Welfare Pimps to the Rescue

If you meet enough poor people or crazy people you’ll eventually run into the term “Black Power Structure.” This is the name that disenfranchised whites (and a few politically active Latinos) have given to Black people who have garnered a little bit of power in the inner city. These Black people are professionals in local government and social services; in the eighties the followers of Ronald Reagan used to (not so secretly) call them “welfare pimps.”

Well, whatever their current name, the Black middle class was out in full force last night to support Superintendent Bernard Taylor and his six figure salary as he faced the ax and a very pissed off KCMO school board.

The speakers in support of Taylor included leaders of several black community groups and three current or former state legislators.

Taylor, who took leadership of the embattled district 4½ years ago, was surprised and heartened by the turnout.

“I really had no idea that many people would care about this,” Taylor said. “What I take away from tonight is that this has not been an easy road, but it has been, oh, so worth it.”

The Black professional class in KC takes good care of one another. Never mind that Taylor has an abysmal record, never mind that his administration is marked by not only low test scores by students in the KCMO School District but he has also failed to come up with any workable strategy for budget cuts. Additionally, his high rolling/condo dwelling lifestyle is simply an embarrassment to a district with teachers earning paltry wages.

The reign of Dr. Taylor has been an unmitigated train wreck. Still, the Black professional class in KC doesn’t want to lose one of their own. Surprisingly, they trumpet orgainzations like Freedom Inc. and NAACP as if those groups still mean something. But the heyday of those organizations is over and now they are almost universally recognized merely as lobbying groups that only serve to promote the careers and pocketbooks of their employees and not the Black community overall. Yeah, I’ll admit I’m not an expert on how Black people feel about the NAACP or Freedom Inc. but I’d like to see somebody defend their “moral authority” with a straight face.

Since the civil rights movement, both organizations have become more adept and running shakedowns for their own benefit rather than working for the overall good of their people. And the worst part of all of this is that the middle class Blacks rushing to Taylor’s defense don’t realize that they are unwittingly impairing the majority of poor Black kids who attend schools in the district. By encouraging Taylor’s mediocrity they are leaving the school district in the hands of an incapable administrator who has failed in every facet of his post. And even more disgustingly, they do this with the thinly veiled assertion that they are there to help the interests of Black people.

But you know what? I’m not Black so it’s really up the them. It’s their bad decision to make; just like gold teeth, expensive rims or those stupid pants that MC Hammer used to wear.

In all of this, the Latino community has abandoned all hope in the KCMO schools. Awhile ago, I spoke with a former school board member and she says that the public schools in KCMO “are not for us.” I looked at her bewildered and she explained, “I don’t think the problems can ever be fixed. As far as Latinos are concerned, we’re better off looking for other alternatives for the education of our children.” True enough, my parents worked, slaved and sweated so that I wouldn’t have to endure a failed system where politics and over-priced administrators are more important then the education of students.