| I don't quite remember when I first heard the phrase or | | | | sheds light on perhaps why black people in general |
| the young black kid who I last heard utter it, but I do | | | | seem not to know these things. It felt to me both like a |
| remember the shudder that went through my body | | | | back-handed slap in the face and also a sad |
| each time. The kids were questioning why they had to | | | | commentary. The passage goes like this: "If you want |
| go to school to get the "white man's education." In both | | | | to hide something from black people just put it in a |
| cases I never got to give an answer, as they weren't | | | | book." Finally after digesting hundreds of books and |
| talking to me, though I desperately wanted to. | | | | articles I understood that Western Civilization was |
| Afterwards I remember thinking that this attitude was | | | | simply the result of Europe's formal education, primarily |
| probably a growing one among young African | | | | by Africans of antiquity. Europeans, having later |
| Americans. From my own experiences I could see | | | | embarked successfully upon a quest of global |
| how such nonsense can be attractive, particularly | | | | domination, re-wrote much of history in their image and |
| among youngsters mesmerized by street lifestyles | | | | after their likeness. This is how we got on the road to |
| and looking for a slick sounding reason to grow up | | | | what our young people call the "white man's |
| illiterate and parasitical. | | | | education." |
| Inasmuch as Forty Million And A Tool's primary thrust is | | | | Today, many of our young people are so angry, |
| to secure our birthright of wealth, it is equally | | | | particularly after learning these things and others, that |
| necessary to confront the many other obstacles | | | | they've fallen into the trap of self-imposed illiteracy and |
| standing in the way of our comprehensive | | | | criminality - all the while reveling in the belief that they |
| advancement; one of which is this obvious | | | | have somehow escaped the clutches of the white |
| psychologically crippling notion that the basic literacy | | | | man's education. The fervor and intensity of the |
| public schools offer our children is somehow harmful, | | | | rebellion is such that it has no expressed aim or |
| evil or irrelevant. Clearly, this misguided rebellion has its | | | | purpose, yet the understanding seems to be that |
| roots in the legitimate protest against long-standing bias | | | | "anything whites in power promote - don't buy into it, |
| in educational testing and the virtual absence of | | | | and whatever they condemn - embrace." So when |
| African and African American brilliance in textbooks, to | | | | the president and other powerful white politicians extol |
| say the least. Yet, somehow our children have taken it | | | | the virtues of getting a quality education, that message |
| to a level of lunacy that points our future toward | | | | gets translated down to many of our youth as |
| nothing more than defiant self-destruction. Many of | | | | worthless trickery. Not even the multitude of college |
| them truly believe that they must rebel against the | | | | educated black leaders who preach "get an education" |
| "white man's education." | | | | produce the desired results, which begs the question: |
| When I attended elementary school for most of the | | | | how can a people re-discover or re-claim their heritage |
| 1960's the only blacks I remember learning about were | | | | only to have its most precious segment turn their |
| Crispus Attucks, Benjamin Banneker, George | | | | backs on it and believe that it belongs to someone |
| Washington Carver and Constance Baker Motley. At | | | | else? I'll tell you how: knowledge not translated into |
| home I knew about other famous blacks like Willie | | | | power might as well be a fairy tale story, while fairy |
| Mays, Nat King Cole and Lena Horne, but didn't quite | | | | tales backed by power becomes believed knowledge. |
| get the sense that what they did was very important. | | | | To counter the negative and debilitating aspects of the |
| It was only the three dead ones and Ms. Motley that | | | | Euro-American educational system we need to teach |
| the teachers seemed to hold in any esteem. Crispus | | | | our children how not to throw the baby (fundamental |
| died for freedom; George did many things with | | | | literacy) out with the bath water (lies and |
| peanuts; Benjamin drew plans for constructing the | | | | mis-education) to avoid being brainwashed and |
| nation's capitol and made a clock, while Ms. Motley | | | | psychologically crippled. Several Afrocentric and urban |
| became a federal judge. That was it! Anybody else | | | | movements are teaching generations of black youth |
| who did anything great or important was white. | | | | about the hypocrisy of the American educational |
| As for reading, writing, arithmetic and regular school | | | | system. This cuts like a double-edged sword, causing |
| subjects it was taught that the Greeks started it all, | | | | many to abandon the process altogether, while others |
| and that's the way it stood for me until the | | | | negotiate the process with a solid sense of self. |
| mid-seventies. It was then that I learned that the | | | | However, until we can implement structures that |
| Greeks started very little of anything; certainly not | | | | ensure the healthy education of our babies from the |
| reading, writing, mathematics, biology, literature, history, | | | | cradle to college, we must continue to fill in the gaps |
| philosophy or mythology. In fact, I learned there was no | | | | where the public schools do not. Whatever approach |
| such thing as the "white man's education." While this is | | | | we eventually endorse the greatest falsehood we |
| common knowledge now, imagine the mix of emotions | | | | absolutely must defeat is this notion of a "white man's |
| I experienced when I learned that the Greeks were | | | | education," for it concedes to others what is rightfully |
| educated, among others, by Africans; that Plato, | | | | and equally ours. |
| Aristotle and others attested to Greece's indebtedness | | | | I don't have to tell you where the bulk of young black |
| to Egypt; that Greece's greatest historian, Herodotus, | | | | drop-outs end up. While hundreds may find their way |
| described these Egyptians as people with "burnt skin | | | | into a movie or music video ten times as many don't, |
| and woolly hair." It was the most freeing and | | | | yet they crave the lifestyle and the trinkets. So where |
| astonishing feeling I'd ever experienced. It was also the | | | | talent or a solid business background eludes them, |
| angriest I'd ever felt; the same anger, I suspect, our | | | | crime and parasitic living welcomes and envelopes |
| young people feel as they encounter the debilitating | | | | them. It is at just such a cross-road where proper |
| effects of an educational system that assigns to them | | | | education and the attainment of our birthright of wealth |
| inferior status, both historically and now. | | | | will save our youth and prevent them from choosing |
| During my research I came across a passage that | | | | illiteracy, imprisonment and a squandered life. |