“Martin Luther King Jr. is just a stinking black man“. These are the words my new forth grade student heard coming from the lips of his former Caucasian teacher. This is just one in a series of such insults and belittlement of the black race in front of these children by an irresponsible, racist adult. Now I know that folks these days don’t like to deal with racial topics but hey, this is what is happening now. The insult was so toxic that it caused a minor uproar in this child’s class. It resulted in an exchange of words between a white, female teacher and the black students in her class. These were little 9 and 10 year old black kids who knew that this was also how she felt about them.

My new student, this little 9 year old boy , is very precious to me, his black teacher. I saw his potential from the very moment his mother brought him in for orientation. However, this potential was headed towards disaster if he’d continued on his public school journey. He most certainly would have fallen into a racially charged abyss of mis-education. His distress had reached a breaking point which is why his mom brought him to me. He had been targeted by his white female teachers to become the next statistic of so called uneducated black males. Now again, I see a very smart, bright intelligent young man, so I am baffled at what they were doing to his self esteem. He was asked to write an essay in school and because of the heaviness of his heart, he chose to write about how much he hated one of his teachers. Of course this was a build up of many things that he had gone through as a little nine year old child.

I have noticed a trend of abuse against black students in our area and I am sure it’s the same all over this country. How can an adult of any race treat a child the way that some of these people have treated these dear children. The stories that they’ve shared will bring tears to your eyes. I can remember when this young man first shared some of his experiences with our class during our open discussion session. You could hear the frustration in his little voice as he talked about his public school experiences. He would shut down, as his mom told me, as a result of not wanting to deal with an antagonistic Caucasian teacher. This would effect his performance because it caused him to focus more on his abusive authority figure. Many times this resulted in visits to AC (detention) or in the hallway by himself.

Unfortunately, many of our black children will not be rescued from this system because they don’t have the option of home school for various reasons. This will result in a hardness of heart as they grow older. As Earth, Wind and Fire said, “A child is born with a heart of gold and the way of the world makes his heart grow cold”. This is exactly what the public school does to most of our children.

I have chosen to open my doors to parents in our community who want their children to have a safe, loving , learning environment. This hasn’t been easy, but I count it as a privilege to be able to instill quality education in these children. Including our own children, our school now has 11 students and we are hearing buzzes of more wanting to bring their children as well. It is my goal to work together with parents to bring about a change in our community and communities all over this country.

At first glance, it seems to be an impossible task to try and reeducate those who have been trapped in the prison walls of this Nation’s public schools. However, we must see it as necessity and not a task to be shunned. Our children are falling by the wayside and it can not end well for us as a people if we forget our black children.

I must ask those who have children trapped in the public school, do you know the thoughts and mindset of those teaching your children. Are you sure that they are not being abused and antagonized. We must also remember that mis-education is another form of abuse by the public school system. When our children are taught that Christopher Columbus is someone to be revered and Martin Luther King is just a stinking black man, something is desperately wrong.