Being a victim of oppression in the United States doesn’t make you a revolutionary. People who are full of hate and anger against their oppressor can make a rebellion but not a revolution. The oppressed internalize the values of the oppressor.-Grace Lee Boggs

The more educated be come the more I feel how useful the knowledge I learned growing up in Houston, Texas. I learned that derogatory words can have two meanings, and that respect is given to a stranger until that person does something to change that respect.  It’s still kind of chessy but my mama said it best “Treat others as you want to be treated.” All cultures have a golden rule, but today I feel this is going fast out the door.

Within Higher education I come across a lack of respect. Its not that people dont respect one another, it has to do with a kind of selective respect that is reactionary and limited to the situation. For instance, a person would dismiss the quote above because that person after 98 years of service has endorsed a mainstream political candidate. I told the individual that you are right but you can’t let one choice ruin a lifetime of hardcore for you.

That is one example. Another is how people want to play the victim when it comes to respect. Everyone is quick to acknowledge when they are disrespected but rarely I hear stories about how people gave respect to soemone that deserves it. I feel higher education has created a victim mentally inside of the student that doesnt allow for positive encoruage. Because people who are victims can start a rebillion but a revolution comes out of love of the person next to you. We are not individuals living in this soicety. We are meant to love one another, sleep with one another, and fight with one another. Its the respect of the person that makes those things equal from the start. T

A Good Article in the Nytimes?!?!

I was surfing the Times and found this piece on Thomas Malthus. At first I was like “Ah shit” another explaination into why the world is in constant struggle based on the sarcity of resources. To my surpise, this article isn’t bad and I the last few paragraphs are good. Read it here and get back with me. I will write sometime later on this Malthusian nonsense.

Grace Lee!!!!!!!!!

Grace Lee Boggs & James Boggs

One of the greatest lessons I have learned was from Grace Lee Boggs and James Boggs. Their critique of the Russian revolution gave me an insight into what a movement should fight for in general. They viewed the Russian revolution coming out of the hate of the system and not of the love of the people. James expressed to Grace Lee in conversations that he was never concerned with the split of the vanguard. He felt he was more vest in the people who had to work pre- and post-revolution and this came through in his everyday life.
I have been thinking about how my love of the people is often overshadowed by my hate of the capitalist system. I want to think of myself as a caring person because of what capitalism has done, but I think part of my privilege is me being able to escape capitalism’s onslaught. A problem occurs though as I am trying to prepare myself to reenter my community. My love for my family and community grows, but there is dread knowing that being able to relate what I have learned is going to be a challenge. I have changed and people do change. People back home can’t expect me to be the same person I was then they last knew me. This takes me back to a section of Living for Change by Grace Lee Boggs. Grace Lee is reliving her experiences trying to be involved with the Black Freedom Movement. She explains a situation where someone comments that “[she] may have lived in the Black community, but [she] was not black.”  Her first reaction was to challenge the context in which the comment arose but realize the fact she was not Black. Grace Lee’s ability to understand the situation is very valuable to people like me who are leaving college with a certain kind of privilege.

A problem I see within higher education is that it creates an alienated person who only has a certain kind of person relate to. This is not always the case but I feel a lot of gossip reinforces this stereotype of educated people.  I am not knocking my education but I am being critical of the person that I could have been made into. A lot of people come from different backgrounds and we are forced into spaces with one another. While in college we can choose never to experience the realities of our former home. A person from Middle America, while in college, can never revisit their background and a person from the inner city can do the same. College equalizes people but ignores society’s issues of race, class, and gender. In order to refute society’s problems, universities try to create a community outside of the larger one. This I believe is only a recent development and before it were mainly private schools practicing community exclusion. The universities in revolt during the 1960s forced state universities to try and contain student populations away from future social movement. I need to develop this connection more but what we face and feel today in the university is an attempt by state and federal institutions to contain the revolutionary sprit that makes college an unique experience.  If universities were still closely connected with communities then maybe students would be heavily involved with this nations rising homeless population.

My education is and will forever be a resource for the people. As James Boggs mother told him, my mother told me the same, “do whatever makes you happy, but at the same time you should do things that make the world a little better for everybody.”

There is something very organic and real in James Boggs words. Anything is possible as long as people are working together. Community is more than just a word is a safety net that allows one to experience the world knowing people support you. And if a revolution ever broke out they would be the first to your side

Misguided truth

The more I read about the 1960s Black liberation movement, the more I feel cheated and robbed. I feel, on one hand, the movement presented by the media was one aspect of the larger wants and needs of the people, and the other hand possessed another movement that aimed to pick up whatever the other movement couldn’t deliver. I feel the other movement, the non-mainstream, aimed to give autonomy to the causes of people that were being ignored. Yet, it failed to give mass appeal to the great majority of people.

But what is done is done. It’s time to learn from the past. So I read up and got educated on social uprisings. Black liberation is key, and in that context we can see the liberation of all peoples.