Remembering The Alamo, The Arawaks, and Your Anniversary

Julius and I just got back from our "mini-moon" (mini because the big honeymoon adventure is scheduled for next summer). We spent a week on the beach on Lake Huron in Tawas, Michigan, even throwing in a little side-trip to Mackinaw Island for bike-riding and fudge! Then we went to the annual KIPP Summit. This year it was in San Antonio, Texas. While San Antonio itself was a little more theme-parky than we were expecting, we had a great time in a brand-new hotel and meeting and learning from many amazing and energetic young educators. I also visited the Alamo, which is right smack-dab in the middle of the touristy river-walk area we came to call "frontier-land," and I have mixed feelings about why I should remember it. The motto, "Victory or Death" has never resonated with me that strongly. Especially not when, as with the Alamo, it involves a fight for land that gets confused with a fight for freedom or justice. I understand the desire to make "heroes" of the underdogs, but I don't think we'll be fully evolved as humankind until we realize that there is no such thing as a just war. So, I will remember the Alamo as long as people and governments are fighting for land and power instead of for justice for all. KIPP Summit was a good place to remember that, actually. KIPP dares to ask why, in the land of liberty and justice for all, poverty is a leading factor in sub-par education. If you look at our urban centers, it's not hard to see that de-facto racial segregation also exists alongside this phenomenon. Being involved in KIPP is, for many, a powerful way to be a part of the continued civil rights movement. The statistics prove that the civil rights movement isn't finished.

"How's that?" you may ask. "I thought the civil rights movement was in the 50's and 60's."

Well, here's one take. Though I am not even a land-owner myself, I daily take for granted the benefits I reap from white privilege: a leg-up in my daily interactions with people, simply because my white forerunners held the land and the power, oh, since about the first time people of color were enslaved by them. On this continent, that process began around, you got it, early October, 1492. To be fair, Columbus is certainly not the first to take other human beings by force as slaves, maybe not even the first on this continent. He is just the one we "celebrate" each October. If we celebrate anything on that day, it should be the dying out of the worldview that allowed human beings, Columbus and his people, to see other human beings, the native Arawaks, primarily as a people to be subjugated. The first slave ships from Africa to the Americas were not far behind - beginning in the mid-to-late 1500's. Fast-forward to the National Voting Rights Act of 1965. 1965! Just 13 years before I was born! And you question why that "pick-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps" attitude toward making it in the United States does not exactly feel equal-access to all? 400+ years of largely ignored but gross inequality can really mess a culture up. So that's why the civil rights movement isn't completed. And, I'm sorry, but it's heck of a lot more important to me than the Texas revolution. Want to know more about white privilege? Check out Tim Wise's website and blog. For something to really make you think, check out this video of his, The Creation of Whiteness

So, um... also....we got married! It was a wonderful, beautiful, magical day. I have been so happy to hear from many guests that they enjoyed it as much as we did! The guys in the band even said it was one of the coolest, most laid-back weddings they had ever played. Maybe I'll write more about the wedding later. Right now it's just nice being home and being married!

Getting back to the attempted theme of this blog, I still own no car of my own. I wonder if even one year of car sharing and public transport can make up for the carbon emissions of flying from Michigan to Texas and back. I hope so. Just in case it doesn't, I'm still trying. Oh yes! One highlight of KIPP Summit was meeting Sara Cotner, a fellow blogger who was also married on July 19th and who also chose meaning over mammon for her wedding. I hope she doesn't mind my linking to her superb blog about that. So - here's to remembering, in all things, what's really important!

love, Katie