Formation: Social Justice in K-12 Urban Education

By John Sandy Campbell

"It's very hard to talk about education in this country without talking about the whole society in which it mainly fails to occur." -James Baldwin

Formation is a labor of love that delves into racism and its insidious effects on Black youth. Full of stories written from personal experie

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sangreal
• Release date: Dec 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9781737740018

John Sandy Campbell

Born and raised in Michigan, John Sandy Campbell currently lives in Los Angeles, CA. Formation is her first published work.

Book preview

Formation

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;

He leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul;

He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil, for thou art with me,

thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the lord, forever.

PSALM 23

FORMATION

FORMATION

SOCIAL JUSTICE IN K-12 URBAN EDUCATION

JOHN SANDY CAMPBELL II

SANGREAL

Copyright © 2022 by John Sandy Campbell II

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

For Hussain and NZhinga

and my brother,

John Sebastian Campbell

and

Kalief Browder

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I acknowledge God’s place in my life, at the center of my heart.

I acknowledge God’s position in my life, at the head of my household.

I acknowledge Gods’ blessings in my life, abundant and overflowing.

I acknowledge God’s voice in my life, a faint whisper of command.

I acknowledge God’s grace in my life, always forgiving.

I acknowledge God’s correction in my life, the path to righteousness.

I acknowledge God’s protection in my life, watching over my family.

I acknowledge God’s guidance in my life, leading me closer to Him.

And lastly, I acknowledge God’s love in my life, which makes me fall to my knees in worship.

I humble myself before The Lord.

CONTENTS

Introduction

I. The Last Judgement

1. Pestilence

Racial Slavery

Racism is Power

Breaking

White Supremacy

Marginalization

Metaracists

Racism as an Act of Violence

The Noose

2. War

Acts of Attrition

Enemy of the State

Zero Tolerance Policies

3. Famine

Schooling

Toxic Soil

The Tower of Isolation As The Critical Fourth Space

4. Death

La Petite Mort

The Walls, the Ceiling, and the Floor

II. The Lamb of God

5. Truth

6. Redemption

7. Freedom

Death and Life Through Penitence

Death and Life Through Service and Sacrifice

Death and Life Through God’s Breath

A Thank You to God

About the Author

Notes

I do not for a moment doubt that my negro descent and narrow group culture have in many cases predisposed me to interpret my facts too favorably for my race; but there is little danger of long misleading here, for the champions of white folks are legion.

WEB DUBOIS

May the eventual end of racism make any such champions for either side unnecessary.

ST. CLAIR DRAKE

Until we fashion a society, which makes individuals fearful of engaging in racism in all its insidious forms, the actions that must be taken on the part of those harmed, using law as both weapon and shield, has to be just as aggressive and relentless as the behaviors and actions of racists.

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There can be no other way.

JOHN SANDY CAMPBELL II

INTRODUCTION

I begin this work with the following statement. Urban education is in crisis. Dismal high school drop out rates, testing data that show little to no improvement with respect to student achievement, violent communities, crumbling schools, self-serving leadership, apathetic teachers, poverty, zero-tolerance policies, and ineffective teaching all contribute to student disengagement however, these variables are not the only problems with K-12 urban education. The greatest determinant of student failure in K-12 education amongst Blacks is the continued marginalization of Black students via prejudice and racism.

To say that schools today do a poor job of educating children is an understatement. This failure, if we agree that in fact we are failing children, cannot easily be explained but is easily identified. Education policy, which historically and presently marginalizes students of color, has the unintended or intended effect of ensuring that at the micro level a particular group remain on the perimeter of education and at the macro level on the perimeter of society. However, we cannot just wag our fingers at education policy as a failure, we must also include all policy that do not have this particular groups' best interests at heart during inception. School behaviors mirror societal behaviors. If societies believe that a particular group is its own greatest enemy when it comes to group ascension then it stands to reason that policymakers will do little to fund programs and write law to ensure that they advance, after all, they must enjoy their low status in society because they do little to change their station via individual agency and they do little to make their voices heard in the political arena. This deficit approach is dangerous. Not only does it place blame on the very individuals it claims to support, it strips them of the potential for academic success as it does not respect the real life struggles and experiences that are salient to these groups, which are barriers to advancement. After all, you cannot antagonize and inspire at the same time, and public education is knee deep in antagonistic behavior towards non-white groups and it has become exceedingly efficient at it.

This efficiency with which public education destroys the hopes and dreams of people of color is done by design. The genesis of it begins in pre-k programs and kindergarten and it continues through high school, if you are strong enough to make it that far. The methodology of this thing is genius, and you are not even aware that it is taking place because it is so subtle that by the time you realize you have been had, by the time you realize that your confidence has been chipped away at for years it is often times far much too late to do anything about it. My statement is as follows, public education for Black children is a nightmare and that nightmare is taking place on public school campuses across the nation.

In the first paragraph of this essay, I offered a list of reasons as to why public education for Black children is a failure and I offer these reasons in no particular order. Let’s get ordered. The singular reason for Black student disengagement and failure across the board in k-12 public education is prejudice and racism. Anything and everything that follows is inconsequential.

I believe you cannot attempt to discuss how to educate Black children until you have a discussion rooted in truth designed to get at the root of an illness that dominates white psyche. And make no mistake about it, it is an illness, because there is nothing wrong with Blacks but there is much wrong with a society in which whites view non-whites as non-human and as things to either be controlled or destroyed. It is this illness that has caused white America to lose her mind. It is this illness that has caused them to behave in such a dangerous way that they are collectively looked upon with suspicion by Blacks. As far as Black America is concerned, whites are either dangerously teetering off the edge of humanity or they willingly took the leap. Here, I will lay out all the pieces as best I can, as I have seen them and as I know them to be. Let us begin the work of pulling white America back up from the edge of the cliff she finds herself dangling over and commence the painstaking repair work necessary to heal the collective soul of America and bring her to Jesus.

The time for honoring yourself will soon be at an end.

THE GENERAL

PART I

THE LAST JUDGEMENT

1 i watched as the lamb opened the first of the seven seals. then i heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, come!

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2 i looked and there before me was a white horse! its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.

REVELATIONS

1

PESTILENCE

You let one ant stand up to us then they all stand up to us. Those puny little ants outnumber us a hundred to one. And if they ever figure that out, there goes our way of life. It’s not about food. It’s about keeping those ants in line.

HOPPER

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Pestilence . When you hear or read the word pestilence, it conjures up images of Europe during the 14th century, a time when vermin ran the streets alongside citizens spreading disease and bringing death. Its introduction in society was devastating, eventually causing the death of over 75-200 million Europeans, Asians, and Africans.

The plague of the 14th century is not the only recorded instance in history of a pandemic that has decimated nations. At different times in different civilizations mass death, the likes of which we’ve read about in Eurasia and North Africa or witnessed in modern times, fell upon many societies. Be it Eurasia or Africa, you could not effectively treat it, nor could you escape it. The irony of this disease, like so many others, is that it seeks to destroy you from the inside out all the while needing to feed off of you in order to survive. ¹ This symbiotic relationship between parasite and host benefits the parasite and destroys the host. This is what racism does to Black people.

Pestilence is a disease. A thing that knows no end. Death is its mission and it does not deviate from that mission until it has killed all those unfortunate enough to cross its path. Like the plague, racism is pestilence and like pestilence it too is a disease, albeit a disease of the mind but a disease no less. It introduces itself to the citizenry, it jumps from host to host until it blankets the land, you cannot escape it, and it will only bring death.

Racial Slavery

Prior to the 16th century and the transatlantic slave trade, racial slavery did not exist. Yes, there had been slavery in many societies at many times throughout history however, slavery based on skin color, the likes of which was practiced in the Western hemisphere and for the purposes of this essay in the slaveholding South, was an outcome of economic forces that drove the transatlantic slave trade and white solidarity. That is, in order to establish hegemony, white land holding elites and white servants in the antebellum south mobilized to bolster their legitimacy in an effort to control, dominate, and secure economic systems that produced their wealth. This amalgamation if you will produced racism as we have come to define it today. ²

To be sure, racism is an interesting phenomena born out of a peculiar institution we have all come to despise known as slavery however, slavery was not and is not unique to the Western hemisphere, in fact, the institution of slavery was sanctioned, if not by law then certainly by practice, throughout many societies and at different times in history however, individuals were not discriminated against and enslaved based on skin color alone, rather they were enslaved based on the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of others and could only be understood to exist in certain domains. In his seminal essay, Black Folk Here and There, St. Clair Drake writes that cross cultural studies and the