Lola Jumps the Cattle Guard

So much is So wrong

Systematic oppression. Institutionalized trauma. Cyclical poverty. These are concepts that swirl through my thoughts regularly. As I watch how the veteran teachers treat students that they have arbitrarily labeled as “hopeless,” “dumb,” “apathetic,” “lazy,” or “disabled.” As I listen to stories of drug abuse, broken homes, despair, hunger, and gang violence. As I see my school get resources half as often as every other school in our district (example: social workers go to all other schools once a week, but come to mine once every two weeks because we’re so far away). As I think of Eduardo Galeano’s quote: “How many times have I been a dictator? How many times an inquisitor, a censor, a jailer? How many times have I forbidden those I most loved freedom and speech? How many people have I felt I owned? How many people have I sentenced because they committed the crime of not being me? Is it not more repugnant to hold people as private property than things? How many people have I used, I who thought myself so marginal to the consumer society? Have I not desired or celebrated, secretly, the defeat of others, I who aloud claimed no interest in success? Who fails to reproduce, within himself, the world that makes him? Who is free from confusing his brother with a rival and the woman he loves with his own shadow?”. As I battle the guilt associated with even contemplating quitting such and underserved population, school, and student. As I question my efficacy of service. As my principal tells me that our school is out of supply funds for the rest of the year. As I have to request that my student not be suspended for kicking me so that we don’t waste the time that he could be using to learn how to control his emotions and develop his academic skills. Making desperate attempts to try to break the perpetuation of dysfunction. I can't help but be dumbstruck and overwhelmed. I can't help but question whether my student's family will follow through on transferring him to a school with better resources. I can't help but wonder if it will actually be an improvement.


The Nobodies written by Eduardo Galeano

Fleas dream of buying themselves a dog, and nobodies dream
of escaping poverty: that one magical day good luck will
suddenly rain down on them- will rain down in buckets.
But good luck doesn't even fall in a fine drizzle, no matter
how hard the nobodies summon it, even if their left hand is
tickling, or if they begin the new day with their right foot, or
start the new year with a change of brooms.
The nobodies: nobody's children, owners of nothing.
The nobodies: the no ones, the nobodied,
running like rabbits, dying through life, screwed every which way.
Who don't speak languages, but dialects.
Who don't have religions, but superstitions.
Who don't create art, but handicrafts.
Who don't have culture, but folklore.
Who are not human beings, but human resources.
Who do not have names, but numbers.
Who do not appear in the history of the world, but in the police blotter of the local paper.
The nobodies, who are not worth the bullet that kills them