In the second of a three part series, Gregory Kane continues to challenge the notion that Black athletes are far from modern day slaves. This time around, he focuses on people whose conditions are far closer to slavery than athletes. In my opinion, this piece is much stronger than the first.

Multi-Million Dollar Athletes as Slaves, Part Two – A Portrait of Real People’s Pain
By Gregory Kane

Last week, I wrote about black professional athletes — many of them multimillionaires playing in either the National Basketball Association or the National Football League — who consider themselves slaves.

Lawdy Lawd, it’s powerful hard work a-runnin’ up and down this basketball court stuffing this ball through that hoop. Massa David Stern sho’ is mean. I’m gon’ escape. Run north to Canada. Then Massa Stern can’t be mean to me no mo’.

Forty million dollar slaves? Forty million dollar fools is more like it.

This week, we return to reality with news about some black folks who have real problems. Black folks who, while not in slavery, are darned sure close to it. And there are Latino workers in the same boat.

The place is the Smithfield Packing plant in Tar Heel, N.C. Some 5,500 workers are employed there. About half are Latino, mostly immigrants; about 40 percent are black. The rest are either Lumbee Indian or white, according to Leila McDowell, who has worked with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union in trying to unionize the plant.

The work at Smithfield isn’t like the drudgery of dribbling NBA stars have to endure. Estimates of the number of hogs slaughtered daily range from 25,000 to 32,000. That involves killing, cutting, slicing and packing. Workers can be and often are injured. Some workers have told UFCW, Human Rights Watch and others that they receive no workers’ compensation for injuries. Some are fired.

For the rest of this story, click here.

“Picked up a fallen angel on the path that I MC / Familiar voice come to find out the angel was me” – Common

Today, the Center for Innovative Thought will be proposing a national “Teachers Trust” paid for by local and federal governments, as well as private enterprise. The initiative is designed to increase the salaries of public school teachers by 20% and up to 50% in the “forseeable future.”

Although I agree with the fundamental idea that paying teachers more will increase the recruitment pool and ultimately improve the quality of public education, I have some reservations about the program.

First, much of the funding comes from corporate windfall profits. By relying on soft money, we are setting ourselves up for the inevitable evaporation of funds when profits disappear. This can wreak havoc on economically vulnerable districts, which are the primary target of the proposed efforts.

Also, studies show that there are myriad causes of teacher attrition other than low salaries. School safety, limited resources, stress, lack of mentoring, and poor preparation are huge factors in teacher turnover. By focusing exclusively on money, we are setting teachers up for failure.