"Fight The Power" Puts The JUDGES Of The Atlanta Public Schools On Trial

Dear NAACP - I apologize for telling you to "kiss OUR collective butts". As I listened to Atlanta's WAOK AM yesterday I can honestly understand your fear of a "Black Planet Public School".

In as much as these key "Human Resource Development Institutions" are seen as a POLITICAL Conquest and a PROXY for your "Racism Chasing". All the while it is the (Black) students that get trampled in the "Ultimate Fighting Championship" match.

"Fight The Power" Puts The Southern Association of Schools and Colleges On Trial

Yesterday as I listened to WAOK's late afternoon show with Derrick Boazman I was forced to think hard to reaffirm my memory about the saga known as "The Chaos In The Clayton County Schools".   As I had recalled it - there was a revolving door on School Superintendents.  About 10 years ago they went through several leaders and all of them seemed to have some sort of conflict with the school board.  The school board appeared to have no confidence in the leadership of the person in question.   Then open conflict began to occur between school board members themselves.  The rest is history.  SACS came in - likely with a stack of newspapers and local television news film footage as their evidence.

When I tuned into the show I heard a woman who said that she was a member of the school board.  She talked about a "5 to 4" faction that had split the panel.  At that point in time I figured that this was an ATLANTA school board member.  Turns out that this was one of the deposed Clayton County School Board members from the past.  

Let me say that over time I did in fact see that only some of the members were the problem.  Some appeared to be relatively competent representatives of their particular districts interests.  The general problem with school boards in some area is that they tend to promote "community activists" rather than seasoned organizational administrators or educational professionals.   There is a need for some level of activists on the panel to be the "voice of the 'Least of These' ".  When they formulate the balance of the board you can expect chaos.   I am forced to agree with an article written at the time which observed that a school board position provides the opportunity for an "individual contributor" from a job that has never paid more than $45,000 per year to obtain a policy making position for a body which has a $100 million budget.  The only qualification being that the person get the majority vote from their district.  As the demographic profile of an increasing number of districts are changed - so is the character of the entire school board.  It stands to reason that a person without any executive experience over large budgets are at times going to have challenges in setting ORGANIZATIONAL RESOURCE PRIORITIES - especially with that amount of money.

"Fight The Power" sought to discredit the motives of SACS and used this former member as his star witness.  The one guy who I stated the other day was the last hope for the INTEGRITY of certain metro area school boards was put at the defendants table.

Dr Mark Elgart  and the entire SACS organization appear to have a problem with "Black run" school systems.  The evidence given was that Clayton, Dekalb and now Atlanta Public Schools were in their crosshairs over the years.

Please keep in mind that this is the same mentality that says "look at all of the Black males who sit in jail today.  There must be some racist conspiracy in play to destroy Black people by destroying the pillars of our community which threatens the White power establishment.  As you can guess - the "BUSINESS INTERESTS" in Atlanta - the "Atlanta Chamber Of Commerce" was the hidden hand which wanted to control the "skin texture" of the school board and have the final say on who would lead the schools.

Sometime the "Jedi Mind Trick" makes me think harder about the truth as I saw it pass by me though.  The "Blue Ribbon Panel" that the school leadership (a Black female Superintendent and at the time a Black female school board president) brought in the ATL Chamber to form a panel of member of the leadership community in the city.  It seems to me very rational that the "chief marketing agency" for the economic development of Atlanta has a vested interest to retain Atlanta as a center for a quality public school system.  One only need to look at how Clayton county was made to list to one side and the resulting exodus of parents to understand the Chamber concern.

As I thought back upon Clayton as it began to lose its (White Democrat) "Good Ole Boy Network" - it was the "Fight The Power" station with radio host Coz Carson at the time leading the way against "Dem White folks" who did not want to let go of power.   They had a protest against the "racist" police chief of Riverdale who had a Black officer fired and a speeding trap that ensnared too many Black people.   It was Derrick Boazman who noted that Clayton had its own lobbyist in Washington DC - bringing money in to benefit the crown jewel of the "White folks" - Clayton State College - all the while the interests of the (Black) people in Riverdale and other parts of the county went unanswered.   The story was not the take over of the seats of power per the race of the replacement but instead the battle for the money.  The "Clayton County Chamber of County" (read between the line - White folks) versus the growing Black Democratic political base of the county was the real fight.   Surprise, surprise - once "favorable people" took over ALL seats of power in the county - as the White residential base of the county scampered to Henry, Fayette and Coweta counties to the South - their ENEMY gone - the new power base began to FIGHT WITH EACH OTHER.

If you research the 2006 and 2008 elections on this blog you will see the cliquish fight between "Black Democrat Faction A" versus "Black Democrat Faction B".  No surprise.  This exists in Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago, Yeadon PA.  The documentary "Brick City" exposed the blood sport that "all Democrat" politics in Newark NJ is.  

My apology to the NAACP is based on my awareness of the pitfalls that imperil the "rank and file" and school children when the axis of the political debate switches from "Democrat / Republican", as a PROXY for the RACIAL STRUGGLE over to a "Democrat Team A / Democrat Team B"  as a circular fire fight.

The "Struggle For Quality Education" Is Essentially The Execution Of An External Indictment

 I challenge all of you who read my perspectives on political events to move beyond the latest TRANSACTIONAL INDICTMENT and instead seek to do some pattern matching in order to make sense of the data points.

The struggle for "Educational Equality", as voiced by the Black establishment has shifted after decades of success at obtaining their previous agenda items.  In the last interval of time they took a page out of the Bayard Ruskin playbook:  "We will gain control over the interests of the Black community by:

• Getting Black people elected
• As Democrats
• Into positions of power
• To reprioritize the policies in the institutions that service our community

Keeping in mind that Black people are only 13% of the total US population AND that we live in highly concentrated areas, in general, one would be forced to say that this plan has come to pass.  In Georgia - Clayton and Dekalb Counties and the City Of Atlanta are indeed run by "favorable people".  Please note the term "favorable people" does not speak to RACE, per se.  It speaks more so to IDEOLOGY and the person's favorability to  the Black voting populace and the Overlay Establishment Machine.   It would be irrational for anyone to expect that the state of Georgia, for example must have an all Black and Democratic government leadership before "success" can be obtained.  Blacks are (from memory) only 29% of the state population.   Sadly, however, this tactic is used as a point of "Establishment Rejection" in a state like Maryland or Illinois or New Jersey where, up until recently "Favorable People" ran all of the seats of power state-wide.  Despite the fact that the Black Establishment had endorsed their ideological soul-mates - there is still a measure of "deniability of association and complicity" due to racial differences.

 It is important to understand that, in the minds of the "Perpetual Activist" the issue of the EDUCATION GAP between Black and White ultimately has NOTHING to do with the racial/ideological CONTROL over the school system and political establishment both - LOCAL/STATE/NATIONAL.    It is the fact that there exists a difference in RESULTS between the races that is used as the INDICTMENT that "America Has Not Yet Achieve A State Of Equality".

When I listened to Martin Luther King III earlier this week he stated that "the dream is not yet completed.  There still are poor people and people without health care".   It didn't matter that he had violated "Jesus' " observation that "the poor will aways be with you".   It is the INTENTION to eradicate poverty  that provided his moral positioning above all other inferior and selfish alternatives.

The main flaw of this type of thinking is that it places more merit upon the INTENT than the MANAGEMENT ACUMEN that is necessary to achieve tangible results.  With such a disposition they are able to dispense with notions of "economic scarcity" and "triage".  Those who seek to maintain the moral high ground can stand on the notion that:

• ALL CHILDREN deserve a high quality education
• MONEY is no object
• "YOU DO value all children equally..................Don't you?  Well prove it!!"

If we erect a time line upon his indictments, however, we will soon note that 40 years ago these same INDICTMENTS and inducements were made at the LOCAL level as he stood on the steps of the local school board seeking inclusion.  Now that he (this is a metaphorical "he" and not a reference to King III) has control over the institutions he once protested against THIS INSTITUTION is no longer "failing Black people" due to malicious intent -as was the case in the past.   Today the "favorable person" in the school board seat - exits the building and joins the NAACP march upon the next rung of POWER, the INDICTMENT having shifted in kind.

The reason why I side with SACS in this scuffle is because I realize that they are the "sink" upon which the indictments from "Fight The Power" will be collected within.  If "Fight The Power" is not struggling AGAINST something then the oxygen that is made to move over their gills via the motion of "struggle" will cease and their body will atrophy.  

In essence - the "Southern Association of Colleges and Schools" represents MANAGEMENT BEST PRACTICES for school administration.   It is "best practices" which have little room for ACTIVISM and EMOTIONALISM that is the THREAT  to "Fight The Power".   Understand that "Fight The Power" believes that the one who LOVES BLACK PEOPLE THE MOST - speaks the loudest in a meeting and is seen protesting on "MLK Day".  He is no respecter of LOGISTICS in line with arrival at the city limits of the "Promised Land".

SACS's credibility can be obtained by looking at the swath of states that they cover.  "Fight The Power's" ineptness can also be ascertained by looking at the schools that he controls as well.

Unfortunately only ONE of these forces are indicted as "hating Black people in power".   Until we see that more Black leaders have been "assassinated" from their leadership position by being snatched away as they matriculated through the public school establishment which is dysfunctional - we won't apply the due RESPECT to our "Human Resource Development Institutions" but will continue to use the valuable resources as a political pawn - to our collective detriment.   Those who are able to say these very words against the NATIONAL education policy can't seem to note the impact of their own partition upon the national picture.

If the great "Frederick Douglass" was a student at today's "Frederick Douglass High School" in Baltimore - he would arrive at 12 grade with a 7th grade reading level.  Those great and insightful speeches never would have taken form on paper.
Governor Deal:  Hands Off Of Atlanta Schools