ATLANTA – The single biggest reason for Spike Lee’s filmmaking success? Two teachers. That’s why he’s imploring more young black men to become educators, noting that only 2 percent of the nation’s teachers are African American males.
In fact, Lee stood on the stage inside the Ray Charles Performing Art Center at Morehouse College and gave some overdue shine to two college instructors — English teacher Dr. Delores Stephens and Dr. Herb Eichelberger — who greatly aided his matriculation through his esteemed alma mater. Lee said their attentiveness to his educational struggles changed the course of his life and, subsequently, American cinema forever.
“I would not be a filmmaker if not for this man,” the filmmaker said as applause washed over Eichelberger before an overflowing crowd of students, educators and legislators. “These two teachers made me who I am today,” added Lee, the brainchild behind such timeless Hollywood classics as Do the Right Thing, School Daze, She’s Gotta Have it and Malcolm X.
Lee joined MSNBC commentator Jeff Johnson, legendary Congressman John Lewis, D-Ga., and Education Secretary Arne Duncan in issuing a call for more black men to become teachers, making their plea at the country’s only all-male historically black college.
Duncan used the occasion to promote the federal TEACH campaign. The program was launched in the fall to persuade more minorities — particularly males — to enter education. The federal government has launched the teach.gov website, a one-stop shop for anyone wanting to enter teaching, including professionals hoping to switch careers.
“If you want to make a difference in the life of our nation, if you want to make a difference in the life of a child, become a teacher,” President Obama said in a video address taped for the event. “Our country needs you.”
Lee, who has often used his films to teach lessons and to advocate for change, said there has to be a major paradigm shift in young urbanites’ thinking, particularly among black boys. African American teachers can greatly aid in that endeavor.
“There was a time when we were segregated. And if you got a teaching job, that was considered a great profession,“ he said. “Now, if you speak correct English and you are getting good grades, then you’re acting white. You are an Oreo. You are a sellout. But being on the corner, drinking a 40, smoking a blunt with your jeans below you’re a–, then you’re ghetto and your gangsta.”
We are, Lee and the others asserted during the town hall meeting, periously close to self-extinction.
“We’re at a point now where it’s genocide. If our young people equate intelligence with acting white and ignorance with acting black, then it’s over. We have more young black men in prison than enrolled in colleges and universities. That’s the new crop [of black men]. A lot of these prisons are privatized. You go all over the countries to these towns where everyone works at the prison. And every year, we ship a whole boatload in. That’s why we have to do something about it. This has to be our mission,” Lee said. –terry shropshire
