On Bernie Sanders and North High School

On Sanders and North High School

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is coming to North High School on January 2, 2016. This is a good thing for North High School and Worcester.  Although it is not quite on the level of President Obama going to Worcester Voke, it is a big deal.

I cannot say I agree with Bernie Sanders on everything, but I agree that the excesses of capitalism need mitigation. Mr. Sander is trying to reduce the economic disparities of the profit system in order to save it from itself. Although he thinks this is revolutionary, it is not. Franklin Delano Roosevelt created the New Deal to save capitalism from collapsing in a crisis similar to the Great Recession of 2008.  Saving capitalism is almost a traditional or conservative political agenda.

I disagree with Mr. Sanders in that I do not think the profits system, economic disparities, and their superstructure of racism should be saved. Generation after generation, we go through an economic crisis of one sort or another. It is time we had a system where corporations are not legal persons and money is not speech.

Getting back to the issues of Senator’s Sanders visit to North High School, for years the students have been the butt of color blind racism. I remember when the old North High School on Salisbury St. was closed and the kids from the East Side had to go to a remodeled middle school building, the former Harrington Way Junior School.  Our children on this side of City did not have a new high school for 100 years.

In the 1990s the City had an opportunity to build a new high school. There was a discussion whether to build a New North High School or a New Voke. Some people suggested that the two high schools be combined. This discussion did not go far as many of the Voke Alums seems to look down on the students from North as not quite as good as the Voke kids. I have no other explanation for not combining the two schools except a sort of color blind racism.

Even after the new North High School was built, I remember  Councillor Konnie Lukes complained about the bad kids at North High School.  She quipped “ Maybe it was not a new building that they needed” I am even more upset that some of the teachers have taken the attitude of the need for full time police in the schools because of the “bad” kids. The hurtful words of the Marine who headed up JROTC comes to mind. Even the EAW says that the teachers need police protection because of bad students. All of this is hurtful and discouraging to the students.  Our children are no different than children elsewhere. I think color blind racism is a factor behind these comments and policies.

Kudos to Senator Sanders for choosing to come to this inner city school whose students have in many ways been emotionally and verbally abused by so many.  May this Bernie Sanders  event be the start of a good new year for North High, all of the children in Worcester, the City of Worcester, and Bernie Sanders.

I am not sure that Mr. Sanders will be the President of the United States. If he does become president, he can expect me to criticize him from the left for not doing enough.