Tuesday with Mentor and Mentee- David & Angel

"I would like to thank my mentor David for being there for me. He always made me laugh and I will always remember everything. My mentor let me know he cared when he helped me when I had problems. In this program I learned that everyone needs a push. Everyone needs some help to grow and needs someone to care for them".

-Angel

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

Friday's Follow-Up

"At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet. " Plato

Warner Brothers - Superhero
Matches from Warner Brothers program had the opportunity to create their own superheroes. See what they did!

Stepping Out From Behind My Own Shadow
Juliana shares her experience, strengths and hopes. She says that she is grateful from the bottom of her heart...so too are we grateful for Hoolie being at YMC from the bottom of our hearts!

Weekend should be beautiful even if it might be a little cold.......
Have a good one!
La Judy

Stepping out from behind my own shadow

Tomorrow, Thursday April 8^th, I will have two years of sobriety – crazy right? I was what you would call “a high functioning drunk”. I had most people fooled, while all the while I was dying inside. Looking out from the veil of pain, wondering “how do they do it?”. The simplest things baffled me – shopping for groceries, having lunch with a friend, paying rent. Somehow I did it… I managed to act as if I knew exactly what I was doing, hoping to God no one would call my bluff.

The one thing I knew I could always count on was my ability to reach the young people I work with. I could identify and access their wounds as easily as I could access my own. Derry and the kids say “don’t let her close the door, cause she’ll make you cry”. Not in a bad way though… I swear!

As the fog has been lifting and my role in this amazing organization has been developing, the committee decided to hold court in an unusually loud and abusive way, making me question everything about who I thought I was. I had been acting for so long that I wasn’t sure who I was, or am today. Am I really the “Velvet Hammer” or just a wanna be mama? Who am I to pretend to know what these beautiful young people need? Or how to work with them? Do I deserve the love and respect of my kids, co-workers, family and friends?

I was used to living in panic and self loathing. I knew how to take care of it. I self medicated. I knew I wasn’t worthy, so I didn’t have to live up to anybody’s expectations. If I let you down, oh well, I told you I wasn’t worthy…

When you live in a lie long enough you believe that lie, so now I am trying to figure out what the truth about me is, because I am determined to live in my truth today. I am not hiding any more, and sometimes it isn’t pretty. It’s full of weird dreams , (like taking mud baths (not like spa mud, but nasty, dirty mud) and then trying to sneak into a hotel to get clean in their pool, and then losing the cash deposit I was supposed to take to the bank because I left it near the mud bath – seriously that was my dream last night) chest pounding moments of self doubt, screaming matches with my committee, breakdowns watching commercials, and facing the wreckage of my past. I want to be able to live the rest of my life being able to look at my self in the mirror and like who I see.

So I really had to check in with my self – Do I truly have a gift? Am I meant to help our youth heal from their wounds, while healing mine? The answer is a resounding YES!!!! Whew! My truth is that the bliss that I found 18 years ago, still stirs my soul. The love that held me in the darkest moments is the love that awakens my spirit every day.

There are still days that I fear and uncertainty creeps in, and that is when the universe smiles and shows me once again why I am exactly where and who I need to be. In the past couple of weeks, without invitation or notice, on separate times, I had some of my “og” babies (ha! They are all in their 30s) come to visit me. The first visitors were Black (Kerstan), Dez and Intro (Cory). These were my crew of boys that protected me fiercely, made me laugh til my stomach hurt and who not matter what always told me they loved me…. As they did when they left. The following week, Dez’s brother Vern came with his wife Martha and their beautiful daughter Giselle. They were all teens when I met them!

A couple of days ago I received this email from Martha:

Hoolie,

On our way out of your office, Vern & I looked at each other

and both said, "Man, it feels good to see her." " I missed her"

I told him, "I know exactly what you mean."

For some reason, you seem to fill our hearts

with joy "like a motherly warmth". I know, it sounds corny.

I just had to say it...

Love you, Hoolie Boo

Vern & tita & Giselle

By the way, you looked fabulous!

I guess I still got it! And I get to know it! And remember it! Life is good.

From the bottom of my very grateful heart –

Thank you to all of you who loved me before I could feel it, to those who still love my in spite of me, and who will love me for always.

Juliana

Warner Brothers - Superhero

Matches from our Warner Brothers program had the opportunity to create their own superheroes. They were told to use their full imagination to describe the most outrageously fantastic, incredibly cool, and imaginatively powerful relationship that has developed between the mentor and mentee.

Friday's Follow-Up

"All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tony's Blog: Building the capacity to dream...
Tony has a great answer to a mentor who asks: how should we deal with students who display a passive attitude of helplessness toward life.

Tuesday with Mentor and Mentee--Aaron & Dennis
Dennis thanks Aaron for helping him to have fun and laugh.

It's a beautiful weekend and lots to do next week.

Have a safe one!
La Judy