I am afraid that many of my people won't like this post that I am about to drop, but it has to be said. Now first, let me say this right off the top, in the spirit of true disclosure: I don't have children, so I can't imagine how hard it must be to raise a child; especially in this day and age with all the negative influences and distractions all around them. But-you knew there was a but coming right-a recent incident in my hometown-Philadelphia- really pissed me off, and made me realize just how a sleep at the wheel some of us black folks are when it comes to this parenting thing.
Folks, it's like this: Here in Philly, we have had damn near 400 murders this year. Most of the crimes have been committed by young African American males, and most of the victims have been young African American males as well. Our Mayor, and all of our city officials, have been pulling their collective hairs out trying to come up with solutions and answers for this wave of violence and bloodshed that has been sweeping our city.
One solution they came up with was to try and cut back on the truancy in our public school system. And why not? In any given year at least
44% of our districts 180,000 public school kids are truant. (8 absences or more) Yes, you heard right, I said 44% or 80,000. And on any given day, and average of 32,000 kids are absent from school. According to a study by Ruth Curran Neild of Johns Hopkins University, 8,000 kids will drop out this year, and another 5,000 will miss so much school, that they might as well be considered dropouts. Now folks, that's a damn shame, and we all know it. And frankly, given the fact that a vast majority of these children look like me, it's particularly troubling to the field.
So our Mayor, in collaboration with the School Board, sent out letters to about 6,000 parents, stating something to the effect that: "Your child has had eight (8) unexcused absences during the 2005-2006 school year". (The operative word hear being
YOUR child)Te letter goes on to say that parents must attend the meeting or face possible fines or jail time. So what do you think happened? Yep, only about half of the parents showed up at Temple University's basketball arena for this meeting. Now call me crazy, but if I get a letter from my child's school or worse, the city, telling me that little Jamal has missed 44% of his classes, and my black ass will be fined or face possible jail time; what do you think the field is going to do? Well, after jumping all over little Jamal's little black ass, I am going to be front and center at that meeting. "
Mr. Mayor, I am Jamal's father, and I would personally like to pledge, that if little Jamal is not in school more than 44% of the time next school year, it will be because he is either dead or in jail".
Folks, this is not rocket science, there is a direct correlation between an education and where you end up in life. It's that simple: Drop out of high school with no skills, and you get no job, or if you get one, you get one that pays minimum wage. And who wants to work for minimum wage? Not little Jamal. He can't buy "tims", or put Dayton rims
("throw some "D"'s on that bitch") on that new "whip" with minimum wage pay. Hell, he can't get a new "whip" with minimum wage pay. So what's left for little Jamal to do but sling. Yeah he could make a real nice living doing that. But he has to be careful, because more than likely he will end up in jail or dead, like some of the almost 400 who were inside the chalk lines on these mean streets of killadelphia so far this year. Or, he could get some girl or girls pregnant, but then, no job, so how is he going to support his child? Well, there is always the state. After all, that's how
his mother made it, and he really didn't know his real father. See what happens? We are back to that same old vicious cycle that just won't go away. Think about it, just days after the Mayor's meeting, it was business as usual, because our little villagers were
missing school again.
So make no mistake, schooling is important, but you could never tell that to the almost 3,000 parents who blew off the meeting with the Mayor. Poor Mayor Street, there he was quoting that old African proverb, you know the one, the one Queen Hillary used for her book: "It takes a village to raise a child". No Mr. Mayor, it takes a
parent to raise a child. The village, and the resources that the village has can only help with the process. The village produced the infrastructure of the school, the books, the teachers, and the tools to support little Jamal getting an education. The village can't wake Jamal up and make sure he goes to f*****g school! That's Mr. and Mrs. Jamal's job. And if there is no Mr. Jamal, oh well, that's Mommy Jamal's job. Oh field, stop being so tough, Mommy Jamal works two jobs, and she has three other children, and she is not getting any support from their fathers, and the old man she has now is cheating on her, and he abuses drugs, and.....yeah OK, well I have two words for Mommy Jamal: Birth Control. Yep, that will take care of all those problems in the future. And since little Jamal is already here-yeah that sp..ahem,ahem, horse already left the barn- can we just make sure little Jamal gets a shot? Would it be too much to ask that you go to a f*****g meeting? I don't know, even if you don't care what happens to little Jamal in school, maybe so that you won't get fined, or worse, arrested.
Now the village is hiring more truancy officers, from 100-500, and the Philadelphia Family Court is also working some special projects and hiring more people to help tackle the problem.-They heard 8,820 cases in truancy court so far this year alone. But somehow I don't think this will be enough. Because until parents in the homes start caring what happens to their children, the school board and the city will be caught in that vicious cycle with these dysfunctional families.
"We are here to send a clear message to the children and parents of this city, truancy will not be tolerated" I hear you Mr. Mayor, I just wish more parents could have been there to hear you as well.
