When All The Colors Bleed Into One

My dear brothers and sisters,

Quick announcement: after about four years on Live Journal under this name, I thought it was about time for a change, so I decided to create a new Live Journal space for myself where I'm going to be posting my writings from now on. If you'd like to check it out, head on over to http://thenewjerusalem.livejournal.com/ Also, please add me to your friend's lists so I can continue to read all of your wonderful thoughts and life-events. I hope all of you are doing well. Take care.

Love,
Matt

"While Angels Sing of Home": a song for Kashia

I’ve got to run, to seek the higher ground
Through my ears I hear the crash of thunder sound
A hard rain fall, churning up in a flood
All that I feel rising up in my blood

Her light is like a jasper stone
We walk down our streets of gold
We love while angels sing of home

A dry place above all the valleys of death
A land where I can feel my love’s sweet caress
I find forgiveness in the warmth of her arms
I unchain freedom in her gorgeous charms

She is my amazing grace
A glimpse into the glorious face
of love
of love
of love…

Her light is like a jasper stone
We walk down our streets of gold
We love while angels sing of home


(Written under the influence of way too much U2. And please don't laugh, that was my first poetry attempt in a LONG time. Peace, Matthew)

My dear brothers and sisters,

Once again, I know it's been quite some time since you last heard from me. I guess I should probably accept the fact that I'm solidly in the category of occasional LiveJournal users, and stop starting all of my posts with "I know it's been a while since I posted." But I really have something very exciting that I wanted to share with you. For the past several days (and why it suddenly overcame me to work on this project while I have a billion school assignments to do, I have no idea), I've been hard at work on an extended essay on the topic of white privilege and white supremacy in American society. I guess I was very inspired by a recent book I just read entitled "White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son" by a prominent anti-racist activist of European descent named Tim Wise. If you'd like some more information on him, check out his website at www.timwise.org. After finishing the book and reflecting a great deal on my own experiences as a person defined as "white" in this society trying to battle white supremacy, I decided to try my best to distill my thoughts into one essay. I've actually been trying to write this essay for years now, with the concept always floating in the back of my mind, but just never finding the time or the right words to express myself. But I finally wrote it all out, and am going to post it here for you to read. I'm also sending a copy to Dr. Francis and Greg Liotta, the head of Diversity Initiatives, in hopes of it possibly being used in some of the "racial healing" dialogues we are planning next year. I hope you enjoy it, and please feel free to leave comments. I love you all. Take care, Matthew.

Removing the “White” From Our Minds
An Essay on Ending White Supremacy
By Matthew Foley

( Read more... )

Greetings brothers and sisters. Peace be unto you.

Yes, I know it's been quite some time since I last posted. Writing, for the most part, has been on the back burner in my life for the past few months unfortunately. I've been making notes for a number of political essays, a few creative sketches, etc. but I hardly ever can find the time to finish any of those projects. On the brighter side of things, my free time has been spent doing something I care very deeply about, which is political activism. In the past month or so, I've been working in solidarity with a number of other students to form our own independent political group in Charleston called ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE. We just had a first major meeting this past Friday, and it was so exciting to see a total of 13 people come out, both men and women, of both African and European descent, of a variety of different backgrounds, and talk about what we can do to fight injustices in the Charleston area, including racism, poverty, police discrimination, and a host of other issues. I've also been working with the Diversity Initiatives department, headed up by the wonderful Greg Liotta, and have been involved with a number of their exciting projects, including a huge dialogue between African American and European American students on campus in which a 100 people came up and talked openly about racism in this country. Very powerful and inspiring stuff. Well, to give you a better taste of what I've been up to, I've decided to include below an address I prepared for the ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE meeting on Friday night that explains what we hope to accomplish. I hope you enjoy it. Feel free to leave some comments, I'd love to hear from some of you folks I haven't talked to in a while. Take care.

Peace, love, and solidarity,
Matthew Foley

"Don't talk about it. Be about it." - Mos Def



A People-Powered Vision
By Matthew Foley

My dear brothers and sisters,

Let me welcome you all to the first major community meeting of ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE.

I wanted to kick off this discussion of ours by sharing with you my vision about where ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE can go, who we can be, and how we can affect the lives of our fellow human beings struggling for freedom, justice, and equality. But I really want to stress that I’m simply sharing my ideas, my vision – I’m not dictating orders and rules for you to follow. For this organization to work, for our plans and dreams to come to fruition, we desperately need the ideas, the visions, the concerns, the values, the skills of all of us. So, please consider this opening words of mine, me being just one person trying to love and struggle with other people, as a simple starting off point towards a destination we will all collectively decide on.

We need to begin by opening our sleepy eyes and really taking a hard look at where we are. We live in a city which has been a historical epicenter of American white supremacy and oppression. From the moment African slaves were brought in chains to Charleston in 1670, through the complete theft of this land from indigenous North Americans, up until the present day, this has always been a city whose elites have reaped their glory and riches from the exploitation and oppression of African American, Native Americans, poor European Americans, and anyone else who was deemed undesirable and expendable. At this very moment, Charleston maintains its fame and fills its wallets through a tourism industry that glorifies the Old South and fulfills the Gone With the Wind fantasies of rich white tourists: the “good ol’ days” when African Americans were happy, loyal slaves with names like Mammy and Prissy, when women had their bodies squeezed into corsets and had their lives ruled by the iron word of their husbands, and when any European American without a sizable plantation home was considered “po’ white trash.” In the present day, for example, the house where I live in, ironically named the Martin Luther King District, is a block away from Burke High School, which in 2006, is a segregated high school, with a disgusting level of inequality in funding and resources in comparison to its richer and whiter counterparts.

So what does all this mean for us, as students at the College of Charleston, as students who oppose these forms of oppression and injustice? It means that we live in a community in which there exists very imposing, very high, and very thick walls of separation, of distrust, of animosity – walls that keep us divided and keep us from being in solidarity with one another in our common vision of a better world. There are walls that separate the College of Charleston campus from the surrounding neighborhoods, particularly the predominately lower-income and predominately African American communities. There are walls that greatly divide the campus itself, walls of color and walls of social class, that infect even those groups or organizations on campus that claim to be so-called liberal or progressive. ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE as an organization, as a group of human beings working together, must commit itself to breaking down those walls wherever we find them.

So, the question becomes: what action do we need to take in order to begin obliterating these walls? From the conversations I’ve been having with many of you over the past few weeks, I think a number of major principles are presenting themselves that need to guide all of our actions.

The first is to build a strong link of solidarity and understanding between the progressive students of the College of Charleston and the low-income neighborhoods of Charleston. Because of all the College’s role in this city’s history of class exploitation and white supremacy (it not having been desegregated until 1969), there remains a great deal of very justified resentment and skepticism among the working-class, predominately African American communities towards the college. Therefore, it is not surprising that there exists a massive disconnect between the activism that exists within the mainstream CofC student organizations and the activism that is desperately needed in the streets, homes, and schools of Charleston. ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE must commit itself to ending that disconnect and constructing a line of communication and cooperation. We must envision ourselves as an organization dedicated to the people of Charleston, particularly those Charlestonians who face a destructive lack of freedom, justice, equality, and human dignity; instead of being narrowly dedicated to issues that solely affect the lives of relatively-privileged college students. We, as students, must begin to realize that the mainstream academia in this country often pushes us into a very elitist framework that alienates us from the concerns of regular folks. We must begin to see our level of education and our intellectual resources as tools for the liberation of the people. We need to start always with the needs of the people we hope to serve, start on that grassroots level, and work our way up. We can have all the intellectual knowledge we want, but if we can’t relate that knowledge to our brothers and sisters in the street, to the young people in the public school system, to the workers struggling to pay the rent every month – then all of our years in school have been worthless.

Another central principle is that it is essential that our organization reflect the principles that we are striving for. I obviously don’t have to tell you about all the forms of self-segregation that exist on this campus, based on skin color, based on class, based on who your mommy and daddy are. What is most disturbing is how often these attitudes and prejudices express themselves in organizations that claim to be in support of human rights for all people, justice for all people, peace for all people, etc. We need to be very honest: if a group advocating a progressive agenda is composed solely of white members, or middle-class members, or heterosexual members and is unconsciously alienating everyone else – there is a huge problem. But that is sadly often the norm on this campus. If there is one thing I want to see ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE accomplish is to be the exception to the norm. We need to position multiculturalism at the very core of our existence as an organization. We need to make embracing and learning from the experiences of all people – of all colors, of all economic backgrounds, of both genders, of all sexual orientations, of all faiths – our NUMBER ONE priority. Because I truly believe that if we fail to do that, if we need up alienating any potential human being who would like to work with us, or ignoring the voice and perspective of any member, this organization will be a disaster.

Finally, we need to consider how we organize ourselves and how we interact with each as comrades in a common struggle. So many organizations spring up on this campus and then collapse because one or two students posture themselves as leaders, but almost always find themselves all alone, suddenly wondering why everyone is so apathetic. But I don’t think the problem is apathy, I really don’t - the problem is that all the channels of expressing one’s outrage, one’s compassion , one’s love end up being so inadequate. This sense of inadequacy and mediocrity pervades our whole political system, from local politics to the two rich fools we are presented with every four years to be our President. There is no real leadership, there is no sense of a growing movement, no sense of common struggle. We have to change this. Now, in attempting to do that, no one person can be ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE. We all need to be leaders. Though I’m responsible for calling this meeting tonight and am going to be facilitating our discussion this evening, I can’t be the only leader. Especially as we try to tackle a wide-range of issues, including racism, poverty, sexism, homophobia, etc. – I, as a middle-class, heterosexual, male of European descent, do not have the experience of being inflicted by those injustices. I may have a lot of passion and book knowledge about them, but I can’t pretend to be an all-knowing expert of those forms of oppression, and I wouldn’t try to. So we need the experiences of all our members, of all the people, to inform our philosophy and guide our actions. We all have to be empowered to bring back a spirit of resistance within ourselves and our community. All of us, all the people, have to be empowered – hence the name: ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE. So, to take the first step towards empowering ourselves, I want to borrow a practice from the Black Panther Party, particularly the great Fred Hampton. I would like you all to put your fists up, and repeat after me:

I AM… A REVOLUTIONARY.

ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

Greetings brothers and sisters. Peace be unto you.

While sitting in my Shakespeare class today, when I should have been listening to a lecture on Othello, I instead wrote the following sketch (though "rant" is probably the more important term) on the use of certain language that I feel contributes to various forms of oppression in our society. It's a little fragmented in this form, but I would really like to make this into a more coherent essay some day. But here's just a rough sketch of some of my ideas. Feel free to share any thoughts you might have with me.

Love,
Matthew Foley
ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE


The language is set up to divide and destroy us. I’m sick of hearing middle-class college students raised in the suburbs talking about being afraid to go into the “ghettoes” of Charleston. Using that word somehow allows them the psychological comfort to remain apathetic about the poverty and injustice that exists in these mostly-segregated neighborhoods. They have no concept of the fact that the word “ghetto” originated from the racist imprisonment of European Jews within segregated communities. Ghettoes are neighborhoods in which its inhabitants are never intended to escape. But somehow, in today’s society, the word “ghetto” has taken on a wildly different connotation. In the minds of most White People (I use this term for those who consciously or unconsciously accept the reality of white supremacy... but we'll get to this in a minute), it is a place of fear, of danger, of violence, etc. This connotation allows the fault and blame for the poverty that exists in these communities to be taken out of their own white supremacists hands and dumps it in the laps of those who have been forced into these “ghettoes.” Isn’t is obvious, however, that the only kind of person who would have blamed Jews for being forced into ghettoes and concentration camps would be the most heinous of racists? So why does this sort of reasoning occur every single day in America? Why are they places where the comfortable and the rich do everything possible not to see, not to think about, not to do anything about. The level of mental gymnastics Rich White America has had to perform over the centuries to convince themselves that they are not at fault for this oppression would almost be impressive if it wasn’t so genocidal. They need to stop calling these communities “hoods” and “the bad part of town” and instead call them what they really are: Communities without justice! Communities under oppression! Communities under colonization by the willfully blind, the racist, the capitalist, the good ol’ flag-waving American!

The language is set up to divide and destroy us. I am becoming firmly convinced that those of us in America of European descent (who, according to what we know of human history, are also ultimately of African descent as well) who wish to fight against white supremacy must reject the definition and conception of “whiteness.” The social construct called “whiteness” was simply a tool used by ruling classes to create a base of European solidarity in order to oppress and exploit the people of Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Not only was “whiteness” used as a tool to oppress Asian, African, and American peoples, it was also used to stifle class-dissent within the ranks of European Americans. The suffering of working-class European Americans has been constantly pacified by rich European Americans through the practice of the rich convincing the poor that Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, Latino Americans, and any non-white “Other” was somehow a dangerous threat to them. In order to resist that perceived threat, poor European Americans allied themselves with the rich rulers in order to receive protection they didn’t really need in the first place. That same tradition continues today in the strong power base of working-class European Americans who vote Republican in order to protect themselves against an even wider range of “Others:” gays and lesbians, feminists, Arab Americans, etc. I am really begin to believe that to willingly accept the definition of "white" and to act according to the historical ideology of "whiteness" in this country is to psychologically align oneself with inequality. I really mean that. Therefore, to combat racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, and other forms of oppression, European Americans must thoroughly reject white solidarity as a definition for our lives. We must find a new definition for ourselves that denies solidarity with white supremacists forces and throws our support behind those who have been systematically oppressed by our “whiteness.” The question then becomes: what should that new definition be? European American, which I have tried to implement throughout this writing? Person of European descent? But what of the fact that all of our ancestors ultimately originate from Africa, the original homeland of all humankind? Should we then become African-European-Americans? De-pigmented Africans? Person of light skin color? It becomes difficult, because these terms all seem so obtuse and would probably be criticized by conservative forces as being “too politically correct.” I’m not really interested in whether I’m being “politically correct” or not, but I am interested in defining myself by a correct term, a term which is representative of my conscience, my spirit, my mind, my heart, and not based on a lie my ancestors developed in order to steal land, own human beings as slaves, and hide their own sense of shame.


I particularly want to write a much longer essay some day on desconstructing the concept of "whiteness." In fact, I already have a title in mind, borrowed from A Raisin in the Sun:

"THAT'S THE WAY THE CRACKERS CRUMBLE"

Catchy, ain't it?

Ok, maybe I only find that hysterically funny.

Whatever.

Peace.

Greetings brothers and sisters. Peace be unto you.

I know it’s been some time since you last heard from me. I’ve been keeping very busy with school, but also some very exciting activist projects. I felt like sharing two pieces of writing I did recently that highlight some of these activities.

The first is a letter I addressed to the membership of the National Organization for Women on the campus of CofC after a meeting I attended in which one of their leaders made a number of ignorant and racist comments. It was one of those moments where I felt like I had no choice but to speak my mind, so I, along with Laura, composed letters in protest. Much thanks for Meg, the Vice President of Now, for helping us with this fight and be an all-around awesome feminist.


Dear NOW,

As I wish to contribute at much as possible to making the CofC National Organization for Women a powerful voice for progressive social change on campus and in the Charleston community, I feel compelled to speak out regarding a number of issues presented at the first meeting last Thursday that myself and a number of members were extremely troubled and offended by. First of all, I would like to address the disrespect given Coretta Scott King by Vice President Taylor Livingston. I was present at the Amnesty International meeting the previous Monday where she contrasted the level of media attention given to the deaths of two important equal rights legends, Coretta Scott King and Betty Freidan. She went on to imply that the only reason Coretta Scott King’s death received so much attention was that she was married to Martin Luther King, Jr. This comment showed a complete ignorance of Coretta Scott King’s lifetime of activism and sacrifice in the fight for freedom and equality for all Americans. I also found the act of placing Betty Freidan on a pedestal at the expense of Mrs. King was also extremely problematic considering the fact that many African American feminists point to Betty Freidan and particularly her middle-class white woman-centered The Feminine Mystique as why so many women of color feel alienated and ignored by the
mainstream feminist movement. Taylor’s comments unfortunately appeared to be acting out this same focus on white women as the major force in feminist struggle while ignoring or denigrating the contributions of other women. Now, I do appreciate the fact that there was an attempt made on Thursday night to correct these comments by Meghann Stubel, but I and a number of others found Taylor’s sudden switch in opinion to be rather forced and insincere. Comments made later in the evening such asbegrudgingly stating that an African American male would be elected President before a woman (which seemed to suggest that she was only considering white women in this “who will win the Presidency first” competition) and sponsoring a contest which is providing free tickets to Boone Hall Plantation unfortunately shows a great lack of sensitivity and solidarity with women who are not of European descent. Now, if the CofC branch of the National Organization of Women wishes to be a place of solidarity and equality for all women, then it must take some serious strides to halt these prejudiced statements. I would deeply suggest that NOW make fighting discrimination based on skin color, ethnicity, and nationality one of its highest principles and commit itself to considering the needs, aspirations, and experiences of women of color on this campus in its future meetings and activities. This can not be done through tokenism or through giving lip-service (such as reminding us that February is Black History Month). A commitment to antiracism must become a fundamental foundation upon which we build as an organization. Otherwise, I think the organization will find itself alienating a great people who do not come from a middle-class white background or those who stand in solidarity with them against racism, classism, and prejudice. I hope you take some of these opinions and suggestions under consideration. Thank you for your time.

- Matthew Foley



Also, this is a brief sketch from my notebook earlier this evening about the stress and frustration that often comes with activism:

When I stop and think about how much injustice there is in the world and how much work it is going to take in order to create justice – I sometimes feel completely overwhelmed. I want to fight racism. I want to fight sexist. I want to fight homophobia. I want to fight for worker’s rights. I want to fight for animal rights. I want to fight against American imperialism. I want to be more healthy. I want to be more tolerant. I want all these things, but it is almost impossible to know where to start. But when I was our for a run this evening, I had a thought. Suppose this was my first time running. Suppose I had never done serious exercise in my life before this moment. Suppose I had been eating very unhealthy foods all my life. But I had decided today that I was going to start taking better care of myself. So, I go for a run. Now, after this first run, should I be expected to run a marathon the next day? Of course not. I’m not prepared. I’m not ready yet. But if running a marathon is indeed my goal, I then need to commit myself to consistent and conscientious training. I need to train and train and train, constantly improving, constantly growing stronger, healthier, more experienced. Then one day, when I’m finally ready, I can run that marathon. I think we really must strive to see our lives in those terms. Constant growth. Constant elevation. You can’t beat yourself up for not being perfect right this very minute, but we must continue struggling towards bettering ourselves and our world. I’m trying to take steps towards becoming a vegan, but I know it’s going to take a lot of work to get there. I’m trying to take steps towards buying only sweat-shop free/union-made clothing, but I know I still own a lot of clothing that has been produced in oppressive environments. I tried to speak my mind about the racism present at the last NOW meeting, but I know there is a great deal of struggle ahead to address the concerns of women of color on campus. I’m just going to try to keep working, keeping fighting, keep struggling, keep loving, and keep standing up for what I believe. We have to be in the struggle for the long-haul. Life-long freedom fighters.

A brief sketch from my notebook after a conversation with Ryan and Meg:

I try to write from that space in my gut, in the depths of my heart – where love grows, where outrage boils, where compassion is moved, where my desire from freedom calls forth. I think back on when I began to participate in antiracist struggle, with my independent study with Professor Francis and my involvement with the Black Student Union. I would often, sometimes intentionally but oftentimes unintentionally, preface my opinions with “As a white person” or “Speaking from the perspective of a white male” in an attempt to not come off as patronizing or to suggest that I “knew” how much racism hurts. Though I still absolutely strive to never strike a patronizing or paternalistic tone with my African American comrades, I no longer feel I can claim any identification with or allegiance to any sort of “white mentality” or “white perspective.” As I also struggle to grow in my feminist awareness, I also feel that I can not in good conscience ground my antisexist struggle in a “male” or “masculine” perspective. These perspectives, no matter how prevalent they may be in our society, are nevertheless rotten to the core and the essential foundation of oppression. I will seek to do my very best to be a traitor to these concepts of “whiteness” and “maleness” and instead ground my life, my writing, and my activism in a defiantly HUMAN perspective. On the other hand, I know I will also have to acknowledge the fact that as long as our current political system is constructed as it is, based on racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, capitalism, and other forms of exploitation, society will attempt to treat me not according to my conscience but by the social definitions determined by the conditions of my birth: white, male, straight, middle-class, American, etc. I have to recognize that no matter how defiant I may be in my antiracist activism, it is still very likely that whenever I am pulled over by the police or try to apply for a homeownership loan at the bank, I will probably benefit from the privileges granted to people of my complexion. What I believe it is important to do, however, keeping in mind the definitions that society will try to impose on me, is to be as courageous as I possibly can in defying those definitions and expectations and instead act in accordance with my conscience. As long as this society exists as it does, my body – my skin, my sex – may be in prison, but my spirit is FREE. My spirit has nothing to do with white or male or straight or middle-class or American. My spirit walks with freedom. So I try to write out of that feeling of freedom, out of that space in my gut that cries out against oppression. I want the ink of my pen to be the spilt blood of the state. I want my pen to make their mightiest sword irrelevant. You do not control me. The flag does not control me. My skin color does not control me. My sex does not control me. This is my declaration of independence. You do not control me.

Greetings brothers and sisters. Peace be unto you.

01.31.06

It’s a little before 10 o’clock. I really should be reading the big stack of books on the corner of writing table right now instead of writing. Some of those books are for classes tomorrow: Twelfth Night for my Shakespeare class, Black Charlestonians by Bernard Powers for my African American History class (taught by Dr. Powers), and Cut by Patricia McCormick for my Literature for Adolescents class. The rest are for my paper on Anna Julia Cooper and black feminism for Francis’ class: In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens: Womanist Prose by Alice Walker, Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism, and This Bridge Called My Back: Writing by Radical Women of Color edited by Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua. As fascinating as those books are (ok, maybe not Twelfth Night), I don’t know, I’m just a little too worn-out from today to tackle all those words. This morning I had to give a small presentation on Anna Julia Cooper in Francis’ class and also turn in an annotated bibliography of sources I intend to use for my paper due in just over a week. Unfortunately, I put off some of that research until the last minute and found myself up pretty late last night trying to read and summarize a number of academic articles on the life and activism of Anna Julia Cooper and other 19th century African American feminists. I was up until about 3 AM finishing up that bibliography, and then had to wake up around 9 AM so that I could run by the library and print it off before class. It’s funny, as someone who used to pride himself in not needed to sleep much, now I really feel myself needing a solid 8 hours sleep in order to have a productive, fulfilling day. Now, I can certainly manage to get by in a physical sense with little sleep, but I just end up feeling unhappy and unfocused all day long. As with eating healthy and exercising, the ways we treat our bodies end up having an amazingly powerful effect upon how we feel mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. If I don’t get a full night’s sleep, I may be able to make it to class and sit there taking notes like a good little student, but it is rare if I’m actually engaged on a deep level or really getting anything out of what we are learning. Thankfully, I’ve gotten much better over the years of making sleep a high priority and even forcing myself to put away work late at night so that I’m not completely exhausted the next day. I wish I had better followed that advice last night, because I certainly needed my energy for what I had to do about two hours after Francis’s class, which was going to baby-sit her two kids for a few hours. I arrived at their apartment out in West Ashley about 2:30 and her husband Brian let me in. He left a few minutes later to pick up their 5-year-old daughter, Frances, from school. The two of them came back about 10 minutes later, and then Brian took off for work at Barnes and Noble just a little while after that. Frances is a real joy to be around – she is just adorable, funny, and crazy in a cute little kid kinda way. I helped her with her homework for a little while and then sat down to watch Aladin with her. Taking care of the baby has been a really interesting experience though. I wouldn’t say that it is particularly difficult to take care of an infant, but I do think it is pretty damn exhausting. After about 3 hours today of feeding Katharine, changing her diaper, rocking her, putting her down for a nap, picking her up when she wakes up, waking her around if she gets fussy, having her drooling all over my shirt – I was just plain worn out. My arms hurt from holding her so long. I smelt like a combination of milk, drool, and baby wipes. So when Dr. Francis came home about 6 o’clock, the first thing out of my mouth was “You know, this baby thing is hard work.” She just laughed. I suppose one simply gets used to it after a while, and there definitely is a real joy is taking care of such a fragile human being like that. I certainly understand why people make the sacrifices they do to be part of raising children, but I certainly would not care to be in that position of parenthood any time soon. I have enough trouble getting my work does as it is without the prospect of a totally dependent infant to take care of. But speaking of trouble getting my work done, I suppose I should close out this entry and finally attempt some of this homework for tomorrow. Though I’ll probably just end up watching the Rage Against the Machine DVD I picked up yesterday. But hey, I can always dream. Peace.

Greetings brothers and sisters. Peace be unto you.

Alright, I'm trying my best to get caught up on my journal. Here's all the happenings from Saturday, the 14th. Hopefully I can get caught up on the rest of the weekend later tonight and tomorrow afternoon. I wish you all much peace and love. Foley.


01.14.06

On Saturday morning, I had the overwhelming urge to get outside for a few hours, get some fresh air, and just escape the general monotony of my room. So, I decided to drive out to James Island County Park. It was strangely windy all Saturday, but I managed to find a relatively secluded spot by a little river that was well insulated by walls of trees on all sides. It was still a little chilly, but I just enjoyed being out in nature for a change. I had brought along the collection of books I had picked up from the library on Friday after my classes. I absolutely love leaving the school library on a Friday or Saturday afternoon with a huge stack of books for pleasure reading under my arm, striding out like the uber-nerd I am towards a thrilling weekend night of study and learning. I know, I know, I’m kinda weird. But I managed to pick up the following exciting books: Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire; A Pedagogy of Liberation: Dialouges on Transforming Education by Paulo Freire and Ira Shor; Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by bell hooks; By Any Means Necessary, a collection of Malcolm X’s speeches, interviews, and letters edited by George Breitman; Collected Essays and Poems by Henry David Thoreau; and Allies for Freedom, a book on the role of John Brown in the African American freedom struggle by Benjamin Quarles.

I brought all of these with me to the park, not really knowing which one I’d like to start first, but finally opted for A Pedagogy of Liberation and By Any Means Necessary. I really find the A Pedagogy of Liberation book to be extremely fascinating. Professor Francis had turned me on to Paulo Freire during my independent study with her my sophomore year and I also read about him one of bell hooks’ books on education entitled Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. So, I had been wanting to check out Freire’s writing for quite some time now, but simply hadn’t found the time. Now that I’m really getting a taste of his ideas, I’m very sorry that I waited so long. His philosophy of education revolves around the notion that education is a central catalyst for human freedom, particularly those human beings who have oppressed by the reigning power structure, but if education is to be that catalyst, it must reject the traditional notion of the classroom being a place where all-knowing teachers dispense knowledge to unknowing students through one-way monologue (lecture). For education to become a means of liberation, it must be organized around the concept of dialogue, in which the voices and perspectives of students and teachers have equal weight and importance. In fact, the whole concept of “teacher” and “student” become fundamentally obsolete, because all participants in the classroom are both teaching each other and learning from each other.

This is the basis for Freire’s philosophy, and Ira Shor is an American teacher who has spent many years teaching and writing about liberation education based on Freire’s ideas. Besides laying out the framework for this sort of freedom in the classroom and its implications in fighting political oppression, they also discuss the level of resistance they’ve encountered from school officials and other teachers who believe that following the rules and safeguarding their careers is more important that being a force for freedom and love in the lives of their students. An important retort they level against these sort of traditional teachers is that though they often act in the name of neutrality and not “rocking the boat,” there is no such thing as an ideologically-neutral classroom. Though the traditional educational curriculum in this country’s school are deliberately portrayed as being standard, usual, and “just the way things are,” they are in fact deeply ideologically entrenched in promoting ruling class values – that glorify European culture, male domination, Christian superiority, American patriotism, etc. while at the same time denigrating the contributions of women, people of color, people of various religions and spiritual views, people of non-heterosexual sexual orientations, etc. This traditional type of education may indeed be empowering to middle-class or upper-class, heterosexual, Christian, white males, but it is fundamentally disenabling and disempowering to everyone else. The entire structure of teachers engaging in a monologue instead of a dialogue is also inherently disempowering to all students, no matter their background, because it suggests that knowledge has already been completely assembled at a prior point by a professional academic who is now distributing this lifeless and static body of information to a non-participating body of students. Even when students ask a question, it is often in the format of asking additional information from the all-knowing teacher, not contributing their voice to an equal discovery of new and vibrant knowledge. In a true dialogic classroom, both teachers and students are active participants in discovering, contemplating, debating, and learning ever-expansive bodies of knowledge that are not simply predetermined packages of information that students must ingest in order to receive a passing grade.

If it’s not obvious, I’ve been doing an enormous amount of soul-searching in regards to what kind of teacher I want to be someday, especially in light of my frustration with the School of Education. I am discovering countless ideas everyday and rapidily challenging and readjusting my views on a lot of issues, but I’m solidly determined in my conclusion that, for me at least, teaching is not just like any other job, where one’s primary concern is to collect one’s paycheck and safeguard one’s career. I demand from myself that I constantly bring my commitment to human rights and radical politics into my role as a teacher. I want to be nothing short of a revolutionary teacher – politically revolutionary, intellectually revolutionary, and personally revolutionary in the ways in which I change the lives of my students. When the School of Education and the existing educational power structure can help me in that quest - great. But when they try to force me into conservative and traditional educational philosophies, I’m going to rebel, plain and simple. If I find a school within the public educational structure where I can practice the art of teaching in keeping with my vision and my conscience – fantastic. But if I have to find alternative schools in which to teach until the public schools change their policies that are crippling so many of the students that pass through their system, then so be it. My conscience allows nothing less, and that is the law I follow, not the rules of the School of Education.

There you go, my education manifesto.

Around 3 o’clock, I left James Island and headed downtown for my appointment with Liz. When we talked on the phone earlier in the week, we promised to meet up sometime during the weekend. Well, I had called a few days later and recommended Saturday afternoon and recommended Saturday afternoon, and Liz suggested we go to Clara’s on King St., which is a very nice little coffee shop. We caught up on the happenings within the CofC Theatre department and all the things going on in our private lives. We also got into a serious political talk, particularly on racism, which we continued as we walked around downtown, to Walden Books, and then back to her house on Coming St. We chatted for a little longer there, and then I took off about 7 o’clock. I had been needing to talk with Brian and Brandon about the BSU Radio Show sometime soon, and since I was so close to the Craig dorm, I decided to give Brandon a call and see if he was home. He picked up and told me he was just chillin’ in his room. So, I headed up to his room and we got on the phone with Brian, and got him to come down to Craig from McAllister. We hung out for a while, talking about our plans for the show this semester, goofing around on FaceBook, and just laughing, joking, having a good time. They are both two very wonderful young men. Our ages and temperament certainly put a little distance between us at times, but I love them nonetheless. But it was very comical, as we were talking about our plans for the rest of the night, Brian and Brandon were talking about going to a club:

“Yeah, I think Pluto Rocks sounds good,” Brian said. “Foley, you should come along, man.”

“Oh, no thanks guys. I’m much too old for that sort of thing,” I said, joking.

“How old are you?” Brandon asked.

“20,” I said.

“You’re not even of drinking age yet!” Brian laughed. “What are you talking about?!?”

Nevertheless, I think they understand that the club scene and drinking parties just aren’t my thing. But it’s in those moments that I feel a great deal of affinity with Huey Freeman from Boondocks. Though I may not be as odd as a 10-year-old black revolutionary obsessed with government conspiracies, sometimes I feel I’m pretty damn close. But alas, I gladly embrace my inner nerd. It’s all about loving yourself…

After parting from Brian and Brandon, I was definitely tired from being out and about all day long, but I just wasn’t ready to go home yet. I had had such a great day of being with good friends, that I just felt like finishing out the evening in the company of another special someone. So, as I was wandering up St. Philips, I decided to give Laura a call. Thankfully, she was in and just hanging out around her dorm room. Well, I was starving since I hadn’t eaten dinner yet, so I asked if she wanted to come with me to get something to eat. So, I walked up to Warren Place and sat by the front door reading A Pedagogy of Liberation while Laura was getting dressed. When she came down we headed to Gilroy’s so that I could get some delicious and extremely greasy pizza... yum. I ordered it to go, so we sat and chatted while they made my pizza, and then traveled back to her dorm room. I ended up staying for several hours, having an absolutely wonderful conversation about all kinds of things: education, literature, music, religion, materialism, and so many other things that I don’t really have the time nor energy to document fully. I’d be writing this journal for several more hours if I went into full detail about all the things we talked about, but you can check out Laura’s LiveJournal (http://www.livejournal.com/~morluna) if you’re curious. But it was a very beautiful time we spent together, because I think we are both crossing some personally dangerous water in how we are both radically challenging many ideas that have been pushed on us, from education, to religion, to race, to gender, and a lot of other issues. I think we are both going to be needing these conversations more and more as we discover the increasing amounts of hypocritical bullshit in the world. But finally around 1:00 AM, I think both of us were about to collapse from exhaustion, so we called it a night. I then headed home and promptly crashed in bed and fell fast asleep.


More to follow in the next few days. Peace.

Greetings brothers and sisters. Peace be unto you.

01.13.06

I must admit to being delinquent in my journal keeping over the past two days. I was very proud of myself for going strong in my daily journal keeping for 10 days straight, but I think the intense onrush of a full week of classes in juxtaposition to a relatively peaceful and restful winter break began to take its toll on me after a while. Come Thursday afternoon, I have to admit to feeling quite worn out – not physically tired per se, but more mentally and spiritually drained from encountering so many new classes, new faces, new ideas,etc. As wonderful as most of those new experiences were, it was nevertheless a great deal to handle in one week. On the other hand, I feel a little ridiculous claiming that I felt so exhausted after having spent no more than three hours each day in classes, but damn it, a life of the mind is quite demanding work. Just kidding. Well, despite my lack of journaling on those days, a few interesting things did happen during that time that I would like to write on this evening.

Wednesday’s classes were a little dry, but I stopped by Professor Francis’ office around 2 o’clock after my last class and hung out for a little while. We got into a long discussion on the injustices occurring in New Orleans and surrounding parts of Louisiana right now as the city, state, and federal governments continue to persist in their complete ineptitude and inhumanity in managing the recovery process in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I was aware from conversations we had shortly after Hurricane Katrina struck that her husband’s family has their roots in New Orleans and almost of all them still live in various parts of Louisiana, but I was not aware until Wednesday that her mother-in-law was actually a resident of the Ninth Ward, one of the hardest hit sections of New Orleans. The Ninth Ward has also remained in the news due to the criminal lack of support and assistance it received during and after the Katrina impact, due, at least in my mind, to the fact that the vast majority of its population is poor and black - a lethal combination when it comes to receiving necessary care and support from the United States government. Her mother-in-law is now living with other family members in Baton Rouge, praying for the day in which she will be allowed to return to the home she has lived in for almost all of her life – that is, if the city government doesn’t decide to demolish it in the process of building a “better New Orleans,” which is nothing but a shameless code word for “kicking all the black people out.” Other members of her husband’s family are spread out across the state and even across the country. As much research and reading as I’ve been doing recently in preparation for organizing a BSU Radio activism campaign to raise money for The People’s Hurricane Relief Fund, to hear some of those horrific stories come out of the mouth of someone I’m so close to and care so much about was just heartbreaking. It makes you sick sometimes to really think about how cruel and heartless human beings can be to their fellow man. It makes me even more determined to make our BSU Radio fundraiser a success, but it almost makes one serious wonder how it could ever be possible to heal so many of the deep wounds that have been gashed into the hearts and souls of the people of New Orleans who did not have the wealth or resources to escape Katrina’s path. I don’t know how I would feel to wake up in some strange city, in a shelter, hundreds of miles away from my home, and realize that when it came time for my government to chose between spending money on maintaining the levee system of New Orleans or maintaining the nation’s military might: it chose war-mongering over protecting the lives of me and my family. I don’t know if I could ever look at an American flag again without feeling ill. I don’t know if any amount of money could ever begin to make that boiling sense of rage and bitterness in the pit of my stomach go away. Despite that, if any of us want to lay claim to membership in the human race, we have no choice but to fight as best we can and bring justice to those who have been so horribly wronged.

Francis’ 19th Century African American Lit class the following day was also very interesting. Since we’re going to be reading literature primarily from after the Civil War until the turn of the 20th century, we’re starting off the first several weeks of class by really digging deeply into the historical context. So, on Thursday, we read and discussed The Emancipation Proclamation, the post-Civil War amendments, and the Gettysburg Address. Though there were a few exceptions, I was generally extremely impressed by the level of intelligence and strong opinions expressed by many of the students in the class. In a class such as this, where 12 of the 15 students are white, I have a strong tendency to be extremely worried about their level of antiracist ideals and how willing they might be to dig into the depths of America’s dark history of racism. But many of them were extremely critical of Lincoln’s moderation on the issue of slavery and were very outraged at the supposed inferiority of African Americans present in the documents produced by the U.S. government during this time period. After class, I stopped by Francis’ office again (I’m in there at least every day, if you hadn’t noticed yet) and she too seemed so excited about everyone’s enthusiasm. She even said “I really love my job right now.” It is that sort of humanity and love of teaching that so deeply inspires me to step into the classroom.

But later in the same day, I nearly had my love of teaching dashed in one fell swoop by yet another mediocre, uninspired, traditionalist, completely non-thought provoking course offered by CofC’s School of Education: Classroom Obedience and Submission to Authority… excuse me, I’m sorry, Classroom Management. What started out as a fun reunion of so many familiar faces of folks from last semester’s education courses turned into some of the most infuriating and depressing two hours I’ve ever experienced in a classroom before. I’m really at a complete loss for words for how thoroughly dejected I continually feel about the School of Education’s attempts to prepare me to become a teacher. I want to be a great teacher. In fact, I’ve spent the vast majority of this Friday evening reading a phenomenal book I picked up in the CofC library entitled "A Pedagogy for Liberation: Dialogues on Transforming Education" with two leading figures in progressive education, Ira Shor and Paulo Freire. I absolutely love thinking about teaching, reading about teaching, learning about teaching, talking about teaching, writing about teaching, anything about teaching. But the vast majority of what the School of Education has tried to teach me about education, I must simply and completely reject – and I mean that, I really do. They are not preparing us to be teachers, plain and simple. They are preparing us to be professional indoctrinators who will reduce free minds into submissive and obedient workers in a system of domination based on sexism, racism, homophobia, war-mongering, and exploitation. That is the status quo of education in this country, period. If we willingly accept those rules and teach this country’s children according to those rules, we are just as evil, maybe even worse, as the practitioners of that injustice. My conscience will simply not allow me to take seriously anything that is said in that Classroom Management course – I reject it from the depths of my heart.

The consolation, thankfully, is that I know I’m not alone. After the class let out, Laura, Andrea, Melissa, and I went out to dinner at The Majestic on King St. Melissa left very early, but Laura, Andi, and I ended up talking for nearly another two hours, venting all of our pent-up frustrations with the School of Education and the entire educational system in this nation. We will be the one’s who will change things. I believe that. I really do. But I think our ability to be revolutionary teachers who bring love, hope, and a love of knowledge into the classroom instead of obedience, resignation, and test-preparation is going to be completely dependent on our support of one another and our ability to seek with each other alternatives and radical pedagogies that will give us a different path other than what is prescribed by our would-be educational masters. Though I had promised myself to ease back from my political responsibilities this semester, I am almost tempted to attempt to resurrect Teaching for Change. Even if there is only three or four of us who meet in order to discuss ideas and show solidarity, I think we need, for the sake of our own sanity, some sort of community for revolutionary teachers. Something to think about. On that note, I will finally leave you with one last thing to ponder, one of my favorite quotes by James Baldwin, from his speech “A Talk with Teachers:”

"The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions, to say to himself this is black or this is white, to decide for himself whether there is a God in heaven or not. To ask questions of the universe, and then learn to live with those questions, is the way he achieves his identity. But no society is really anxious to have that kind of person around. What societies really, ideally, want is a citizenry which will simply obey the rules of society. If a society succeeds in this, that society is about to perish. The obligation of anyone who thinks of himself as responsible is to examine society and try to change it and to fight it - at no matter what risk."