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Mumia madness pushed me over the edge earlier this year, when Oakland teachers demanded to stage a teach-in on his behalf throughout the Oakland schools. This when Oakland students have among the lowest test scores in the state, and Oakland's scandal-plagued school system was on the verge of being taken over by the state.

Anyone who wants to improve Oakland schools must deal with the fact that a generation of black administrators has done as lousy a job educating black kids as the whites who came before them, and today many of them stand in the way of reform. (The good news is a majority of black parents and voters understand that, and attempts to race-bait school reformers, as Mayor Jerry Brown recently learned, don't work very well in Oakland anymore.)

Friday, the same day the news broke about Mumia's alleged confession, the San Francisco Chronicle ran an article about a school survey by a group of fed-up Oakland parents who toured classrooms and buildings and found appalling conditions, nauseatingly filthy bathrooms and broken glass on desktops. Why is no one marching about that? Why aren't Mumia's millions up in arms about the one in five American children still living in poverty?

One reason is because the answers aren't simple. There are no silver bullets that will magically end poverty in America or turn public schools into first-rate learning institutions. When it comes to the most pressing issues facing America's poor, like poverty and the shocking conditions in low-income schools, there are no white devils and black heroes anymore.
salon.com | July 10, 1999

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