Hello Madam Chairwoman and Distinguished Committee:
One
of the highest, most universal freedoms in the world is the freedom to
educate your children to live free. That is a freedom that is
consistently, systematically and viciously denied the parents of
children of African descent in America.
Children
of African descent in America generally attend the worst,
lowest-performing, poorest-functioning schools in America with the most
ill-prepared teachers. Rather than being encouraged towards excellence
and productivity, children of African descent are suspended, expelled
and arrested at schools in astronomical numbers.
And in America, the law says that we MUST
attend these bad schools. In some instances, when parents of African
descent tried to send their children to better schools in other
communities, they were prosecuted and imprisoned for "stealing a good
education."
Rather
than children of African descent being prepared to compete with the
best and the brightest children of the world, they received at the very
best, a third-world education, and possibly even worst, a slave's
education.
In Chicago, 2 years ago, only 10% of 8th
grade Black boys read at a proficient level. After two years of
intentional work by the school system here, now it is down from 10% to
7%. In Detroit, the number of Black boys reading proficiently is 3%.
At the rate we are going,with the same intentional teaching processes,
in 6 short years, no Black boys in Chicago or Detroit or Milwaukee or
Minneapolis or St. Louis, and maybe even across America, will be able to
read at a proficient level.
A
study by the University of Chicago found that with the exact same
resume sent out for job interviews, resumes with Euro sounding names
like Heather and Bradford were called almost immediately for follow-up
interviews, while resumes with African or Africanized sounding names,
like Jamal or Shalisa were thrown in the waste basket. These were the
exact same resumes with the only difference being African or Africanized
sounding names representing people of African descent.
In
Chicago a few years ago, 50 schools were closed, more than in any of
city in the world at one time. And to show you how dire this situation
is, the school that enrolls more Black students than any other college
in the state of Illinois, this school, Chicago State University, is
threaten to be close in about one month.
- Poor education and bad schools = more violence among people of African descent
- Poor education and bad schools = more unemployment for people of African descent
- Poor education and bad schools = dysfunctional communities for people of African descent
- Poor education and bad schools = more incarceration for people of African descent
What
do we want? One, we want reparations now, including new and
substantial investments in the education of children of African descent.
Two, we want a parallel education system controlled by people of
African descent that is responsible for educating children of African
descent. Three, we want the support of the U.S. and the U.N. to connect
the education of children of African descent to the development
economically of people and communities of African descent around the
world.
Thank you for this time. And safe travels back to your countries.
Saturday, February 6, 2016
