Okay good afternoon class. Right can we settle down. Rose turn around please. We've got a lot get through today.
Okay…so carrying on from our lesson last week…we were looking at the key divisions in the early stages of the civil rights movement…
Again
And the general impact across the board
Sam come on. Sit up straight. Alright, stop slouching.
This is the perfect opportunity for you to engage so make the most of it.
But we learn the same stuff every year for Black History month, every single October we learn the same things. Either Apartheid, Slavery or the Civil Rights.
How many of you guys have actually learned something new these last few years?
See, that's what I mean.
Sam, this is our history, come on man.
Nah, seriously...Do you guys know anything about Ralph Bunche, the first Black person to win a Nobel prize?
Or that the richest person ever lived was a black man named King Musa I of Mali? What about Ella Baker? What about Ella Baker?!
(General Mutter)
Actually, I know who Ella Baker is.
One of the most influential women, of the civil rights movement...
...this is why I can't take Black History Month seriously man.
(Music Starts)
But Samuel the curriculum is designed to help you think about Black History critically.
Actually Miss, it's designed to teach us what to think. Not how to think.
For example, when that light switched.
You taught us it was Thomas Edison who made that happen.
When ironically it was actually a darker man who made that light flick, Lewis Latimer to be precise.
Quite nice when you're talking about Mr. Hamilton and his racing car - but red light, stop.
We're always taught that Martin Luther King had a dream man
But those dreams can't be achieved because our brains are in chains, our minds are enslaved so we won't get our redemption, Morgan free-man.
Will we ever be free man?
And leave this state of imprisonment and take that walk of free-damn.
It, green man from a traffic light invented by the same man who made gas masks to protect our organs.
Another free man, named Garrett Morgan.
But I bet you never knew that.
We need to open our minds but how can we be taught to see if the blind lead the blind?
The first person to develop significant eye surgery was a black woman named Dr. Patricia E Bath.
Now on that note there's a question I must ask.
If this is a great opportunity to learn and be engaged about our past, why are we not actually being taught about our past?
Transatlantic slavery where we're taught black history starts but is it really?
There seems to be a lot you haven't told us, and you shut down and hold back on the bold ones who stand against the way you're trying to mould us.
Consistent enemies of progress, you're surprised because I know things you don't expect me to know yet.
And when I tell you you're wrong for telling me about me, you call it a riot while I call it a protest.
The Broadwater Farm riots, the media exacerbate and make it seem like it's a bunch of delinquent youths on the streets.
When really the first causing trigger was death at the hands of the police.
We cease to know information and the truth, and that's simply because you withhold information from the youth.
Maybe, maybe one day we'll be satisfied with how our knowledge of history equates.
Well I'm sure like me, you're waiting for the teacher to fill in that space.
So do so then....
Umm....no answer.
Well maybe I can help and just throw out there some names.
Mary Seacole, a Crimean war nurse.
Mary Prince a black female author, to be precise she was the first.
Bernie Grant, influential local activist and respected MP.
Trevor McDonald, one of the first black ITN journalists to hit the TV screen.
Jamal Edwards and SBTV.
And when Fuse ODG brought the Azonto dance to the UK
And my foot swayed to the left and to the right like the wipers of a cars windscreen.
And DJ Abrantee brought Afrobeats to the streets.
See it's funny when we think of our childhood memories. A man who was actually funny, Lenny Henry.
Many others and the list continues...
Marcus Garvey, Haile Selassie, Bob Marley, Ignatius Sancho, Tupac, Fela Kuti, Muhammad Ali, Maya Angelou R.I.P
Kwame Nkrumah the first Ghanaian president who retained independence from England.
The Windrush ship which brought Caribbeans to Britain.
So much to learn in just one month, a tip of the iceberg, a tiny grace.
And what was the first black Roman Emperor's name?
Years passed and we're still caught up in the same Civil Rights age.
Which isn't bad if you learn something new. But we don't.
And we're not being taught enough about our culture so there's no one else to blame but you, and if not you then who?
Questions, questions, questions.
If you're not teaching us these things then I'm inclined to believe it's because you don't - know.
No.
You're the teacher, your job is to teach so you must know, and if you do that must mean you don't want us to know - but that's low.
If the information is accessible for our knowledge of our culture to grow, then why on earth wouldn't you want to let us know?
Why are you focused so heavily on the influential but very few men and women who made things happen for us?
Why are my people being highlighted for a predominantly negative past?
Why do I know the things that you don't, and I'm not the teacher, you are?
Why are you focused on our negative past but not on our bright future?
Why are you not abreast with the great young things that people are doing in this world?
Why are young people's trademarks and stereotypes; gang culture and young pregnant girls?
Why are the young people not being given the time of day?
And his name was Septimius Severus by the way.
I'm sure as a student, the code of conduct has been breached. So I'll stop here and let you do your job.
So teach.
"Yo people, how's it going? It's your boy Samuel King, this is my poem "What I Wasn't Taught In School" and you're watching Word On The Curb!"