DEAR BLOODS (1969)

Dear Bloods,

There are two traditions within our culture that are worth looking at, for they tell us a great deal about our responses. One, we have been conditioned to turn off, short out, be cool; two, we have been often pushed to make something from nothing. The first response is a negative one. We did it, or do it, to survive surely—but at great cost to ourselves. We’ve learned how to bottle up anger, put our minds in a jar, wear a mask. The second is a creative urge. It too comes out of the need to survive. We were left with garbage; we turned it into some food. We were housed in debris; we turned it into musical instruments, arbitrary language we invented a colorful, innovative, economic, dramatic poetry out of it. We were fed with a religion of faggots and ghostly specters; we breathed magic into it. We heard tiny, thin Mickey Mouse strains and hammered that mess into the strongest, most vital music the world has ever known.

Out of which bag do you dip as students, thoroughly drugged by courses that overlook you, or malign you, lead you down blind alleys, over somebody else’s fence who ain’t right anyway, have you doing the minuet when that’s not what you’re all about—drugged to the point of dropping out, flunking out, fading out, copping out, messing up.

I have not met a student yet who didn’t have some dynamite ideas as to how to perfect the old History course; haven’t met a student who didn’t have a better reading list in mind for English 7 than the ones offered by the instructors; haven’t met a student yet who couldn’t update the Soc. 5 course. So why don’t students set up these courses in Experimental College, recruit students a few teachers (define ‘teacher’ in your own way), take the course and demand the credits and salary for the teacher? Something out of nothing is so much better than blowing a fuse.

Joyce Green and Marilyn Mitchell, Pre-Bac students tired of wasting time, have set up for Spring a course in Harlem Renaissance. The first meeting will take place on Monday, February 10th at 5:00 P. M. In Stieglitz 106. It will be offered as a substitute for English 7 or 8, or as an elective. Contact Joyce at TO 2-5766.

Loretta Noble, tired of superficial Soc. courses, has designed a substitute for 5 or an elective that will investigate the melting pot myth—in an attempt to find out what effect antagonist national, ethnic, and racial groups have on the politics, economics and temperament of this country. Contact Loretta at the dorm.

A student whose name I missed is designing a History I counter course. I know of 17 students who have postponed History I until ‘they fix it up!’ Fix it up yourselves.

On the assumption that all of you mumblers, grumblers, malcontents, workers, designers, etc. are serious about what you’ve been saying (“A real education—blah, blah, blah”), the Afro- American-Hispanic Studies Center is/was set up. Until it is fully operating (fall ’69), the responsibility of getting that education rests with you in large part. Jumping up and down, foaming at the mouth, rattling coffee-cups and other weaponry don’t get it. If you are serious, set up a counter course in the Experimental College. If you are serious, contact each other. If you are serious, contact Don Alport in Finley Center (Experimental College).

Serious
—Miss