I hadn’t seen it live, but the pictures popped up on my social media screens. One set of photos has officers’ caps pointed directly at the procession. The other set of photos has the officers’ caps pointed in the opposite direction of a big screen with NYC Mayor Bill deBlasio in the background. For the police officers and the insulated mass of folks who agree with them, they must believe they were doing something courageous, for, how dare a mayor speak candidly about conversations he has with his Black son? How can he simultaneously lead the nation’s largest police force and harbor tenuous feelings about how they might treat his son?
In the mix with this reality is the perception of what a police force ought to do, what it currently does, and what the difference is between these two purposes in the eyes of many.
What I’ve heard a few times from rank and file teachers here in New York City is that they wish United Federation of Teachers (UFT) president Michael Mulgrew fought as hard for his members as the NYC Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (PBA) president Patrick Lynch. According to them, the UFT has become more of a political organization, and seems more adept at giving back items that unionists fought for in the last 40 years, including length of school days and retroactive pay. They say the UFT hasn’t fought enough for its most embattled teachers, many of whom have been harassed and fired for frivolous reasons.
Pat Lynch, on the other hand, has proven himself quite a firestarter, saying just about anything to absolve his members from wrongdoing, creating a culture in the city that makes police dissent seem sacrilegious. His most recent salvo made him judge, jury, and executioner of the mayor and him administration in one fell swoop. Yet, what’s most striking for many citizens of NYC, especially people of color, is the belligerent memo, which the PBA denies sending out, that says the police will operate as a wartime unit and would act accordingly.
Who does the PBA seek to have war with? The rest of us? If so, at least in the eyes of many people of color across the nation, that’s already fait accompli. Many of us already think twice before we say anything within a 5-block radius of a police station. We already put both hands on the steering wheel when we get pulled over. We already keep our hands out of our pockets when we walk about stores, low and high-end. We already try not to make eye contact with police, and already have two types of conversations with our sons and daughters: the birds and the bees, and the bullet and the NYPD.
We already know one of “us” might be gone at the hands of the police every 28 hours on average.
But that’s what some teachers want, which is fine. NYC Educator has made good arguments here, and they deserve a second and third reading from everyone. Simultaneously, we need to be mindful of those who suggest that we take things too far back (which isn’t what NYC Educator is saying, mind you). If we push too far back into tighter versions of unionism, we’ll regress to 1968 levels of racial angst. Around 60% of all NYC teachers are white, 44% of them in high-poverty schools. All the while, incidents involving people of color and the police have ballooned in the media, starting from Trayvon Martin and peaking at Eric Garner. All these murders merit discussion, with pledges of allegiance dedicated with a signature to justice for all. Yet, in many classrooms in NYC and elsewhere, the teacher is either incapable of having this nuanced discussion or sides with Pat Lynch.
I can’t see myself supporting a union with a Lynch as its head. I do find fault with some of my colleagues across the city. I do disagree with some of the harder lines some of us take on practically everything. I do think some of us don’t have an actual plan besides “no,” and, for parents in already strenuous situations, “no” is not a plan of action for helping students get ahead in life. When teachers don’t do right by our students, mistreat them, or think of them as less than human, I don’t want them as colleagues anymore. At this point, we as teachers don’t run around saying this because we hear plenty from well-monied politicians like New York Governor Andrew Cuomo or New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, both of whom I gladly protest.
But the police protest is about whether police can brutalize if they seem the person suspicious. Even the most popular activists want police. Just not this current rendition of it, institution and all.
This confluence of elements makes it harder for me to empathize with police, who feel maligned by protestors and the media in their own right. My profession puts me at the behest of the community, and the community asks me to serve in the capacity of math teacher. I try my best given my circumstances. My job isn’t as dangerous as a police officer’s, but I continually reflect on whether I’m serving the community, and, if I knew that a large section of my community felt under-served by me and my colleagues, I would probably want my union representatives and my bosses to talk to the community and find out how to better serve them, not double down on how great a job I’m doing.
To protect and to serve, and that’s something we can never turn our backs to.
” how dare a mayor speak candidly about conversations he has with his Black son?”
Thank you again for speaking truth into this chaotic injustice media machine
This is beautiful. Three quick thoughts.
1. You said “When teachers don’t do right by our students, mistreat them, or think of them as less than human, I don’t want them as colleagues anymore.” I agree. What I read here is a great, but (as you cited) a not so mentioned point of social justice. We do need good teachers and that does mean we have to weed the bad teachers out. I regret to see you feel that these ‘nuanced’ discussions you mentioned later could not happen in many classrooms across the city. I inferred from that you believe these classroom comprise a majority in our city. I hope I misread your sentiments, but if I didn’t, I very much disagree. One teacher from MORE, my union caucus (which is rather big on social justice) found a way to have just such a nuanced discussion as you mentioned here. It materialized, in part, from his commitment to issues that could be identified as social justice unionism. A description of that talk can be found in the link below and I really suggest you to read it. Also, I submit to you that there is a real thirst out there, from among teachers, to find ways to have this discussion in their classrooms. I reblogged this post and it was very widely viewed (well into the thousands) over a very short period of time. I know my audience (mostly all pro union classroom teachers).
http://morecaucusnyc.org/2014/12/08/teachable-moment/
2. This observation is very important. “Around 60% of all NYC teachers are white …” As you know, MORE’s partner organization, the Teacher Diversity Committee, has been pushing hard for more diverse hiring practices in the city schools. Part of that push has been a petition drive, to convince Tweed to change the DOE’s hiring practices so our classrooms can be more diverse. There is a simple conclusion that can be reached: Our students here in NYC NEED a more diverse teaching corps. The petition and the work TDC does is geared toward understanding that need as a goal and toward reaching that goal. That petition is available in both print and digital form. I have dropped the link below and I once again would like to ask you to consider signing it or sharing it with others you know.
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/increase-teacher-diversity
3. About this sentence: “They say the UFT hasn’t fought enough for its most embattled teachers, many of whom have been harassed and fired for frivolous reasons.” There is much truth in this statement. Also in the reality that many of these teachers who faced this workplace harassment under the previous administration (and complain that our union didn’t fight hard for them) were teachers of color. All the accounts I’ve heard or read indicate that infamous ‘rubber rooms’ were overwhelmingly comprised with teachers of color. All of them. Most were, or so it seems from the statistics uncovered from the research that lead to the Teacher Diversity Petition, replaced by white teachers. I think that an assertive union representation -during that very period of time- would have resulted in a more diverse (and experienced) teaching corps, which again I think is something that we very much need. This is why I’m troubled with your conclusion here that ‘Yet, if we push too far back into tighter versions of unionism, we’ll regress to 1968 levels of racial angst.’ I think that, within this discussion, tighter unionism depends on which union we’re thinking is exercising the strength. I think that a strong PBA would equate, ultimately, with strong police force who feel empowered to do all of the things that we’re seeing and many that we’re not (the rote targeting and harassing of teenage boys on their way home from school is far too common and never mentioned in the media (and sticks in my craw because that’s the most cited experience my students share with me)0. These experiences do terrible things to the human beings that enter our classrooms. one of those things is to make it more difficult for that student to learn over the course of a semester or a year. That difficulty does a few things to us, one of which is to make it more difficult for us to do our jobs. This downward pressure emboldens the ‘Evas’ of the world, weakens our membership and, ultimately, our union. Students of color who are NOT forced to tolerate these daily experiences are in a much better position to learn over the course of a year or a semester. Could this happened from a weakened PBA? I read this post and concluded that it could. http://www.accountabletalk.com/2014/12/a-tale-of-two-unions.html I can’t imagine this resulting in anything other than a stronger UFT.
Well, four. Just wanted to say Happy New Year to your and your family.
Author
NYCDOENuts, I’m too informed about MORE’s position to get a barrage of links about their positions, but that’s cool because MORE’s got some good things going on. I’ll submit to you that, while there might be this thirst amongst some, we also know well that some of the conversations that bubbled up at MORE concerned social justice issues period. AND, when I brought said issues to the fore, multiple teachers on social media brought it to my attention that there’s a large collection of teachers who disagree with any element of the UFT that suggests that we need to seek social justice. In fact, because I am who I am, I’ve been targeted on multiple occasions for speaking up and out about some folks who didn’t want to speak out about Eric Garner and were pro-police. But you, comrade, may or may not have to go through what I do when I speak up about these things.
Secondly, and because I’m on certain listservs, I know of these issues too well. Nationally as well as locally, the closure of schools is often related (I won’t say correlated or caused by) with the decimation of the teaching force that *wants* to stay in those schools long-term, and they just happen to be teachers of color. That talking point hasn’t come to the fore because that would require lots of discussion about how we frame race discussions in schools. MORE soon, but in the meantime, please do keep talking about diversity from your end of things. I won’t stop either.
Best.
That comrade remark made me laugh so hard that chocolate milk shot right out my nose. Practicing Catholics aren’t capitalist or socialist (or any other ‘ist’ for that matter). But we’re sort of cool with it. We’ve got our rosaries and our Saturday confessions and we just sort of let it roll off our back. Putting off any other personal or group impeachments of integrity for just a moment; the point of the ‘barrage’ of links (which spelled out no positions, just illuminated what folks from there had done) was to try to convince you that strong unionism -teacher unionism- is/should be/can be/must be part of the solution. Not the problem. This is something that I, really, very much hope you consider. As you pointed out, some within MORE were confronted with social justice unionism (a topic on which I’m no expert in general but am learning) as it looks and feels with regard to this burning issue and (and I thought you were aware of this) they chose to leave partly because of it.
One last thought; I think talking about an issue like diversity in the classroom (just as an example) is a noble venture. I truly do. What I like about MORE is that they work (really diligently, mind you) to change that. It happens with those awkward trips to the PEP and our union’s DA and with attempts to convince the decision makers to make it a priority, but it goes well beyond talking. I like that and if these heroes from MORE work to accomplish anything else, I’d be happy to come on back here and talk about with you.
Enjoy your holiday!
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Hi Mr. Vilson & NYCDOEnuts,
I’ve been following all of this closely, as I do want to have candid discussions with my students. My MA included race/urban history, so discussions usually involve historical context. And I try in multiple ways – whether it’s showing statistics of homicide in our area, police brutality in our area, showing statistics of people of color graduating high school, receiving college diplomas, diplomas in science, etc.
I guess I just felt compelled to share my experience. Even though I work in a high-poverty school with 100% people of color demographic; even though the majority of our teachers are people of color; even though there has been a history of neglect and racism; even though students are aware of their situation… there has not been a open single discussion at the teacher-admin level about teaching students about these issues. Not once has the principal acknowledged what has happened in our weekly faculty meetings, nor has there been any obvious support for discussing the wider issue of society’s role in what our students are facing.
I don’t know what this adds to the comments above, only that it is a an issue that doesn’t rest solely with good or bad teachers or with unions. I do think administration has a large role here, a leadership role that often gets forgotten (maybe because they forget to be leaders?).
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