05 6 / 2012
"I understood education as a means of warding off death. You went to school to not go to prison. To not get shot. To not be, as my mother called them, an “If I had my gun” nigger standing on the corner. This is a product of the actual environment. In so many neighborhoods education must be about saving lives. But if you are ranger, this is slavery. Wonder took my father to French. And wonder to my father Nam. And wonder took my father to the Panthers. And wonder took him to my mother. And wonder carries me now to you. To see wonder daily reduced to plastic is another kind of death."
