Life and other complicated issues

I really should change the template on this blog but it is such a hassle to find one, install it, blah-blah-blah. Besides, I post so erratically that about only - what - 5 or so people even still visit this blog. Not even sure why I even keep this blog over here on blogger. I guess I could eventually transfer it over to WordPress. O.K., enough with the random mind ramblings.

Some of you may or may not know that I am an educator by profession (don't judge me based on the typos, misspellings, and dangling participles you find on this blog.) While teaching has been hard every year, I found this past year especially challenging. I moved to a new district and was assigned a higher grade. These students had so many challenges in their personal lives that couldn't help but spill over into their academic lives. There were a few that I was able to help pull up out of the black hole that our brown babies tend to slip into, but there was one little boy who I couldn't reach for the life of me.

For the sake of privacy, we'll call him Chuck. Chuck was this gorgeous, brown boy that loved football, girls, and fighting. His problem is that he was two years behind academically. To add to that, he was also older than the other kids. Chuck's mom swore up and down that he wasn't retained in the past, and the reason he was behind was because he was born the last month of the year. Since we didn't have his records, we had to take her word.

Chuck was so promising. He held so much potential - in my eyes. The issue was that no one else saw it, including Chuck and his mother. She started asking if something "wrong" with him and if he needed to be tested. The reality was that his life was so saturated with negativity - from all the males in his life being locked up - to a mother who didn't know the meaning of encouraging. So, Chuck and I fought our way through the school year. At the end of the year, Chuck had barely made any progress. The plan was to get in summer school to try to help him move up, but last I'd heard Chuck never bothered to go.

Fast forward, yesterday I read in the local paper that a man sharing Chuck's name was killed by the police. My breathe was sucked out of me. I know how much this little boy looked up to the male figures in his life - no matter how tainted and damaged they were. I knew this was going to be a pivotal point in his life, if indeed the man who was killed was his father.

All of this comes on the heels of the CNN documentary, "Black in America." I am left feeling worried about the future of our children. As icons of the past generations continue to leave us to take on the work, I don't see anyone stepping up to the plate. I do what I can but it takes a toll. How many of us are out here putting in the work to uplift our community while others are just out here grinding - in whatever form or fashion? Someone on the CNN documentary said it best, too many of our brothers are caught up in the arena of self-sabotage. They learn it at an early age, because I saw it in my classroom. As soon as it seemed they were ready to move forward, they would do something to set themselves back two steps. This was the story of my father's life.

The question I want to pose is, do black men have it harder in this country than black women?