“Let America be America again--The land that never has been yet”

"O, yes, I say it plain,

America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!"  (Langston Hughes)

Our good friends at HBO, along with hosting our longest running mentoring program also continue to create opportunities for us to experience socially conscious performances that provoke thought and inspire action. Last Tuesday they provided the opportunity for 50 of our mentors and mentees to see Laurence Fishburne perform the one-man show “Thurgood”, about Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who prior to becoming a justice argued one of the most famous cases in front of the court: Brown V. Board of Education - The case that launched a wholesale effort to desegregate our schools nationwide.


…and it was working. Graduation rates for African American and Latino students were growing and test score gaps narrowing. However, over the past couple of decades we have been marching steadily backwards, replacing legally enforced segregation with economic and social inequities that have reestablished a quality gap in education reminiscent of Jim Crow days. And now with the election of our first black President a severe economic downturn, powerful undercurrents of racial bigotry are being exposed again. How will we respond this time? Can we ever reject fear and greed to finally become what we can be as a civil society?

Fishburne closed the play with a quote from a Langston Hughes poem that still resonates today with a plea to…

"Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--

Let it be that great strong land of love

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,

But opportunity is real, and life is free,

Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,

Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?

And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,

I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.

I am the red man driven from the land,

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--

And finding only the same old stupid plan

Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,

Tangled in that ancient endless chain

Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!

Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!

Of work the men! Of take the pay!

Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.

I am the worker sold to the machine.

I am the Negro, servant to you all.

I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--

Hungry yet today despite the dream.

Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!

I am the man who never got ahead,

The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream

In the Old World while still a serf of kings,

Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,

That even yet its mighty daring sings

In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned

That's made America the land it has become.

O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas

In search of what I meant to be my home--

For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,

And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lee,

And torn from Black Africa's strand I came

To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?

Surely not me? The millions on relief today?

The millions shot down when we strike?

The millions who have nothing for our pay?

For all the dreams we've dreamed

And all the songs we've sung

And all the hopes we've held

And all the flags we've hung,

The millions who have nothing for our pay--

Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--

The land that never has been yet--

And yet must be--the land where every man is free.

The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--

Who made America,

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--

The steel of freedom does not stain.

From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,

We must take back our land again,

Langston Hughes

America!

O, yes,

I say it plain,

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath--

America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,

The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,

We, the people, must redeem

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

The mountains and the endless plain--

All, all the stretch of these great green states--

And make America again!"

 

respectfully,

Tony

Tony LoRe

CEO/Founder

Youth Mentoring Connection/Urban Oasis

It's time for our annual campaign drive! Partner with us to mentor our youth from the threats of gang violence, drugs, and dropping out of school. Everyone who donates will be entered to win two tickets to our benefit concert with Jackson Browne in October.
 
YOUR DONATION WILL CHANGE LIVES! Donate here: Youth Mentoring Connection Annual Campaign

Griselda - 1, Racism 0

This weekend I had the distinct privilege (hmm, there’s that word) of accompanying Griselda, our brilliant and courageous young woman up to San Francisco State University for an orientation to her chosen college. I couldn’t help but reflect upon the first time I met this determined, yet angry and brooding young lady in our mentoring program at Rhino Entertainment. Over the past few years I have been given many opportunities to marvel at her resilience as her story unfolded.  This is a remarkably conscientous, thoughtful and intelligent young woman.  But like many of our young people she grew up in a household rife with the struggles of poverty and alcoholism and a neighborhood with gangs, drugs and other forms of violence. She battled and defeated these challenges, as well as a school system that crowds too many kids in classes that are too short of the proper resources.

I permitted myself to be present in the joy of the moment, to feel the pride I imagine a father feels and the excitement as his daughter transitions into a new phase of life. Plus, I always love the feel of a college campus and the exhilaration of young minds in pursuit of knowledge (and all the other trappings of the college experience).

But now my mood changes to one of righteous anger as I think about how relatively few young people from the inner city of Los Angeles will accomplish what Griselda has, not because they don’t have the inherent ability, but because they have not been able to summon up the heroic qualities that she has found. It shouldn’t take that. We as a society have failed them, and the vast majority of ‘them’ are “black” or “brown” students. If you are buying the myth that we are gradually desegregating and bringing equal opportunities to all, return that purchase to the counter for your money back. We have resegregated big time. The schools we work with at Urban Oasis YMC are well over 90% African American and Latino and the conditions for learning are deplorable. The evidence is in. This is a national phenomenon.

We have replaced legally enforced segregation of the 50’s with economic and social apartheid today, replete with a quality gap in education reminiscent of Jim Crow days. Despite the fact that desegregation efforts were working (graduation rates increased amongst African American and Latino students and test score gaps narrowed substantially) the dismantling of these efforts starting with Reagan and resurfacing with zeal under Bush (and the failed policy cynically titled “no child left behind”) have reversed the gains. Is this racially motivated? Hard to say. Is this nonetheless a form of racism? You’re damn right it is. Is it wrong, duplicitous and self-defeating to the concept of democracy?

Jonathan Kozol writes in his book “The Shame of the Nation”:

“There is something deeply hypocritical in a society that holds an inner city child (only eight years old) accountable for performance on a high stakes standardized exam, but does not hold the high officials of our government accountable for robbing her of what they gave their own kids 6 or 7 years ago.”

This must change. Charter or magnet schools are not the answer. We don’t need magnets to draw the best and brightest out of our public schools, leaving behind those children who are too wounded to know how to motivate themselves. ALL children in a humane society should be entitled to an equal quality education, regardless of their place of birth. We need to fix the public schools if we are ever to have a true democracy where those less advantaged get a fair shot at a better future.

In the meantime those of us in the trenches will continue to try to inspire heroic efforts on the parts of young minority students to overcome the disadvantages of this culture. Our bright and beautiful Griselda will be a shining example to them and a source of pride and inspiration to those of us who love her.

sincerely,

Tony

Tony LoRe
Founder/CEO
Youth Mentoring Connection/Urban Oasis

Founder
Boarding House Mentors