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 Jan 17, 2005
14:37 PST
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[Col. Writ. 1/5/05] Copyright 2005 Mumia
Abu-Jamal
Several years ago, the great activist and prison abolitionist,
Angela Davis, told me that California prison guards make
more money than the state's college professors. I was dumbfounded.
But it told me all I wanted to know about how the State values its places of repression, and devalues places of education.
I
thought of that conversation when I heard about the latest 'financial crisis' facing the Oakland Unified School District,
the state's takeover by
an undemocratic agency, and the subsequent threats of cuts, of cutbacks, and the ever-present lure
of charter schools. Oakland is far more than the city that gave birth to the Black Panther Party; it is far more
than the popular projection of a poor city.
Oakland's Port is the 4th largest *in the world*.
That port generates some $27 Billion annually in trade. It is home to the American President Lines (APL), the 5th largest
shipping company in the world. American business powerhouses like the Clorox Co., and Rolls-Royce
Engines Services, call Oakland home. Golden West Financial/World Savings is located
in Oakland. It has assets of over $68 billion. It's profits in 2003 were
over $900 million. Clorox, by the way,
did over $4 billion
in sales, netting some $320 million in profits last year.
There's a very good
reason why *Forbes* Magazine ranked Oakland as the 8th best city for business in the U.S. It's because Oakland isn't a poor
town. Only some people in it are poor. For others, it's a gold mine. So why, in a city so good for business, where
*billions* are made annually, are the schools so fiscally challenged?
Why? Oakland teacher,
Steven Miller explained why in a recent article, when
he wrote: Oakland
is not a poor city. In fact, it's economy is the 20th largest
metropolitan economy in the
US and the 84th largest in the world. The city's Gross Metropolitan Product for 2001
was $99.46 billion, larger than San Jose, Denver, Pittsburgh, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, Singapore, Malaysia and
the Phillippines. This vast wealth comes from Oakland's
port, the country's fourth largest. however, the port has been legally separated from the city government since
the days of the Black Panthers. So none of its revenue "can be used for schools." Why? "It's
the law!"
The business interests in this country want nothing public, and all things
private, so that it can be owned, and exploited. These interests want nothing less than the extinction of the New Deal; the
evisceration of social security;
the 'public' removed from public schools. That's the objective of the right wing in this
country, and under these madcap programs like No Child Left Behind, they are nearing their objective. Every time I hear that
lying phrase, I think of the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam, where no child was left -- alive.
For more on this commentary by Mumia, click the website
http://www.mumia.org
Martin Luther King, Jr., if he were alive
today, would be fighting
for the children of
Oakland, demanding resources from those
who have them -- the wealthy, downtown.
Copyright
2005 Mumia Abu-Jamal
[Check out Mumia's latest, with many
references to Oakland: *WE WANT FREEDOM:
A Life in
the Black Panther Party*, from South
End Press (www.southendpress.org); Ph.
#1-800-533-8478.]
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