My old neighborhood is now multiracial–why is that a problem for some people?

February 21, 2013 by · Comments Off on My old neighborhood is now multiracial–why is that a problem for some people?
Filed under: Race and gender, Society and Economy 

The old neighborhood is the one people moved away from long ago, some with a firm grasp on its bygone realities, but for others their warmed over memories are coated with a gooey nostalgia. Not that there is any thing wrong with an occasional indulgence in mental cotton candy, which is why I joined an online group devoted to Wheaton, Maryland nostalgia.

From kindergarten through junior high I lived in the Glenmont section of Wheaton, Maryland just outside of DC in Montgomery County. Glenmont was similar to other post WWII working class suburbs that were hastily built or expanded to accommodate what came to be called the baby boomers. Glenmont was also very white and segregated. Maryland is a border state where slavery was once legal and segregation was not hard to find when I was growing up.

My parents moved there from DC’s inner city Shaw neighborhood in 1951. Most of the surrounding Glenmont houses were new, built for young families who qualified for low interest GI home loans from the government. With the new families moving in and new homes going up, there were no real neighborhood traditions around many of us. We had to create our own from scratch.

Glenmont house under construction circa 1951

My house in Wheaton under construction– 1951

The West Side of Chicago says NO! to school closings

February 14, 2013 by · Comments Off on The West Side of Chicago says NO! to school closings
Filed under: Education, Society and Economy 

“Listening to person after person eloquently, yet desperately, plead for their schools not to be closed during the Austin-North Lawndale Network school utilization hearing on Jan. 31 brought forth, to my mind, heart-wrenching images of our enslaved African-American ancestors pleading for their loved ones not to be beaten, sold at auction, or killed.”—Bonita Robinson, retired Chicago teacher, Duke Ellington School, Austin-North Lawndale Network

The Chicago Public Schools(CPS) has asked residents to attend any of 28 meetings around the city to give their input about neighborhood schools being closed because of “underutilization” and “budget constraints”. The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) has forcefully refuted these CPS rationalizations in their publication The Black and White of Education in Chicago.

In response to threatened school closings by the CPS leadership, neighborhoods across the city are saying NO— loud and clear. One such meeting was held on a cold Chicago evening in late January in the Friendship MB Church on Chicago’s West Side near where I live. Schools from the Austin and North Lawndale neighborhoods were represented.These communities are largely black and working class.

In the face of the cold-blooded racist threats to close their neighborhood schools, people responded with a night of love, pride and solidarity. Hundreds of parents, students and teachers packed the Friendship MB Church as people spoke of the deep love they had for their neighborhood schools where teachers and staff go that extra mile even when they must fight for the most basic modern educational resources.

Audience at the Austin-Lawndale hearings

The church was packed by opponents of school closings

“We have the most devoted teachers in our school. I’ve been an A student since the 8th grade. I love Henson and love is very strong word. And man do I love Henson. I’m graduating, so why should I care if it closes. They help the entire community, not just the people who go there.”— an 8th grade student at Mathew Henson School, Austin-North Lawndale Network

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