Joseph
Dillon is my Hero
by Lauretta Ali
Joseph Dillon is my hero and he doesn’t even know that. He is the teacher of my dreams. Before I explain why a 50-year-old African American woman feels that way today, allow me to introduce this truly great role model to you. This is also a story of what can occur when human beings toss aside the silly notion of racial superiority. The parents of PS 126 in the Bronx (New York) prove that plain old common sense and old-fashioned love can rule the day.
Joseph Dillon is a White teacher in a largely African American and Hispanic community. This giver has been spreading joy and kindness to his students and their parents for three decades. He is the dean of students there and has proven that he is a caregiver in the rare sense of the word. It has been reported in New York newspaper’s Daily News’ Friday, June 22, 2001 edition that his leadership is in jeopardy at his job. The parents state race is the reason for his impending boot.
Parent Joanne Daughtery is claiming that the principal of PS 126, Maria Balija wants him to leave because Joseph Dillon is White. She feels Principal Balija doesn’t understand why the African American community loves him and has so much influence over them. Through another school official, the principal has claimed that she isn’t solely responsible for the elimination of teacher Dillon’s position. There is the silly claim that the entire school leadership team made the decision jointly. The question is why? What has he done to deserve to lose his job?
It appears that his position is being eliminated to create a peer mediation and enrichment program? What the heck is that really? We have seen many of these so-called groups established and soon enough they disappear into oblivion with little benefit to the community. It has been said that one man has assisted the community in unbelievable goodness for over thirty years. Mr. Dillon has said that the principal is running him out, but he does state that it is not a racial issue. Honestly, this is a man who desperately needs to stay at that school. In my opinion, he is still attempting to be the peacemaker and role model even as others plan his demise. I understand his nobility, yet, I have seen first hand the destruction that jealousy does. Especially when another leader feels his or in this case her authority is in jeopardy. Mr. Dillon claims that rather than a racial motive, Ms. Balija has only been at the school for two years and she doesn’t like the relationship he has with the parents of his students. She has accused him of being “disruptive, ineffective and too soft.” He may be too much of a nice guy to tell us the facts, but this entire situation reeks of the odor of jealousy.
Joseph Dillon has filed his transfer papers after turning down Ms. Balija’s request that he switch to the role of gym teacher or conflict resolution adviser next year. He states he has turned down those offers because he is much more effective “working with the parents and kids.” Protesting, marching and hanging placards on the fences outside of the school, the African American parents agree. They blame Balija for a 12% drop in the school’s fourth grade reading scores on this year’s state exam. They hold Dillon in the highest esteem for getting their kids to do well. There have been many stories detailing teacher Dillon’s assistance in the community. He has been credited with finding countless jobs, food and even housing for many parents who have needed help. Stepping to the forefront are parents like Yvonne Greene, “everybody comes to Mr. Dillon when they have a problem”, and Anthony Curry, a candidate for City Council, “we love him and we are out here because we know what he means for this school.” Even the students have entered the school chanting “we want Dillon!”
Joseph Dillon has been offered four other teaching jobs and is contemplating accepting a new position at another school if he is forced out of his job. I say it is just plain sinful to allow this valued man to leave a community that he worked hard to build, mold and shape into one he is proud of. I am the product of one such teacher. That is why I say he is my hero.
Ethel Williams was my fourth grade teacher and a Shero if ever there was one! I arrived at PS #4 in Paterson NJ at the age of eight years old. Having excelled in school, my life took a drastic turn in 1959. I had been reunited with my mother after spending nearly all of my earlier years in foster care. I wasn’t prepared for the raging alcoholic my Mom had become. Forever the loner, I couldn’t make new friends or find comfort in my new environment. My brother and I took every opportunity to stay out of school. My mom would leave for work at 6am and we never saw the inside of that school building. Instead we would spend the morning watching our favorite cartoons namely Courageous Cat and eat snacks. Finally we got caught. Mr. Nicolini, a young teacher from the suburbs sent to teach nearly impoverished children, called my mother. She came to school and beat me in front of all of the students there. Of course that made me want to go to attend every class after that! Hardly! So I got left back. Enter Ethel Williams. She told me I was intelligent and that I was honor roll material. She gave me love and discipline. I won the spelling bee contest nearly every Friday in her class and made the honor roll every quarter. In fact, my grades were excellent from the fourth grade through the eighth. I also never wanted to miss a day away from her so my attendance changed dramatically.
I had no idea why Ms. Williams never married. She was single the entire time that I knew her. I graduated from grammar school, went on to high school and never accounted her again for many years. It wasn’t until 1979 and I was a single parent who had authored a book of poems detailing that experience that she re-entered my life. She was the principal at a home for teenage parents where I was the guest performer and speaker. We held eachother for several seconds after reuniting after so many years. I am not embarrassed to say that I am crying as I am typing this. Ethel Williams has since succumbed to cancer. It wasn’t until many years after that second meeting that I found out that she was gay. Her sexual orientation never came into play. Because she was a dedicated, hard working, caring, nurturing human being who deserved to be in the lives of any and all that she encountered and touched. She was just different. Yet she was every man and every woman when she needed to be.
Now with this said let’s get back to Joseph Dillon. He is also every man and every one of us. He is the good, the decent and the saint in all of us. Jealousy is a poison that should be weeded out whenever it rears its ugly head. Because he threatened the position of a fool, Mr. Dillon is lost to a community much in need of many like himself. As he awaits his departure, do you think he is bitter? Is he slandering the ones who are forcing him out? No. He is leaving quietly with just these few words, “I love this community. I would like to thank them for all of their support and everything we’ve shared.” It is with a heart full of love and a face full of tears that I salute Joseph Dillon and all that teach in the manner that he does. So long, Sir Dillon, my hero. I’ll see you in my dreams.
Lauretta Ali © 2001
Family
Matters
by Lauretta Ali
My experience with the foster care system began in 1951. My mother was the separated wife of a US Army serviceman. My father was a handsome, single, truck driver--a reformed ladies man (or so he said). My parents weren't married. My brother and I had not the faintest idea of that situation. Our lives with our parents as toddlers I remember with a yearning even to this day. Our illegitimacy by society's standards didn't concern our family the least. My brother and I had a mom and a dad. My mother appeared to love my father unconditionally.
My father's infidelity had been going on for some time. But, it took one solitary act on a single, normally quiet night, to change the entire course of our lives. My brother and I entered into a world of love and terror. We were placed into loving foster care homes after a brief and forgettable stay with a woman whose career had to be taking care of foster children. It is a career that she certainly didn't need. She had so many of us to care for! This is due to the fact that she babysat for many women in the neighborhood who worked alongside their spouses to provide for their families.
Yet, back to my telling you about the loving foster care mother I was blessed to have been touched by. She and her husband, with their 2 teenage daughters, helped me to heal after the break up of my parents relationship. My brother and I were split up and sent to different foster parents. But each set loved us in a way that we always remembered. They were our parents in every sense of the word. Fitting to a tee the definition of "parents and their children," they lived for us children. Because both couples were friends, my brother and I saw each other often. My foster mom got attached to me and requested to adopt me. What a mistake that was in the 1950's and probably even still is today. We loved each other so much. I must admit to you. I don't know where she is and I still love her so much.
I recently
read an article on a website regarding foster care entitled "Family
Preservation: What it is & What it isn't"; September 30, 1977.
It promotes the belief that 50 to 70 percent of children now in foster
care could now be in their own homes if proper services were provided.
Their views on parenting and the foster care sytem are quite interesting
to say the least. Anyone who is a foster parent or even an adoptive parent
would do well to visit the website:
http://www.join-hands.com/fostercare/family_preservation.html
The article details the pros and cons of government financial assistance regarding foster care. It reminds me of the old slogan I would hear the grown ups saying (as I kneeled on the steps to listen), "It's cheaper to keep her." Based on the 1995 figures, it has been determined, in this article, that we pay substantially higher prices for foster care. Did you know that the article states (based on the 1995 figures) that an AFDC family isn't allowed a clothing allowance and not any money at all for child care. While a foster family can receive $10 to $60 per child plus a clothing allowance, travel reimbursement, medicaid, lunch vouchers and child care expenses? Please don't get me wrong. I believe the foster parents deserve the assistance. Bottom line, the love and care some families provide can never be repaid financially. I don't know if my foster mom Louise Brown received money for taking care of me. I say if she did, more power to her! She was a jewel and a gem!
Yet, I still remember my Mom fighting to get us out of the foster care system. She worked long hours, different shifts to singularly raise my brother and I. We were never hungry and we always had clothing. A proud African American woman, my mom wasn't ever on the welfare. God knows, she needed the help. My dad wouldn't pay a bit of child support if his life depended on it. He was a ladies man and still is today. We were latchkey children. We knew to come home, do our chores, hit the books, not to let anyone into our home until my mom came home. I knew this at eight-years-old and I fully understand why my mom had to leave us alone. Money for day care services? I don't think so!
I believe the child should remain with the parents who best suit raising the child. I often imagine how different my life would've been in Long Island with the Browns versus being raised in a New Jersey housing tenement with my mom. Would my dream of becoming a successful actor and writer have been fulfilled with Louise Brown in my corner? Who knows? I often think of what could've been. Yet, being raised by my mom in the projects helped to mold me into the survivor I am today.
Which side am I on regarding the issue of foster care? I am on the side of right. I believe the child should remain with the family who offers a safe and loving environment. No one asked me if I wanted to leave the Brown family or how I felt about being adopted. I wasn't old enough to have an opinion, yet, I was old enough to become the sexual target of one of my foster fathers! The parents who want to be parents should be allowed to raise children. Often times, that doesn't mean the blood relatives are best suited. If it means we have to pay a little extra out of our pockets, then may Almighty God save the children! To say we don't know the abuse suffered by young people in foster care or group homes exists is just putting our heads in the sand. Yet, there are some foster and adoptive parents who are the answer to a young child's prayers. I know! I remember you, Mama Louise!
Lauretta Ali © 2000
Satan Claus, a Christmas Story
I would
like to just begin this story by explaining my experiences as a Co-Star
in a movie that wasn't supposed to ever happen. But, I can't do that.
I have to at least tell you how I happened to make the movie.
I auditioned for a new talent agency (yes, I am one of those struggling
actors, there are zillions of us) in Nutley, New Jersey. Now anyone who
knows anything about the town knows that it isn't overflowing with African
American, full figured actresses. Anyway, I go to the office and I am
met by a fairly young, attractive, Italian American male. I am told his
name is Joey. I present my picture and resume and it all heads down hill
from there.
Joey looks at my picture and then looks at me as if I have two heads.
What he doesn't understand is that I am now in my 40's, married with 7
children (2 by birth, 5 step-kids) and umpteen grandchildren (umpteen
is Black folks way of saying "more than you can count). So, his looking
me up and down (translation, too short and too fat) means absolutely nothing
to me at this stage of my life. I have already heard the word "next" at
many auditions. So, I told him in so many words, "thanks for your time
and I don't want you to waste a minute more of mine. I am going to make
it in this business with or without your help" and I asked for my picture
and resume back. He decided to keep it.
Please try to understand. After years of hearing my hair is too short,
I am too light complexioned to be cast with other African Americans, too
stout for the role; I had settled into the routine of wife, mom, daughter,
sister, friend and kinswoman. So a young man from the Talent Connection
slighting me was the equivalent of a dot on a flea's behind. I pretty
much told him that during that audition.
A week later, I received a call. It was from another man working for the
agency. He asked why I hadn't called back. I told him that Joey didn't
feel I would fit in. His response was, "Joey, is just a kid! He doesn't
know everything. Come in and sign your contract." That is exactly what
I did!
I had wonderful experiences with the Talent Connection. I met the owner's
wife and I also met an actor who would one day become Whoopee Goldberg's
love interest. I was introduced to him as someone who was a gospel singer.
I thought to myself, "if these people heard me sing, they would never
introduce me in such a manner." But, I just nodded hello and smiled the
showbiz smile (lattie daa :o).
I had a series of auditions. Finally, I was cast in the film "Satan Claus."
My director doesn't speak any English at all (the Producer and Assistant
Director) translate for Massimiliano (Max) Cerchi.
I won't tell you the harrowing experiences that entailed. But, I asked
for a copy of the film once the shoot was completed. I was told that the
lighting was poor and I couldn't get a copy. I was also informed that
Blockbuster, i.e.: Viacom had declined to purchase the tape because of
that fact. Also, the tape ran over 90 minutes, which was something that
Blockbuster was rather irritated about. So, we wouldn't get paid because
there is no money to be made from the film.
Well, let's flash to the year of 2002! A friend of mine calls and tells
me to check out http://www.google.com. He asks me to enter my name: Lauretta
Ali. He then tells me there is a lot of information about me on that site.
I go to the site. Now mind you, I am a small town (though urban), project
child. In other words, after leaving the foster care system, I grew up
in a multi unit complex. I couldn't imagine anyone having information
about me anywhere. So, I go to the site and lo and behold! I am amazed!
I keep checking pages and what do I find? The title of my old movie, "Satan
Claus." It is being distributed by Rounds Entertainment: http://www.roundsent.com/page1.htm
Of course you know, I surf the web at 3AM in the morning. I wake my husband!
He wants to kill me. I don't care! I scream, "they are selling my movie."
Half asleep he says, "stop watching movies and come to bed. You are ridiculous!
Bad enough you make dolls until all hours of the morning. Now you are
watching movies? I am fed up with you! Get to bed now!"
After arguing about whether I should be making dolls all night (you mean,
you resent my doll business, I am yelling at him!), I finally get him
to realize that the old movie we thought is dead, is alive and ching,
chinging dollars and cents with no royalty in sight! That got his attention!
Well we ordered the movie and it arrived Priority Mail (imagine!). I had
to pay for it (a free copy was part of the contract) but it was odd watching
myself on a movie that is probably being shown a number of places. I am
thinking to myself, if they are charging $19.95, why can't I at least
get a quarter from each sale?
The lesson in this: Big brother is watching! If I am blessed that my acting
career really takes off, this movie will come out of it's Internet hiding
place! Beware fellow actors! Make sure your make up is on just the way
you want it. You never know who knows where you are. Google.com is watching!
May the force be with you!
Lauretta Ali