Racism just ain't right!

This week, we read about Brown vs. Board of Education, watched two videos, and then read an article from last weeks edition of the New York Times. I decided to play the videos, one at a time, while doing research and reading peer's blogs.
The way an old teacher of mine explained Brown vs. Board of Education, was that Brown...who was black, wanted to send his child to the white school. His reasoning, was that the white school was better and closer, so why not? Who wouldn't send their kid there? The white school kicked his kid out and then a land mark case was built. In Rob Herbert's article in the New York Times on March 21st, 2011, Seperate and Unequal, this case is the same. Anyone can see that. True, schools are no longer divided amongst color, but is this really true? Like Rob Herbert says, that teachers try to avoid schools stricken by high poverty rates, and that these schools are composed of primarily minorities such as Blacks and Hispanics. So if the "best" teachers are avoiding these schools, and these minorities are being deprived the best possible education possible just because of the money they don't have, then that means they won't be able to get the jobs that require higher achievements, which means their children will be in the same position and the cycle will continue forever. If that's so, then is segregation really gone? Sure we're not segregating based on color, but unintentionally we are since the poor kids go to the poor schools in the poor neighborhoods and the rich kids go to the rich schools in rich neighborhoods.
Where you're born, in most cases, outlines your future and decides on whether you'll be highly successful, or just stay where you are. Unless, something drastic is done. Since good teachers avoid poverty stricken schools like the plague, in order to make a difference, you have to remove poverty out of the equation. You should have great teachers at any and all schools no matter what the poverty rate is. A quote from Hebert's article states The study, released last October, found that “over a period of five to seven years, children in public housing who attended the school district’s most advantaged schools (as measured by either subsidized lunch status or the district’s own criteria) far outperformed in math and reading those children in public housing who attended the district’s least-advantaged public schools.”
My History teacher said this to the class last year. He said,"Let me tell you guys something, I teach this class both here at RIC, and also at Brown. Just because Brown is a more well known and respectable school that cost a lot more money does that mean I teach the course better there. I teach this course the same way at both schools." I think of this quote a lot now. This is the way it should be. Yes, RIC or Brown aren't exactly poverty stricken schools, but I think we can all agree that a lot of people can't afford an education at Brown in which they can at RIC. I think we all also agree that unfortunately a lot of employers will look at resumes, and if 2 applicants have the same grades and everything, and one went to RIC and one went to Brown...well which applicant would you choose? And does that mean one is better than the other? Or just that maybe, one had more money than the other and could afford the "better" education.
Education shouldn't be affected at all depending on where you live and the poverty rates. I think the only way to destroy this concept, is to take poverty out of the equation. But is it really possible. All of the schools are already "labeled" as well as their neighborhoods. I just don't see how anything could really be changed =(

Holy Statistics

So I have been going through the GLSEN website for awhile now. I spent some time reading a bunch of other blog reviews and going back and forth through this site. Honestly. I'm shocked. I've always been a numbers guy. Then make everything easier to understand for me. Almost half of all transgender students reported skipping a class at least once in the past month (47%) and missing at least one day of school in the past month (46%) because they felt unsafe or uncomfortable. 47 and 46% of students afraid!!! The idea of those percentages alone scare me!

What really ticks me off is the first "number" i read. 90% of transgender students heard derogatory remarks, such as "dyke" or "faggot," sometimes, often or frequently in school in the past year. These terms really get my blood boiling. I hate hearing the name faggot or dyke. No matter how many times terms such as those enter my ears, my skin can't seem to stop crawling. "Gay" was a term that I mostly heard in a negative sense back in school. I had one teacher who would hear this term and yell, "My Brother is Gay, what's wrong with that?" I could be wrong, but i think everyone is getting way too comfortable with all of these terms. I remember back in elementary, the meanest words were like "jerk" and such, which today don't even cross our minds because they are so meaningless. Now a days it seems like Gay is an essential part to every teenager's "dictionary" and never in a good sense. They always yell that this is gay, and that's gay, that lesson was gay and all other inappropriate ways. I know I was even guilty of that until my teacher made me realize that gay doesn't have a negative meaning at all.

These terms are becoming more and more apart of our vocabulary. Nobody realizes just how much they hurt people. And the people being called them, can't stand up for themselves or else they'll just get beat up themselves or worse. This world is becoming a terrifying place to be apart of unless we start doing something now. GLSEN has so many programs which help address anti-LGBT behavior such as the day of silence, which I do remember being practiced in my High School in warwick, and No Name Calling Week, just to name two of the programs. I think programs like these should be practiced in every school. Even if it was like one week for every month of classes. We need to all become aware that all people are born the way they were and there is no reason to single them out for that very reason!!!

I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but this world is becoming a scary place. Especially with technology now a days. Harassment isn't something that is just done in school, or even just in person. Who hasn't heard of cyber bullying. Whether it be threatening text messages or facebook comments, or just mean blogs written about you, it is impossible to avoid being bullied depending on your situation(gay, straight, lesbian, transgenders). Am I the only one who sees this as a major problem???

VIPS

Just had my first VIPs experience...and it went amazing...sooo much fun =) So sad that next week is their vacation...can't wait to go back =)

White Privilege

Peggy McIntosh's "White Privilege", really hit home for me. I don't know about anyone else. It really opened my eyes and mind. The article was wonderfully written and easy to understand. In a summation, Peggy described how white people find themselves more privileged than black people, much like the idea that men are more privileged than women, even though, to me at least, that concept seems to be lost in the dark seeing as how women can vote, work the same jobs, and can do nearly anything a male can ordinarily do. This article helped me see that privileged doesn't merely mean having a better house, and more money and better jobs, but rather can walk, breath, live safety, and be educated. I live in a normal house with two parents who didn't graduate college but hold average paying jobs. They never bought me or gave me a car like a lot of my friends. I have my own bills to pay, and can't afford to help me buy a new car now that mine just broke, but I still live a privileged life as this article helped me understand. I have four walls and a roof over my head, and the cupboards of my house don't supply themselves, my parents make sure there is always food around.

For some reason, when I read this article I couldn't possibly get my mind off one event that happened through my karate school. There is a 8 year old boy who is black. He is a great kid and does a great job. His only problem is that he doesn't always know how to keep his mouth shut at the right times like most kids. His mother, who fought in the war as a soldier and was also black, came in and spoke to us. She explained that she knew her son couldn't always keep his mouth shut, and that if he kept it up, being a black male, he was going to get into serious trouble in the future and that she didn't care what we had to do, or how hard, that we couldn't let that happen. We had to make it clear to him that he had to learn to control his actions because being black and a male, he would get in trouble sooner or later and she wouldn't let that happen.

Because of the neighbor hood where our dojo is located, it is primarily white students and never had a parent come to the teachers and said that. We have one other black student that started before this boy, but she was a female. Being the first black male to work at this studio in a long time, I was not expecting this at all, and just like the article, my eyes really opened to just how scary the world is.

Am I the only one who has been in a situation like this or  am I just sheltered. I have friends who are black, white, asian, latino, female, and all other backgrounds that I can think of so race is never a idea that comes to my mind. When I think of race being an issue, I think back with like Luther King and such. To have that line so clearly drawn out by a parent simply scares me. Am I really the only one that has been that naive??

Here's My First Post.

Who am I? Actually. I just learned who I am for the first time during the March of 2010. I always knew I was Mathew Thomas of Warwick Rhode Island. Attending Toll Gate High School as a Senior at the time. Then I realized though, that wasn't me, that was what I did. I worked at Dave's Marketplace. I always made a deal of correcting people saying my name only had One T. It was MaThew, not MaTThew. In March, I finally turned 18 and was allowed to work in the Deli Department. I walked in with my hair in a pony tail, my hat on as well as an apron and said. "Hi, I'm Mat With One T". The seafood manager greeted me and said, "Mat with one t?, that's too long. One T"....One T??? One T..One T, That's Me. In a shorter summary, One T is me. Because of One T, I have found a sense of courage, can go to people and proudly say who I am. The simplicity of the one letter helped me stand out from a crowd and find me.

My semester has been very rough. After the first week, my car died. I lost the transmission and the engine. I have had to wake up at 5 every morning just to car pool with a parent just to rush to karate or work after. I've been stressed every day and am only now beginning to learn what it means to relax once again and I feel much better.

In My free time. I mainly either work, or teach karate. I don't really have time for much else which doesn't really help with the stress, but I shouldn't really be complaining because a lot of people have it worse than me. Just gotta smile =)