to govern themselves. Gabriel Prosser, Peter Poyas, Denmark Vesey and Imari Obadele, all Black, played major roles in representing the right of Black People to govern themselves, but We never were taught anything about them. Why?

Thomas Paine, a white man, wrote documents that detailed the oppressive conditions heaped upon the white colonists by King George. Thomas Paine's name resonates throughout American history. David Walker, a Black man, wrote about the oppressive conditions heaped upon Black People by white Americans, yet history says nothing about him. Why?

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Our educational system sings the praises of white men such as Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Alva Edison and Eli Whitney. They made scientific contributions that improved the quality of people's lives and improved society. But Black persons like Granville Woods, Sarah Boone, Garrett Morgan, Frederick Jones, Lewis Latimer, Jan Matzeliger, Norbert Rillieux and thousands of others are never mentioned. This in spite of the fact that Black men and women contributed such everyday inventions as high tech telegraphy, the most effective and universally used train conduction communications system, the automatic traffic signal, the electric light bulb that works, the telephone, the refrigerator, the refrigerated transport systems used in the transporting of foods, the sanitary public bathroom used on busses, trains and planes, the automatic clothes dryer, the first effective gas mask, the ironing board, the universally used sugar refining technique, the universally recognized process that made mass production of shoes possible, the principle that led to the invention of the air conditioner, incandescent street lights, the lawn sprinkling system and a host of other inventions. These invention make life as We know it possible, yet these Black individuals, in spite of all that they have contributed, are not part of the educational process. Why?

We are taught about the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Civil Rights movement and Integration, all slanted in a way that serves the purpose of white people. However, have We heard about the Black general strike, the maroons (some of their settlements were larger than some states) and Black Nationalism? Information on these subjects will help Us understand that We have been misinformed about the Civil War, Emancipation Proclamation, civil rights and Integration. But We are not provided with this information. Why?

We need to look at Our Black skins and ask Ourselves why We know about white people and white accomplishments but not about Black People and Black accomplishments. We need to look at Our Black skins and ask Ourselves why We have settled for an education that has left Us out. Our education, Our years of formal schooling--- by omitting intelligent, gifted and accomplished persons who look like Us, and by omitting the ideas, contributions, standards and morals they represented-- that education has made it easy for Us, Black People, to conclude that We are zeroes. That education has also convinced Us that the only way a zero can become anything of value is by hooking itself onto something that has value; that is, something white.

Therefore, each Black student, at this very moment and without even being aware of it, has concluded that he/she is a zero and has started looking for a non-zero to hook onto. Since a non-zero cannot be Black, each Black student is searching for something white to give him/her worth; a white/integrated ideology, a job with a white company, a white mate, a house in a white neighborhood, taking on white "tastes", overemphasizing white speech patterns, attending a white college or graduate school, etc. An all Black thing? A non-integrated thing? No way! Why? Because 0 + 0 = 0.**

That is white America's message to Black students; 0 + 0 = 0. That is the lesson We are being taught, that is the lesson We are learning and that is the lesson We are trying to get an "A" in. We are not taught that Black counts, that Black has value. Why? Because in the United States of America, there is only one way--- the white way. [Top]

Sentence #3

We are Black People, We are not dark-skinned white people. We need a Nation of Our own.

Once a Black student goes beyond white America's educational process, he/she discovers that there is a mountain of proof that attests to the value of Black People. A student also realizes that Black People are an exceptional People, that We have a right to establish Our own government and that We actually need a Nation of Our own in order to make the progress We are capable of making. Black students who go beyond being "white educated" soon realize that Black People have three choices: (a) We can help the whites wipe out the Black way; (b) We can let the white way drain Black People of Our essence so that We become dark-skinned white people; or (c) We can establish an independent means by which the Black way can express itself and make its genius known. Those are the options that are facing Black students and teachers in the United States today, and each student and teacher needs to think long and hard about those options.

Black students who are fortunate enough to be able to pursue an education beyond the high school level should beware. The nature of formal education in this country is such that the further you go the whiter you become. That is true even if you attend a so-called "Black" college, since "Black" colleges are primarily passing on white values. Your challenge then, is to not lose your sense of self, your Blackness, as you go through the educational process. Your challenge is to not fall into the "every Black person for himself" frame of mind. Your challenge is to resist the tantalizing but deceitful call of white power, white dollars and white priorities, and to refuse to compromise your Black essence. Your challenge is to use what you learn to draw closer to your People, to understand why you should become more committed to your People and to do what you can to advance your People and yourself within the proper context, the context of the Black way. You have to constantly keep this challenge in mind, make it a part of your heart and enable yourself to choose your Black substance over white seductions.

At some point each student will have to make a choice. At some point a few students will be offered money, status, the vestige of power, etc., to desert your Race. The choice will not be presented to you in such clear cut terms, but that is what it will amount to; and you need to think clearly or your tendency will be to give the white way more credit than it deserves.

The consequences for Black People have been grave when We have paid a high price for whiteness. However, if you prefer the white way, then follow it 100% without trying to run a double game on Black People. You have the right to do that. Fortunately some other students, those students who choose the Black way, will determine the destiny of Black People. Those students will relearn what it is to be Black, attach value to it, apply it and spread it to others. It is those type of students who will take Black People to a real state of equality, not only with white people but with all of the peoples of the world.

I salute the students who have chosen, who will choose, the Black way. They are smart enough, gifted enough and strong minded enough to appreciate the fact that We are Black People, We are not dark-skinned white people. We need a Nation of Our own.

Asides

*Sentence #1 is very simple. However, persons who want to obscure the issue and make the simple seem complex might recognize that there are three key words in that sentence-- Black, white and way. By defining each of those terms, a simple sentence that is focussed can be made into three definitions that lack focus. If there were three key words in each of the three definitions, then Sentence #1 would be transformed into 9, 27 or 81 definitions, each less and less focussed. As such, a clear issue can become clouded, something simple appears complex and the thought processes of a lot of people become confused.

**A Black student plus something else Black is 0 + 0, and 0 + 0 = 0.

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