A Weapon of Mass Distraction

Question. How do you enhance your chances of preventing oppressed people from overcoming their oppression?

Answer. There are many tools that can serve this purpose. One of them is the tool of distraction. (a) Distract their attention away from the oppression. (b) Allow them very little idle time, they might decide to organize and address their condition. This can be prevented by filling their idle time with distraction. (c) Clear thinking might lead to an understanding of their condition. Inhibit clear thinking by distracting them with confusion. These are but a few ways that distraction is used to prevent the oppressed from overthrowing their oppressor.

Question. Why do I make this point?

Answer. Because I am an educator, and I want my readers to understand that “education” in the hands of the oppressor is a tool of oppression.

A Weapon of Mass Distraction. For Black children public education is a weapon of mass distraction. It distracts attention away from our oppression. Where in schools (run by those outside of our community[1]) do Black children learn that as Afrikan people we are oppressed? Where do they learn who oppresses us? Where do they learn strategies for collectively overcoming our oppressors?

For Black children public education is a weapon of mass distraction. It allows students (and parents) very little idle time. The life of an African American child in grades K-12 is filled with the drudgery of mastering meaningless minutiae. Those that don’t master it adequately are often shuffled off to prison/jail where the state will confine them and provide their basic needs. Others are resigned to a life of hustling to satisfy basic needs. At the other extreme, those who do learn to master meaningless minutia are often shuffled off to employment, where they are resigned to a life of hustling to satisfy basic needs.

For Black children, public education is a weapon of mass distraction. It inhibits clear thinking with profound confusion. “America is the land of the free” but “Your people’s history begins here in slavery.” “Columbus discovered American” but “He met 500 Nations of Indians when he got here.” “Black people are lazy” but “We traveled across an ocean to get them to pick our cotton for us.” “We love freedom and democracy” but “We frequently travel overseas to bomb the bejesus out of people who don’t practice it our way.” “You need to come to school to learn” but “We will suspend you if the teacher doesn’t like your facial expression or the tone of your voice.”

Precious few are those Black students who escape the onslaught of school with a mindset and skill set that positions them to help move the Black community towards freedom and independence. And those who do escape to be a service to our community do it in spite of rather than because of these institutions.

Liberating Education = A Weapon of Our Own. We can counter the effect of the schooling weapon, by providing liberating education to Black children in the space where we have them (e.g. after school, on the weekend, during the summer, around the house, and in our churches). The education we provide should help them to understand that they are born into a time where our race is under the foot of racism white supremacy. We should help them to understand that collectively we have a responsibility to eradicate racism white supremacy. We should help them to develop skills and dispositions that help them to fulfill that responsibility. In a recent article published in African American Learners, which is a journal sponsored by the Institute for the Study of the African American Child (ISAAC), we provide an example of liberating education for Black children. The goal was to give educators an idea of what it looks like in practice. If you have a chance, check it out.

For additional educational resources visit www.es2rp.org. Like us on Fakebook. That’s all I have to say about that… for now. We can change the world in just one generation by properly educating our children. We are going to win!

And remember… Have Fun!

Jomo W. Mutegi, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Science Education at the Indiana University School of Education in Indianapolis. He is also a member of the (ES)² Research Program, which works to advance STEM curricula that position people of African descent to improve their current social condition. To learn more about the (ES)² Research Program visit: www.ES2RP.org.

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[1] By “our community” I am referring to the community of Afrikan people who have committed themselves to eradicating the system of racism white supremacy and replacing it with justice. There are many Blacks who knowingly or unknowingly function as minions of the system of racism white supremacy and in doing so reify our oppression. They are not of “our community.”

Lessons from Lance Allwrong

*A Special Research Bytes Blog Report*

I listen to Mike and Mike in the morning. For those who do not know, it is a sports talk show. I prefer it to being scared to death by the morning “news.” Anyway… this morning was excruciatingly painful. For four hours I listened to the hosts and listeners drone on about the ethics related to Lance Armstrong’s use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs). I learn a lot when I listen to white folks discuss ethics. It was telling how many people actually thought it was OK that Armstrong (a) defrauded his colleagues, fans and financial sponsors by using PEDs, and (b) attacked innocent people who bore witness against him with physical threats, harassment, slander and legal action. The argument of many listeners was that, “He has done so much for cancer victims, he should not be judged too harshly for what is a minor infraction by comparison.”

Lesson #1. I’ve heard this argument before. I sometimes have my class read Harriett Washington’s book Medical Apartheid. One of the most common responses that white students give to the book is, “It’s terrible what they did[1] to the Blacks. But if they hadn’t done it we wouldn’t have all the medical advances we have today.” In the mind of white folks, the end justifies the means. This is lesson #1. Armed with this mental aberration, they will genocide an entire race of people. “It’s really bad to do it. But if we don’t get rid of the Indians where will we live?” They will enslave another race of people. “It’s really bad to do it. But if we don’t get the Africans who is going to pick this cotton?” They will feed you toxic food, criminalize your sons, use media to degrade your image, deceive you to get elected, experiment on you without your knowledge or consent, fabricate lies to start wars, molest your children, and more. And it will be done with the idea that, “It’s really bad to do it. But…”

Lesson #2. Back to Lance Allwrong. Listening to this four-hour talkfest, not once did anyone offer any self-reflection. By this I do not mean reflection on the individual self, but reflection on the whole of Western culture. There was no “cultural critique.” During one commercial I saw a movie trailer for a new Sylvester Stallone film. How old is he now, 200? …Anyway, he’s still doing action films and he looks good. I wonder if he is taking Performance Enhancing Drugs (or at least Appearance Enhancing Drugs). How can a 200 year old man maintain the body of a fit 40 year old? Right after that another commercial came on asking me if I get sleepy around 2:00pm. The announcer then encouraged me to take a 5-Hour Energy. That way, when my body tells me I need to rest, I can ignore it, take a PED, and work right through dinner to enrich someone else. I didn’t see the Viagra commercial this morning, but it did come to mind. Maybe Congress should hold hearings around that PED and put its collective self in jail. In fact, when you consider the caffeine in soft drinks, coffee and energy drinks, alcohol, diet pills, male enhancement “medication,” Ritalin, Adderall (and other psychotropic drugs given to children), it seems that Lance Allwrong is alright in the Western world. Who isn’t on one or more PEDs. Dare we include nicotine, the “comfort” foods, that many use to self-medicate their depression, marijuana, and other illegal drugs? But alas, their hypocrisy knows no bounds. This is lesson #2. In many ways the Western world is like Oceania and its citizens walk around like Winston Smith drinking Victory gin all day to make the existence bearable.

Moving Forward. My dear parents, teachers and guardians of Black youth, do not feel that these lessons are too heavy for our children. We want our children to be critical readers of the word. But we also want them to be critical readers of the world. Present them with the following challenge, “Where do we see examples in the Western world of people operating on the idea that the end justifies the means? What is the consequence of that idea for the various people involved? Where do we find examples of profound hypocrisy among Western people? How are these ideas embedded in the culture of Western people? Based on what you know, how might non-Western cultural practices be different? Where do we see these ideas at work in science, technology, engineering and mathematics?” These are good questions for stimulating critical analysis of media. They also make good drive time conversation. If we don’t teach our own children, no one will.

And remember… Have Fun!




Jomo W. Mutegi, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Science Education at the Indiana University School of Education in Indianapolis. He is also a member of the (ES)² Research Program, which works to advance STEM curricula that position people of African descent to improve their current social condition. To learn more about the (ES)² Research Program visit: www.ES2RP.org.

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[1] Please note the past tense.