WEEKEND QUOTABLES

First and foremost, neither Dr Seuss nor Mr Potato Head are being cancelled. 

Akin Olla on Dr. Seuss

Real cancel culture has existed in the United States and it is worth remembering what it means to be truly cancelled. The multiple red scares in the United States involved socialist – and allegedly socialist – actors, directors and musicians being spied on and blacklisted by production companies and studios for their political views. -- Guardian

Brazil's fascist President, Jair Bolsonaro

As Covid deaths soar in Brazil, Bolsonary said he regretted any loss of life, but demanded to know: “How long are you all going to keep crying?” -- New York Times

Washington Correspondent Carl Hulse

 Bipartisanship is dead.

Other marquee Democratic measures to protect and expand voting rights tackle police bias and misconduct and more are also drawing scant to zero Republican backing. -- New York Times

 Teamster Local 710 Secretary-Treasurer Mike Cales

“The solidarity within this group is inspiring. The situation was not looking good yesterday, and we were literally 15 minutes away from going on strike when the employer finally realized just how serious the situation was." -- Sun-Times

 Civil rights activist and daughter of MLK, Bernice King

 “Royalty is not a shield from the devastation and despair of racism.” -- Tweet

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Dr. King is arrested for "loitering" in Montgomery, Alabama, in September 1958.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

The problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated. -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “The Radical King”, Beacon Press

WHO's Mike Ryan on year 1 of Covid

We can blame climate change. We can blame policy decisions made 30 years ago regarding everything from urbanization to the way we exploit the forest," he said. "You can find people to blame in every level of what we're doing on this planet." -- Beacon Journal 

President-elect Joe Biden

 “We remain in a very dark winter,” Mr. Biden told Americans on Friday. “The honest truth is this: Things will get worse before they get better.” -- New York Times

 Bill Barr To Trump...

Your 'clownish' legal team is lying and your voter fraud claims are 'bullsh*t'. -- Crooks & Liars

Jesse Wegman

 The rioters incited by President Trump and Republicans to storm the seat of the federal government on Jan. 6 did not have Mr. Warnock’s name on their lips. They didn’t have to. In their eagerness to destroy American democracy rather than share it, they showed themselves to be the inheritors of a long tradition of rebellion against a new world order: a genuine, multiracial democracy. -- New York Times Op-Ed

 

The Keystone pipeline is & always has been a disaster. I'm delighted that Joe Biden will cancel the Keystone permit on his first day in office. With all of the major crises facing America, we must never lose sight of the most existential threat facing our planet: climate change. https://t.co/8lDZDOgsVy

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) January 18, 2021

The streets of Kenosha

Demonstrators pray while protesting the police shooting where an unarmed black man was shot several times in the back in Kenosha, Wisconsin. 

The Sheriff of Kenosha claims to have never seen the video of Jacob Blake being shot seven times in the back by his police officers. If he's not lying -- which he is -- he's the only living soul who hasn't seen it.

To those who are critical of NBAers and WNBAers for going back to work after a one-day wildcat strike, forget it. Especially WNBA sparked an unprecedented movement against racism in the sports community. The real question is, why didn't organized labor join them in their walkout?

Trump's gun thugs.

Here's an excellent NYT piece on white supremacist Stephen Miller, the man behind this week's RNC attempt to conjure up a “radical left” hellscape.

What's up with more stupid provocative shit on CTU's Twitter pages?

This the latest one showing union support for performance artists pretending to behead Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos via guillotine. Union r&f will have to figure out if this messaging speaks for them. So far, CTU critics are being attacked on Twitter as "Bezos lovers".

.@CTULocal1 is facing serious blowback over this tweet, including from the head of their parent organization, the @AFTunion. @rweingarten https://t.co/XGvRc21vyq

— WBEZeducation (@WBEZeducation) August 28, 2020

I'm guessing WaPo hater, Pres. Trump is smiling at the idea of assassinating Bezos as soon as he finishes using that guillotine on the union leadership itself. That's probably why AFT Prez Randi Weingarten had no choice but to come out openly and criticize the tweet. I doubt that Randi really believes Sharkey and Gates favor guillotining at this time and I'm sure she will pull her critical tweet if she hasn't already. But at a time when the streets of Kenosha and other cities are filled with gun thugs, it's probably not the time for more misdirected, pro-violence messaging, especially from union leaders.

No doubt Bezos is a rich prick. He's one of a small group of billionaires that has amassed billions more in personal wealth during the pandemic. But this isn't just about him. It's also about us.


What I'm reading...

Here are two books that may help guide you through these difficult times. The first City Schools and the American Dream 2, by Pedro Noguera and Esa Syeed is hot off the press and offers up a valuable tool for educators trying to rethink schooling and school reform in the post-pandemic era. The book combines some solid sociological study with practical lessons from urban schools that have taken on racism and social inequality the right way.

The second is Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community” by Dr. Martin Luther King, which was the last book MLK penned before his assassination in 1968. It's a series of essays in which he makes clear that he was neither a Marxist nor a doctrinaire socialist; he instead advocates for a united social movement around radical reforms such as a guaranteed income.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES on MLK Day

"The King is Dead" and "Long Live the King" are seen written on a store in the 1400 block of North Sedgwick on April 7, 1968, two days after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. | Sun-Times file photo

Classic Mike Royko (April 5, 1968)

Hypocrites all over this country would kneel every Sunday morning and mouth messages to Jesus Christ. Then they would come out and tell each other, after reading the papers, that somebody should string up King, who was living Christianity like few Americans ever have. -- Chicago Daily News

Pence compares Trump to Dr. King

Claims, "both leaders have inspired Americans to change through the legislative process". -- Newsweek

Michelle Alexander's King Day Op-ed

 Similarly, many students are fearful of expressing support for Palestinian rights because of the McCarthyite tactics of secret organizations like Canary Mission, which blacklists those who publicly dare to support boycotts against Israel, jeopardizing their employment prospects and future careers. -- NYT, Time to Break the Silence on Palestine

Director Alan Sorkin goes after young, elected Dems

"The young Democrats newly elected to Congress should "stop acting like young people".  Sorkin said he believes Democrats should say the party is "not just about transgender bathrooms". -- CNN

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez responds

"News Flash: Medicare for All & equal rights aren’t trends," 29-year-old Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman elected to the House, wrote in response to a video of Sorkin's interview.

"When people complain about low turnout in some demos, it’s not because communities are apathetic, it’s bc they don’t see you fighting for them. If we don’t show up for people, why should you feel entitled to their vote?" -- The Hill

Let’s dig into “gravitas,” bc it’s an ambiguous word, selectively applied.

Ever wonder how expression that’s feminine, working-class, queer, or poc isn’t deemed as having “gravitas,” but talking like an Aaron Sorkin character does? 🤔

Men have “gravitas,” women get “likeable.” https://t.co/0g9FNpExAl

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 20, 2019

Jean Gump, an American hero, dead at 90

It's May Day and thousands of us will be marching for social justice in Chicago, as we do every year. This year, I'm drawing inspiration from Jean Gump, who recently passed away at age 90. Jean grew up on Chicago's south side and was a life-long civil rights and an anti-war activist. She served four years in federal prison for her participation in an anti-war protest on Good Friday, 1986.

She organized against the racism of the Daley machine in Chicago and along with her children, joined Dr.  King in his 1966 march in Marquette Park against segregated housing. She also marched with Dr. King in Selma.

Sun-Times columnist, Neil Steinberg blogs about Jean this morning:

As a member of the Niles West High School P.T.A. in the late 60's, Jean Gump often sided with students against teachers and administration concerning Vietnam War protests. She became involved in protests against handguns and for rights for the handicapped. On two occasions, she supplemented her already large family by taking refugee families from Vietnam into her home.

According to the Chicago Tribune:

Gump was part of a group called the Chicago Life Community focused on protesting nuclear weapons and other tools of mass destruction. The group protested weekly outside the downtown Chicago headquarters of Morton Salt, protests aimed at the military weapons business of what was then Morton Thiokol Inc. Those protests, her daughter said, led to frequent arrests.

It was Good Friday, March 28, 1986, when Gump and two others cut a fence and approached a missile silo at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. Gump and the others were arrested. She was sentenced to eight years in the Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia. Her sentence was later reduced to six years and she was released after serving four years and one month of the sentence. She refused to pay $424 in damages, a refusal that resulted in missing a son’s wedding because the conditions of her parole didn’t allow her to leave the state of Michigan during the parole period.

This Reader article from 1987 describes Jean Gump's moral conviction as well as her courage and commitment to civil disobedience.

 Ironically, Gump's sentence left her holding the key to her own jail cell, which she could unlock at any time. If she paid the damages and agreed not to participate in more protests, the government would be willing to free her for time served, says her husband, Joe. But for Jean that's impossible.

"It's hard being in prison, it's really hard, but I wouldn't be anywhere else. All the while I sit here everyone knows that disarmament is a crime but building weapons to destroy the world isn't a crime. It's something to think about."

Her husband, Joseph, died in 2014. In 1987, he was convicted of conspiring to damage another Missouri missile site. He was imprisoned for three years.

Jean Gump was last arrested in 2010 at the age of 84 following a protest at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

Here's a powerful statement from Jean's New York Times obit:

 Most people go to prison for violating their conscience. The Gumps were sentenced for rigidly cleaving to theirs. Ms. Gump’s moral code could be condensed into a single sentence: “If you don’t act against it, you must be for it.”

WEEKEND QUOTABLES: The search for truth

Dana Milbank on the death of a border patrol agent

Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it. -- Washington Post 

Porter’s ex-wife, Jennifer Willoughby

"Truth exists" whether Trump "accepts it or not". -- CNN

Tad O’Malley, conservative conspiracy theorist in the X-Files

“Truth is fluid and alterable.” -- The Verge

 Gary Younge

...before radical history can be embraced by the establishment it must be washed clean of whatever ideology made it effective. Radical change is most likely to come from below, be fiercely resisted by entrenched interests from above and achieved through confrontation. -- Guardian

On FOX Chicago, reporter Mike Flannery asks former Chicago top cop Garry McCarthy about the LaQuan McDonald shooting death and officer Jason Van Dyke's culpability. McCarthy, a Trump supporter and pal of neo-fascist Rudy Giuliani, is making noises about running for mayor.

Here's an excerpt of that interview. 

Mike Flannery: Many Chicagoans look at that (video of Jason Van Dyke shooting Laquan McDonald) and they see a murder. Do you?

Garry McCarthy: Um. He's gonna have a hard time, Jason Van Dyke, explaining why he did what he did. That's the bottom line. He gets his due process just like anybody else. But it's gonna be really difficult to make a case. There are cases -

Flannery: Do you see a murder?

McCarthy: You know (long pause)

Flannery: Why are you reluctant to say that?

'Let children read whatever they want and then talk about it with them.'
- Judy Blume, who celebrates a landmark birthday today. Happy birthday!#MondayMotivation pic.twitter.com/6QkZ2YERcL

— Waterstones (@Waterstones) February 12, 2018

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

"I am not a racist."  (Painting by Haitian-American artist, Watson Mere)

“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.” -- Martin Luther King Jr., The Radical King

Steven W. Thrasher

As often as American politicians are always saying they wish Ferguson or NFL protesters did things “more like King”, white Americans have never really liked any kind of racial protest, and didn’t especially like King when he was alive. They didn’t like him marching at Selma or helping run a bus boycott in Montgomery. The didn’t like him organizing a Poor People’s Campaign to try to bring together economically exploited people of all races. And they certainly didn’t like him showing up in Memphis to help sanitation workers strike for better working conditions after two of their own, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, were killed on the job. -- Guardian

U.S. & Norwegian educators statement

“The vile and unacceptable comments made by President Trump must be condemned with the strongest possible force. Norwegian and American educators stand in solidarity with their sisters and brothers in Haiti, El Salvador and across Africa—and people of African descent in both of our countries—who who will bear the brunt of bigotry." -- Union of Education Norway and AFT on President Trump’s Racism

Rev. William H. Lamar IV

“Donald Trump is America’s id,” said Pastor Lamar, whose 180-year-old church is five blocks from the White House. “He is as American as baseball and apple pie.” He added, “America has to think long and hard about whether it wants something different.” -- New York Times

In a world where unstable leaders wield weapons of mass destruction, Hawaii is a wake up call. Nuclear buttons and ballistic missiles only serve to terrorize innocent civilians. They endanger us. They do not protect us.

— Eugene Gu, MD (@eugenegu) January 13, 2018

Setting the table for fascism, American-style

After Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis, nearly a half-century ago, there was an attempt by the dominant culture to turn him into a harmless icon. That often happens to revolutionaries when they die. But if you ever doubted the power of King's ideas, yesterday's Senate hearings on the appointment of racist Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions as AG should put those doubts to rest.

When Sen. Elizabeth Warren attempted to enter an appropriate, brief, and relatively mild letter from King's widow Coretta Scott King, criticizing Sessions' record on civil rights, Warren was immediately silenced by her trembling Republican colleagues,who charged that she was "impugning his integrity."

The silencing of critics, media, judges and legislators, combined with a propaganda blitz based on big lies and "alt-facts" have become central features of the Trump regime. Every day we're fed more and more until the cynicism runs so deep that the lies all becomes normalized and the war drums become ambient noise.

But make no mistake. There's a method to this madness. The lies aren't just pathological, they're political as well. The latest example was Trump's big lie yesterday, at a confab of county sheriffs. He claimed, without any evidence, that the U.S. murder rate is now the "highest in 47 years." In fact, the murder rate, while horrific, is at its lowest point in decades. It remains as high as it is, not for want of more cops and federal agents, but for the flood of cheap guns, which Trump encourages.

Why make such a provocative and easily debunked fib? The answer lies in Trump's follow-up statement, “If you ran Chicago, you would solve that nightmare.”

If that isn't an open call for a police state, I don't know what is.

Remember, Trump's selling this BS to whip up the same group of sheriffs who were mobilized to put down the water protectors protests at Standing Rock. I should point out here that several sheriffs and deputies refused to take part in the violent suppression of those protests. Look for more of the same by police professionals in the months ahead.

Despite its populist window dressing, this is a regime that can't rule based on popular will. Its base is too narrow and there are too many internal divisions. Trump unexpectedly won the election while losing the popular vote by 3 million, because of a perfect storm. But the global threat of Trumpism is existential and would be there even if Trump had lost and didn't have the extra burden of running the government.

Running the country and trampling the bureaucracy, the other branches of government (including the courts and even the military leadership and intelligence organizations), will require not only a policization/militarization of society, but an ideological assault on the truth (alt-facts) as well.

To put it more bluntly, The Trumpians are setting the table for the global, direct neo-fascist takeover they've only just begun. I say "neo-fascist" only because its features may not look the same as the Hitler/German brand from the 1930s.

Best Tweets...

Contrast: While a hero of white supremacists has the president's ear, the words of the widow of MLK are silenced on senate floor. https://t.co/9IjcncPKz5

— Kevin B. Blackistone (@ProfBlackistone) February 8, 2017

.@SenatorLankford commemorated Martin Luther King on MLK Day.
Yesterday, he voted to silence @SenWarren for reading letter from his widow https://t.co/YV1NfWtojl

— igorvolsky (@igorvolsky) February 8, 2017

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Brandon Victor Dixon (Aaron Burr)

“We, sir, we are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights, sir." --  Hamilton cast to Mike Pence

Alt-Right leader, Richard B. Spencer

“I do think we have a psychic connection, or you can say a deeper connection, with Donald Trump in a way that we simply do not have with most Republicans.” -- New York Times

Ta-Nehisi Coates on Trump election

"This is who we are. If you understand the history of this country, this is nothing new so we should not be shocked. If we look at 250 years of slavery, you look at Frederick Douglas during reconstruction seeing it overturned, you look at Ida B Wells going south to document lynching, and all the violence we always suffer. Then you would know it is the same country and we just need go get up in the morning and get ready to fight.” -- At NCTE

John McCain (Store this one away for future reference)

 “I don’t give a damn what the president of the United States wants to do or anybody else wants to do. We will not waterboard. We will not do it...What does it say about America if we’re going to inflict torture on people?”  -- Halifax international security forum

New Dem Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Sanders

“I’m not going to point fingers looking back. I think that is divisive. But Bernie makes a lot of sense in a lot of ways.” -- Huffington Post

 Dr. Martin Luther King on resistance (1963)

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. --  Letter from Birmingham City Jail

On issues of racism and bigotry, let me be very clear, there is no compromise. pic.twitter.com/anCFrunzGO

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) November 20, 2016

Trib's Grossman calls for an 'end to protests'. But winds of change keep blowing.

The Tribune's Ron Grossman is imploring Chicago's emergent freedom movement to "halt the protests." He's terrified that even by protesting peacefully, the movement will attract the wrath of Donald Trump who, he argues, "profited" from the UIC protest last week. 

He claims to be a life-long protester himself who...

 "...was thrilled by the sight of long lines of protesters marching on Donald Trump's recent rally at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The crowd's rainbow of colors and creeds was a moving tribute to America at its best — a diversity that Trump attacks whenever he steps before a microphone or television camera to rail against Muslims and Mexicans. 

But, says Grossman, "the time has come to halt the demonstrations."

They became counterproductive once the confrontation between Trump's followers and opponents at the UIC Pavilion turned violent. It doesn't matter who started it. Trump profited from it.

He offers no evidence that the peaceful protests outside, or even the scattered clashes instigated by Trump supporters inside the UIC Pavilion on March 11, benefited Trump in any way. Since then Trump's been forced to cancel nearly all of his campaign rallies and back out of scheduled debates. He's increasingly becoming a political pariah and his violent, racist, anti-immigrant message has failed to gain traction beyond his narrow base of support. 

Trump may well have met his Waterloo at the UIC Pavilion last week.

Should he win the nomination, it's doubtful that he will be able to campaign in any big city in America. Even though he's still winning most of his primaries over a pathetic field of Republican (using the term loosely) competitors, his vote totals are becoming anemic and losing elections to Cruz and Kasich that he should have won. Even his victories have been hollow with more Republicans turning out to vote against him than for. 

On Tuesday, Kim Foxx, our state's attorney candidate in IL, got more votes in Cook County than Trump won in the entire state. 

In the media and in the court of public opinion, Trump and a handful of his most virulent supporters are clearly seen as the instigators of violence. Anti-Trump protesters have shown their committment to non-violence. 

His campaign has shattered what was left of the fractured Republican Party and he has the party leadership scrambling for someone -- anyone -- to replace Trump/Cruz as the party's candidate. 

Trump is even facing criminal investigations in North Carolina and other states, for inciting to riot and now is openly threatening riots against his own party's leaders if they try and oust him in Cleveland. If they can't, polls show him losing badly in November to either Clinton or Sanders. 

Trump is a paper tiger whose violent outbursts are a sign of his weakness, not his strength. His nomination will be a gift to the Democrats.

Since Grossman can offer no evidence of how the Black Lives Matter movement or student-led anti-Trump protests in Chicago helped Trump, he tries to draw some historic parallels while making some absurd claims. He blames protesters for everything from violating "human nature" to causing Nixon's election in '68, to rise of Hitler in Germany. 

A nation is bitterly divided between advocates of change and partisans of traditionalism. The former come to power, or are close to achieving it, and violence ensues. Then a strongman seizes power, blaming the disorders on the party of change for having severed the moorings of older values. That scenario is as old as the French Revolution, as new as 1968.

 Still, the analogy that keeps me up at night is between this election season and Germany in the 1930s. Street violence between the left and the right was the steppingstone that brought Hitler to power.

He even tries to invoke the names of Gandhi and Dr. King to make the case for halting all protests, confusing their commitment to non-violence with passive acceptance of oppression. Both were advocates of protest and direct action against injustice throughout their lives, even in the face of severe repression.

I doubt that Grossman's call to end the protests will resonate with many young activists. I hope not and doubt seriously that many people under the age of 30 even read the Trib or give a damn about what Grossman thinks. If he's truly worried about the promulgation of fascist ideology, he might well look inward at his own paper's editorial board which last May, called for a man with "Mussolini-like powers" to take over Chicago's public school system.

Let's keep marching people. It won't fall by itself.

Boycott of mayor's MLK Breakfast was effective

Timuel and Zenobia Black with keynoter, Rev Sekou at Chicago Teachers Union King Day Breakfast.

The Mayor's MLK Day Breakfast was a complete bust. The boycott called by a coalition of black ministers was effective. Protests outside and inside, disrupted the mayor's pathetic attempt to clean up his image. The turnout was so sparse, Rahm had to bus in the hungry from the senior citizens homes to fill the empty seats.

Keynoter Isabel Wilkerson, author of The Warmth of Other Suns backed out. They had to pay Dorothy Tillman a hefty fee to replace her. Sad.

But a mile west...
The Tribune reports:

A mile west, at the teachers' MLK breakfast in the South Loop, CTU president Karen Lewis said she had little interest in whether Emanuel resigns, though her own union's governing body has called for him to quit. The mayor has said he'll serve out the remaining three years on his term. 

"I don't care what he does," Lewis said. "Somebody else, maybe worse, would take his place." 

While the often-combative Lewis sounded conciliatory, the featured speaker at the breakfast, the Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou, brought hundreds of attendees to their feet.

"Mayor Emanuel, it's time for you to step down!" said Sekou, who was involved with civil rights demonstrations that followed the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. "Stand down, have integrity."

Police wrestle with protesters at the mayor's boycotted King Day event. 

This morning...
BYOP100CHI-led protesters have marched on the FOP bank and shut it down. Damn, I didn't even know they had a bank. Public funds are being used to support Van Dyke and other killer cops.

Breaking: @BYP_100 members shut down #chicago federal police bank to #fundblackfutures #ReclaimMLK pic.twitter.com/Bf7JhMwyF1

— Deivid Rojas (@DeividSRojas) January 16, 2016

On MLK Day, time to talk about inequality in America and schools

Chicago State students march to save their school from closure. 

 "Inequality is inevitable; the vast inequality of America today isn’t." -- Paul Krugman in today's NYT. 

Krugman even tips his hat to Pres. Obama for raising the tax rate on top earners and pushing through his health care reform. Not only didn't the sky fall, as conservatives predicted, but over the past six years, we've had the best job growth since the 1990s.

But job growth is only a small part of the struggle for equality, especially when that growth is accompanied by flattening or shrinking real wages, union-busting, and the re-creation of a two-tier school system through privatization and charteriztion, and limited access to higher education.

Case in point -- the imminent closure of predominantly-black Chicago State Univ. as a result of Gov. Rauner's austerity program and his holding hostage the state education budget.

What Krugman doesn't mention is that Obama's job recovery has been far less beneficial to African-Americans whose unemployment rate is still high and has long been double the rate for whites.

Dr. King in Chicago in the '60s.

King Day -- I'm going to the Martin Luther King breakfast this morning. No, not the one the mayor is throwing in hopes of shoring up his dwindling support in the African-American community. That one is being boycotted. No photo-ops for Rahm with black leaders today, following the release of another video showing unarmed teen being gunned down by a Chicago cop.

I'll be at the one sponsored by the Chicago Teachers Union with CTU Pres. Karen Lewis Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou, a religious scholar and leader of protests in Ferguson, Mo. doing the keynoting.

Also today -- CPS students will embark on a “education equality” march from the Thompson Center in the Loop to Benito Juarez Community Academy in Pilsen. Along the route, students plan to march past CPS offices and the home of Chicago Board of Education President and retired Com-Ed CEO Frank Clark, calling on Rauner, state lawmakers and local pols to avoid deep budget cuts and layoffs at CPS schools this year.

Happy birthday, MLK.

"Joining The Boycott" I officially WILL NOT be attending the Mayor's MLK Breakfast and I pray that all my Pastoral Friends do the same.

— Corey Brooks (@CoreyBBrooks) January 12, 2016

DR. KING WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Still whistling Dixie in AR

Dr. Martin Luther King

The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. -- The Purpose Of Education

Andrew Wilkes on "Pentecostal piety"

 The civil rights movement saw black folks (and non-black folks) consecrate the American dream by way of the prophetic Baptist theology of Reverend Dr Martin Luther King, yes. But it also involved the anointed agnosticism of Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s founding executive director and the generative force of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating committee, Ella Baker. The radical Quaker vision of a Bayard Rustin next to the ethical humanism of an Asa Phillip Randolph were also blended in. And also in the mix was the subtle, yet significant tradition of faith-filled lay activists like Fannie Lou Hamer and Marian Wright Edelman. -- The Guardian

Detroit hip-hop artist Mic Write

What does it mean for our community for there to be this vacant space where there used to be a life? Where have those people gone? What is left for them?" -- Mother Jones

Morris Dees, Founder, Southern Poverty Law Center

We've seen the results: voter suppression, corporate hegemony in Washington, a shrinking social safety net, and mass incarceration. Our schools are increasingly segregated, and the headlines this past week tell us that the majority of our public school students now live in poverty. -- Huff Post

Prof. Charles Payne, author of "I've Got The Light of Freedom"

The movement managed to ameliorate the most blatant features of white supremacy; it didn’t end it. Given that the net wealth of white households is 13 times that of black ones, given that too many black children are coming to maturity in life-limiting ghettos — and the notion that the black ghetto and the ethnic ghettos of the past can be equated is simply a lie — given unprecedented levels of incarceration, given that James Baldwin’s comment about the police in black neighborhoods being regarded as an occupying army still has too much truth, given that blacks and other non-whites are treated superficially in the curricula of most schools, if they are present at all, the last thing we need is a new movement. We need to finish the old one. 
The struggle continues. -- New York Times

Braving sub-zero temps to stop the charter invasion

At last night's vigil

A SmallTalk Salute goes out to the dozens of protesters who demonstrated their commitment last night by holding an all-night vigil and sleeping out in sub-zero temps, outside CPS headquarters. They, along with hundreds of others, will pack today's board meeting to try and stop Rahm's hand pick board's vote for further charter expansion.

Another goes out to Wisconsin high school social studies teacher Al Levie, one of three recipients of a Martin Luther King Jr. humanitarian award. During a celebration honoring the late civil rights leader, Al refused to accept the award from Rep. Paul Ryan, saying, “I can’t in good conscience accept this award, as a humanitarian, Paul Ryan stands for everything I don’t believe in.”

After Ryan spoke, Levie criticized the congressman’s policies before being walked off the stage. Levie had earlier stated that he would like to see collective bargaining restored in Wisconsin, fair immigration reform and a fair tax system among other suggestions.

“Paul Ryan had no business at a Martin Luther King event, it’s totally hypocritical. On the one hand he votes to slash health care, while on the other hand, King dedicated his life and he died for it — for people to have adequate healthcare, to have adequate jobs.”

And a third salute goes out to  Ald. Nick Sposato (36th), and members of the City Council's Progressive Caucus who led an attempt to delay the board vote last week, but had their efforts were derailed. Sposato called it, saying that CPS was playing "bull---- games" with its capacity figures, and pointed to how there are four CPS high schools already within a mile and a half of the proposed Noble site.  Community resistance has focused on a new Noble Charter high school set for 5357 W. Grand Ave., across the street from Prosser Career Academy.

An investigation by the parent group Raise Your Hand has discovered that 47% of CPS charter and contract schools have student populations below the CPS threshold for ideal enrollment. This equates to 50 schools with nearly 11,000 seats sitting empty. The analysis also reveals a decline in overall CPS enrollment of 3,000 students this academic year. Despite this drop, the Chicago Board of Education could approve as many as 31 new charters over the next two years.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Amiri Baraka's son Ras, delivers his eulogy (Video).

Ras Baraka 

"Every nurse that would come in the room he said, 'Hey, my son is running for mayor. He came to the hospital with a bag of (political) literature." -- NJ.com

Michael Eric Dyson 

We’ve deliberately dismembered him [Dr. Martin Luther King] through manipulation of his memory. And those of us who have failed to see his radical challenge, in deference to a vision of King that is one of a universalist, that everybody can attach to — which was true, of course — but that wasn’t the full story. -- Salon, How we get Dr. King Wrong

Obama's NSA Speech

Meanwhile, totalitarian states like East Germany offered a cautionary tale of what could happen when vast, unchecked surveillance turned citizens into informers, and persecuted people for what they said in the privacy of their own homes. In fact, even the United States proved not to be immune to the abuse of surveillance. And in the 1960s, government spied on civil rights leaders and critics of the Vietnam War. -- NY Times 

Rev. James Meeks

Meeks said he’d never heard of Rauner before Eden Martin, President of the Civic Committee, called on Rauner’s behalf about five years ago to request a meeting. So he Googled the name. “When I saw how much money he was worth, I said, ‘Sure, let the guy come on,’” laughed Meeks. -- Sun-Times

Joanne Barkan's latest 

...it’s both perverse and predictable that Philanthropy magazine titled its spring 2013 cover story “They Shall Overcome...” Philanthro-ed-reformers have been chanting the mantra “Education is the civil rights issue of our time” for years, and they’ve appointed themselves leaders of the reform movement. The largest stakeholders in public education—students, educators, and parents—have no role to play except as recipients of donor-designed reforms. When they question the charitable largesse, they become part of the opposition that the philanthropists shall overcome. They shall overcome, not we. Solidarity doesn’t figure in. -- We They Shall Overcome

LABOR DAY WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Pres. Obama

“I know well that we are weary of war. The American people have the good sense to know we cannot resolve the underlying conflict in Syria with our military.”  -- August 31st Speech

British historian, Tim Stanley

“So we basically taught Obama to respect his own constitution.  No need to thank us, America.” -- New York Times

 Sec. of Labor, Thomas Perez

"Blah, blah, blahbitty blah." -- Statement on Labor Day

The Guardian

Chicago Atty. Matt Farmer

“The schools that are closed routinely in this city since 1997 are located in largely poor, largely African-American neighborhoods in the south and west sides of Chicago. Fifty years after the 'I Have a Dream speech,' we are still not providing a quality education to our poor, our children of color.  It is happening all over the country. So what is going on in Chicago is a microcosm of that fight.” -- Voice of America 

Jay Diskey, Assoc. of American Publishers

"The days of thinking that only Texas, California and Florida matter are behind us." -- Austin American Statesman

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

"My best meeting with him was off stage, away from the lights at a private table in a steakhouse." -- J.C. Brizard 

CPS grandmother Irene Robinson

"This is safe passage? No, this is murder city," Robinson said, shaking her head. -- Aljazeera

 Ex-Marine  Col. Tom Tyrell

There are obvious differences between closing 50 schools and starting a new country or fighting terrorism. But there are also similarities. "Surge teams are available." -- WBEZ

 J.C. Brizard

“We severely underestimated the ability of the Chicago Teachers Union to lead a massive grassroots campaign against our administration... It takes a ton of inner strength to watch 4,000+ people in red shirts outside of your window protesting while a very heavy police presence looked on." -- Flypaper 

Dave Zirin

The people at this march are the face of resistance to what Dr. King called the “evil triplets of militarism, materialism and racism.” -- The Nation

Wilbur Millhouse 

 ...there are a ton of ideas pouring in about what to do with the 50 shuttered school buildings and the possibilities are somewhat unlimited.  I can’t say that if that community says they want to make it a charter school that we would say no. That hasn’t been given to me as a parameter to stop any community from turning it into a charter school. -- CBS News, Emanuel Names Panel To Decide Fate Of Shuttered School Buildings

What a night! Belafonte at Northwestern and protest at CPS hearings in Uptown

"Without radical thought, our society cannot move forward."  -- Harry Belafonte (M. Klonsky pic)

I drove up to Evanston last night to hear the great Harry Belafonte deliver a keynote to a packed house at Northwesteern's Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration 2013. Belafonte was a close friend and supporter of Dr. King. He minced no words last night while talking about our nation's history of racism and oppression of people of color and the great freedom struggle of which he and Dr. King were a part. That racist oppression, said Belafonte, today includes the world's largest prison population of more than 2 million people-- mostly people of color, (more than 7 million if you count all adults who were under correctional supervision, probation, parole, jail, or prison).

See Michelle Alexander's great book, The New Jim Crow, for more on this.

Belefonte at 85, is  focused now on the issue of gun control. He's is a critical supporter of President Obama's efforts, calling them "tepid."

Last night a Truman College (DNAInfo Pic)

What I missed though, was another inspiring event taking place a little ways down the road in Uptown at Truman College where the Board was holding hearings on its plan to close more than 100 Chicago public school, mainly in the city's black and Latino communities. You can only imagine what HB would have said about that. Hundreds of parents, teachers and community activists packed the meeting and raised a little hell over the proposed closings.

According to DNAInfo.com:

Attendees filled the bleachers and stood against the wall at Truman College for the opening meeting in the second phase of community hearings being held around the city on the district's plan to close underutilized schools. But district officials had a tough time even making a prepared presentation as crowds shouted and chanted. As one official tried to outline the district's vision, someone shouted, "Do you believe him?" "No!" the crowd answered.

Craig Benes, who oversees schools in the North Side's Ravenswood-Ridge region, was even heckled as he at one point said he wanted "to just step away from the agenda for a moment and speak from my heart. ... I understand that teachers and parents are concerned" — but he asked for the audience's ear.

He did not get it. The crowd started chanting, "Save our schools! Save our schools!"

The schedule for the rest of the meetings across the city this week is as follows:

• Tuesday: Midway Network at Daley College, 7-9 p.m.
• Tuesday: O’Hare Network at Wright College, 7-9 p.m.
• Wednesday: Lake Calumet Network at Olive Harvey College, 7-9 p.m.
• Thursday: Austin-North Lawndale Network at Friendship MB Church, 7-9 p.m.
•  Saturday: Englewood-Gresham Network at Kennedy King College, 11 a.m.-1 p.m.

(Becky Vevea/WBEZ)

In the mean time, a busload of Chicago activists organized by KOCO is heading to D.C. to  meet up with people from 18 different cities to speak out against school closings.

According the WBEZ: 

People from some of the cities, including Chicago, have filed civil rights complaints with the U.S. Department of Education, charging that closing schools disproportionately impacts minority students. 

“Everywhere, it’s the same stories that can be told over and over again,” Griffin said. “So it’s not just in Chicago. It’s not just in Witchita. It’s in New Orleans. It’s in L.A. It’s in New York. It’s in Newark. It’s everywhere.” The coalition will bring its complaints to a hearing with national education officials on Tuesday.

Also, don't miss Ben Joravsky's latest Reader piece on CPS school closings.

The arc of the universe...

Dr. King's funeral, 1968. (Don Hogan Charles/NYT)

It's M.L. King Day today. Schools are closed. No b-ball practice. This will be my only post as I'm taking the day off and spending at least some of it contemplating Dr. King's famous statement  -- his conviction that the freedom movement was destined to overcome in the long run, "because the arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice.” ("A Testament of Hope")

I don't take that on faith but I'll give it some more thought and be back at it tomorrow.

Carrying on Dr. King's great struggle

"... For most of the past decade the field of education has been a battleground in the freedom struggle. It was not fortuitous that education became embroiled in this conflict. Education is one of the vital tools the Negro needs in order to advance. And yet it has been denied him by devises of segregation and manipulations with quality.' -- Dr. King's acceptance speech upon winning the John Dewey Award in 1964

Today marks the 84th birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King. On this day, one can't help but take note that despite all the rhetoric coming from the political leadership about education being "the civil rights issue of our generation" it's shocking how little has been accomplished in fulfilling Dr. King's vision of ed equity and desegregation, during these first 4 years of the Obama administration. If anything, public schooling has become even more racially segregated and certainly more privatized than at any point since MLK's death in 1968.

Here in Chicago, to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, we will be doing what Dr. King probably would have been doing on his birthday were he still alive. We'll be once again on the march to Save Our Schools at one of seven North, West and South side locations on Saturday, January 19th. We will be fighting for our communities, our students and our schools, and speaking out against the planned mass closing of public schools, primarily in under-served black and Latino neighborhoods.

SALUTE TO TIM BLACK

 I am elated that Chicago's own great civil rights warrior, 94-year-old Professor Timuel Black, is getting some well-deserved recognition for his role on the front lines of the struggle. For those who don't know, Tim was Dr. King's point person here in Chicago in organizing the historic 1963 March on Washington. We will be  there to applaud him when he receives the Champion of Freedom award on Friday at the city's 27th Annual Interfaith Breakfast.

ABC News' Ron Majors reports:

He is a proud graduate of DuSable High School on the South Side. There, he is counted among the hall-of-famers. "In this building we had people like John H. Johnson, Harold Washington who became the first black Mayor, Nat King Cole. We used to be in the same classroom," said Black.  A few years after his high school experience, Black made another famous friend- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Black was so inspired, that he left a doctorate program at the University of Chicago to dedicate himself to civil rights work. He would become the Chicago chair of the 1963 March on Washington. "We organized the March on Washington over there in this neighborhood. Young people here in DuSable, participating in the organizing," said Black.

It's important to note that Tim led a fight to save his beloved DuSable from the chopping block. The school was turned over to private charter operators in 2005 as part of Daley/Duncan's disastrous Renaissance 2010.