1001 Black Men–#139

This drawing is based on a man I saw at a bookstore in Alameda. He was actually sitting on a chair backwards, with his hands dangling over the back of it. I replaced the chair with a image evoking the circular railing around the rotunda in the Wisconsin state legislature. Not surprisingly, the Wisconsin uprising has been on my mind a lot this week. After all, I was raised by two public school teachers, two of my grandparents were public school teachers, and at least one of my great-grandparents was a public school teacher. Not only did the teachers in my family provide a loving and stable home for me; the teachers in my primary and secondary school classrooms changed my life by opening to me a world of critical thinking and intellectual inquiry. At my overwhelmingly white public high school, in particular, I got the kind of rigorous, academically challenging education that Black kids aren’t supposed to be able to get. My teachers believed in me, and I believe in them…and in their right to collective bargaining.

8-Rock

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