High School Students Self-Organize

Here is a video of the Youth for Justice rally that high school students in Seattle organized last week, in the wake of the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the murder of Trayvon Martin. This video shows some great spoken word poetry and hip hop; in several of their poems, students spoke about the school system and how it needs to change.

Unfortunately the video only covers the beginning of the rally, not the end where students lead an un-permited march through the streets and a blockade of a major downtown intersection. They defied several police dispersal orders and engaged a crowd of onlookers coming out of their jobs and out of the mall. There were no arrests, probably because the police realized that to arrest such a defiant group of people, they’d have to mace them – and it would look really bad to mace a bunch of youth of color in front of a crowd of onlookers with cameras, especially in the midst of all the anger about Trayvon Martin’s murder.

This rally was unique because it was youth led and it was militant. It wasn’t simply a matter of adults organizing and facilitating it, then prioritizing youth voices. It was a matter of youth organizing and facilitating it, and deciding which adults they would allow to speak during the open mic. Often when there are defiant actions like this, some activists will claim that those who disobey police orders are putting youth of color at risk. Noone said that this time around, because the action, from beginning to end, was clearly lead by youth of color themselves.

Several of my friends were remarking how the youth were better organized than many adult organizations, and they were able to invite the crowd to participate without letting adults take over or talk down to them.

Teachers: how can we teach in ways that support this kind of student self-organization, instead of thwarting or coopting it?  I am out of town right now visiting family, but I will share my insights on this question when I get the chance.  In the meantime, if anyone has thoughts, please feel free to share them in the comments.

The Speech I Gave at the Youth for Justice Rally

Youth for Justice Rally

The Youth for Justice rally today was amazing!  Over 100 high school students in Seattle came together in response to the murder of Trayvon Martin.  They also expressed solidarity with the ongoing prison hunger strike, and  demanded an end to ICE Holds. (ICE holds are when  the King County jail holds prisoners to be deported; inside their chambers, the County Council was debating whether to drop this policy, while we rallied outside).

The students were better organized than many adult activists, and they spit some powerful poetry expressing a sharp analysis of the system we live in, including the education system.  Their solidarity and care for each other was moving, especially since it crossed racial lines.   The mainstream media coverage doesn’t really do it justice – if the youth share their experiences, poems, speeches, or videos of the rally, I’ll post them here.

In the meantime, here’s the speech I gave, calling for teacher-student solidarity in the struggle against white supremacy:

I am a public school teacher.  And there are some politicians out there who think that my role should be to stand up in front of you and list a bunch of  facts about history.  They want me to make you write these  down so you can regurgitate them back  on a standardized test.  If I don’t do that, they will try to get me fired.  What  those people don’t understand is that truth is not in a textbook or a test, it is out here in the streets.  Truth is here in your poetry and your courage and your unity. It is here in the fact that you are not simply learning history, you are making it.

So I am not going to stand up here and lecture you.  In fact, you are the teachers, and I am and the student.  Because what I’ve learned from you today is that solidarity is alive.  It is not just an idea or a slogan, it is here in your words and your actions.

  In the California prisons, the Black and Latino gangs have declared a truce so they can strike against the prison guards who deny them an education and torture them in solitary confinement.   You have taken that spirit of solidarity from the prison yards into your neighborhoods, your classrooms, and here into this park.   I see  non-Black youth here supporting Black youth who are being targeted by the George Zimmermans of the world.  And I see non-immigrant youth here supporting immigrant youth who are being targeted by La Migra, and the ICE holds that the politicians up there enforce.   This is the kind of solidarity we need to tear down white supremacy and to replace it with freedom.

You’re giving me hope that we can build that kind of solidarity between students and teachers. We all know that Black youth are 3 times as likely to be expelled from Seattle public schools as white students.  If you all decide you want to fight that, some of us teachers will get your back.  We all know that they are cutting funding for education and youth programs, while they’re spending 210 million on a new juvenile detention center to lock ya’ll up.  If you want to fight that, we will get your back.    We all know they are trying to deport immigrant youth who they label gang members, and we know that they put that label on you simply because of who you kick it with at school.  If you want to fight that, we will get your back.

Teachers across the country are fed up with this system.  Seattle teachers successfully boycotted the MAP test this spring and defended a teacher at the Center School when he was transferred for teaching anti-racist curriculum.   So if they try to  get us fired for teaching about the Black Panthers or the Chicano movement, will you get our backs?    If we demand smaller class sizes and enough time to build caring relationships in the classroom, will you get our backs?

This, right here, is where the real learning happens, not on some scantron bubble test.   We make the road by walking it.  We write the story by living it.  And together,  we can tear down all the borders and prison walls that divide us.

Youth Rally For Trayvon and the Prison Strikers

This week people have taken to the streets in mass protests across the country, furious that George Zimmerman was acquitted after killing Trayvon Martin, a Black teenager in Florida.   High school students in Seattle are moving this struggle forward by organizing their own rally on Tuesday, the 23rd, at 1:30 in front of the King County Courthouse.   They are pointing out that Trayvon’s death is part of a racist system, the same system that denies them a meaningful education.  By taking action they are learning through practice, and making history instead of just taking tests about it.  They are also teaching the rest of us that this generation is tired of being imprisoned, miseducated, and gunned down.  Like the prison hunger strikers, they are showing it is possible to come together across racial, communal, and neighborhood lines.

Here is the call to action they posted on their Facebook page:

We the youth are deciding to come together in solidarity to protest on the behalf of trayvon martin and against the other injustices of the system. We the youth of color are profiled by police, we are more likely to get arrested and go to jail then finish high school, and our families are scared for our safety. We are tired of every obstacle that stands in our way. We are looked down on as the minority but together we are the majority. We are asking for other youth and adults to come together in solidarity to help protest with us. Not just for trayvon martin but for other youth that may have lost their lives. All races, ages, and neighborhoods are welcome to come!! We were inspired by the strike at the California and the Green hill prisons and we participated in the rally at the King County prison.

It is significant that students are making connections between the West Coast prison hunger strikes and the struggle against racist vigilantes like Zimmerman, seeing both the prison system and violence by individual vigilantes as obstacles to their growth.  I have been surprised that more people are not making these connections.  One of the students involved in organizing this rally also did her own hunger strike last week, in solidarity with the striking prisoners.

One student also wrote:

Youth in my community are devastated about the many injustices of our system. people think that just because we are young we have no say or even care about what goes on in our justice system, we are labeled as a minority but together we are the majority. I believe that if we come together and make our voices heard we will make a bigger statement of how serious we really are. Treyvon Martin, john t Williams these are not the only injustices. if you want to stand up for human rights don’t be afraid to fight. There is going to be a cypher session and poetry will be read. This page is for youth to organize, adults we would like for you to stand with us because this is not over we demand justice. come support us justice for everyone.

Please spread the word, and if you can, please print out the flyer above and pass it out.  Thanks!

 

Seattle High School Student On Hunger Strike In Solidarity with Striking Prisoners

 This banner was hung on the Green Hill youth prison fence during a solidarity demonstration on Monday 6/8

I received this letter from a high school student who attended this week’s rally in solidarity with the California and Green Hill prison strikes. She told me she shared it with King 5 News but they never responded to her. I am posting it here with her permission, to make the public aware of her courageous action and her insightful critiques of the school and prison systems. Please share this widely. 

Hi,

My name is Alondra Garcia. I’m 16 years old, from Evergreen High School (AAA). I wanted to share that I’ve been on hunger strike since Thursday morning, July 11th, in solidarity with the prisoners who are on hunger strike in California prisons and in the Green Hill Youth prison here in Washington State. I had also fasted on Monday the 8th and Tues the 9th for the same reasons. I decided to restart my hunger strike on the 11th for religious reasons.

I want to say that I believe that everyone should get an education; as long as we don’t get it out here in our population, it causes people to go through the wrong things and get into bad situations. The bad situations cause them to get imprisoned, and when they are imprisoned most of the prisoners want to change but don’t get the chance to change because we are not supporting them. When we, the people, don’t give them any chances, then they have a great chance of going back due to the fact that we are constantly telling them they don’t belong with the outside population and we’re telling them they have no opportunities to work with most jobs.

The “prisoners” are treated as lesser than the rest of us, and it’s not right to judge someone who had to do what he had to do to survive. If people and the system really want there not to be so much violence, they need to stop putting them down and support them on their way to change, and give them the proper education they didn’t get and they now want to learn.

Please hear me out when I say that the public schools only teach us how to be a worker, but in private schools they get taught how to be the boss. There is so much injustice in the justice system and the schools that we, the students, go to. If they want us to graduate then the school system should at least try to help improve, but instead they just talk and talk but never help as much. They don’t clarify what we need to do and don’t actually give us an explanation of why we need to learn it. They give us tests on subjects we didn’t learn about. To make it worse, they base their decisions of how many jails to build on those test scores.

The system is manipulating the youths’ thinking and decreasing their mentality so that they think they are never going far. We are the future, and the prisoners got a right to get treated better. They should have a chance to change and become a better person.

THANK YOU

Sincerely,

Alondra Garcia

Youth Prisoners To Strike, Demanding Education; Solidarity Rally Monday in Seattle

My students, coworkers, and I have been closely following  developments in the California prisons.   There have been several hunger strikes over the past few years, and because prisoners’ demands have not been met, they are going to resume a state-wide hunger strike on Monday, July 8th.  They are also planning a labor strike that will disrupt the functioning of the prisons.  The leadership of all of the racial groups in the CA prisons, including the gangs, have declared an end to hostilities among inmates, so that they can unite in the strike.

Now,  youth prisoners at a facility here in Washington State are joining the strike, with their own set of demands. One of these demands is for access to education:

3. EDUCATION: Provide relevant and specialized educational programs to all res- idents even after they have graduated from High School. These could include cos- metology, music/multimedia production, library access, law training, culinary arts, and more. There are plenty of rooms that are currently not being used for anything but storage. They should be used.

My students were deeply moved by this when we discussed it this week.   Many of them have been incarcerated, or have loved ones who are currently behind bars.  They were impressed to see youth taking the lead, even under such difficult circumstances.

A number of students were saying “if all the races can unite inside, why can’t we do it here on the outside?”  Others were saying that it is easier to organize in prisons then it is in schools and neighborhoods because out here we are not forced together, there are too many distractions, and it’s easier for the system to turn different racial groups, gangs, and neighborhoods against each other to break solidarity.

Some students also argued that if the prisoners’ demands are met, then people might actually try to go to prison because they will  be receiving better education and social services on the inside then their communities have access to here on the outside.   Other students replied that none of this compensates for a person’s freedom being taken away, and that prison is still terrible and noone would go there willingly.

In any case, everyone agreed  that our committees should have full access to education on the outside, and everyone was inspired by the fact that the prisoners are demanding education.  Some students said that that people will be more likely to fight back against cuts to our schools if prisoners win access to quality education. Instead of saying “why can they have it if we can’t?”, people might say “they are fighting for it, and so should we”.

In any case, these questions highlight the importance of building a movement on the outside to support these strikes in the prisons and to also add our own demands.

To prevent the kind of dynamics my students warned against, we should demand immediate access to quality, relevant, creative education for everyone both inside and outside of prisons.  We should also demand an end to the school to prison pipeline that pushes youth of color into prison, and an eventual end to youth incarceration period, rerouting funding for incarceration into community-based support and educational alternatives for everyone.

There will be a solidarity rally Monday the 8th in Seattle at noon, at the King County Jail to support the prison strikers’ demands.  

Teachers might also want to ask ourselves: if prisoners can get together and strike, why can’t we?  With all of the corporate ed. deform/ privatization agendas being shoved down our throats, we can hardly teach anymore.  Instead of trying to retire, shift careers, or grit our teeth and bear it, what if we came together and took collective action?   In many ways, the prisoners are at the forefront of the U.S. labor movement; they are some of the most controlled, repressed, and exploited workers in the country, whose conditions are basically slave labor.  And yet, they still rise.  That should be an inspiration to all of us. Especially when at least one prisoner (long time political prisoner Mumia Abul Jamal) is rooting for us in our struggles against the daily disrespect we are facing in this age of corporate privatization.