Me and Poverty
I live in Newark, NJ. I
worked for the Newark Public School system for over thirty years, first as a
sub then as a teacher for 23 years. I retired 2010. After retiring I graduated
from the International Institute for Restorative Practices and received a Master’s
of Science Degree in Restorative Practices. I currently volunteer at my old
school working with parents sharing what I have learned. I’m very concerned
about the fate of many of the inner city students especially the males. Current
statistics state that 1 out of 9 black males ages 20-34 are currently in jail.
There is a phenomenon called the “school to prison line” and the current
structure of the public school system factors many students right into this
handy societal niche. Innovative thinking is what is needed to turn the tide of
self destruction that plagues so many young people.
Poverty is no joke. It
breeds the sub culture of no return…the bling bling of false illusions and
smoking guns that negate life and glamorize death promoting emotions run amuck
in search of a nonexistent respect. Young minds numbed by the incessant
chatters of the media about war, terrorism on the rise, mass murders within our
shores attempt to escape the inexplicable now and bum rush into a feigned
adulthood based on misconceptions.
I was a middle class brat
raised in the Bay Area, Oakland, Berkeley, and San Francisco…lived in all three
of these cities. I had no understanding of what poverty really was. My great
grandfather was a teacher during the Reconstruction Era and eventually. He became
a professor at Prairie View College. His children received their college
degrees, his children’s children, and then my generation as well.
Relocated to the East Coast when I was 19 and
ended up I meeting poverty in my late twenties. My husband and I were burned
out in Harlem and relocated to Newark. His grandmother got us an apartment in
the infamous high rise projects of Newark. The high rise projects no longer
exist in Newark but the mark they left on me is permanently imbedded in my
psyche. So off to Newark we moved with our baby son onto Mercer Street
perpendicular to Howard Street made famous by Newark writer Nathan Heard. I
became intimate with the blues…the Mercer Street blues.
(To be continued…)
No comments:
Post a Comment