What Made the Night Centers So Attractive to Bronx Youth of the 70's

 

by Principal Paul Cannon of PS 140

What made the Night Centers so attractive for youths during the 70's is that they were organized and definitely structured around homework, intramural games that were no less spirited than ABA or NBA games in our young minds,evening snacks, ( a treat was chocolate milk)‎ arts and crafts ( occasionally a cool custodian would venture off and challenge the BOE rules around access to shop classes and resources for us during our nightly stays), and definitely mentoring sessions around avoiding drugs and gang banging. In fact, I recall gangs ( Savage Skulls, Young Immortals, Baby Aces, Black Spades, etc) getting their only real lessons in "staying alive" at those centers: They would check their weapons at the door( mostly pocket knives), adjust their attitude towards authority and their peers, and flow with the program. While I would never condone gangs and the ills associated with them, they operated on a very different level from today's misinformed youths that glorify being part of madness without a cause. Gangs back then settled matters for the most part with knuckles and occasionally knives and homemade objects. They also had a degree of respect for babies, elder folk and definitely the disabled. And if you were a kid with hope, promise and a good head on your shoulder, they'd be the first to steer you away from even the most remote thought of following their footsteps.

Lastly, and when a village certainly raised the community (Morrisania in particular) ‎let's not forget about the beat cop who looked like us and felt compelled to do his job to the highest of expectations!! He had a rapport with everyone vested in the neighborhood, especially those educators who also lived in the hood and understood the importance of giving back. As for the night center hours, I recalled Monday through Friday from 6 pm to 10 pm. ( and if you were a great athlete ,( mostly ball player) they person in charge would keep it open a few extra minutes.
Thanks, Mark and keep up the fight because like everything--the world and times are just a revolving circle.
Keep it "old School" with a new school flavor for sure!
Respectfully,
P Cannon( AKA -"The Mayor of the South Bronx")

Bargain With the Devil

Many conservatives who privately have huge issues with Donald Trump’s character are feeling vindicated these days. Thanks to his election, conservatives will have control of the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary for a generation, shaping the way the courts rule on issues such as abortion, labor rights, immigration, affirmative action and restrictions on voting.

But the price for this victory may prove to be high-a country that is at odds with its allies, that is accelerating climate change, and is rapidly becoming a racial and political tinderbox. Everywhere you look and listen; hatred is in the air and its sights and sounds leave no one untouched.

This is what happens when you make a bargain with the devil. Conservatives may be getting the Supreme Court they want, but will it be worth it if their children feel unsafe in a country where neighbor is pitted against neighbor?

We are in danger of turning into Yugoslavia, a country made ungovernable by ethnic hatreds, which ultimately had to be divided in order to bring violence back under control

And if that happens, Donald Trump will not be the only one to blame. So will be all the people who enabled him to move their own agenda forward , knowing full well the dangers he posed to the health and safety of the nation

Today I Saw The Future at PS 140 Graduation- Where Immigrant Optimism Met the American Dream

Today, I had an opportunity to attend the 5th Grade Graduation of a remarkable school in the Morrisania Section of the Bronx, PS 140, led by a brilliant principal, Paul Cannon, who grew up in and still lives in the community where his school was located

For two magical hours, I not only forgot about Donald Trump and his followers, I began to think that their ascdency is only a blip on the nation's radar screen and that before we know it, the celebration of racial and cultural diversity would return as a major theme in the nation's political life.

Why?

Because the graduation I attended was not only filled with energy and vitality, it was pervaded with an optimism that many would not expect in an overwhelmingly Black and Latino school during the years that Trump was president,

The theme in every single song, in every speech in every single student presentation was that the future belonged to the graduates, that if their talent was accompanied by hard work, nothing could stop them from achieving success in the United States. Some would do it in medicine, some in law, some in teaching, some in business, some in the arts, but for students in PS 140, as one speaker proclaimed "there is no such word as can't". Their talents were so great that if they worked hard and avoided the pitfalls of peer pressure and cynicism, they would have happy and productive lives

There was absolutely no cynicism in the students responses to these message. The students marched into the auditorium swaying rhythmically, to gospel, R &B and Hip Hop. They chanted the Pledge of Allegiance at top volume, thrilled to the singing of the Spar Spangled Banner by a teacher that was so powerful it almost raised the roof, and chanted "I am Somebody" and "Nothing Can Stop Me" every time a teacher or administrator asked them to

And what made this all the most remarkable is that these students were overwhelmingly the product of immigrant families, coming from more than 20 nations in the Carribean, South America, Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. That almost none of them were "white" or European ancestry did nothing to dim their conviction that the American Dream was for them. They were convinced that they were so talented, do driven to achieve success, that the world would open up to them.

And you know what, they may be right. Sitting on stage and listening to these students sing, rap, play musical instruments, watching them dance and sway to the music, listen to their valedictory talks, it would have been hard to imagine them being anything BUT successful

Best of all, there was not a single note of bitterness in the entire two hour ceremony, not from the teachers, not from the administrators, not from the parents, not from the guest speakers

It was not only a celebration of a great school, it was celebration of what American society, at its best, means to our recent immigrants.

 

Penalizing Racists in the Age of Trump

Since the Trump Administration has legitimized open expressions of racism in the public sphere, more and more people are developing grass roots strategies for documenting and penalizing racist speech and action through social media. If you are going to be yelling racial slurs, or calling the police on Black or Brown people for actions which pose no threat to anyone, expect to have your actions recorded on a cell phone and broadcast on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. And if you are a public official or media personality calling for attacks on vulnerable people, don’t be surprised to have your home and workplace picketed or see companies that sponsor you made the target of consumer boycotts.

In the face of Trump’s cynical mobilization of racism for political gain, anti-racists are teaching those who drink the Trump Kool-Aid that their actions have consequences and that openly expressing racism may compromise your reputation and livelihood.

And this is only the beginning of a wave of revulsion and disgust in response to the politics of division and rage this President has used, and still uses, to fire up his supporters.

The message here is very clear

Voting for Trump is your right under our Constitution. Acting like Trump may very well get you fired.

A Moment of Deep Shame

We are now being known around the world as a nation that sanctions cruelty to the most vulnerable of children.

Perhaps the words on the Statue of Liberty should be revised to read

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses longing to breathe free, and we will break up your families and put your children in detention."

This is a moment of deep shame for every American who still possesses the capacity for empathy

Thoughts on Stuyvesant Admissions

I just spoke at Stuyvesant High School about the rise of hip hop in the Bronx to two New York History classes. There were at most 4 Black and Latino students among the 60 students I spoke to. The students at my lecture, probably 70 percent Asian and South Asian were attentive and asked good questions, but there was little electricity in the air. Frankly, the atmosphere would have been better if there had been a critical mass of Black and Latino students who were immersed in the cultural traditions I spoke about or lived in the neighborhoods where the music arose. And every student in the class would have benefited. Diversity doesn’t just help those who are given new opportunities by broadening admissions criteria, it helps every person in the institution being changed expand their cultural horizons and become better leaders.

I think Stuyvesant would be a better school if it were more diverse. Yet at the same time,I feel tremendous respect and admiration for the students who currently attend. To me, they seemed like a wonderful cross section of one portion of working class, immigrant New York. They were neighborhood kids who worked hard to get there and didn’t have a smug bone in their body. More than a few were the children of Muslim immigrants, people currently in the cross hairs of racists and xenophobes. I don’t like the idea of painting them as “privileged” especially now in a time of ascendant xenophobia.

I would like to see Stuyvesant be more diverse. I would like to see the school, like all schools, have multiple measures of admission. 
That is the moral framework from which I approach this. My support of multiple admissions criteria is consistent with my efforts to make Fordham SAT optional

But I don’t like to see the interests of working class Asians and South Asians pitted against those of working class Blacks and Latinos.

This whole issue is getting ugly in a way that is leaving a very bad taste in my mouth

Who Will Save The Country from a Race to the Bottom?

I should be glowing after spending a magical family weekend at my daughters house in Stone Ridge with  my daughter and her husband, my granddaughters, aged 3-14, and my wife's parents, who are both 91, but I can’t help thinking about the migrant children separated from their parents at the border by this cruel and heartless Administration. I realize that to many people, this is only one of many issues where this Administration has rode roughshod over the nation’s best traditions, but to me, the separation of undocumented children from their parents mirrors the actions of history’s worst dictatorships. It also suggest to me that there is no limit to what level of cruelty Trump supporters will accept from their leader. And that sends a chill through me. There is no self-corrective mechanism at work here. It is up to those of us who have not drunk the Trump Kool Aid to save the country from a Race to the Bottom

Two Key Areas Where President Trump Ignores Historical Trends

Two key areas where President Trump either distorts historical trends or cynically presents false information for political gain are the following

First, the notion that our “ inner cities are plagued by crime” and face a terrible crisis which liberals have ignored. If this was 1995, those remarks might have been relevant, but in 2018, they show a failure to recognize major historic trends. In the last twenty years, murder rates in most American cities have plummeted, both because of the decline of the crack epidemic and gentrification. The majority of poor people now live in the suburbs and gang issues and poverty related violent crimes have migrated with them. Hempstead and Newburg, for example, small cities near NYC, are far more dangerous, and far poorer than Harlem or Bedford Stuyvesant

Second, the notion that immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, bring crime and violence with them does not conform with statistical information or lived reality. In New York City, mass immigration to the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens has coincided with plummeting crime rates and the rebuilding of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. Immigrant workers, store owners, health care providers, and valedictorians of are far more indicative of the immigrants contribution to NYC than drug gangs. MS 13 are outliers, dangerous but despised by the hardworking self sacrificing immigrant majority

I realize that many of the President’s supporters will dismiss what I just wrote as Fake News” but playing fast and loose with Demography and History is the essence of demagoguery and if you are comfortable with that, well, that’s your burden to carry when you look at yourself in the mirror

The Shame of Broward County: Calling Police on Teachers Union Officials who Visit Schools

It is utterly astonishing and appalling that principals in the Broward County Florida School District have been calling the police to escort Broward Teachers Union President Anna Fusco and BTU VP Terry Preuss out of their schools when they come to visit and meet with members after school hours! It is this kind of DISRESPECT that is fueling teacher uprisings all over the nation.

And think of the message that this is sending to students. If their teachers and their teachers  representatives are treated this way, what kind of treatment is in store for them if they show signs of independent thinking, or decide to protest some decision by school administration?

What makes all this even worse is that the principal's actions occurred only a few months after the Parkland shootings where students, teachers, and administrators all came together in the face of unspeakable tragedy and Browders  Teachers Union leaders, along with many others, worked 24/7 to comfort the survivors and find the strength to move forward

What just happened in Broward should be the occasion for an outpouring of solidarity by teachers and other persons of good will

 I hope some kind of petition or other form of national action can be created which allows teachers all over the country to weigh in to protest this attack on freedom of expression and the right to organize on behalf of people who are some of our most selfless and courageous public servants.