Christianity or Capitalism
By Amiri Baraka
Rev Howard’s letter in the S. Liar entitled "Newark Schools Need Your Support Now," is simply a craven and hypocritical fronting for the Charter School takeover, Gov Christie, his Commissioner-Cerf (the out front new inferior-intendent of schools) Cami Anderson, and the far from Honorable Corey Booker, the virtual Mayor of Newark. (Virtual, because he only appears to be here on television, radio, press release — actually he could be in that same place those people who answer the phone about your utility bills are == elsewhere.) These are the major movers or removers. Now Rev Howard and the other ministers who cosigned his letter want to join them.
What is at stake here is the continued existence of public education! REMEMBER, Public Education is the legacy of the freed slaves who fought for public education even when it did not exist for poor whites (See DuBois’ The Gift of Black Folk). It was not until Brown vs Board of Education (1954) presumably struck down segregation in education that private schools emerged as a method for “segregationist whites… to outwit integration by directing taxpayer funds to segregated private schools.” (See Christopher Bonastia’s paper, “Why the Racist History of the Charter School Movement Is Never Discussed.”)
But now the fundamental push for Charter Schools comes from the Banks and Hedge Funds particularly under the shelling of Black communities with propaganda announcing Public Schools a failure. Why? Because they can use public funds to build their privatized projects. I’ll bet all of those ministers who signed on to Rev Howard’s letter went to public school. But now they are pushing Charter schools probably because their church has one, or wants one. But unless they are sworn agents of corporate privatization of all aspects of American life, they should see that their less than forthright letter actually gives support to the real villains in this struggle the forces of Privatization and the coming of the US Corporate State.
They’ll even cop Black history to trick you calling the huge new Charter School which runs almost the entire block from Central Ave to Halsey Street, The North Star! (Harriet Tubman is turning over in her grave, moaning through my mouth.)
In Newark, after Zuckerberg gave Mayor Booker 100 million dollars, many people thought it was given to the city…for education. In truth the money was given to Booker. Even though many people, including the ACLU, have asked for Booker to reveal the exact dimensions and conditions of the gift, he has refused to answer. Instead it was found out that he is building three charter schools and housing for out of state teachers on Williams and Halsey Street. How can this even be Legal? To give money to a chief executive of a city so that he can ignore the legal political structure of the city?
But for some of the larger churches to line up behind Rev Howard and push Charter Schools seems less Christian and more capitalist oriented. There would be far less concern about the Charter Schools if they did not remove monies from public education. So instead of trying to fix public education, people who supposedly represent the public spend time and resources undermining public education and setting up the entire education system for corporate takeover.
Rev Howard says “Yelling and screaming will get us nowhere” and “the storied ‘Newark attitude' can render its community disfunctional.” We’re not advocating just Yelling and Screaming, we’re advocating STRUGGLE against these forces of Privatization. He goes on to say that Anderson’s proposals — e.g.,closing six public schools and Booker building 3 new Charter schools recently — comprise a “viable route to excellent schools” that is because obviously that is what he wants to hear. Destroying public education is the road to the re-segregation of education at a time when the income gap between the working class & middle class of the 99% and the 1% represented by the Republican robots has widened to the point where young people all over the country have joined the Occupy Movement. The Church should represent the people, if it can, and not their exploiters!
From April, 2012
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