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December 30, 2009
PLATANOS AND COLLARD GREENS (AND MATZOH BALLS)
By Profesor Martin Danenberg
"El Quijote del GED"
PAY PAL NOTICE
Something new in 2010. You can now order the GED program. It is so simple! Click on the word clic above my article (in the white section on the right). By clicking you can go to my website and find "Services" to order the GED program in English or Spanish. See the Pay Pal there. Thank you for taking this important, powerful step in your life. I really hope that a job or higher education awaits you, even induction into the military. Your future is important!
I sat in the audience watching Platanos and Collard Greens saying to myself the things I hoped to share with the audience as they laughed (roaring at times) at things in the play. Racism causes us pain and does make us laugh at things, too. It is like watching someone fall down. Many people laugh at the sight of someone taking a spill before they offer help to that person. Any way I sat there saying to myself platanos, collard greens, and matzoh balls. Here I was close to an hour and a half from my home networking with African-Americans and Hispanics and hardly a Jew in sight. Haitian-Americans, Hip-Hop, Salvadorans in the United States and in El Salvador, Dominicans everywhere from Washington Heights to San Pedro de Macorís, Puerto Rico, African-Americans from Coop City in the Bronx to Far Rockaway to Riverhead, Long Island, Caribbean-Americans from the Bronx to Farmers Boulevard in Queens all know who has been there for them. This is a story rich in tacos, pupusas, fried chicken, sancocho, and much more. People have to get educated and yes the play is educating people. I spoke briefly with dozens in the audience (about 250 attended the play). I am the cooperating partner of Queen Makkada and William Bell, the father of Sean Bell. Sean Bell's name was added to the script. Queen Makkada introduced me to Jamillah Lamb and her husband David, the author of Platanos and Collard Greens.
William Bell was just returning to Queens from City Hall where Mayor Bloomberg announced street namings, including a street stretching three blocks named for Sean Bell and he could not attend the performance in IS/MS 42 Q. These three blocks were close to the site of Sean Bell's death by the hands of New York City police. Crime is down in New York City and so is the number of police killed (nationwide). A gentleman in the audience drives a bus and asked for William Bell because they worked together. We talked about the violence that has become such a normal fact of life in neighborhoods, violence that should never have been normal. The man instantly recognized the importance of the initiative that I am pushing for New York State and our entire nation. The youth who are 17 and 18 have been allowed to stray into that violence (crime and gangs) for decades. We have had campaigns to promote many things, including education, but nothing specifically like the one that I want. I want every youth to earn a diploma in the United States, either high school diploma or GED. We have to get these youth totaling close to 4 million across our nation and close to 200,000 in New York City turned on to education instead of guns and trouble.
I CALL UPON ALL ADULTS IN FAR ROCKWAY TO RISE UP AND MAKE SURE EVERYONE GETS EDUCATED SO THE COMMUNITY CAN GET BETTER AND BETTER. DONT' WE WANT TENS OF THOUSANDS MORE YOUTH IN COLLEGE AND OTHER SCHOOLS INSTEAD OF DOING NOTHING?
MARTIN N. DANENBERG
7 BLAZER DRIVE
ISLANDIA, NEW YORK 11749
631-348-1341
GEDHOTLINE@AOL.COM
www.ahorre.com
www.ahorre.com/ged
www.geocities.com/gedhotline
www.aspira.org
Profesor Martin Danenberg December 30, 2009 05:42 AM