- October 24, 2021
- Comments: 0
- Posted by: admin
It’s shameful we have circled back to this point in ethnic history.
I am a College Station girl–I grew up there–and, though I moved away for a couple of years, I’m back home on my family’s land.
I’m a Porter, youngest daughter of Austin Sr. and Georgia (“Kitten,” as most called her) and my siblings are Tarar, Rosalind, and Austin Jr. I graduated from Wilbur D. Mills High School in 1989. During that time, I was probably in the minority in that I grew up in a two-parent household. My family was considered middle class.
My father is an Army veteran and worked his way up to being an addiction therapist for the Veterans Administration hospital. I had the dad who came to my school and had images depicting “these are your lungs … these are your lungs on drugs.” Thinking about that makes me laugh now.
My mother owned Kitten’s Beauty Salon in East End. Sometimes I wouldn’t see her for an entire day. My parents worked and earned their middle-class designation.
My 14-year-old son is attending Mills Middle School and is an upcoming football star. He’s played football since he was 5, and his coaches and random parents often remind me how very evident to them his experience is. To watch him on the field initially was scary, as my mind traveled almost immediately to the propensity for him getting injured.
Working for the VA Medical Center myself for 30 years has unfortunately afforded me incredible first-hand knowledge of the other side of combat injuries, physical and mental. Football can cause the same types of injuries, and I can’t help but be afraid.
As the years progressed and my son’s skills increased, it became evident that his God-given talent is football. I became an amateur photographer for about five years of his youth football career.
That brings me to present day. I pulled out my camera after a few years of storage. His first game was in September. He
is clearly back in his element, as his performances so far have been stellar. Mills has played White Hall, Maumelle, Jacksonville, and Pulaski Academy so far this season.
As I photographed the games he played, I started paying attention. Each of the teams has three to four more coaches than Mills’ two. Maumelle has four coaches, and the defensive coordinator has a whole headset. I counted and photographed six coaches on the Pulaski Academy staff.
The cheerleaders for the other teams were nicely uniformed, wore the same hairstyles, carried pom-poms, and were clearly well coached.
Mills’ cheerleaders wore white T-shirts and jeans and sat in the stands. After the game, as I waited for my son, I noticed the other team’s cheerleaders and players had PA-themed backpacks with the school’s emblem on them.
I watched as Mills’ Comets played their hearts out, catching interceptions and gaining 20 to 30 yards or scoring a touchdown, only for the referees to call some penalty and take it back. The opponents would make what appeared to be the same moves our team would be penalized for, but would go unpunished.
Even the referees seemed to favor the other teams; that’s just an observation, not meant to be accusatory.
As a parent on the field, chronicling these games, I felt the same frustrations that parents in the stands expressed verbally. As I waited on my son, some of his teammates approached me, and we talked for a minute. I could see and feel the disappointment in their faces and voices and empathized with them, doing all I could to encourage them to keep their heads up. I hoped they didn’t see my own frustrations with what’s going on.
What is palpable is that predominantly white schools get more funding appropriated to them. They’re built in “white suburbia” where the students’ parents work in corporate America. They are business owners, physicians, attorneys, and judges, or are involved in other lucrative careers. Money is already there.
Because of this, I understand the origin of the phrase “soccer mom.” These moms don’t necessarily have to (and choose to not) work because their significant others make more than enough money to support the household, or they come from rich families. This affords them the ability to stay home, pick up their children and run car-pools transporting them from school to soccer (or some other sport or extracurricular activity) practice.
You may ask: What about PTA and other parent-teacher committee meetings? Or some kind of parent booster committee or staging fundraisers to provide possibilities for the community around our schools to generate funding?
Thank you, but let me explain. Most of the families in these communities endure the following scenario: One parent, usually the male, is partially to non-existent for whatever reasons; therefore, the mother has to work, but not in an office where she can wear professional clothing and have a comfortable environment. She has to work in a restaurant, fast-food joint, hotel, hospital, factory, store warehouse, etc. She isn’t a receptionist or in a managerial position. She’s a waitress, an associate, a housekeeper, on the line, or stocking.
She’s the sole breadwinner for her household, and more likely than not she leaves one job and goes to another. She has to solicit help from family members or friends to drop her kids off and/or pick them up, depending on the shift she works and the number of jobs.
This scenario is more common in these communities than you think. Not all mothers choose to receive government assistance. They choose to work to provide for their families. This puts them at a disadvantage. Why? Because the jobs they work or the fact that they work more than one causes extreme exhaustion. This means that they’re too tired to attend any type of meeting, or can’t because they’re working. Any time off has to be for doctor’s appointments that are probably not for her but for her children.
But she also has to be present as much as possible for her family. This means she has to spend the little time she may have making sure they get attention from her by meals, checking homework, doing hair, or just listening to them talk about their day. Then she has to get a few hours of sleep, get up and start all over again.
Is this you? If it isn’t, can you imagine living this life? Do you know anyone who does? If you’re white and affluent or even just comfortable, probably not.
An article published in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on May 11, 2021, about the ongoing desegregation case, referred to Mills University Studies High School as serving “less affluent and more Black students” in comparison to Joe T. Robinson Middle School, which is described as serving “more affluent and white students.”
Many know this case is citing serious inequities between the districts and facilities of Robinson Middle School and newly built Mills University Studies High School, suggesting funding for the latter was misappropriated and “funneled” into the other. I’m digging deeper, though.
It’s obvious to me that these facilities are vastly different, sure. Students attending the “more affluent” predominantly white schools report to school after having a great night’s sleep in comfortable beds in large homes or luxury apartments/condominiums surrounded by electronic devices and wake up to a hot shower and a freshly prepared hot breakfast.
The percentage of these students–wearing their name-brand clothing and shoes, climbing into their parents’ luxury vehicles and arriving at school happy as larks to join their equally happy friends–is incredibly large. The percentage of students in the “less affluent and more Black” communities, who have an experience in stark contrast, is also incredibly large.
I’m not suggesting a handout or anything of the sort. I’m calling on school officials, school board members, community, city, county, state, and federal officials, local political officials, and others seemingly in power to disrupt the paradigm. Appropriate the funding to the schools that need it and should have had it initially. Stop kicking these communities that are seemingly down and considered “less affluent” or “substandard” and then telling them, with smiles on your faces, that you are doing no such thing.
It is preposterous that we are still in this space of perpetuating inequity. Even those members of other ethnicities who are fortunate enough to get citizenship after illegally crossing our borders are given everything ancestors of Black ethnicity fought and died for.
I’ve never seen more ethnic-based grocery stores, businesses (such as nail salons), restaurants, neighborhoods, festivals, etc., since I have in the last 10- 15 years, and I’ll be 50 next year. I recently noticed an apartment complex that used to be Brentwood now has an ethnic-based name: Villa De Cancun.
Along with our ancestors, local community activists from the 1960s and ’70s such as Annie Mae Bankhead (who, because of my father fighting by her side, I had the privilege of spending a lot of my childhood with), Daisy Gatson Bates, Wilma Walker, attorney John Walker, and countless others fought for the rights and equality for the underprivileged and underserved communities. Yet we are still here.
It is beyond the time for discussions. This conversation has gone on for decades with no results. It is beyond the time for planning. Your plans are not laid or executed proportionately. It is beyond the time for marches, speeches, and other such protests. In this moment, we’re killed during peaceful protests.
It is never beyond time to do the right thing.
Kellaneese Porter-Parker is a member of the College Station community and mother of an eighth-grade Comet.
Print Headline: Time's up
Copyright © 2021, Northwest Arkansas Newspapers LLC. (NWA Media)
All rights reserved.
This document may not be reprinted without the express written permission of Northwest Arkansas Newspapers LLC. Please read our Terms of Use or contact us.
Material from the Associated Press is Copyright © 2021, Associated Press and may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press text, photo, graphic, audio and/or video material shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium. Neither these AP materials nor any portion thereof may be stored in a computer except for personal and noncommercial use. The AP will not be held liable for any delays, inaccuracies, errors or omissions therefrom or in the transmission or delivery of all or any part thereof or for any damages arising from any of the foregoing. All rights reserved.
