Innocence Projects are a very important development in the human rights arena. Many people are sitting in prison who have been wrongly convicted. Their incarceration destroys lives and serves no purpose, except to the profiteers of the prison industry. But there are also those who commit crimes with impunity, whose crimes create hardship and destroy lives of innocent people. Taking money meant for health care for the poor and enriching oneself is a crime against humanity. Taking money meant to create jobs in a desperate economy and diverting or wasting it to enrich some while cheating the poor is a special kind of crime and should be treated as such.
The news this week from Detroit - or for the past month- is strange and entertaining. It is also infuriating. If crime and punishment were treated in relative terms, no one in Detroit would have to go to prison. Our former mayor is awaiting trial on a series of charges arising from his time spent in office. The youngest mayor in our history, Kwame Kilpatrick committed a series of crimes in office which involve misuse of the city's precious resources. It does seem as if he is the whore who acted without any Johns. Some of his cronies are facing prison and others are already in prison.
Now fast forward:
Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano is now associated with countless no bid contracts, amounting to millions of dollars of tax payer money. Shell corporations, non profits set up to divert money meant for health care for poor people, development projects... we will never know where it went, who took it and where it came from and where it was supposed to go.
We do know this: We trusted elected officials with stewardship of our precious tax dollars. In return, they gave their cronies contracts, gave them special tax credits for properties on which they pay no taxes while the rest of us pick up the tab in the form of our uneven and inequitable property taxes While rank and file county workers took a 20% pay cut, home foreclosure is up exponentially,. the land bank Ficano oversees scoops up property for pennies on the dollar. People are going without health care and losing their homes as a direct consequence of this unbridled greed. .Ficano can fire people he says let him down; no one is talking about him going to prison.He will likely be able to run for re election.
What is the difference between the millions looted out of county government and the city corruption and the incredible difference in how such crimes are treated?
You do the math.
Don't forget your crayons.
Showing posts with label Political. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Political. Show all posts
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Sunday, October 30, 2011
What if Detroit were a white district?
Detroit Public Schools, in its new IMF style of debt reduction, has placed upwards of 45 students in classrooms. Students who come from the most impoverished conditions- nearly all others have jumped ship from DPS- come to school without breakfast, without computers at home, often without the basic human needs met when they get to school. Put them now in a classroom with no books, one or no teacher- a different substitute each day- and then test them all together. The teachers were told the week of MEAP testing that there would be more layoffs coming. Despite the 40 million dollar Houghton Mifflin book contract between former superintendent Barbara Byrd Bennett and the District, students do not use the books because the District does not own the licensing for them. How is it that Byrd Bennett, Robert Bobb, countless other contractors can leave us in this condition and simply live their materially rich, morally bankrupt lives. They are on the speaking circuit. They have been rewarded for their part in the theft of Detroit's children's inheritance. Now comes their second act; The Failing District for schools that do not make the grade.
Does this look like a District trying to save its children from "failure.?" Put forty children who don't speak English into a classroom with no bilingual teacher, no aide for the teacher, a principal who speaks no Spanish and we have a wonderful source of new victims for the "Failing District."
There are people who once would have been allies, but they are keeping their council, hoping they can get a piece of the action. This helps to explain the silence of some of those who would be with us in this fight. No one has to have any particular credentials to get in on these sweet deals. Witness Catherine Ferguson Academy. Watch what happens in the other schools that simply close overnight. There are neighborhoods on the East Side with no elementary school for miles. There is no law stating that a neighborhood has to have a school. There is no law stating that a classroom has to have a teacher, or that there is a limit on the number of students in a classroom. Indeed, it was the fire marshall that shut down the Nolan Elementary School for having 57 children in a kindergarten room. If Detroit goes under the Emergency Manager rule, the fire marshall will not be able to come in to intervene. The Health Department can do nothing about the rats in the cafeteria at Academy of the Americas. The administration threatens all school personnel if they talk to the press. There is an atmosphere of fear and alienation throughout all the buildings. No teachers, no principals are protected, so children are on their own. Parents who don't speak English are absolutely on their own.
The good news is this: None of what we have recently lost just came to us. African centered curriculum, bilingual education, special education all came with great struggles. Battles were fought for school equity, which was lost before we ever got it. We had good teachers, dedicated parents, warriors in the community who fought long and hard for these things. We did not have the sinister forces of privatization, all protected by bought and paid for legislators, hidden behind anonymous foundation donors, none of whom
Then there are the Excellent Schools. These are not for everyone, though. They are for the favored neighborhoods of United Way, Skillman, Broad Foundation, and countless other merchants of misery posing as saviours. Don't forget Southwest Solutions, in its endless manifestations ( Our Kids Come First, Harriet Tubman Organization, Youthvoice, and on and on). Follow the money. Some of the most sinister forces are at work in Detroit. This is no time to our backs on Detroit schools. Foundations can decide who their favored students, schools, neighborhoods are. The rest of Detroit and its children and its neighborhood are at the mercy of forces we cannot see, elect, confront. It's a new battlefront and we have to research using our most criminal minds to understand what we are up against.
This is a good fight. Jump in.
In solidarity,
Elena Herrada
District 2 Representative, Detroit Public Schools
Does this look like a District trying to save its children from "failure.?" Put forty children who don't speak English into a classroom with no bilingual teacher, no aide for the teacher, a principal who speaks no Spanish and we have a wonderful source of new victims for the "Failing District."
There are people who once would have been allies, but they are keeping their council, hoping they can get a piece of the action. This helps to explain the silence of some of those who would be with us in this fight. No one has to have any particular credentials to get in on these sweet deals. Witness Catherine Ferguson Academy. Watch what happens in the other schools that simply close overnight. There are neighborhoods on the East Side with no elementary school for miles. There is no law stating that a neighborhood has to have a school. There is no law stating that a classroom has to have a teacher, or that there is a limit on the number of students in a classroom. Indeed, it was the fire marshall that shut down the Nolan Elementary School for having 57 children in a kindergarten room. If Detroit goes under the Emergency Manager rule, the fire marshall will not be able to come in to intervene. The Health Department can do nothing about the rats in the cafeteria at Academy of the Americas. The administration threatens all school personnel if they talk to the press. There is an atmosphere of fear and alienation throughout all the buildings. No teachers, no principals are protected, so children are on their own. Parents who don't speak English are absolutely on their own.
The good news is this: None of what we have recently lost just came to us. African centered curriculum, bilingual education, special education all came with great struggles. Battles were fought for school equity, which was lost before we ever got it. We had good teachers, dedicated parents, warriors in the community who fought long and hard for these things. We did not have the sinister forces of privatization, all protected by bought and paid for legislators, hidden behind anonymous foundation donors, none of whom
Then there are the Excellent Schools. These are not for everyone, though. They are for the favored neighborhoods of United Way, Skillman, Broad Foundation, and countless other merchants of misery posing as saviours. Don't forget Southwest Solutions, in its endless manifestations ( Our Kids Come First, Harriet Tubman Organization, Youthvoice, and on and on). Follow the money. Some of the most sinister forces are at work in Detroit. This is no time to our backs on Detroit schools. Foundations can decide who their favored students, schools, neighborhoods are. The rest of Detroit and its children and its neighborhood are at the mercy of forces we cannot see, elect, confront. It's a new battlefront and we have to research using our most criminal minds to understand what we are up against.
This is a good fight. Jump in.
In solidarity,
Elena Herrada
District 2 Representative, Detroit Public Schools
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