The Sound of Silence: Reflections on a Trip to Our State Capitol
By Ernest Morrell

I recently spent a day in Sacramento with a group of 30 high school teens and 5 teachers from Los Angeles schools. These individuals are part of our Council of Youth Research, a decade-long collaboration between UCLA and Los Angeles students and teachers that focuses on developing youth researchers who can contribute valuable information to conversations about educational reform. Given that our focus this year is on the state of education in California, it made sense to take the trip up to Sacramento to speak to those who literally control the state and our public schools. So we loaded a bus of 40 individuals and headed North. We packed in a day of interviews with the likes of State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, and staffers of state assembly representatives and state senators. I should say that for the most part these luminaries and their offices were extremely gracious with their time and space and their responses to the queries of the youth will greatly assist them as they prepare their research reports, which will be presented at Los Angeles City Hall next Friday.

As I reflect upon the visit I guess my biggest enlightenment from our Youth Council trip to Sacramento came not from the interviews with the State Superintendent of Public Instruction or the Mayor, it did not come from insights offered by the staff of Speaker emeritus Karen Bass, nor did it emanate from the words of the other state senators and lobbyist that we encountered. My biggest enlightenment came in the few minutes we spent in the empty chambers of the California State Assembly and State Senate. Despite being in day 30 of a fiscal year with no budget, and despite the loss of 50 million dollars a day and countless state jobs, the members of the state congress, we were told, were on “recess.” What some might call vacation! So a week off for the 120 members of the state assembly and state senate will cost us another 350 million dollars. Never mind that paltry sum, we’re told the Governor might not sign a budget at all this year. Given that it is only the first of August, someone add up that dollar figure. To save time just multiply 1.5 billion dollars by the remaining number of months (5) and you will have the 7.5 billion dollars that we will lose added to the 1.5 billion we have already wasted and, well, you get the picture. When I say that my moment of illumination happened while in the State Assembly chamber I should be more specific; I say it was the sound of silence that got to me, but not only the silence of the chamber itself, but the quiet outside of the chamber, outside of the Capitol, through the streets of Sacramento, and ultimately across the state. It was the absence of protest, the absence of revolt that was the most disquieting of all. Of course most Californians are upset and the delay may cost some politicians their job in the upcoming midterm elections, but the anger, while palpable, has not translated into a coalesced movement or a collective demand for justice. After all, the state of California boasts a 1.8 trillion dollar annual gross domestic product, making us the 8th most powerful economy in the world, and we cannot pass what would amount to a 100 billion dollar budget? As I pondered these numbers and more while sitting amidst the echoing chamber walls looking down on 80 empty seats along with a group of 15-17 year olds who were wondering whether their teachers would be returning in the fall, or whether their academic year would be further shortened (it is already 175 days and shrinking), or whether all Los Angeles public school students would be receiving that excellent internationally competitive education they are entitled to, I longed for a little more chaos!

The G20 (i.e. Group of Twenty Nations) collectively control 85% of the world’s GDP and 80% of the world’s trade. Collectively they also create 99.8% of the world’s waste, pollution, and chaos. As a group however, when they meet today and tomorrow in Toronto, they are generally working to figure out how to maintain their collective economic hegemony. Under the guise of a debate between “austerity” (this word in quotes because the median citizen of the globe would hold a far different definition of the term austere) and “stimulus”, they collectively avoid any conversation about the responsibility that comes along with privilege. The agenda is one that frames economics as the science of understanding financial markets and not the politics of accumulation and alienation that have configured so much power and wealth in the hands of so few and at the expense of so many. Even in these democratic nations many many people are denied access to this accumulated wealth. So the protests at the event are warranted, and I wish the organizers and activist luck in this regard. Because under the pretense of security the organizers of this event are doing everything they can to eliminate civil disobedience and the democratic imperative. The long-term goal, however, requires us to create an agenda that redefines economy to include the science of the impacts of capital accumulation on the lives of real people! Here are a few items that might be included in a more authentic G20 Summit:
1. The concentration of global poverty in black and brown and female bodies
2. The concentration of global poverty in Africa and Asia
3. The increasing gap between rich and poor in the G20 nations
4. The impact of corporate hegemony on the environment
5. The economics of war
6. Educational attainment and economic power
7. Service
Not that I don’t care about the Dow Jones, but I believe there are other indices of economic health that are far less abstract and far more essential to our global recovery.

Remember Selma? Remember “Bloody Sunday?” Remember the Women’s Suffrage Movement? All of that energy, all of those lives gladly sacrificed to give us a right we all too frequently take for granted. Please find the time to be heard tomorrow. Vote, for all of those who would have and couldn’t and for those who still can only dream.

Picture, if you will, a world filled with peace, justice, equity, and democracy. A world of abundance fueled by creativity and production; spurned by fruitful collaborations across nations, religions, and ideologies. A world free of hunger and want; where bellies and minds are full and where all are citizens with powerful words and ideas to contribute to the global human family.
Why do we not have this type of world? What have we been led to believe about the inherent nature of humanity and about the inevitability of suffering, ignorance, and war? And how has our education precipitated these negative attitudes toward our world, our possibilities, each other and ourselves? Can the quality of education determine the quality of the human condition? Do we possess the untapped human potential to solve our greatest problems?
I believe emphatically that the answer is yes. Ignorance and nihilism are the leisure of privilege. We disdain what we cannot yet comprehend. Our Miseducation has made that incomprehension the norm. No weapon is more powerful than ignorance, save knowledge. No revolution has been or could be more complete than the immediate and total transformation of human thought and no institution is more essential to that transformation than our public schools. The challenge is ours to provide the necessary (and possible) critical global education to enable all of our people to live in the world of their dreams.

A Day of Action is a great thing when people come together united for change. I applaud the students, faculty, and community members now and historically that have stood up and spoken out for what they believed in. What we need are lifetimes dedicated to action. The question is not whether the world can change, but how it will change and who will be responsible. A silent, fragmented majority is no advantage to anyone, but the people united and moving as one can overcome even the greatest of obstacles. The twentieth century was testimony to that; advocates came together to demand women’s suffrage and civil rights. Students protested to end wars, free political prisoners, and abolish racist, colonial governments such as Apartheid South Africa. We are constantly besieged by the forces of greed, selfishness, and inhumanity. The variable is always the will of the people. What will we do with our moment? What will history say about us? The good news is that the choice is ours because that history is ours to define. We have everything that we need, free minds, the power to speak and act, and, most importantly, we have each other. I am with you because right now, as always, there is no other place to be.