The G Bitch Spot

The League of Women Voters has candidate guides for state senator, state representative, and parish office races for civil, criminal and traffic court. Candidate data for statewide offices, including BESE seats, are here, including PDFs of candidate responses to questions posed by the League. Unfortunately for BESE district 2, Louella Givens gave no response to the questions. That’s really too bad. Kira Orange Jones touts her story of success ["from remedial classes to a degree from Harvard!"] and a “concern” for “children,” but otherwise hides behind these platitudes and buzz words ["student achievement outcomes for students," "capacity to orient others towards a vision for state wide student achievement" and "stakeholders"] so that, similar to Jindal’s gubernatorial campaign, many words and phrases are used but no specifics are revealed. Her individual success does not mean that she can offer success to other students, regardless of her position in the state. What does her life story have to do with what BESE has control over, what direction it and education in the state will take? What—I did it and so can you? Not only logically suspect but intentionally distracting. What is it that she and her allies want done, and she does have allies? Will any of them admit it in public? And why is “reform” a top-down mandate with no concern for “collateral damage” or community voices/concerns or the shortcomings and flaws of the ideology driving “school” [NOT "education"] “reform”?

That said, your vote is your choice. Take the time to investigate and do not fall for the easy buzz phrases and self-serving attacks against others. What is more important to you, that a candidate is less than a perfect person or what that person, or the one slandering that less-than-perfect person, believes in and intends to do or stop once in office? Hidden agendas don’t mean that no agendas exist. And anyone who pretends that school financing and stubborn social problems have nothing to do with student “achievement” is blowing smoke so far up your ass it’s leaking out your eye sockets.

You still have time to register for the crime summit at UNO tomorrow.

Something absolutely has to change, and I hope tomorrow galvanizes those attending and everyone else who’s been watching the same shit happen over and over. I’ve seen the aftermath of these explosions. I want to know what I can do, too.

And then maybe we can look at the girls, our daughters. Every year I have taught in NOLA, I have had too many young women not done with high school or starting college with 1-2 children. I know I see the most determined and supported ones, and that for each there are a dozen others I don’t see in a college classroom. I see them pushing their babies down the street in strollers or holding them by the hand [the other hand usually holding a cell phone], or balancing one on a hip to cross the street. So what about them? Can we actually have a summit on that, on the too many girls with babies? Or is that much harder? When you talk about babies, you must talk about sex and talk about sex gets very politicized and filtered through one religion or several and information gets distorted or left out or falsely discredited. The Girl’s health textbook takes the hard sell scare-’em line to promote abstinence as the only sensible option. Textbook publishers aren’t going to print texts school systems won’t buy; I understand that. So we critiqued the text with her, a conversation she started, and I gave her the link to scarleteen, which covers everything, respectfully. Everything. Really. From squirting to masturbation to vulvas and anal sex and bisexuality to penises and “A Basic Kinktionary.” But she’s my daughter and I can do that. Someone else’s daughter? If she asks me, if she is a student of mine, yes, I will give her honest, appropriate answers. I have to. She needs to know. You can’t make wise choices if you don’t have good information.

information, though, is not enough. Like one meeting is not enough. The hardest thing to do is have a group conversation, and we’ve failed before. But one of the few things we can all agree on, across all lines and barriers, is that too many young black men are involved in murders. I hope that common ground makes the difference this time.