Baltimore Algebra Project march for Jobs & Education Today! (City Hall, 3:30PM)
Today I will join members of the Baltimore Algebra Project and their many allies as we march for jobs and quality education for Baltimore City’s youth. These committed students are extremely frustrated with a government that seems to be more concerned with criminalizing them and/or locking them up than it is providing a quality education for them and securing avenues to gainful employment. While “gang enforcement” is the buzz word in Baltimore and other cities in the nation, fewer people are talking about the root causes that help to cultivate the growth and expansion of these street organizations. What many will find is that at the root is social injustice - concentrated poverty, substandard educational systems, aggressive policing, blight, and divestment by the business sector coupled with fragmented families and shotty social support (i.e. unconcerned Faith institutions, dirth of recreational opportunities, etc.) create the perfect storm that propels the disconnected and marginalized to fashion their own “community.”
I join the Baltimore Algebra Project (BAP) in calling on Governor Martin O’Malley, Mayor Sheila Dixon, and all other elected officials (especially the Baltimore delegation) to provide Baltimore City youth with a quality education as mandated by the Maryland State Constitution (and as requested in this 2006 Baltimore City Council Resolution) and to create job opportunities so that the city’s younger population can become members of the city’s workforce.
Today the march will begin at Baltimore’s City Hall, 3:30PM. For those in Baltimore, I pray to see you there.
Enjoy this rap video by a couple of members of BAP as they offer lyrical expression to their desires. (This video features some of my pictures - Chris! X! Can a brotha get some credit?!)
October 18th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Former Civil Rights Leader Coretta Scott King, was the keynote speaker at an event held in Oakland California (at the Paramount Theater) on the eve of the new millenia. The theme of the gathering had to do with new strategies for blacks as we entered into the new millenia (Angela Davis and others also spoke).
As much respect as I had and still have for the King family and I speak for many individuals in the audience who were as disappointed as I was: the titular head of the Civil Rights movement was still stuck in 30 year old paradigms. In other words she didn’t have any new ideas: she still felt that marching was the answer to resolve the entrenched problems of the American black community.
Even though I applaud the civic-mindedness of both the organizers and the marchers in today’s event, at the end of the day it will be up to the men and women of the inner-city to create jobs for themselves as well as for their children. Again, Derreck Bell is right, if we keep doing, what we have been doing, we will simply keep getting what we have been getting. What worked 30 years ago, was for 30 years ago - we need to do something different now.
We must take ownership of the problems in our community, no matter how they got there and solve them: no one else is going to solve them for us. Haven’t we learned that after 400years?
love, peace & grace