Guest Post: "The Babies" by @Be_Pure

We are living in the most critical of times, times where the illusion of the “safety net of the black and Latino middle class” has proven itself to be even unsafe for the members who one day took refuge in it. Times where the historically black oppressed poor community can recognized with palpable reality that hope or its very idea, does not so much as reside in its hood. Yes, these are critical times. Yet, change can’t happen when the water is still. Therefore I am grateful for our collective pregnancy and pray the labor pain births revolutionaries.

I speak of revolution to remind you of what it is that motivates us all. I speak of babies because the urgency of their care continues to go unattended as if we have yet to realize that we can’t start, sustain, or succeed in any revolutionary agenda without warriors and warriors come into this world as babies.

As revolutionaries and concerned parents, we speak of a black male academic crisis. We speak of an education system that strips us of self-concept and robs us of our right to achieve. We speak of children in repeating the kindergarten, expelled in the first grade, and taken in handcuffs by the third. We speak of our 5th graders becoming parents. We speak of a school to poverty and prison pipeline. As we should.

But when will start talking about babies? Brethren, our children aren’t just failing in Kindergarten. Our black boys aren’t falling behind by 1st grade. Our kids aren’t showing of aggression and depression at 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade as a result of the education system alone. The truth is we are failing our children starting in the womb.
Science proves with certainty that brain development and brain wiring starts soon after conception and is permanently marked the first 6 months-18mnths, and months thereafter leading up to 5 yrs. Operative word: permanently. The same circuits that are developed the first 5 years to feel and understand empathy is the very same circuits used by the brain after year 5 to exert and process violence for life. The same circuits that are developed to process spoken language in a child by year 3 are the ones used by the brain to process written language and therefore literacy, after year 5 and for a lifetime. Circuits developed the first 6 to 18 months affect our lifetime’s mental health. And so forth.
The Establishment has known for decades that the way to break cycles of poverty is to change our approach to nutrition and education of babies ages 0-5. Their response? WIC, Food Stamps, State-paid daycare (no comment).
The way we think, feel, react, our ability to learn, manage stress, fight disease, and much more is permanently developed through our experiences ages 0-5. Our kids are going into school and life on day one not just ill-equipped, but unable to step into extraordinary achievement because of what we have done and not done to and for them, their first 5 years.
I can’t break down early childhood education and its social implications in one blog post, much less, as a guest. But I will say this, we can not sustain any revolution without putting an end to the feeding frenzy the system has on our community with every 5 year cycle. Our babies are systematic casualties of war, killed by friendly fire. Wiring babies for success is cheaper, simpler, and easier than mobilizing the public school system, though that also is necessary. It will not require school board meeting or overturning elected officials. It will not take bills passing House, Senate, and the Oval Office. It just requires us as a collective, taking the time to understand what to do, how to do it, and sharing it with young mothers and fathers.
Any takers? I’m here and ain’t going nowhere.