let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

so it's snowing. schools are closing and kids are going home early or not going in at all. and...parents are complaining.

"teachers take any excuse to have some time off" and "we don't get to go home when it snows so why should they?" is being muttered around water coolers and over desks around the country. talk radio hosts are whiping up a frenzy and everyone from the middle aged to the long ago retired are recycling tales of "in my day this would never happen."

but I have a couple questions. who is this really serving?

consider this, teachers pay is decided by the performance of the students and parents, in case you haven't realised, many of you aren't providing us with great material to work with in the first place. this means, keeping our homes, feeding ourselves and our children, wearing clothes that kind of fit, keeping the lights and heating running, often depends on your little bundle of joy succeeding. we don't take closures lightly.

so why do we do it?

short answer. safety. that and litigation. you see, parents have, time and time again shown that they will go to great lengths to divorce their children from not only, responsibility for their actions but any kind of consequences. how many times does the urchin need to steal something before it'ss parents accept that their little ray of sunshine is a sociopathic kleptomaniac. so, in the interest of the childs safety and not ending up in court, we send them home. think about it, if you have to choose between these three phone calls which would you rather have,

1) your child is being sent home due to unsafe conditions outside of our control. please make provisions for him/her.
2) your child has been taken to the hospital due to the foolish and irresponsible actions of either himself or a fellow pupil during this time of unsafe conditions. please make your way to X hospital.
3) your child is to be interviewed by the authorities in connection to another child being hospitalised. please make yourself available to accompany them.

it really is that simple. and can you imagine a child falling down some stairs at speed, the fractures and broken bones, the contusions and concussions, the bandages and stitches etc, and the parent walking up and saying..."next time be more careful"?? it's not going to happen.

so parents, when you're tempted to complain about teachers, take a moment to think about what you're really saying. 'cause t sounds like you're saying you'd like us to keep your child in a dangerous environment because it's convenient for you. and at the end of the day....

that's all there is to it, isn't it?

behold what complacence has wrought

I've been away for a while. A whole month in fact. and not without good reason. I've been busy with the everyday stuff. hands full with the stuff that keeps the sun in it's place and the earth spinning on it's axis. the stuff that living is made of.

but something has all the while been brewing under the flimsy cover of my busy ness. my hand has been itching and I've had to bite my tongue. but now that october is over I finally feel like I can come out with it boldly and say,

      "Black History Month, what a complete waste of time"

I'm not even going to try to apologise for that sentiment so don't ask as blatant, overt and blunt refusal is likely to cause further offense.

to the original designers and implementers of this 'celebration', with their lofty goals and hopeful ambitions, I say thank you and to those who, through their yearly observance help keep it alive, I offer my profound gratitude. you have both groups, brokered, on behalf of black people throughout the western world, a compromise that will forever segregate us from the mainstream of education, the mainstream of history and the mainstream of the future.

tell me this, mr. onemonthayear black man, from whence did you come? and where are you going? and who are you for the other three hundred and thirty three days of the year? and you ms. blackforthirtyonedays, what is your language? where is your country and who are your people?

no. black history month is more than a farce, it is a travesty. it is a slick used car salesman specialising in sleight of hand, dazzling us with its trivialisation of the very history it claims to promote while it simultaneously sells our future on the cheap.

when we have literature lessons all year long that never mention achebe, du bois or even dumas, how dare we claim to acknowledge black history? as long as we have mathematics sessions innumerable and no one hears of benjamin banneker, science semesters that pay no tribute to george washington carver and budding politicians who are unaware of the efforts of booker t. washington how dare we speak of celebrating black history? how dare we?

black history month is a fools gold. it is the festering, putrid, vile scab of complacency that has grown over the nasty, hideous truth. this uncomfortable truth simply put is that black people are not yet seen as equal. in anyone's eyes.

we are not a spectacle to be gawped at or a foreign species to be investigated for presentations and I'd like to think we're not immature ignoramuses to be bought with a wink, a nod and a month of half hearted recognition....or are we?

you see, my history is the story of people and civilisations. it is the story of love and war, greatness and great foolishness. it has shaped the world of today and will shape that of tomorrow because my history is the story of all that there is and no matter the colour of your skin your history is no different.

so when this story is sterilised, segregated and forced on to a reservation we all lose out. and that is my whole point. there is no such thing as 'black history'. there is history and we are all in it. let's represent it like that or not at all.


-peace-

how pathetic...

I am pathetic,
but, you see, I embrace pathetic.

I am pathetic because I don't mind admitting that I am not self sustaining.
I don't mind admitting that another person can mean so much to me as to cause my days to be brighter, colours more vibrant and living like poetry to whispered gently into sleeping ears.

I don't mind pathetic because I refuse to buy into the macho myth.
I refuse to throw myself headlong into a perpetual state of callous indifference.
I refuse to divorce myself from my heart.

for it is only in being truly pathetic that I have come to see what it is like to be wholly vulnerable, wholly alive, wholly...human...

and to lose that...would have to be the hardest thing of all