Outside of my reading material and a couple of Google searches done under “Jose Vilson,” it’s pretty hard to find any real inclinations of my deep political thought. But after reading Assata Shakur’s latest statement about turning 60 (July 2007), I feel the need to say something most of my readers know but I haven’t really expressed outside of my personal realm: I believe in a revolution. I can’t really limit myself as to how left of center I can be: one day I’m socialist, then I’m straight anarchist, but by the end, I just decide to turn up the music high enough to drown out the thoughts I’m having about the state of the world. I essentially think that this system uses its populace as pawns.

But that’s the Jose from Syracuse, the one who was the education chair of La LUCHA, the member of all those left-leaning and activist organizations on campus. Even into my prime days on Xanga, when I cursed out everyone on Earth (entitled “Fuck Bush,” available upon request), I still had that political lean where I’d snap at anyone who so much as let loose an inaccurate and ignorant comment. As awesome as that sounds, I also started to recognize the necessity to understand other people’s perspectives and accept that they may not change their position on things. Not everyone’s an oppressor and sometimes the very people you consider allies can backstab you for their own narcissistic agendas.

And of course, when you have an understanding of how a government doesn’t really hold the proletariat’s interest at heart, then you start becoming conscious of everything you see, read, buy, eat, breathe, drink, cheer for, vote for, or even wear. Unfortunately, we can’t get away from reading the tags, seeing the foreign countries there, and wondering how many American jobs were lost or what little boy or girl is out there getting pennies a day for getting this item done. I can’t walk down the hallways without thinking how lucky I am to have a union that once protected my right to healthcare, due process, and feed my family. I want to have the power to stop bombs from killing innocent lives all over the world, and heal the wounded mentally as well as physically, even when a very small percentage calls this kind of activity population control.

For all of that, though, I still love the New York Yankees, probably the most vainglorious franchise in the world. I still dress well, no matter how “corporate” it might look. I watch Sportscenter, buy CDs, and enjoy a little political jabber with people who actually have a strong desire to vote for one of the 3 presidential candidates they know of. I’m subscribed to Men’s Health and Rolling Stone. In other words, I’ve at least got one foot in the mainstream. It’s a weird feeling, but I’ve come to accept it.

One of my friends said recently that I had “toned down” that angry part of me. I countered that I wasn’t exactly toned down, but I just had some good examples of what to look forward to as I mature into “grownup”-hood. The biggest inspiration for this revelation of what the future might look like is Malcolm X, who, after visiting Mecca, seemed to back off from his stance of racial separation some, and really, that’s what I aspire to: finding that inner peace where I can still be as activist as I want to be, but find peace in my day, where war persists constantly.

But this is not the time for martyrs, and this is one of the few things I admit I don’t have quite figured out yet. ‘Till I do, I guess I’ll just keep wearing this straight face of mine, neither giving away too much nor being a yes man to the powers that be.

jose, still in the struggle …

p.s. - I’m still mad people assumed I was thinking of blowing up taxis. I swear people are trying to get me red-flagged by government officials …

- My Year in Review, (Information Design Remix):

Click for the huge version of this image. I personally like how I condensed my year into a picture. I wish I could have put more into it, but it’ll be OK.

This was inspired by dy/dan, who asked his readers to participate in an information design contest, and I was more than willing to do just that. It was also inspired by A Tribe Called Quest’s “Scenario”.

- From an e-mail I sent out to some fellow bloggers:

“… we need to remember how, as helpful as technological advances have brought us the ability to effectively and efficiently communicate, it’s also been a means of deterring and tainting the votes (think Diebold and Co. in Florida and Ohio). If a person in our collective doesn’t believe any candidate truly represents their personal views, then they have every right to register to vote but not put in their ballot. If we see for instance that, despite how different everyone makes 2 candidates in a party, they’ve voted the same way about a foreign war over the last 2-3 years, then how much of a difference can there be? I personally have no objections to a particular blogger in the collective supporting a certain candidate, but I would also prefer to make an informed decision based on their positions on the topics close to me and not be associated with the same candidate simply because someone else in the collective supports them …”

More on this in the days to come.

- Speaking of which, I recently visited Shelly’s blog, and in one of her entries, she philosophizes about the importance of not complaining, and whether that’s a viable option in today’s world. Of course, I said that there has to be a distinction between complaining and speaking up. Complaining tends to be more self-centered and self-indicting than speaking up. For instance, in our school, we have complainers and people who speak up. The complainers complain about how cold it is in a room when they hardly have clothing on, or that they lost their e-mail even though they pressed the wrong button and everyone else’s e-mail works just fine on the same computer on the same server. Some staff members might even refer to them as crazy, though the complainers won’t refer to themselves as such.

On the other hand, we have people in our system who do an awful lot of speaking up, about the conditions that we set for our children, about the subpar teaching salaries, and the lack of connection between the “higher-ups” and the people who care. Their concerns don’t get addressed, and whenever they bring these issues up, they’re mistaken for complainers, and thus, while fellow staff members won’t call them crazy, they self-diagnose as crazy (they must be crazy for making common sense). That’s the difference. This isn’t strictly isolated to teachers but to all professions; much of this makes me wonder if we can differentiate between these two.

Really, as I’ve said before, we have too many people who are complicit and conformists with what happens around them. When we don’t speak up against an injustice or a policy that affects not just us but an entire community of people (it’s really about percentages, which I’ll get to at some point this week), we have a degree of culpability. I’m not saying we need to run out there and burn buildings to the ground (word to Immortal Technique and a previous version of myself). Rather than tell the dissenter to shut up (especially when you wholeheartedly agree with their assertions and even rant and rave in your own spaces about these issues), gain courage from that person and support them how you see fit.

Speaking up takes good judgment; complaining is a cowardly undertaking. Unlike what I wrote on Shelly’s blog, I’m making a distinction between these two animals. And really, when it comes down to it, it only takes a few people to make that positive change. Until we make that distinction and effectively address that to naysayers, then the protests, blogs, letters to the editors, and the plethora of weapons of civil disobedience are really for naught.

jose, who saw the rubber room trailer and simply nodded at its truth …

A certain unease across the school has settled in and has taken a life of its own. It’s similar to that poltergeist we keep hearing about in scary movies: inaudible yet palpable, invisible yet uncanny. With all the people who walk around the school like phantasms anyways, we start our séances in the teachers’ lounges, speaking of this ghost in tongues.

“I kid you not, there’s just something weird in the school.”

“The teacher morale is definitely at an all-time low this year.”

“I can’t say what it is, but I feel like the NYC school system will definitely get better before it gets worse.”

The pressures and mandates to keep one’s job have led the majority of teachers to do work they unfortunately see as detrimental. The constant changes and lack of efficiency coupled with the conspicuous efforts to dismantle the unions both locally and citywide has translated into more work for less pay. Teachers who had no problem staying until 4pm discussing better classroom management and individualized academic reports for students now leave disheartened from the meaningless time they spend with children who prefer not to be there until 310pm simply because they didn’t do as well as the rest of their classmates.

Yet, when it comes time to actually voice those concerns, we do it in the recesses of our sane zones: the bar, the phone, our blogs, the temporarily empty classroom, or in our minds. Where once we at least felt someone was listening to our concerns and addressing them, we no longer have that sense of community to discuss school concerns. Instead, the talkers lay out the talking points for us, and where once a choice actually meant a choice to voice, this implicitly means these choices are someone else’s and any other concerns have no validity.

And who am I to argue? I’m definitely one of the dissenters of the current educational stance Michael Bloomberg and Co. have taken with teachers, administrators, parents, and students. Yet, these policies have also trickled down to the local school level, where many teachers wonder just how much of what we hear everyday from the higher-ups really comes from supported fact and actual research or is based on bamboozling and hoodwinking the teachers into believing a certain (and oft detrimental) mantra. Many teachers have taken notice of the often demeaning messages sent from different parties and have found the root of these problems.

There’s one little problem: no one’s bold enough to disobey. Not one. Walking down the hallway, in our classrooms, in our professional development meetings, and our pre- and post-observations, we would more readily hide our faces or nod along with the program than pay careful attention to the messages higher-ups broadcast and question like they question their own students in class. This is not to say that sometimes teachers don’t need constructive criticism (I know I do), but teachers are professionals, and thus deserve that level of respect, not just the spiritual adoration and pat-on-the-back, but institutional recognition of our efforts.

Who will go into battle alone? No warrior has ever not had a team behind him or her. The risks are tremendous: losing one’s job, getting sent to a rubber room, getting a letter in your record, getting a restriction placed on your application for tenure, and a general blackmailing across the system as a recluse and a rebel rouser will certainly do a number on one’s reputation, which certainly explains the insane amount of anonymous educational bloggers, many of whom exhibit a certain freedom of speech once their name hasn’t been attached to their own opinions. Unfortunately, what that also means is that critics will quickly abandon this anonymous opinion because a real person won’t stand behind it.

So all we have is a bunch of people sitting on their hands, brooding over their next move, ingesting the apparition’s ghastly images and cursing the morbid thoughts this apparition brought upon these once-idealistic individuals. We debate with the apparition more readily than we discuss our own fears and conjectures. And we do it in our own private space, as pseudonymous as that ghost.

jose, who believes that unjust laws are not laws at all …

I feel like I’m exposing myself a bit with what I’m about to post, but I’m a big believer in astrology. I don’t necessarily believe in all the astrologers out there with the light-up snow globes and gypsy-inspired wardrobe. However, I can’t help but believe that if the moon has such a strong influence on the bodies of water around the Earth, then as bodies of water, we too will inevitably be influenced by the moon, the stars, the planets around us, and yes, even the Earth’s environment. We’re all bodies of water, and the exact moment we’re born at can give us clues as to how we’ll behave. It sounds like hogwash on the surface, but my experience only tells me the opposite. Check what Wikipedia says about Aquarians like me:

The Aquarius person is unconventional, detached, intellectual, objective, individualistic, inventive, unique, easygoing, sophisticated, future-oriented, friendship-oriented, humanitarian, cause-oriented, believes in groups and society, playful, friendly, spontaneous, caring, devoted, trend setter, liberal, understanding, energetic, tolerant, benevolent, charming, patient, free-spirited, independent, open-minded, and progressive. They can also sometimes be unpredictable, dogmatic, cold, mean, over-permissive, aloof, rebellious, stubborn, eccentric, erotic, undependable, self-oriented, self-centered, unable to commit, judgmental, fickle and elitist …

*** The ones in bold I definitely agree with, the ones that are underlined I’m trying to improve, and the ones in italic make me laugh (in a “that’s so not me” way). ***

I don’t look to horoscopes and the like to tell me how to live, but this is as accurate a description as I’d get about myself. Trying to understand oneself is paramount to becoming the best person one can be. I particularly started thinking about this after I read The Unapologetic Mexican’s post about Benazir Bhutto, and especially focused on the following:

PERHAPS the most obvious admission that a person can make stating that they are personally incapable of changing the world’s destiny with their own abilities and gifts and unique vision is to simply take the life of those who make it their mission to do so.

That coupled with the plethora of discussions I’ve had with my friends and family about everything from the Zeitgeist and Revelations to Iraq, 9/11, and 2012 really has me thinking about how my own actions affect the world around me. Because of how society’s structured and how minuscule we’ve been taught to perceive ourselves in contrast to time and space, I often think whether my actions even matter.

Then I realize, “Fuck yeah they do.”

As a person in progress, I think about how a small group of bankers could influence the whole world to make the American dollar into the world’s most popular currency, how only a couple of people writing things down on paper made for all the pervasive ideas of our day from religion and light theory to evolution and government, and how even a small amount of people sparked the rules of engagement for our own beliefs. Even if all the major people we’ve ever believed in like Malcolm X, Jesus, Gandhi, da Vinci, Darwin, Mother Teresa, or Bhutto had a huge collective of people behind them making sure their ideas gained traction in our minds, that was a small percentage compared to the many more who stayed at home, scared to take a risk or a chance on what would eventually change human civilization as they knew it.

Of course, that comes with its pitfalls. There are those who want to keep civilization the way it is. Most people are averse to change, even if they too will benefit. We’ve had “accidents” and assassinations abound, and these plans usually came to fruition with prior knowledge from that person. Yet, these influential people know they’re risking life and love for the benefit of humankind, knowing that their works at some point and time will inspire the next generation of thinkers and society shapers.

So every year, I sit at the precipice of another 365.25 days go by, and wonder whether what I’ve done has had the greatest impact on my world it could have. I’m still working on my personal issues (for more, check the italics above), but I know I wasn’t meant to sit idly by while everything around us goes to crap. Some of my friends believe that the Earth will eventually resolve everything on its own as it has over the last 4.5 or so billion years, but that goes back to the idea of complacency: is our sitting down and letting things happen part of the solution or the problem? What do we contribute if we think we’re so small we can’t do anything?

Or do we? Even for my educators, what do we do besides our jobs? Are we doing anything while we’re doing our jobs to make our children feel like they’re more than destined for the proletariat? I’m not sure, but while we’re about 150 years away from the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, this Aquarian’s dawning will come sooner than that.

jose, who only writes long entries when he believes in it, and he believes in this one …

p.s. - I love that “Sweetest Girl (Remix)” with Wyclef, Akon, Lil’ Wayne, Raekwon, and Niia. I thought the original was OK, but not good enough to download. This song reminds me of the mid-90’s. Yep.

Every morning, I’m usually in the class, setting my board up for my homeroom class, who also happens to be my first period class on Thursdays and Fridays, so it’s almost like having an extended homeroom. The whole school routinely says the US’ Pledge of Allegiance, and the responsibility to recite it over the loudspeaker lands on a lady I’ll call Lady Pledge for purposes of anonymity. She usually starts the pledge at exactly 0805 hrs., so within 5 minutes of the kids making it up the stairs, we start it.

On this particular morning (November 16th, on a Friday no less), she decided to say the allegiance lackadaisically. After her rendition of the pledge that day, I didn’t feel the need to admonish the class for not pledging. To the contrary, I actually just waited it out and gave my announcements like nothing happened. (Secretly, I don’t recite it outside of school in protest of the Iraq War, but that’s besides the point.)

When I decided not to pledge and show the kids we had no reason to pledge that day, it made me wonder in general if we’re training our kids to become drones and servants to a country that’s time and again proven it cares less about urban city children than it does anyone else. It’s general school policy to pledge every morning, and I usually adhere to said policy. After the unenthusiastic rendition, though, it only led me to anarchist thoughts.

Let’s take the pledge of allegiance, for example. It exalts the US as “one nation under God” and promises to stand for “liberty and justice for all.” Now, when I learned social studies, at the very least, I learned how to dissect statements like those, and I had a good understanding of the founders’ point of view. I also had a historical context so I could formulate my opinions. Even if I couldn’t describe my own experience in this country, I at least understood where that came from.

Nowadays, not even that part of American history gets explained clearly enough. Unfortunately, current urban education relegates social studies to the corner with a dunce cap. The school boards don’t care enough about social studies to make our students better informed citizens to this country. I’m not blaming this on history / social studies teachers (some of whom I wish taught me) as I blame the system we’re under. There’s more emphasis on getting kids to pass the ELA and Math tests, and not even well enough so they can read classic literature, dissect opinionated text, understand theorems or write proofs, but just enough to read a menu or punch in a receipt. We’re not even teaching enough to let the children come to their own, fact-based conclusions about the world they live in.

But someone might will argue:

“Mr. V, don’t you have oppressive laws in your class like no chewing gum, no standing up from your seats, no talking, or no talking out of turn? Isn’t that against everything you just said?”

Not unless you forget to explain your reasoning for the rules. The reason why we don’t let kids out of their seats is because it usually means they want to distract someone else like their friends. The reason why they can’t chew gum is because they often leave it in the textbooks or in the desks. That’s not oppression; that’s teaching discipline. But if we don’t make it clear to the kids that we’re showing them discipline, most of them will relegate us to “just another person that really wants nothing to do with us” status. Plus, discipline is the backbone of any movement.

And the suppressive mentality remains rampant amongst too many of us educators. We’re good for extolling the virtues of free thinking, success, and uplifting our children’s intelligence (or so the test scores say). People constantly laud teachers for their valiant efforts, and justifiably so. Yet, we often don’t think of the social ramifications of the messages we send to our children. We also don’t help impart that idealism we entered in with onto our children, and we imply this through our actions and curriculum. Some of us ask them to conform to a certain ideal of success but stripping them of their individual needs, wants, and cultures without even knowing it.

I’m not sure, but I find it somewhat hypocritical of one of the most progressive collectives in the world (teachers) would allow for this kind of indoctrination to happen. Yet, I also see a group of us that can definitely make true change happen. I’m not so much interested in whether my students become conservative or liberal (or insurrectionists for that matter), but they should have choices based on their past experience as well as learning how the systems work.

Then again, I guess liberty and justice aren’t really for all, right? Right.

jose, who wonders whether lady pledge really thinks about the founding forefathers when she recites it …

You say you want a revolution, well, you know, we all want to change the world …

You say you want a revolution, well you know we all want to change the world.

My annoyance right now stems from the idea of leadership, and how my definition of it has changes vastly everyday. On the one end, I wanted to believe I was a leader. I do my part as a teacher and motivator for my kids, and even the students who’ve graduated and tell me how much their lives have changed as a result of my teaching. That’s all well and good.

Yet, I’m at a struggle with the term leadership because unfortunately, we often have people in leadership positions who are more concerned with how they look than the actual cause, and that can only spell disaster for our movement. Everyone can instantly point to the very top like Dubya and Co., whose company seems to get smaller by the semester. It’s bad enough his party often complains about the lower class being lazy; their leader takes vacations like they’re going out of style.

I even throw shade at people like Al Sharpton for his backing of Bill O’Reilly of all people. I’m having a hard time with the idea that he’s so ingrained in the history of the African Diaspora that it’s like the man can diss everyone but Malcolm and Martin and still be a point of discussion.

After all, the younger version of himself, along with Jesse Jackson, Nikki, Lennon, Gil-Scott, Cesar, Che, and the like all call us back to a time when people really looked at themselves and decided to make a conscious decision to sacrifice themselves for the sake of others. My girl once said we should be ashamed at the complacency we’ve reached in our society. Yet, that self-sacrifice isn’t always a prosperous journey: some of these very leaders came to the point where they gave in to their own vices, thinking they had lost their souls after so many losses.

So in some ways, I guess it’s only right that we have a form of revolutionary talk that’s self-aggrandizing. It’s easy if you don’t have to do much to look revolutionary, speak it, dress it, or play the part, so long as you don’t get hurt or it doesn’t interfere with your business, whether that business is women or profit. If you could write a poem about how you are the conduit to the aforementioned greats, get a bunch of points from random people not based on quality but performance, and become popular all over America for it, wouldn’t you? If you could write a blog about how evil Republicans are, win a bunch of web awards, and continuously point at how revolutionary you are, couldn’t you? If you could sit down and spit blurbs with a media head so you’re made into the saving face of a major incident, would you take that chance?

This isn’t to say that anyone with communication skills isn’t tempted to try it. I’ll admit to having forgotten my purpose for writing sometimes, but that’s only led to trouble. In my former weblog community, that’s exactly what happened. Many of us were a little more concerned about comments and responses than thorough feedback and honest writing. Not to say that weblogs should be these awesome pieces of literature, but I do think they need to be fresh and real.

That died though, and now no one’s writing as much for it anymore. And a lot of the writers who I considered thorough either left or just stopped blogging. The movement I thought was building up there slowly drifted, because there was more concern about rank and pomp than real dialogue. So in this new age of communication, I wonder how much more concerned we are with the actual movement we’re trying to create instead of rankings, listings, and widgets, for the only purpose that serves is really ephemeral. A real revolution will come from the peoples’ hearts and minds.

Until then, peace is what I’m after more than anything. The road to the revolution is paved with good intentions, too, but too many people are quick to dishonor the bodies that went with it.

… because you know it’s gonna be, alright …

jose, who’s honestly disenchanted with a lot, but I keep on keeping on …

p.s. - Check my “about me” page. If you know me personally, it might even be about you.