WPCNR THE BIG EXTRA. News & Comment by John F. Bailey. January 19 2009: I wrote this column in 2004. It still stands relevant today, Monday morning at 8 A.M. at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in
In the pomp and partying surrounding the Barack Obama Inauguration binge that’s been going on the last three days, Dr. Martin Luther King — the man who made Barack Obama possible has all but been forgotten. President-Elect Obama surely will mention him his speech Tuesday. If not, Mr. O, please put him in your speech now. Just a paragraph will do.
But let me revive this column, which began this way:
George Washington stands for honesty.
Abraham Lincoln for freedom
Dr. King’s name stands for
When I think of Dr. King, I think of the Selma marches, I think of Birmingham, I think of Little Rock, Arkansas, where he lead the African-American community in demonstrations asking for the right of equal opportunity in America: a seat on a bus wherever they chose; a restaurant or hotel of their choice; the right to apply for a job without being turned down because you were black. Blatant in-your-face- discrimination was publicized by Dr. King and
It took fearlessness to do that. Who today has that fearlessness that Dr. King and his followers showed all of
Today, subtle discrimination denying equal opportunity, denying education, exploiting the poor and guaranteeing less opportunity are the evils that Dr. King, had he lived, would be attacking today.
When I write those sentences I just wrote, it seems incomprehensible to me that someone would deny another person that. When you think about it, it is an awful situation to think about. In the 38 years since Dr. King was murdered, the nation has come a long way in breaking down the visible barriers of racism based on creed and the color of one’s skin — and now, today, the language one speaks and where they are from. The education establishment with the exception perhaps of the Port Chester School District, as pointed out by the Journal News series on education running this week, continues to favor the English-speaking, the wealthied, and the well-situated.
Today the barriers to Equal Opportunity are more subtle and just as effective.
Barriers still exist: in the classroom. There is reluctance to deliver quality education to the black and Hispanic populations in
The only reason there is a concentrated effort to do so are the state achievement tests which showed the shame of our education programs for minorities. The Superintendent of Schools Timothy Connors is to be commended for pushing this program.
In the last ten years the products of this subtle unequal educational opportunity have been well documented and given a name: The Achievement Gap. The educational establishment invests millions in studies to fine solutions to it and they have learned a lot about it. It takes more
The lagging of minority youth is blamed on the home and family breakdown. Well then you have to bring more attention to the family unit and those youngsters’ home environment, putting the education in there. It’s expensive but if you want to solve the Achievement Gap you have to do that. The City of
The argument that you have to speak English in the schools and learn through English is racial superiority. Of course you have to learn to speak English, but really, Bilingual education is how we English-speakers learn another language. Port Chester has achieved this — and WPCNR pointed this out to the White Plains School Board six years ago. Why is this new?
Every new teacher being hired in the White Plains School District should be bilingual — that’s the first thing the new Superintendent just announced should work on when he comes in July 1. And how about for his new Superintendent’s cabinet a educator in charge of bilingual education and performance, just for starters.
Why not have teachers educate children in their own language with English simultaneously? It is proven to work in Port Chester and
This discrimination Dr. Martin Luther King would find hard to take.
He would bristle at lowering standards for minorities, because he would see right through that argument, saying: when are you going to raise the standards for my people because you don’t have to work any harder at educating them if you do not raise your expectations for them.
I think Dr. King would look around today and appreciate how Blacks and Whites, Hispanics and Jews, Catholics and Protestants, Muslims and other races mingle together in today’s
I think he’d observe we are all becoming more appreciative and respectful of each other. But, I do not think he would like today’s buzz word :”diversity” and our smugness about our diversity.
He would say that’s nice, but let’s keep our eye on the prize, to borrow the wonderful motto of the White Plains Department of Public Safety, let us treat all with integrity, professionalism, respect, and to that add opportunity.
Now, let’s think how Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would handle the present homeless situation in
I believe Dr. Martin Luther King if he were in White Plains today would bring the homeless 40 or so spending nights in the woods and overflowing at 186 West Post Road at the warming shelter to breakfast with him. He’d have them camp out in tents at Andy Spano’s house or on the island at Renaissance Square. He would not let it pass. He’d run as many warming shelters as he felt necessary and get that television coverage when they were going to be closed down.
Dr. King was not only politically incorrect, but politically uncooperative.
He’d introduce the “feared 40” all around to the rich and the powerful and the well-connected and show them the people whom they are treating like cruel political pawns by our leaders on the county and the city level – all over this county.
He’d ask each to tell their stories at his breakfast. He’d prey for compassion from us the wealthy, the powerful and the decent, and the respectable to have compassion for the weak, the misdirected, the addicted and disturbed, and the mortgage-ravaged.
He’d ask
He’d challenge us to step up our humanity, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. did when no one else would 39 years ago.
He’d shame the two governments, county and city, for not treating the homeless with simple human respect and adhering to the constitution, which prohibits you from being jailed for no reason – a policy incredulously being pushed by politicians who should read the constitution just once to reset their minds.
And about our gangs: Dr. Martin Luther King would go out to the streets of Yonkers, Mount Vernon, Port Chester, New Rochelle, Peekskill – the cities where gang activity has been reported – and speak to them about where they are going. (Perhaps he’d simply speak to
It is difficult to say Dr. King would say to the gang members of our area. But, I assure you he’d be in their midst confronting this problem and admitting it exists.
As we honor Dr. Martin Luther King Monday. Ask ourselves what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would think of the way we have treated the homeless on the Warming Center issue. What he would think about how we have “reached out?” Would he approve of the way we are working with our youth, our Hispanic population, about how dollars are being used for affordable housing and why it cannot be built faster, about how dollars are being spent in school districts whether on educating people or creating buildings or stadiums; how dollars are being spent by organizations supposedly helping the afflicted, and how they are really doing, and what are they doing with the dollars.
He’d excoriate the variable and below prime mortages now being foreclosed as a new form of financial redlining invented by the financial establishment to exploit. He’d ridicule the efforts of the government to “save” billion dollar financial institutions while allowing homeowners to lose their houses.
Would Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. approve?
He’d remind us that Jesus Christ chose to minister to the “hardcore” of his time. He went into their midst. He healed them and made them fishers of men.
The way to honor Dr. King tomorrow and at the “celebrated” holiday next week is to honor the afflicted, help the troubled with dignity, not humiliate them, not shun them, not “throw them out.”
The way Dr. King would view our world today?
He’d observe that “we need work.”
That the lynchings and the shutting of school doors are gone, but the attitudes remain.
And he’d point that out with that his long and finger pointing right at us.
He’d say, “I still have a dream.”
And he’d be celebrating Barack Obama’s election but pointing his finger at him for the pomp and party atmosphere that will exist Tuesday, and calling upon him to keep his eye on the prize and not on the power, the prestige, and the people who would steer him away from what needs to be done.