Education not Incarceration Teach-in - Speak-out a Huge Success

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/living/education/8572395.htm


Education forums hash out funding, equality

By Guy Ashley
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

RICHMOND - "If you really saw me, you would see a mixture of Martin Luther King Jr. and Maya Angelou."

So says Julius Jackson, 17, a poet, performer and De Anza High School student who thinks his talents for self-expression are too often overlooked by a society that can't get past the fact that he's a young black man in a community where many who fit that description are caught in a web of poverty and violence.

Jackson is determined to be heard, as were about a dozen other youths who attended a community forum, "Building Bridges: Stop the Violence," on Saturday at Lovonya Dejean Middle School in Richmond.

Students grilled local leaders, including Richmond Mayor Irma Anderson and Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia, about a lack of opportunities for their generation.

They said society turns a deaf ear their way. And, as if to underscore the point, a sea of empty seats surrounded the panelists and their youthful questioners.

A more robust crowd attended a similar daylong event in Oakland. The "Education Not Incarceration" rally and teach-in hammered on a vicious circle in which elected officials pump money into prisons at the expense of education. Participants said that cycle will spawn a new generation of poorly educated, frustrated young adults who will land in the prisons of tomorrow.

"When you're building warehouses, you have to have inventory," said David Jackson, an Oakland youth advocate who was among many speakers demanding that elected officials find more money for education and other youth programs.

"Our culture has been duped by the veneer of equality," said Jabari Anderson, a first-grade teacher at Oakland's Cox Elementary School. He said front-page photographs of minorities such as Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell send a false message that all segments of society have a place in the top tiers of power.

Anderson says there's a much harsher reality on the streets of America. In Oakland, for instance, five schools are slated to be closed due to budget cuts, and all of them are in lower-income neighborhoods.

"Beyond that veneer are deep, deep inequalities," Anderson said. "The urban underclass is mushrooming."

About 200 people attended the Oakland event, which also benefited from a spillover of curious passers-by who had come to Oakland Technical High School for a marching band competition.

Even with such strong attendance, participants said getting out their message is an uphill battle, symbolized by the fact that a dozen local elected officials did not respond to invitations to the event.

Gioia said the small audience at the Richmond forum signaled the central problem facing today's youth. While the community at large obsesses on other issues, the needs of the up-and-coming generation are ignored.

"This room should be full," he said. "But clearly we haven't engaged everybody."