The Way It’s Suppose To Be A Speech by George McKenna III Twenty years ago Jonathan Kozol’s Death At An Early Age powerfully detailed young minds rotting in our cities’ schools. Recently a report issued by the National Commission on Education warned that America’s youth was academically ‘‘at risk." Nightly news reports have highlighted accounts of gang warfare in the schools, while theorizing ‘‘why Johnny” s till can’t read. Amidst this bleak landscape Dr. George McKenna, principal of George Washington Preparatory High in Los Angeles, has shown that there is a way to teach the supposedly uneducable. Eight years ago Washington Prep was a nightmare of graffitied walls, empty classrooms and gang rule. Today over 80 percent of the seniors attend college. Enrollment is at a maximum, with 350 on waiting lists. I am a product of the segregated schools of New Orleans, Louisiana. From the time I entered kindergarten at four years of age to the time I graduated from Xavier University with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics at the age of 19 ,1was segregated. All of my teachers, all of my classmates were b lack.... And I am a well-educated individual. Never believe that integration has anything to do with education because if one believes that, one believes that unless one is integrated, one cannot be educated. I am, however, in favor of integration. Integration is important. Segregation is not a desirable quality. It is the closest thing to slavery th is side of the Emancipation Proclamation, and I was segregated so th is is not ancient history. I am not an old man. It just happened yesterday. And if you think there is a resurgence of racism in America, you would then assume that racism went away.... Racism is an interesting thing. Black people are not its only victims. As a matter of fact, black people are sometimes the perpetrators of rac- - ism. Racism is like...any o the r “ ism.” It is not necessarily the action that makes you guilty of the “ ism.” It is the tolerance of an injustice to any group of people based upon the condition that makes you guilty of the “ ism.” If you tolerate oppression to any group of people based upon their race, you are guilty of racism. If you tolerate oppression to any group of people based upon their sex you are guilty of sexism. If you are black and happen to be a predator within the black community and you are making illegitimate babies that you don’t care for, if you sell cocaine or you prey upon the people, you are a killer, a murderer, a rapist or a robber, you are very racist, too, brother. Wherever you are. When you see a movie about a school that works and call it unusual because it happens to work for black people and therefore schools that do not work are so normal that we don’t make movies out of them, that is an in s t itu t io n a l “ ism ” as well. It is elitism and classism when we walk around th is country assuming that public schools cannot work. And so pub lic schoo lteachers don ’t send their own children to public schools any longer.... If education is going to work at all, educators have to accept the responsibility and stop laying blame on v ictims who already are victimized by the system. There is no such thing as genetically defective children or children unable to learn. No such thing. There is, however, an institutionalized and systematic process that is called mis-education perp e tu a te d by peop le p o s ing as educators.... Let me go back further. Having been raised in the segregated south I already know that education is the only thing that can set you free.... I know that when I went to school there were two types of children.... We were either “ poor” or we were “ poor.” By George McKenna III Illustration by Isaac Shamsud-Din Design By Eric Walljasper Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring, 1988 7
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