Subsequent to last Tuesday’s runoff election for LAUSD’s District 1 School Board seat, where Dr. George McKenna defeated Alex Johnson, aide to County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, Alex Johnson, the journalist Earl Ofari Hutchinson said it was “scary” how close the election was (53 to 47 percent). He attributed this to “low informed Negroes.”
Even though Dr. McKenna did prevail, I am feeling the same kind of frustration as Mr. Hutchinson. Dr. McKenna should have won by a landslide, and not only because of his depth of experience and national renown as an educator compared to the profound inexperience of Alex Johnson. Just as importantly, the closeness was due to the political threat that Johnson/Ridley-Thomas’s supporters pose to the black and minority community.
Watching the community’s response to this election and their clueless ignorance regarding what was at stake not only was frustrating, but horrifying to watch. It reminded me of the fear and frustration that I felt when my kids were teens. I could not get them to see the potential threats, the stumbling blocks in their path to their well-being so clear to me as an adult.
I am in complete agreement with Mr. Ofari Hutchinson on the ramifications of how close this election turned out to be. It is horrifying that these demagogues got so many votes. It is just as horrifying that their respectable showing may encourage them to try to run again next June.
That is why it is so important for black journalists to recognize that we cannot allow ourselves the luxury of pretending to be objective when confronted with the blatant nonsense that has become so common in the mainstream media. We have a unique mission. We also are educators. In addition to objective reporting, we have a responsibility to connect the dots, to report the possible ramifications of this fact:
First Comes Survival
Our community is so distracted by the struggle to survive, they don’t have time to do it for themselves.
As black journalists, our job is as important as Dr. McKenna’s. His job to educate our children. Ours, to educate their parents. Between now and next June's general election, we must give the people a crash course in power politics, demographics, and political manipulation.
That is what the charter school movement is about. Charter schools are being presented to a desperate community as an opportunity for the minority community to obtain a better education for their children. That sounds good. Demagoguery always does. We must get the people to understand the bottom line behind charter schools is to eliminate the public’s control over the education of our children. They mean to hand the minds of our children over to conservative mind-twisters.
Charter schools will reinstate segregation in a routine, legally justifiable way. They are a slippery slope. Once the charter school industry gets a lock on our educational system, they will start to charge fees that will lead to a society where education will be available only to those who can afford it. They have all but completed that mission at the university level.
Our job should not be difficult to achieve. We must get the people to ask themselves, “When was the last time that rich, out-of-state billionaires showed interest in the education of black and minority children?”
We must help the community to understand that those black politicians in league with the charter school agenda represent a 400-year tradition of black Judas goats out to feather their own nests at the expense of black people.
Alex Johnson’s undergraduate degree was not in education but in political science. He has been all over in an attempt to promote his political ambitions ever since. Mark Ridley-Thomas is on a fierce mission to increase his political power within the state. When he was a City Councilman, I was a union rep for the National Assn. of Letter Carriers. He came to one of our meetings to form an alliance with our branch — not during an election period. He was just doing a drive-by to consolidate his political power. That caused me to begin watching him. Listening to his inarticulations, I wondered what mutual interest a City Councilman and a national union possibly could have other than consolidating his power?
Education? What Is That?
The Johnson/Thomas alliance has nothing to do with education or the best interests of our children but about amassing power.. Their passion isn’t limited to a seat on the LAUSD School Board. They want any office. We have to explain to the people they will do anything, including forging an alliance with the devil, to win any office
If we intend to become a prosperous community, it is incumbent upon us to recognize such people, and insure they never are allowed to obtain – or retain — political office. These are the kinds of people who sold us into slavery in the first place.
Eric L. Wattree is a writer, poet and musician, born in Los Angeles. A columnist for the Los Angeles Sentinel, the Black Star News, a staff writer for Veterans Today, he is a contributing writer to Your Black World, the Huffington Post, ePluribus Media and other online sites and publications. He also is the author of “A Message From the Hood.” Mr. Wattree may be contacted at Ewattree@Gmail.com http://www.whohub.com/wattree or Http://wattree.blogspot.com or Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
