Easily, this article can be re-directed to address all African-American and (even) Latino youth for that matter. Or ‘better’, why not write about our young men who so desperately need to be ‘saved’ from America’s pervasively ignorant perceptions of them? Shouldn’t we seek to ‘save’ them immediately, if not first?

Time and time again, we’re reminded that our young black men are increasingly present in jails and absent as fathers. Daily we’re inundated with messaging that suggests too few of them graduate college in juxtaposition to the many who aspire to a music career in Rap. So, we have to help ‘save’ our boys soon, right?

Well wait, what about the young girls? What do we make of their realities; their pain? What about their self-imaging, self-esteem and self-value or lack thereof? Aren’t they sadly, just as devalued and disposable according to prevailing social norms? Have we conveniently ignored the alarming statistics regarding the growing number of girls in jails? In continuing on with my point here, please know that I’m not interested in some ridiculous competition over who needs more help; our young men or women? Let’s get real about this: All of our children need us. America’s youth need adults to be adults, period. White,rural youth, Latino, urban youth, African-American, suburban youth, all need us. Make no mistake about it, affluent or ‘well-to-do’ African-American parents are struggling with their children too, in a myriad of ways. Some of those parents failed to account for extreme depths of racism & inequality, when they relocated, believing that having equivalent salaries to their White neighbors would help lessen their troubles. Few are shown the research which explains how Black suburbia children are often times just 5% of white districts, yet accounting for over 70% of said districts expulsion rates.

Yes, this issue is larger than the conversations we’re having regarding our children. Yes, we need to ‘save’ our young black boys. But too often this solely implies ‘inner-city’, ‘urban’ and ‘underprivileged’. Whereas I don’t refute the help needed in that arena, I insist that it’s a lot larger than what we’re told daily. (We’ll talk more on this later). Here, we simply want to make the case regarding the sisters of those Black boys…the mothers, aunties, grandmothers and daughters of those young men.

A recent study highlighted how over 1 million women have been misdiagnosed with cancer. In a conversation with Mable Taplin (whom I invited to join me in writing this series), she immediately stated, “I’d like to know the racial demographics and income level of those women misdiagnosed.” Interestingly, the conversation was contextual to our typical, let’s catch up, spirit-driven talks around Healing, Counseling and Jesus (of which we should probably write a book on, titled such. Especially, since so many of us, refuse the help we so need because we are already ‘saved’ and filled with the Spirit).

Let me assert here, neither of us as God-fearing women denies the power of the Holy Spirit or God. In fact, our life stories suggest otherwise. However, what is most apparent is that so many of us, in fact, deny ourselves in the name of acknowledging God’s power. In other words, being filled with Spirit doesn’t negate the other things inside of us that perhaps warrant therapeutic attention.

Allow us to restate the obvious: Cancer is real and it is serious. Preventative screening, knowing symptoms and treatment options are critical to survival. Equally important are the under-discussed risk factors such as stress and other lifestyle choices. Many of us fail to make the connection between stress and the development of many diseases, despite a lot of research that suggest the same. As Black women it is imperative that we continue those discussions regarding our pain as Black women; our hurt, our stresses and fears. How do we heal and what treatment options have we chosen that are also critical to our personal survival?

As Black women, if and when we’re honest, we’ve created very few spaces to actually heal. We’ve disregarded the significance of healing specific to our quality of life. What does this then say to our young girls; our daughters? Some of us are so strongly trained in the area of coping and existing that we’ve confused it with living. I’m grateful for my strong mother who embodied the tools to navigate a cruel society angst to Black people. I’m blessed abundantly in having a father who too possessed the strength needed to survive the era of openly, racially charged Chicago. Yet, after learning of my own need to heal, I believe this understanding of strength is often misunderstood and miscalculated.

We’re taught to be strong but when are we taught to heal? We’re taught to be resilient but at what cost? We’re taught to be understanding, even when there’s no peace and we’re told to be accepting even when it’s unloving and unclear to us. So how do we heal? When? Should we? Recently, in one of my many speaking engagements to our nation’s youth, I was reminded of this developing truth regarding healing. I was reminded of how our communities still refuse counseling, therapy and healing because, “that’s for crazy people” or “our situation ain’t that serious yet”. “…for crazy people”? “Yet”? Huh? It’s hard to believe that as victims of abuse and with our close connection to slavery, we can actually deny needing help. It’s even harder to digest those of us refusing to get help even as we personally identify tenets of physical and emotional abuse in our own lives. The fact that we’ve accepted trauma as a mere side effect to living denotes the severity of our struggle, the profundity of our plight.

Back to the motivational speech I gave to those inner city, Chicago students. After I finished, a 14-year-old freshman girl, having experienced some of life’s most evil blows indirectly (yet I believe divinely) shared with me her adult-like trauma. My heart hurts in thinking of what she poured into me that morning, in just her 1^st week of high school. No child;  Black, Latino, Native-American, etc… should have to endure what she shared. Yet, so many of our babies are experiencing these irreversible situations. The question she indirectly, yet divinely, presented is: who ‘saves’ the girls? And how? This series is about those little girls in America, who like our boys, need to be ‘saved’ too. It’s about the little girl in us, as grown women, who scream for healing despite the appearance we give off to the world. This is about us as Sistas making the courageous decision to first ‘save’ ourselves, realizing they’re watching us. They not only need us, they need for us to be whole. It is about us doing whatever we need to do so that we can ‘save’ our young girls too…

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“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”

“History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”

“Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.”
-Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

STRIKE: Reason #3
My final underlying reason for the strike here in Chicago boils down to this: If there are 350,000 children currently out of school and impacted by the Chicago teachers strike, then there are at least 350,000 parents/guardians with thoughts and feelings regarding the strike. Despite mainstream media reports perpetually pitting one side (CTU) against the other (CPS), in my opinion, there’s another ‘side’ to this conversation.

In my two blogs preceding this,

http://www.yourblackbloggers.net/2012/09/uncategorized/chandra-gill-3-underlying-reasons-why-chicagos-teachers-are-on-strike/

http://www.yourblackbloggers.net/2012/09/uncategorized/chandra-gill-three-underlying-reasons-why-chicagos-teachers-are-on-strike-part-2/, I attempted to make the case of how the current strike has larger implications and strongly significant underlying elements for said communities. In highlighting poverty and policy as the first two of this 3-part series, there’s simply no way for us to exit this exploratory sequence of articles void of this 3rd underlying reason:

Strike 3: Parents

A recent report chronicles 52 high schools in Chicago having less than 15% of its students meeting or exceeding IL state standards. In review, the school listed with the lowest percentage of students, meeting/exceeding state standards on the Prairie State Achievement Exam, is Paul Robeson High School at 3.2%. Having a 99.6% African-American student population, the average ACT composite score is 13.6. This school sits just blocks away from the recent murder of emerging rapper Lil JoJo now grabbing national headlines.
(see my letter to Interscope Records)

http://www.yourblackbloggers.net/2012/09/black-news/chandra-gill-open-letter-to-interscope-records-about-chicagos-violence-chief-keef/

For far too long, Illinois has ranked in the bottom percentile nationally specific to educational funding disparities. The antiquated and highly debated approach to funding schools in Illinois has some of its districts receiving over $20,000.00 per student, in contrast to a dismal $9,000.00 per student for others. As Chicago continues to top the list nationally with its African-American-Caucasian school segregation element, there’s much to be said regarding what Chicago really needs and who can best provide it.

Akin to the terms, “multiculturalism” and “diversity”, “parental involvement” is increasingly and debatably more of a catchy phrase, lacking the true essence of what it implies. Some politicians use it to displace attention from their responsibility in legislating policies, ie…bettering the existent funding disparity we mentioned earlier. Teachers in schools plead for it, children yearn for it and everyday citizens insist on it. It is the act of parents being more involved in the lives of their children. It is the reality of parents deciding to be and do what the word implies, parent! We all remember the commercials, “It is 10:30, do you know where your children are?” Few would favor the unfortunate answer we’d get to that question in some of our communities today.

In a much broader perspective, it is important to note that not all parents lack involvement in the lives of their children. There are many, many parents that work hard each day for the safety, security and well being of their children. They sacrifice and plan for their children’s future. They are astute and they are focused. So then, with clearer context regarding parental involvement, perhaps it’s time to upgrade our understanding of such.

Here in Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel won last year’s election with just 323,546 votes (55.25%)-(A number lower than that of the parents with children on strike). And having well over 2,000,000 citizens in Chicago and more than ½ of that being registered, the turnout for electing our city officials are dismal at best.

So to my parents, let’s reach beyond the obvious. Yes, you’re to be involved. No one knows better than you; it’s what makes you the great parent that you are. Laughingly, I recall hearing a parent share a story of how her neighbor said he had to baby-sit his children for the night, to which she replied: “you don’t baby-sit your own children.” My people, I insist that our discourse must change. Our understanding of such must heighten. I leave you with my personal paradigm shift in discourse and what I deem critical specific to parents and their power: Parental Engagement. With parents engaging in the political process, legislative policy demands and academic elements of their child’s school & career, the only strike we’d face in the future is that of striking names from positions. Isn’t it fitting to have reason # 3 of this series in the hands of parents? “Strike 3 and you’re out.” Shouldn’t they have the last word?

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“It is a historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.”
“Frankly, I have never seen as much hatred and hostility on the part of so many people.” (Dr. King in Chicago) -Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

STRIKE: Reason #2

Do you know this guy by name?
His name was Oliver L. Brown. He was a professional welder and an assistant pastor in his local church. He’s best known as the plaintiff in the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case Oliver L. Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka. We’ve come to know this case by its shorter title, Brown v. Board of Education.

Linda Brown was his daughter. As a third grader, she walked 6 blocks to her bus, which at the time served as the ultimate transportation to her school, an additional mile away. As a member of the NAACP, many sources suggest, Mr. Brown alongside a dozen other parents, attempted to enroll their children in their neighborhood, segregated schools. Their anticipated rejection would serve as documentation for the legal suit filed on behalf of the NAACP in 1951.

But wait, what about the Chicago Freedom Movement? How about Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable, the ‘Founder of Chicago’? Oscar de Priest? What about Ferdinand Barnett, editor and founder of Chicago’s 1st African-American owned newspaper (The Chicago Conservator)? What about Barbara Sizemore, a Chicagoan that became the first African-American woman to head a public school system in a major city? Are you familiar with Ida B. Wells, Dr. Percy L. Julian or Carter G. Woodson and their Chicago ties? Ever heard of Al Raby?

The aforementioned is extremely significant for a plethora of reasons. Here we will place emphasis on the 2nd underlying reason as to why Chicago’s teachers are on strike:

Strike 2: Policy

Throughout the week I’ve heard many arguments in favor for and against the teachers strike. They have ranged from the teachers being right in standing up to the Mayor, to the teachers being wrong in abandoning the classroom, thereby punishing the students. As with many Americans, some Chicagoans are just the same in our response time. Truth is, ‘negotiations’ and talks of a strike have loomed for quite some time. Perhaps we believed that it would somehow work itself out. Perhaps we hoped for an agreement in due time. Or perhaps we dared to trust in a system, a body of people that all say they have the children’s best interest at heart. Perhaps we were wrong on every end. And maybe, just maybe, there’s a need to better understand this strike relative to policy.

In 2009, a federal judge scrapped the CPS desegregation consent decree. In 1980, the Chicago Board of Education and the US Department of Education entered into a desegregation consent decree that required CPS to implement a voluntary desegregation plan designed to create and maintain racially ‘integrated’ schools. To achieve such, CPS used methods such as the implementation of magnet schools. US District Judge Charles Kocoras in 2009 determined that CPS had achieved “unitary status” meaning that they had demonstrated good-faith compliance with the desegregation mandates of the decree. Suggesting that remnants of past discrimination had been eliminated, the court ruled in short that judicial oversight was no longer warranted.

Instituted policies in Chicago and even the state of IL are dynamic, specific to Black and Brown children. They have been for some time. Although many have in fairness argued that varying complexities as such are not solid means for the strike, it is important to note policy as a sound underlying reason here.

Policies and positions such as, having a mayoral appointed school board or full elimination of policies that reject using race as any criteria in a formulaic manner is debatably imbalanced and ahistorical. The existence of policies and procedures upholding nine selective public high schools, whereby parents with academically sound children are often denied admission due to limited seats is insulting. True parental involvement is defined by the many parents in this great city who work hard each day, caring for their children’s future only to see fewer and fewer academically sound schooling options.

For me, this policy position rests itself on an overpowering lack of culturally relevant curriculums that much research has shown as a basis for student’s overall engagement. Having lived in a democratically run city most of my life as a Chicagoan, I’m saddened by the little information I learned about my strong history. I attended public school and not much was said about my ancestry as a Black woman, via my school’s curriculum. Through the years I’ve witnessed policy shifts centered on school uniforms and after school programs. With the current emergence of charter schools and privatization of education, I deem it vastly important for us to become more knowledgeable of the invisible elephant in the room.

This is a city largely developed at its root by fingers and hands mirroring those typing this. Yet, this is a democratic city with an 80% population of African-American and Latino children in its public school sector and about the same population in its jails and juvenile detention centers. No, this isn’t a way to identify policy as the sole reason for said stats. It’s a lens by way to investigate the critical challenges ahead of us. It is a means in examining the true essence of what’s going on in not only Chicago, but throughout America. To my generation, I say this: At some point we must come to realize that the very things we are beneficiaries of today came at the expense of protest and demands. Our educational degrees are a result of legislative policies that opened doors for us to walk through. The chairs we occupied in college classrooms and now occupy in corporate boardrooms are a direct result of challenged policies and laws.

Failure to continue the work of implementing policies aligned with culturally relevant curriculums, educational equity, access, etc… for public schools is beyond our degreed intelligent analysis on the strike; it shall expose our unintelligent work ethic on behalf of our youth who will still need us after this strike ends. It shall call to question our own public school education and knowledge, or lack thereof, of those like Al Raby. It will expose our inability to continue on with the work he and Dr. King pioneered right here in Chicago as they launched the nation’s first large-scale movement in 1966 to end racial segregation in an expansive metropolis. My people, this strike will soon end. However, it is our generation’s work specific to legislating relevant policy that must begin.

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by Chandra Gill

“It is reasonable to believe that if the problems of Chicago, the nation’s second largest city, can be solved, they can be solved everywhere.”

“While we were under no illusions about Chicago, in all frankness we found the job greater than even we imagined…We found ourselves confronted by the hard realities of a social system in many ways more resistant to change than the rural South.”
- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

STRIKE: Reason #1

Before: “It’s going to be a bloody summer this year.”
After: “They just killed_________”

These all too familiar words are strikingly common for far too many of our nation’s children. In fact, the sad truth is found in the above blank being filled with countless names of loved ones. All too often these loved ones are children whose pictures grace obituary pages and never a driver’s license or college identification badge.

As I penned in my letter to Interscope Records, “our communities {are} communities that inhale hopelessness and helplessness, as it smells of poverty, mis-education and unemployment…” And as our nation grips this oh so sensitive time with multi-million dollar budgets for politically aligned commercial ads, the billboard for urban youth everywhere is analogous to Mr. Clint Eastwood’s empty chair at the Republican National Convention.

The infamous empty chair in script for Mr. Eastwood was just that, a script. But for teachers in –Chi city, that empty chair is real. It’s what thousands of students and teachers came back to when they realized that their fellow student was no longer with us. Gunned down by some of the deadliest assault weapons known to mankind…killed in cold-blooded ways in sweltering heat and in some cases shot up by their own peers, younger than they. These ‘kids’, now corpses, were removed from attendance sheets for our 1st and only week of school, last week.

That empty chair is symbolic to the emptiness our youth feel, the emptiness that so many teachers, police officers, parents, etc. actually feel too. That empty chair is now at dinner tables and schools throughout America. (In fact on this, the 11th anniversary for Sept 11th, it’s an all too familiar reality for the families of soldiers who suffered lost at the hands of combat. We honor those families who live through the grueling veracity of the one less family member at the table)

See, the strike on behalf of the Chicago Teachers Union is in fact bigger than the Windy City. It’s actually bigger than much of what we’ve heard in mainstream media. Sure the issues of standardization, smaller class sizes, equitable pay, longer school days, budget management, teacher evaluations, etc…all sit at the negotiating table. In spite of this, in national terms, there are truly a few other issues that I deem paramount and contextual to students in public schools nationwide.

There are (3) three issues worthy of highlighting specific to students during this strike.

Strike 1 – Poverty

As I mention in my book, Champions Break Chains, “Poverty Kills!” By no means can I, or will I ever, justify the buffoonery existent in the hearts and minds of some people. Truly there’s a level of responsibility and accountability leveled against adults, especially, and youth as well. However, being born in poverty is cruel, being relegated to nothingness is wicked and being denied access to a quality education is insidiously disrespectful, at best.

With nearly 50 million people in poverty in America, our nation stands to define itself as a ‘world-power’, in historical terms only. Here in Chicago nearly 20,000 children are homeless. Some studies indicate that we lead the nation in black children arrests, suspensions and expulsions. Chicago, now deemed the murder capital, leads the nation in student deaths. Many of these unfortunate realities emerge from Chicago’s poorest communities. In Englewood community, the home of Derrick Rose, Jennifer Hudson’s family and the recent shooting of Lil JoJo, the median household income is $22,000 via 2008 neighborhood profile reports.

So, what’s the connection to the strike? Well, surely it’s not my premise here to debate poverty as an excuse v/s reason. As a professor, I seek to make the connecting claim of what it must feel like having to address 30-35 students daily from environments as such. Sure teachers need to be held accountable. Let’s be real here, there are some teachers that sadly seek just a paycheck and in exchange they deny their students the very education they in fact need, to someday too have a legitimate paycheck of their own. Whereas this isn’t the overwhelming majority, truth is these teachers exist and they should retire or be fired. More than none however, there are those teachers that teach to make a difference in the lives of our children, our future.

These great teachers deal with the impoverishment of their student’s realities. They counsel their students through the absence of incarcerated fathers and mothers as they fuse hope and inspiration into their hearts. They purchase “You did it” stickers for their classrooms and stockings for their little girls who fight through the city’s blistering, winter cold en route to school.

As I’ve learned through the years, an interdisciplinary approach to learning is major and highly beneficial. As such, there exist an interconnectedness of issues that impact how students learn. There’s no separating the child’s in-school learning experiences from their out-of-school lived experiences. Henceforth, for me, we must recall Dr. King’s words prompting his strategic move and lived experience in Chicago, “I must return to…the big cities of the North—a valley filled with millions of our white and Negro brothers who are smoldering in an airtight cage of POVERTY in the midst of an affluent society.”

Sure, it’s a job that teachers and administrators signed up for. They chose to teach. They’re educators. They’re professionals. As a nation, we’re now witnessing a growing need to address the rising disparity in quality, public education. Just as poverty within itself is voluminous, yet not a sole excuse as to why students should fail; we can’t ignore the impact of poverty within the fabric of education, access and success – if so, we fail.

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Dr. Gill is questioning why Interscope Records is not taking any responsibility for the men that they sign to work under their label.

Interscope Records
2220 Colorado Avenue
Santa Monica, CA 90404
(310) 865-1000

Re: Chicago’s Violence – Chief Keef

To: Jimmie Lovine:
(Founder of Interscope Records)

“The African-American is not a bestial race”
“Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so.” – Ida B. Wells

What are we to say about the recent murder of yet another teenager here in Chicago? What can be said about this alleged rap “beef” amongst those young African-American men here in our communities; communities that inhale hopelessness and helplessness, as it smells of poverty, mis-education and unemployment?

This letter seeks no theoretical framework regarding the varying complexities and debatably learned behaviors of said populace. It’s not a letter of rage with potentially combative elements. This letter is “simple’ and begets this question:

- What foreseen responsibility will your record label have as you continually sign young troubled African-American men to record deals?

Let me be clear (full disclosure): I’m an educator born and raised on Chicago’s south side. I understand the constant dialogue involving parental responsibility, as my parents were present in my life; they raise me and were my first teachers. So I get it. Parents have to be more responsibly involved. However, as I teach, we must as a society soon abandon the either/or position and embrace the both/and philosophy. In that, I insist on individual responsibility and institutional accountability. By example, sure, parents are responsible for what their children wear (ie. 9 year-olds in low-cut shorts with “Sexy Booty” on the back). Yet, we must connect this conversation too to companies that manufacture and produce such items for 9 year-old girls to wear. (Heck, McDonalds is opening up a vegetarian restaurant in India because the market demands it. India’s not known for the consumption of cows and pigs). Corporations can change. Companies can adjust. As people, we must do the same.

Mr. Lovine, I understand business. I’ve debated the, “it’s the American way” mantra often in my quest to be successful, professionally. I know at some point soon we must create a compass of consciousness, as a society of adults. I don’t have all of the answers. But I do know it’s time for us to ask some critical questions. One of which I’ve posed here to you.

When I consider the surge in violence here in my hometown, I can no longer act as if there are no solutions for our children. Just this year, I’ve spoken to over 20,000 students and parents here in Chicago. I believe in our youth. Not naïve or blindly, I too believe in their future, notwithstanding their current realities and conditions.

In reaching beyond a culture of complaining, as if there’s nothing we can do, I suggest the following:

As a concerned Chicago resident and US citizen, I believe Interscope Records should investigate its current policies (and explore more innovative ways) in signing teenaged artists to its label. In step with the NFL and NBA professional leagues, record labels should consider a possible age requirement, entry-level contingencies, etc. for your artist of interest. To place millions of dollars in the hands of troubled teens, thereby creating optimal exposure for youth to glorify America’s biggest failures socially is unacceptable. If high school attendance and graduation is a bottom-line requirement for athletes, why not record labels? Educating our youth to excel beyond one platinum record album is critical to their life as a whole. To think otherwise is to benefit in the moment, monetarily at the expense of our full existence, culturally and globally.

In closing, I side with Ida B. Wells and her words. I write to you with hopes of a timely response. I’m on the side of producing solutions for the sake of our youth in peril. It is my hope that your company will consider the above mentioned and other innovative measures in helping rescue the hearts and minds of our children, our future. I can be reached at 866-496-5667.

Genuinely,

Chandra Gill, Ph.D.
CEO-Blackademically Speaking Enterprises
www.drchandragill.com

cc: Congressman Danny Davis, U.S. Representative – Illinois’s 7th Congressional District
Congressman Bobby Rush, U.S. Representative – Illinois 1st Congressional District
Illinois Senator Dick Durbin

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