Revolution #258, February 5, 2012
"...officials in some states study the reading scores of fourth-grade boys in the inner city to know how many prison cells to build."
"...officials in some states study the reading scores of fourth-grade boys in the inner city to know how many prison cells to build."
I read this recently in an L.A. Times page-two column by Sandy Banks, who was interviewing a 92-year-old retired judge. It made my skin crawl—and it still does. Here it is—made into an institution—vicious, calculated, cold-blooded criminalization of Black and Latino children by the "injustice" system. Talk about the "school to prison pipeline"—Isn't this an expression of the "slow genocide" that Carl Dix has been speaking to in his campus tour with Cornel West?
This is like throwing little children into the deep end of the swimming pool, finding the ones who are floundering, and then pushing their heads under until they drown instead of rescuing them.
The judge's answer, according to Banks—"Make sure those boys can read."
Of course! And while we're at it, let's teach them why this fucking system will never stop pressing its foot on the masses of oppressed people—women and men, not just here but throughout the world—until it is defeated through revolution, and done away with. Enlist them in the movement for revolution. Enable them to learn more deeply why things don't have to be this way as they fight the power, and transform the people, for revolution. And raise their sights to their role as emancipators of humanity.
Revolution newspaper, and now BAsics, should be getting inside these schools more and more. And at the other end of that "pipeline," they need to be reaching more prisoners—women as well as men—and "all those the system has cast off." One of the "big ideas" that is already underway is to raise funds to be able to dramatically increase the number of prisoners receiving subscriptions to Revolution, copies of BAsics, and other works.
Think about this quote from BAsics 1:13, taken from the DVD Revolution: Why It's Necessary, Why It's Possible, What It's All About.
"No more generations of our youth, here and all around the world, whose life is over, whose fate has been sealed, who have been condemned to an early death or a life of misery and brutality, whom the system has destined for oppression and oblivion even before they are born. I say no more of that."
Imagine when people are encountering Bob Avakian's vision and works everywhere; and where "it doesn't have to be this way" is inspiring a new generation to take on the mission of building the movement for revolution that can finally put an end to all this. Let's get to it.
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