An
Open Letter To The Class Of 2006
By Paul Moore
08 May, 2006
Countercurrents.org
You
are about to graduate from Miami Carol City High School and no matter
what your score on Jeb Bush’s test; almost all of you have earned
a diploma. As Jay Z once rhymed, “It’s a hard knock life
for us / Stead of treated, we get tricked / Stead of kisses, we get
kicked / It’s the hard knock life.” You have your doctoral
degrees in the school of hard knocks.
During the 23 years I have
spent at Carol City High it seems like the students have gotten better
every year. The Class of ’06 is no exception. To watch you struggle
with life’s modern complexity and still perform so well in the
classroom, on stage, in the athletic arena and in the community has
been uplifting.
You are a group of brilliant
and talented young people. I say that even to the person who stole my
cell phone a few weeks ago and sent 17 text messages before the service
was cut off. As a teacher I just hope you enhanced your writing skills
and got some wisdom in those seven return messages.
You know when your class
started the journey through this high school four years ago you were
nearly a thousand strong. There are but 492 of you left. Even more tragically
there will be several empty chairs at the graduation ceremonies on May
25th. Evan Page should have been there. But Evan was murdered down the
street from MCC just after we celebrated Thanksgiving. Sherika Wilson
Lynch should have been there, her 16-month-old baby Ahmani sitting with
a proud family in the audience. But Sherika was murdered on a trip to
the store in Opa Locka’s notorious Triangle while many of you
were off to Grad Bash.
Even though he attended Northwestern
High School, our own Mrs. Anderson’s beloved son James “JT”
Anderson would have no doubt been in there to see his sister Nichelle
graduate. But James was cut down too on our mean streets. Then just
the other day Devon Sutton also fell. At the wake for “JT”
and the memorial for “Scooter” hundreds of young people
wore shirts bearing their pictures. Nowadays it is commonplace for youths
to dress in images of their dead classmates, teammates, friends or relatives.
The violent death of so many
young people is evidence that our society is in a terrible mess. We
have come to such a cold hard place that a 14-year-old boy can be suffocated
in a state-run boot camp and a child can be labeled a failure before
their 9th birthday. This month the Florida Department of Education will
notify 28,600 kids that they failed the FCAT and to be certain they
internalize this blow to their self-image they will be held back in
3rd grade. Don’t just be sad about these things. Just before he
was killed Malcolm X said, “Usually when people are sad, they
don’t do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when
they get angry, they bring about change.” Things must change!
If you decide to fight for
a better world, you will confront very powerful forces. You must meet
those forces with unity! Don’t be tricked into fighting and killing
each other by those who care nothing for you or nothing will change.
Your classmates in this school are your brothers and sisters. No matter
their race, no matter their language, no matter their nationality, they
are your only hope of winning this struggle!
Down 183rd Street at Norland,
across 183rd at Pace, up 183rd at American you have brothers and sisters.
At Northwestern, Edison, and Central you have more brothers and sisters.
In Detroit, Atlanta, New Orleans and rural Kansas you have more brothers
and sisters. The students marching out of their schools from Los Angeles
to Homestead for immigrant rights are your brothers and sisters too.
The students from Florida A&M, FSU and Tallahassee Community College
who sat in Governor Bush’s office demanding justice for Martin
Lee Anderson and his family are your older brothers and sisters and
excellent role models.
While you are putting on
the cap and gown consider the words of a man executed in the State of
California during this school year. Stanley “Tookie” Williams
wrote, “Across this nation, countless young men and women, like
you, are vegetating in juvenile halls and in youth authorities. More
and more prisons are being constructed to accommodate your generation
when you grow to adulthood. The question is, can you become motivated
enough to defy the expectations that many people have of you?”
You will answer Tookie’s
question with the rest of your lives. Good luck Class of 2006!