Critique of Wagner and other's who claim to offer "CHANGE"

Hello fellow change seekers. Well, at least that's what drew me to NYU's Wagner School of Public Service - the idea of making change. Wagner's whole claim is "CHANGE." It is the biggest thing, bolded and framed on their website, next to the words, "THE WORLD."

But I have to ask Wagner to disclaim the "CHANGE," because it does little if anything to produce such a thing. I believe it was Albert Einstein who said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing twice and expecting different results. I would argue that it's either insanity or dishonesty. Wagner is teaching much of what has already been taught and is currently taught and somehow expects change big enough, different enough to actually affect the world! Wagner teaches much of what is taught at other public service schools. Students learn policy, politics, statistical analysis, and management. But this is conventional standard information. I find it hard to see how conventional means will produce unconventional ends. Think about it, it's actually kind of crazy; Teach for America is going to change our entire education system by training its teachers in exactly the same way as many teaching colleges, United Way is going eliminate poverty by increasing access to food stamps, and Wagner is going to change our society by teaching statistics and management. Don't get me wrong, the education I received at Wagner has been valuable, and may in fact be the most beneficial institution I have ever attended. It has provided me with a more informed base from which to approach my quest for change, however, it has not prepared me specifically for change, nor do I believe that it prepares any of its students for change. It mostly prepares students for more senior positions in government and non-profits but does little if anything to prepare them to change those governmental and non-profit institutions which can in turn "Change the World."

If Wagner was really about change what would it look like? Maybe it would teach it's classes through the prism of progressive change. Maybe students would learn about finance, management, and policy through the revolutions that have been successful in producing progressive change. Maybe students would study the contemporary currents of social change and how marketing or management can help to further push and create such change. Rather than simply learning about public economic policy, maybe students could actually learn about how these economic assumptions have been used to impede change and how they can be used to advance future change. With the exception of a few classes, Wagner offers students an understanding of the public and nonprofit sectors, without any real guidance on how to change them.

It may be a great marketing tool. Concedingly, it is what attracted me. But it is also dishonest. So until Wagner commits itself to the pedagogy of real change, I ask that it disclaim the "CHANGE" it so prominently purports to offer. Or at least put change in small print somewhere near the bottom of it's publications in a manner commensurate with it's attention to it.

A Matter of Perception

So Lavonda and I are trying to get a cab late at night to go back home to Harlem. I try to flag down a cab as empty cabs pass by. Then I remember, I'm a young black male. But good fortune shines and a cab lets out a passenger just a few yards ahead of me. I run up to the cab yelling, "cab please!" Despite the rolled down window, and more importantly, the empty cab, the cab squeals off.

Lavonda then takes over, goes to the corner and tries to flag down a cab. I saunter off as if I am not with her. A cab pulls over and I run back to her and get in the cab. "115th St. Please."
The driver then responds, "Where were you hiding my man? You just jumped in the car from nowhere."

I replied, "Sadly it seems as if I have to catch cabs using the element of surprise. I have to ambush them or they won't stop for a black guy." He laughed and then told me stories of how black people will haggle with him, blame red lights on him, and then run out without paying. I then asked him whether White people did the same thing. He said, "Well most White people won't argue with you. They will tell you before hand that they don't have any money and that they need to go to an ATM machine."
I asked him, "Then they run?"
"Well, sometimes yes." He responded.

I told him that I seriously doubted whether Blacks were more likely to leave without paying than Whites and that I think much of the discrepancy between the behavior of the two is a mere matter of perception. I then relayed to him a story about my law school. My law school is located in the Village. I had recently overheard one student speak of how she lived on 96th St. right below Harlem, and even though her parents had been worried about her safety due to it's proximity to Harlem, it was safe. I asked students whether they thought the Village was a dangerous place. All responded in the negative. Student after student informed me of how safe they thought the Village was. I then asked them if they thought Harlem was dangerous. They unanimously agreed that it was.

I then went to the New York City Police Department website and looked at the crime statistics for Harlem and the Village. The results are as follows. Bolded, italicized numbers indicate a lower crime numbers in Harlem than in the Village.

Stats for 2007

	West Village 6th	East Village 9th	Central Harlem 28th	West Harlem 26th	Lower East Harlem 23rd	Upper East Harlem 25th
Murder	3	0	1	1	6	6
rape	4	8	1	2	14	10
robbery	98	101	127	98	132	128
Fel. assault	72	80	95	46	84	101
Burglary	98	112	46	38	40	48
Gr. Larceny	564	406	155	169	107	115
G.L.A.	34	44	55	25	31	38

Stats for 2006

	West Village 6th	East Village 9th	Central Harlem 28th	West Harlem 26th	Lower East Harlem 23rd	Upper East Harlem 25th
Murder	3	1	12	0	10	9
rape	6	14	21	11	21	24
robbery	213	249	301	247	322	277
Fel. assault	121	165	188	105	329	237
Burglary	275	301	167	102	91	144
Gr. Larceny	1278	776	350	370	274	275
G.L.A.	72	76	55	54	57	82

Stats for 2001

	West Village 6th	East Village 9th	Central Harlem 28th	West Harlem 26th	Lower East Harlem 23rd	Upper East Harlem 25th
Murder	1	2	7	1	9	7
rape	8	12	18	9	31	27
robbery	290	246	244	220	379	275
Fel. assault	140	198	282	132	211	296
Burglary	294	316	141	124	190	172
Gr. Larceny	1222	738	155	326	249	165
G.L.A.	165	151	112	133	134	110

http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/pct/cspdf.html

In some parts of Harlem murder, rape, robbery, and felony assault are less than in some parts of the Village. And burglary, grand larceny (theft of more than $1,000), and auto theft is almost always lower in Harlem than in the Village.

Even in the face of these statistics, my white peers were unwilling to admit that their community may be a dangerous one, and Harlem may not be as dangerous as they had assumed. But instead they tried to quell the dissonance in their minds, for Harlem is a Black and Latino place, and Blacks and Latinos must be very dangerous people. Furthermore the Village has a lot of White people in it, and White people can’t be more dangerous, more criminal than Blacks and Latinos, it just doesn’t make sense. So they attempted to explain away these discrepancies. “You know maybe there’re more valuable things to steal in the village. It could be people from other places committing crimes in the Village. There are a lot of college students in the Village, and you know college students get drunk and may become belligerent and do stupid things you know…”

I don’t really know. Is this to say that crime in the Village has a reason, is understandable, is okay, whereas crime in Harlem occurs because… because… you know…. because they’re Black? The more they spoke, the more they revealed to me their racist inclinations.

Malcolm X spoke of how the media and American society through many channels twists the perception of people in Harlem to create an image of savagery and criminality. This, he suggested, created a spirit of urgency and fear in the law enforcement officers so that they heavily and brutally police these neighborhoods, which caused anger in Harlem residents and creates a vicious cycle of fear and hatred. From the 60s, to the year 2007, has it changed? Has society’s perceptions changed?

Roll Out!

I just went to see "Transformers" and "Live Free or Die Hard." Both really high impact, thrilling, action-packed movies. I loved it, especially Transformers. But man, why is our culture so imbued with this shoot em up violence soaked mentality? I concede that I am part of this group of people who love to watch violent heroes saving the day through punches, kicks, assault rifles and explosions...

I've been socialized that way but I think a way out of such a mentality is worth looking into. A culture, epitomized by movies like these, allow a coward like George W. Bush to walk on to a air craft carrier and have Americans applaud. It allows world leaders to forestall social programs, food, and education for weapons. It allows our leaders to bomb other countries, talk about war and payback and revenge and striking back and being strong, and flexing, and proving how powerful we are, and putting on this constant show of force while children in the most powerful country on earth go to sleep hungry. I recently heard that Pakistan is constructing or has already constructed a third plutonium reactor in order to expand its nuclear weapons cache... Pakistan! that has more than a quarter of its people living in abject poverty! Don't think this is a problem islolated to so called "third-world" countries. The US government is currently spending BILLIONS of dollars to fight a losing unjustified war in Iraq while forty million Americans are uninsured, while people die on the streets because they have no home, and while millions receive a poor education with no music, art, or alternative programs!

The point is, the people of the world, the people of the United States, allow this to happen. "We don't want to seem like a bunch of sissies." "We have to show the world what we're made of." We've bought into this machismo, this male stereotyped bullshit that the only way to stand up is with a fist. What about showing the world that we're made of compassion, of reason, of the fabrics that weave the most admirable aspects of humanity? Now I'm not a pacifist, but I'm working on it. People told Mahatma Ghandi during World War II that if Hitler were allowed to continue on his conquest without violent reisistence he would cause the world extreme pain and death. Ghandi's response was rhetorical. He asked whether the current war had caused no pain or loss.

I do not know what a world without war, without armies, and without weapons would look like. But do we not have an imagination? Have we been prohibited to dream by some unstoppable power? We invent machines that can fly, replace vital organs, have cloned animals, have dissected the entire human genome, sent men and women to space, but cannot devise a way to solve conflicts peaceably? Nonsense. There are many who would have us believe that we cannot, that we should not dream such dreams and to do so is idiocy. Those who would have us believe this are many times gun manufacturers, generals, presidents, politicians and others who gain power from that belief.

Let's dare to dream people. Let us dream of heroes and sheroes that don't hold guns, revolutionaries that don't blow shit up, and leaders that don't have to die. Like I said before, I love Transformers, but we don't necessarily need a talking mac truck, with a deep booming voice and all types of missiles and guns attached to his arms to make significant change. Help me out, let's dare to dream.

The Corner

The corner isn’t just for drug pushers, prostitutes, or winos. Everyone needs to spend some time on the corner. That corner of your mind carved from the rest of your preoccupations with a big sign that reads, ME ONLY. Everyone needs one of these corners. It has to be carved in a way where only you could possibly fit through the door, only you have the key, and only you know where it is. Think of it as your sanctuary, you know like the church in medieval Europe where one running from the king, goons, or any other enemy could go to as a refuge, where they would be safe from “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” Only this sanctuary would do best outfitted with padding, soundproof, and like a bomb shelter able to withstand a nuclear holocaust, and a surround sound system, with a lot of bass, and queued with your favorite tunes, some deep shit, some shit that makes you slip into a sort of coma, a blissful one, and you may want to have some marijawana there if that’s your thing. Yeah everyone needs such a corner. You can’t go to this corner all the time, you have to go there sparingly, otherwise it becomes the refuge of a coward. Even superman needed a fortress of solitude. Surly we lowly humans need at least a corner. A corner to live when the world seeks your death. Give it a name if you want, get a tattoo with its name on your shoulder, make it your imaginary friend and give it a kiss once in a while. Whatever the hell you do, just make sure you get one.

Awakening

You hear that silence inside that causes violence to rise...
Cause you're not doing what you supposed to.

You dwindle and die as your nerve starts to shy...
Because you ain't man enough.

you're mind starts to shrivel as your soul starts to chisel...
Casue you've waisted your time.

Your heart stops to beat as you die in the heat of life...
Because you didn't quench that thirst.

I pray, "Not me Lord!"

So I open my eyes and my pulse starts to climb
cause I say fuck that!

My feet hit the street cause I refuse to be beat
cause I know God made me.

My fists start to clench as I grab my tools and wrench
cause this world's got some fixing to be done.

My heart starts to skip cause I got ideas that flip
my whole reality upside down.

The corners of my mouth start to rise cause my soul bursts inside
cause I feel like a kid again.

It burns from inside and I know it's divine
cause my spirit tells me so.

I don't know where it leads but walking this road starts to feed
my sprit
and that's all that I need.

I start to live

Passion

What drives us? What makes life worth it? Passioin I think. That inklig in your stomach that tells you life is worth living, that there is that proverbial pot of gold at the end of life's rainbow, that idea that it is better to have loved and lsot than never to have loved at all, that thing inside me that says fuck stoicism I'll take the pain and relish in my joy. it may be safe but not worth living for. Right now... The only aspiration I have, is for me to live my life passionately. You have to pronounce it with an emphasized shhhhhh on teh ssion part of the word. yeah, passhhhionately. It almosta makes me shudder.

What a life

Today I turn 22. Dos dos. Twenty plus to. Thirty subtract eight. What the hell does it mean. Does this make me more of a man? Am I closer to anything? Death maybe? It doesn't really carry a lot of meaning, it's just like... Damn, that's another notch on my life.

I teach 6th grade in the South Bronx and I was telling my students about myself and I said something along the lines of, "Me being a ... You know a ... a person." it was hard and it's still hard for me to call myself a man. I don't know why. I always thought that the reason I never considered myself a man was because I was supported by my parents and it would be ridiculous to call myself a man while still sucking from the nipple of my parents' bank account. But now I live with my girlfriend and my son, I support them both, I own a car, I am a teacher, I have a moving business on the side, and I go to Grad school. Why the hell don't I consider myself a man?

I'm not sure but maybe it has something to do with this tattoo I want to get. I want to get this tattoo that is a Ghanian symbol for a warrior who has retired. It is two big, samurai-looking swords crossed. I want to get a big one on my back, a blade on each shoulder blade. But I think I can only get it, I will only be deserving of it when I achieve great things. When I go to battle. I believe in some sense of equality and I believe that we, as conscientious people, must battle with all forms of injustice that afflict ourselves and others. So I feel as though until I fight battles such as Martin Luther King, Malcom X, Mahatma Ghandi, Paul Robeson, and numerous others, I can't get my tattoo. I think my tattoo may be my manhood.

I hope to God that I want be writing this same pathetic, pitiful email when I'm 30, or 40, or 50. Geezus. "Thirty, three zero, forty subtract ten..." I may have to slit my wrists with my Ghanian swords.