Do Black Lives Matter Too? Not as much wnen looking through the lens of infant mortality and maternal deaths

The latest figures from the C.D.C. indicate that for Black women, the maternal mortality rate is 37.1 deaths per 100,000 live births. It’s less than half that, 14.7, for white women and less than one-third that, 11.8, for Hispanic women. Black women make up about 13 percent of the female population but account for nearly 40 percent of maternal deaths.... NYT

Black Lives Matter is not just about policing and the emphasis on that aspect makes the issue more political than it need be. I know white people who are insulted by BLM - doesn't my life matter too? Of course. But the point of BLM is that black lives have not mattered as much as white lives throughout our history -- I would call it BLM - Too. What is being asked is that they matter as much, which clearly they don't. So let's focus here on a recent article in the NYT on health care and infant and maternal mortality where black lives clearly don't matter as much. Just look at the impact of the virus on so many Black people. I can't locate the links but I read some awful stories about young even middle class black women who died in child birth partly because the doctors didn't believe their complaints during pregnancy. I believe one case was at Montefiore hospital in the Bronx.

The racial differences in maternal mortality are paralleled in racial differences in infant mortality. At 11.4 per 1,000 live births, the Black infant mortality rate is more than twice that of the white infant mortality rate, 4.9.

The police issue is complex. Do we think that in crime-ridden areas of the city black people do not want any police? What they do want is some level of respect. Just this morning I saw on Sunday morning CBS a story about Louis Gossett Jr who told a terrifying story about going to LA for a film in 1966 and being stopped by cops twice and cuffed to a tree for 3 hours. He said that affected him for the rest of his life. Or Republican senator Tim Scott laughing out loud when asked if he's been stopped  -- I think he said 6 times in the past year.

White people who support police must also understand that if things were reversed and they and their kids were stopped often due to their own skin color they would be livid. Here's the link to the NYT article which is also included below.

Justice in the factory: how Black Lives Matter breathed new life into unions

Justice in the factory: how Black Lives Matter breathed new life into unions
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/10/black-lives-matter-labor-unions-factory-workers-unite?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Is Black Lives Matter Divisive, as Leroy Barr Claims?

There is a lot of controversy swirling around the MORE resolution at the January DA and the blow back the union is receiving and their response by attacking MORE. I have issues with both the UFT's position and the way MORE has presented the issue and will go into more depth in followups because this issue scratches at flaws in Unity, the UFT and in MORE.

Throughout this debate I feel I have two opposing forces on my shoulders arguing with each other. Yin-Yang.

MORE is claiming repression of debate. Unity is claiming MORE is engaging in dishonest and misleading statements by indicating the union doesn't support BLM when it was really against the MORE reso. But Leroy Barr did not specifically argue about what in the reso was divisive but lumped it all into BLM as being divisive.

Below is a piece I wrote over the weekend for the Another View newsletter I put out with some other MORE members and some who are not very enamored of MORE at this point. At least 2 MORE people whose partners are people of color and UFT members told me their partners oppose the MORE reso. Yet that debate does not take place in MORE at all -- so when MORE declares the UFT only debated the issue for 5 minutes it would be interesting to see MORE debate the fallout and not assume unanimity. There is a meeting Saturday so let's see.

I will add more on upcoming posts as the issue develops.

Read the DoeNuts Blog view by a MORE member:
BEWARE of those who start fires - "Low blows" and "cheap shots" are taken by both parties involved... http://nycdoenuts.blogspot.com/2018/02/beware-of-those-who-start-fires.html
And NYCEducator, another MORE member:
http://nyceducator.com/2018/02/unity-publicly-humiliated-goes-straight.html

Here is my piece.

From Another View Newsletter - Feb. 2018

Is Black Lives Matter Divisive, as Leroy Barr Claims?
By Norm Scott

At the January Delegate Assembly the argument that BLM was divisive and in the time of Janus was a dangerous place to go was the basis of Barr’s and the leadership’s opposition to the MORE-UFT Caucus’ resolution calling on the UFT to support Black Lives Matter week (Feb. 5-11) which educators from a number of NYC schools are participating in. BLM has often been misinterpreted, leading to the perception that it might be divisive. February is Black History month for decades and we recently celebrated Martin Luther King’s birthday. For some people, even UFT members, these events might be divisive and often the reason is race-based. Let’s not act like this doesn’t exist in our own ranks. The job of a union where many of its members are people of color who have been discriminated against, and with a student population that is 80% children of color, is not to duck the issue but to take it on and address why some members question BLM.

As a member of MORE I have questioned the process by which MORE decided to bring the resolution to the DA, given that back in December, Leroy Barr and Janella Hinds, both Black, told a MORE leader that the union would not support the resolution because they considered it divisive. Could some compromise have been worked out? Should MORE have gone to the schools and ask for chapters to back the reso as a way to build more grass roots support? Why did a number of delegates who are Black vote against the reso? Was it solely because many are adhering to the Unity line? All questions worth exploring.

(See the NY1 story on the reso featuring myself and Jia Lee at: http://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/education/2018/01/26/black-lives-matter-debate-splits-teachers--union
and MORE response to Barr: https://tinyurl.com/ya6ofavn).

As for Barr’s justifying the union’s position on BLM as analogous to not taking a position during the Vietnam War, if you saw the Ken Burns documentary, or lived through those times as a UFT member there is way more to the story. See my blog: https://tinyurl.com/y9vh4p7q

MORE response: We Want a Union That Believes Black Lives Matter - https://morecaucusnyc.org/2018/02/02/we-want-a-union-that-believes-black-lives-matter/

Stop Closing Schools: School Scope and Videos - Rockaway - PS 42 and IS 53

There are about 4 hours of videos. It was a busy week last week and another one coming up over the closing schools issue. We have a here.

Delegate Assembly tomorrow and a big hearing at Global Tech in Harlem on Thursday. More on that outrage later. My School Scope is below the videos - which I intend to cut up into smaller segments. My own little piece of video is

PS 42 Videos

Part 1:
https://vimeo.com/250650942


Part 2: https://vimeo.com/250662998
Part 3: https://vimeo.com/250698838
Part 4: https://vimeo.com/250724680

IS 53: https://vimeo.com/251005346

Here is my upcoming column in The WAVE, published January 19, 2018:

School Scope:  Closing Schools: Bad for Students, Parents, Teachers and Community

By Norm Scott

Black Lives clearly don’t matter to DOE officials and the Mayor despite the rhetoric.

On January 9, I videotaped (see below for links) the closing school informational session at PS 42 (there will be a hearing at the school on Feb. 13 at 6PM). The auditorium was packed with hundreds of parents, students, teachers, local politicians and community members, mostly people of color and all opposed to the closing. UFT officials, led by Queens Borough leader Amy Arundell, were also present. There were 70 speakers. The meeting and pre-meeting rally lasted over 3 hours. DOE’s District 27 Superintendent Mary Barton sat in front of the room stone-faced the entire time – shades of the ghouls of Joel Klein years, led by the infamous John White, now head of the state of Louisiana schools. It was if nothing had changed from the Bloomberg years. DOE officials looking on obliviously while children and their parents and teachers pleaded to keep their community intact. The school has clearly struggled academically but has managed to triple its growth from what was obvious from the meeting and the rally before, PS 42 is vibrant  and the closing of the school, to be replaced by two new ones, will fracture that community. Patricia Finn, principal for seven years, received so  many accolades I could see her blushing from across the room. But raves for her humanity and caring, in education based on the numbers, doesn’t count for much. Many parents and teachers pointed out that area of Rockaway is gentrifying and the DOE wants to move out the poorly performing students (and teachers) and open up space for new arrivals from the additions to Arverne by the Sea. 

The next night I attended the closing event for IS 53 in Far Rockaway (the closing hearing at the school is on Feb. 7 at 6PM), a school shared with another public school, Village Academy, also under academic threat. VA may absorb some of the students, but not all. Lurking within the IS 53 building is Eva Moskowitz’ Success Academy, always in an expansive mode. People said Success is already measuring their space before the February 28 vote at the Panel for Educational policy. No crystal ball needed to see the future. Village Academcy will be squeezed and Moskowitz gets the building to add to her growing empire, a school system within a school system. A school system known to push out poor performing students and kicking them back into the public schools.  Last year we saw the same thing happen to JHS 145 in the Bronx, with a Moskowitz school in the building pushing to expand. De Blasio promised to stand up to charters, Instead he has figured out a slick way to hand space to charters by closing schools they covet.

Parent groups have pointed out how the DOE did not give the closing schools the kind of support they needed, like lowering class size for the most in need students. Instead they got consultants and PD up the kazoo. Stories abound on how the people on the ground in the schools were not consulted but dictated to – reinforcing the sense that they are the ones at fault. From what I saw in the spirit of the staffs of PS 42 and IS 53, teachers are incredibly proud of their work and many parents and students echo those feelings.

What closing a school does is destroy an educational community. One parent asked at IS 53, pointing to DOE officials, “What is your responsibility? Where are you accountable for not providing the resources to the school? For diverting so much money to wasted resources that didn’t impact the students?”

While UFT officials were at both hearings to show the staff they back them the union must take a proactive stand in support. The UFT is playing its cards close to its vest when it should be standing up against all school closings and backing the schools to the hilt. Usually the union helps by getting buses for the Feb. 28 hearing at the PEP where the vote will be held when schools show some resistance despite knowing full well the vote is predetermined. The union needs to put more public and private pressure on the politicians to try to move the PEP vote in the direction of the schools.

Norm feels the pressure all the time and also posts the PS 42 and IS 53 videos at ednotesonline.com.