“This for…
Bet they a$$ goin’ watch us…
But now n**** ain’t going stop us…
I just might put the grill in…
This for OT, Opa Locka, Brown Subs, and CC
This for P-Rine, Lil Havana, Wynwood and AP
This for Seminola, Lil Haiti, Liberty City
This for the ‘Ridge for the Saw-wa-sera,
This for Homestead
This for Hialeah…
For the Cubans, my Haitians, my people…
This for everybody reppin’ they hood n****
This here… for the mutha****** CITY!”
-Eskeerdo, For the City
It never ceases to impress me how much better our youth is than we are. The past two weeks have been an emotional whirlwind for me. I was honored by Latino Public Radio as this year’s Community Champion, I received a framed picture of my sister’s Principal’s Honor Roll report card, and I graduated from Brown University’s Master’s Program in Urban Education Policy but the greatest moment of them all was watching the first group of student’s I ever had the privilege of teaching walk across the stage to receive their high school diplomas. I cried twice during the ceremony. One of those times was obvious, my former student Aaron Willis stood up from his wheelchair to walk across the stage for his diploma (there wasn’t a pair of dry eyes in the audience). The second time though was a result of the words spoken by one of the student speakers. In his graduation remarks he proudly proclaimed “let us never forget that our success is Booker T Washington’s success, our success is Wynwood’s success, our success is Little Havana’s success, our success is Overtown’s success, because it doesn’t matter what neighborhood we’re from; our success is everyone’s success!” I was floored by the fact that this 18 year old young man already had the perspective that took me four years of college and one year of teaching to begin to cultivate and internalize. A perspective that many Miamians still have not accepted as fact. An inevitable and necessary realization, not just for our success but, for our SURVIVAL. Years ago Tupac offered that it’s “on us to do what we gotta do, to survive!” These words were true in 1996 and continue to ring true twenty years later.
The Superintendent of Miami Dade County Public Schools attended the graduation ceremony and spoke at length about the trials and tribulations that many of Booker T’s students faced while working towards their diploma. He mentioned Aaron’s battle with paralysis and the fact that he’s gone from a victim of gun violence to a victor in the public education system. While these things are true, I was disappointed by his and others lack of acknowledgement of the ways our school system and our stratified Miami community contributed to many of the living conditions our students face. Let us not forget that Trayvon Martin was on out of school suspension from a Miami Dade County Public School when he was killed by George Zimmerman. Let us not forget that Aaron Willis was two blocks from his middle school when he was shot in that drive by. Let us not forget that, school board member and daughter of the Mayor, Raquel Regalado spoke at a school board meeting to propose the opening of a new school in the same area of the under-subscribed Booker T Washington because our newer affluent Miamians won’t want to send their kids to “that school” with “those conditions” (we know what you meant pendeja). Let us not forget that as we’ve “developed” downtown and other parts of Miami through gentrification, we have displaced hundreds of families and transplanted them to places like Homestead, where we’ve simply replicated their living conditions. Why is it that our politicians and leaders lack that unity perspective that the student speaker already has? Because he and his classmates are better than them and better than all of us.
Coming back from my graduation in Rhode Island (the smallest state in the Union), my step father commented that he was taken aback by how visible discrimination felt in RI. He then moved to offer that Miami is a much better for “us.” I politely stopped him and said “it’s not better, it’s just hidden better… When was the last time you had to drive through or hang out in Liberty City? Overtown? Little Havana? In Miami, many of us are able to stay away from and avoid ‘undesirable’ places and contexts but the people who live there, my students, are not.” The problem, as I see it, is that it keeps us separate, isolated, and alienated from our humanity. The humanity that sees Overtown as US, Liberty City as US, Opa Locka as US, Homestead as US, and all of Miami as US.
Selflessness and conscientiousness were trademarks of the group of students graduating yesterday. Attendees heard the story of Kayla (one of my former students) declare in her finalist interview for a $26,000 scholarship that if the decision came down to her or Aaron, then they should give it to Aaron. My eyes swelled as I saw the pride with which our students spoke about THEIR school, THEIR community, THEIR family. They didn’t bring a deficit mindset to their particular situations or lived experiences. They didn’t allow politicians and “honored” guests to commodify their struggles (although it was clear they tried). They stood proud, resilient, and determined as evidenced by the fact that over 70% of them plan to enroll and attend college or the military in the fall. So to my students, I want you to know that I will always have your back no matter what and its time for me “to watch [y’all] cuz now **** aint goin’ stop [y’all]!” We goin’ do this FOR THE CITY.
