Democracy Now--Detroit Sick-Out Protest

Andreas Wenzel

Soc. 122: Social Movements

Democracy Now

Detroit "Sickout"

http://www.democracynow.org/2016/1/21/detroit_rocked_by_teachers_sickout_protesting

            Back in January of this this year, teachers from the City of Detroit staged a mass "sickout" in protest of the mismanagement, deterioration, and lack of proper funding allocated for the local public schools in the general Detroit area. Eighty-eight of Detroit's one-hundred public schools were closed during the protest while teachers and community members spoke out to bring attention to the rat infestations, the growing black mold, the crumbling, deteriorating buildings and infrastructure, the lack of funding, and the systematic dismantling of Detroit's public school system altogether on the same weekend that President Obama came to boast about Detroit's supposedly successful auto industry. Victor Gibson, a retired Detroit public school teacher, points to the necessary investments required to maintain a house or school, and that without those investments the buildings will naturally deteriorate, which is the case that has been repeatedly witnessed by local community members in regards to their public schools. The school at which Mr. Gibson had taught called Paul Robeson Malcolm X, has been relocated to its fourth, smaller and deteriorating campus in recent decades, following the merge of Paul Robeson and Malcolm X as two separate schools, into a building that was designed to house grades K-5 while the school currently hosts grades K-8.

            The event included traits of all three of the social movement theories. The protest was well framed and gave witnesses an opportunity to see the contrast between what is emphasized as important in our current system, as Detroit's auto-industry received a presidential visit while the very government institutions responsible for educating our nation's children continue to deteriorate. This highlights how economic gain appears to be of more importance than maintaining a healthy social fabric in Detroit. The protesters took the political opportunity to make their voices heard the same day the President was in town to congratulate the economic success of auto-makers, and succeeded in doing so as they also mobilized the valuable resources available. The teachers are themselves the valuable resources that were mobilized, with the enough power to halt instruction at 88 of the 100 public schools in Detroit to bring attention and serious emphasis to the real problems affecting this and hundreds of other schools around the country.