5/21/26 4PM: Organized Knowledge

Bringing you his authentic perspectives on important topics.

They live in suburbs together, they live in the city together, they hang out together,

they all in the same family. We're the only idiots that fight because we want our voice

to only be on one side. Like, does that even make any sense?

And when the side loses, you lose everything.

They, on the other hand, have a voice no matter what because somebody that looks like them is always in control.

Frank, candid and straight to the point.

Well, it's just a skewed system.

Of course it is.

It's a lot of a judgment.

But answer my question up.

Should we let people go? Should we let people go?

Like, let's just forget about bail altogether.

And if your neighbor commits a homicide and kills people up there,

if you kill people and they make you and you just let them come back and live right next to you,

they can live upstairs from you. Let them come in your house.

Frank, candid and straight to the point.

This is the best radio show in the state of Wisconsin.

Truth in the afternoon with Dr. Ken Harris on 101 Seven the Truth and the Truth Act.

Now, he's the mayor of the city of Milwaukee.

He's a young man. Give him a chance.

I only complain about things that I care about.

What I want you to do is pretend like I'm in St. Louis.

And all I'm asking the mayor of the county council president and the county councilor, show me.

Now live from the American Family Insurance Studio at the avenue in the heart of downtown Milwaukee.

Here is Dr. Ken Harris.

You're listening to Truth in the afternoon of your host, Dr. Ken Harris.

Three, two, one, two, one, zero, one, seven is the number.

Just so you're aware.

I don't know. Today, maybe my last day or tomorrow, maybe my last day.

I don't know.

But either way, I am here.

It is black book Thursday.

And I think if today is my last day, I think that would be.

Is he most appropriate way to end it, right?

So I got a book this week.

And I know Kathleen has been chomping at the bit.

She's been sending texts.

Hey, you're going to still do like she didn't say, hey, you're going to be there or not?

Or you're going, you're going to hang out or not?

A way you're going to be blah, blah, blah.

By the way, I'll be on YouTube at Dr. Ken's Truth.

But the fact that she was like, hey, look, you just need to be, you just need to do this book.

And so it dawned on me because I started asking people about, hey, have you heard?

And they were like, heard what?

And I said, have you, have you ever heard of this particular book?

And they were like, well, no.

Then I realized the book came out in 1969.

But I was like, you still haven't heard of it.

And they were like, no, I say you didn't have to read it.

They were like, no, it's like, wow.

Well, that's interesting.

And I mean, it's interesting because the power of this book is something for I believe every single black person,

just like I believe that W.E.B. Du Bois is one of those books that everybody needs to read.

Pretty much anything he wrote.

And it's one of those books where once you read it,

you'll begin to understand some of the things we can do in the black community.

And so I think it's going to be a powerful thing that you hear today.

I'm not saying that because it's me.

I'm saying it because eventually we have to come to a certain place in the black community.

And so it's important to look at this book and recognize what it is.

The book is the Spook who sat by the door by Sam Greenley.

It's one of the most politically controversial, culturally significant novels to me.

Ever written about race, power, and resistance in America.

First published in 1969 during the height of black power.

Harlem Renaissance was decades prior to that.

The novel talks about political fiction, espionage, social commentary, revolutionary strategy, all those things.

One story, people still talking about it today.

They're only talking about it because they actually read it.

Now, the title itself is symbolic.

In the novel, Spook, right?

Oh my god, Spook, a white person calling a black person a Spook.

Well, it has two meanings.

It's slang used against black people and it's also slang for a spot.

The door represents access to institutions to people to power.

That many times we as black people don't get to have.

The title reflects the central idea of the story.

What happens when a black man gains access to a powerful system designed to exclude it.

Sounds familiar.

And then uses what he learns against that very system.

So it follows the character Dan Freeman, first black officer hired by the CIA.

CIA calls their operative officer, a CIA officer.

Freeman is recruited, not because they suddenly decided, you know what?

We need black people.

But because political pressure from government said, hey, you need to show some kind of racial progress.

And so Freeman just kind of realized he was public relations.

They just kind of, he was their token, right?

They didn't treat him as an equal.

So instead of openly rebelling like most black people do, I can't believe you treated me that way.

That was wrong.

You did this, you did that.

He did probably what I would do, studied everything, learn intelligence gathering, sabotage techniques,

communications, weapons, fighting, guerrilla tactics, so psychological welfare, all that stuff.

And then became a master of the tools.

Because he appeared cooperative and harmless, they gave him even more.

So after years of training, what did he do?

He did what most smart people do.

He resigned, returned to Chicago, and then secretly trained young black men

from gangs and marginalized neighborhoods.

Now, why would he choose them?

Well, he transformed them and we'll talk about that a little later.

He transformed them into disciplined revolutionary selves, kind of the same way we sell with this group called Al Qaeda.

One of the things we're going to discuss that many black people who are considered criminals,

if you really dig down and dig deep and look at some of the things that they can do, they've been ignored by society and marginalized.

But they have great strength, great wisdom, and great intellect.

But one of the major things you get in this book is institutional hypocrisy.

The book challenges the idea that America was fully committed to equality during the civil rights era.

And then they, and we'll talk about the applicability of it today.

It suggests that symbolic inclusion without structural change is not true progress.

So his presence in the CIA is only tolerated because he rebained non-threatening, same way you work out of corporation.

But what happened to all of our black intellectuals?

Our black powerful discipline people, our legacy black organizations, they're always viewed as dangerous.

We like to believe that integration equals empowerment.

The power of this character is they didn't seek acceptance from the system, from the government.

You have to understand how the system works before you can redistribute the power.

Representation alone changes conditions for black communities or there's real change required what I've been talking about for the last six years, economic, political, and strategic control.

So why would this novel be controversial?

It's controversial because it didn't represent black resistance as some emotional chaos and walking down the street like we did with George Floyd and screaming and crying and doing all those things.

It was organized, it was intellectual, it made you think it was disciplined, it was tactical, it was smart.

And people that criticize this book then and don't want you to read it today are scared of the same thing.

When they made a film adaptation 1973, that's when I first came across it in a movie theater.

Movies stop showing it because they have political pressure.

Yeah, they do, you know, they make a lot of money and it didn't have a wedding cost.

We didn't make money back. So we got to stop playing it.

And so the film became part of the mythology just like the book.

Oh, yeah, there's a book. Oh, yeah, there's a film, but nobody can find it.

We're going to look at what makes this book, the spook who sat by the door, powerful, even today.

We're going to look at and ask questions like who controls information, institutions.

Who really is trained to be leaders and who's just plugged in by the white establishment?

Who really understands how systems work?

People need to understand this book is not about violence, it's not about rebellion, it's about preparation, it's about access.

This character Dan Freeman's greatest weapon was not a gun.

It's what he learned, but he never let anybody know.

And that's why everybody underestimated him.

Today it's influential when you talk about black political thought and policing and all that stuff and communities and institutional power and all that.

Some people just see it as revolutionary fiction.

Others see it the way I do.

It's a warning.

And I'll tell you my thoughts later, but regardless of the interpretation, the spook who sat by the door remains one of the most to me.

Important political novels written about race and power in America because it forces the reader to confront an uncomfortable question.

What is that question you ask?

What happens when people, black people who were once excluded from power in America, finally learn how power actually works?

And I guess the deeper question would be what would happen to the black community if it focused and put all of its energy on strategy and discipline and education and economics and technology and institutional understanding.

As society was scared, we once would even back in slavery when they wouldn't teach us how to read.

Because the most dangerous thing in any unequal system, you saw it in Johannesburg, you saw it in South Africa, you see it in the Middle East, and you saw it in America.

The most dangerous thing to any unequal system has never been anger, and rioting, and fighting, and looting, and burning down buildings.

It's always been organized knowledge.

And that is Dr. Ken's Truth on the new 1017 The Truth.

This is Truth in the afternoon with Dr. Ken Harris on 1017 The Truth, the truth app and 1017TheTruth.com.

You're listening, my Truth in the afternoon. I'm your host, Dr. Ken Harris, say 3-3-2-1-2-1-0-1-7.

Let me go through and check. First of all, let me check the talking text line to see who up in here.

Hey, no, you are appreciated, and I'm going to miss your show. I might cry tomorrow.

You don't have to, because you can just go to YouTube at Dr. Ken's Truth, and I'll be there on Monday for at least an hour.

Did you really read the study note because you literally just summarized exactly what I said?

Oh, okay. Great minds.

Todd said, Dr. Ken, you are my Mount Rushmore of all radio hosts.

I thank you for that. I have listened to many, but few have been chosen when you transfer to YouTube. You will be able to call in.

I'm setting that up now. Yes, you should be able to. I hope you come back for Pop Off Friday and send a proper off, a proper send off by your supportive listeners. Thank you for that. I appreciate it.

And let me say, give me Dr. Ken, check the group emails from my Black Book Thursday, summary and class. Good. I will do that.

Hey, what's up, Willie? What's going on?

Lucretia?

Okay, there they go. They're doing a bestie thing. So I guess I got to keep putting up with that.

Sincere, Ronnie Ray Real. What's up? What's going on?

And Clonda said, are you going out to the mixer tomorrow night?

Oh, I see the secret they're doing now. Anyway, hey, what's up? Not really a city girl. Y'all, y'all getting into me.

That personal stuff. I don't know. Makes me. Why do guys always feel uneasy when there's emotion being shot?

Because guys like to fix stuff.

The one thing women hate is what guys are good at. Let women be emotional and do what they do and throw stuff and all that.

And then we got a problem. Call us. That's what we do.

The Spook who sat by the door. Why is this book so controversial? Why?

Well, if you think about the time, came out in 1969.

There was a, you know, there was a black power.

It was unheard of to have a black CIA officer. Think about that. A black CIA agent training.

But the story was about him training oppressed communities in strategy and discipline.

Can you imagine that?

Hey, I'm an engineer and I'm going to go and I'm going to teach black kids.

Not, not in school where they got to pay and get the credits and all that.

How to build buildings.

And they be going to connect with the organization like a, like a, like a, um,

Habitat for Humanity. I'm just putting out that. I'm not saying that for real. It's not real.

Or, or whatever we're going to, and we're going to just build houses all over.

We're going to rebuild all the houses. We're going to buy them for dollar rebuild them, be done.

You're outside of a system that other people control.

Think about how fear changes when marginalized people become educated.

We don't have all these issues with colleges and universities and people getting in.

They didn't start going after movie stars and families and all that until what?

Till we started getting in.

Till we started being in the system. Till we started running the system.

I know people personally.

First name basis phone call in my phone number in my phone.

Who've been run out of universities because they were black.

Who've been looked at.

Oh, gotta look at their dissertation because you know, they might have a look.

Oh, look, I found one little thing. They didn't source it. Oh, my God.

That's why we have a bibliography. It's in the bibliography.

If it's in a bibliography, you read it.

Not everything you read gets synthesized.

Sometimes it gets synthesized into your thoughts.

So it becomes normative for you.

So when you say it, you don't source anybody because you believe you're speaking your own clear words.

When in fact, you can find anything anybody wrote somewhere else on the internet.

But that's not how they treat us.

So when you become educated in a system of power, not a system of education, people don't like that.

Now, you can protest all you want.

Police chief here in Milwaukee did not stop people from protesting.

When that young man was shot in Sherman Park and the riots broke out.

Matter of fact, he called the police back.

Wasn't chief Norman, by the way.

Think about that.

Let him had a piece.

What if we was downtown in your neighborhood because I know where he lived.

We didn't come downtown eating your neighborhood.

Oh, my gosh.

Police would have been there.

Look at his split.

So we say that.

But there's still that fear.

And it changes when people who don't have let more black kids.

You see the numbers from Milwaukee schools.

8% of black kids in Wisconsin are reading professionally at two grade levels higher than they are.

Some of them are two grade levels lower.

Can you imagine being a fourth grade reading on a second grade reading level?

Imagine that.

Imagine them learning how to read.

Imagine somebody starting a reading specialist company where all they do is get government grants

or people pay to have a child or an adult learn how to read.

Can you imagine the power?

And so my question is, what does organized knowledge?

Why does it frighten institutions more than a screaming and hollering?

833-212-1017.

You've heard me talk about this book.

You've heard me talk about the premise of it.

Why does organized knowledge scare people so much?

Why are people afraid when black people learn how to read and write and do arithmetic?

All of a sudden there's a problem.

And why is it that the people that we vote for only want public schools and the people that we don't vote for

are, okay, will this go into public or private or choice or charter or whatever?

That's as weird.

I think because there's fear.

There is legitimate fear.

That power comes with knowledge.

And the knowledge doesn't have to be formal.

It doesn't have to be in a school or in a university or in a college or high school or middle school

or elementary school that could be at home.

But the most powerful thing is it can be in a book.

And that means when you can learn yourself, I got to say it.

I have to.

In the words of Tori Lowe, that's powerful.

Okay, I could help myself.

The caller.

You're on the award winning 1-0-1-7 the truth.

I'm using today is the last day.

That way I'll never be disappointed.

Well, you can only guess where I'm on my way to just as a little practice session for this weekend.

For the guys that always take off here.

So everything is normal in my world.

And I want to say that the experience of speaking with you and arguing with me.

I've been with you, of course, but in a way that I feel is appropriate.

You know, you got the new weather, so you can get me whenever you feel like, you know, because it's your show.

And that's an example of some power.

But the speaker sat by the door.

Have you ever seen the film I want to add?

I've seen both.

And I read the book and I did the audio book.

So the film was a really good movie.

I enjoyed moving.

But I just want to tell you I have enjoyed your show.

And the things that we agree on, we definitely agree on things that we disagree on.

I say we agree to disagree.

I know that's not something that you like.

But, you know, I have overall enjoyed the entire experience that you guys have provided.

I agree or disagree, because I think that's where a good dialogue will always go.

If we agree on everything that we do robots, I think there are a lot of companies that are finding out that

maybe they can jump onto AI and little too fast and that humanity and knowledge that human beings have does have value still.

But I just, you know, I just want to, you know, call the day and paste this the last time you're on here, man.

I appreciate that.

Give you a solution to the end of the guy you are.

And you can always go to YouTube.

I'm, you know, Monday through Friday or four at Dr. Ken's church.

That'll be great.

Is the need for people to do it all on YouTube?

I don't know yet.

Well, you know, that will be a smart one.

But you know, she'll stop in. She'll pop in every now and then, you know, how about this?

Yeah.

Well, good, good luck and good health to you and you enjoy your summer, man.

Thank you, sir.

Appreciate you.

Yeah.

Take care of yourself.

All right.

I might even have to get out and play some golf this summer.

Oh, Lord.

I don't have a handicap.

So I'll probably shoot like a 135.

Everybody else to shoot like a 80.

I'll be like 267 or something, you know.

It'll take me like, let me see on a three part.

It'll probably take me like eight to get the ball in.

So, you know, that's just how it goes.

8 3 3 2 1 2 1 0 1 7 is the number.

Well, we come back.

I want to go back to the spook part, like the meaning behind the title.

This is Truth in the afternoon with Dr. Ken Harris on 101 7 The Truth,

the truth app and 101 7 TheTruth.com.

Yeah.

You.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

You're listening the Truth in the afternoon.

I'm your host, Dr. Ken Harris.

8 3 3 2 1 2 1 0 1 7 is the number.

If you got any comments about the book, because it's Black Book Thursday,

the spook who sat by the door.

34 minutes after the hour, 49 degrees.

The height of the day was 50.

Feels like 44.

Feels like 44?

Yeah.

It's not bad.

Why is it?

Well, because the winds are from the North Northwest at about 12 miles an hour.

And every time the wind blows, it cools down.

What y'all talking about on the YouTube chat?

Of course, I'm going to miss you, Terrible, from Kathleen.

And I just enjoyed your prior book critique.

So much that I was hoping that this last week would allow you to do another review.

Yes, I did.

And here I am.

She said, love the book.

Love the movie even more.

Yeah, the movie was.

Woo.

If you haven't seen a movie, you need to watch the spook who sat by the door.

Albert said, greetings, Dr. Ken.

Good topic today.

Yes, I did.

Indeed.

Read the book in middle school.

I agree with all the positive comments you bring attention to the spook who sat by the door.

Jasmine said because they scared us all.

Hey, what's up?

This is Zeta Shea.

What's going on?

8-3-3-2-1-2-1-0-1-7.

Is the number...

Am I supposed to read this, Kwanda?

Kwanda.

Am I supposed to read this?

How am I supposed to read it?

Like, that'll take up a whole segment.

Kwanda said, Dr. Ken.

Let me...

Look.

Let me...

Let me see.

You know, the D is next to the S, right?

So she puts senior Ken, S.R.

Period Ken.

Because she was writing Dr. Ken.

Damn.

Oh, stop.

Thank you for all your teachings, patience, and the way you challenge us throughout study hall.

I'll admit the voice change definitely had to grow on me at first.

But over time, I realized it actually set the tone for everything that was about to be said.

It demanded attention, focus, and understanding beyond just hearing the words, even when I didn't always agree,

which is pretty much all the time, or fully understand certain perspectives right away.

Which is pretty much all the time.

That those are my words.

Study hall pushed me to think deeper, analyze more critically, and step outside of surface level thinking.

That's something I truly appreciate, and will carry with me forward.

Thank you again for your dedication, your knowledge, and your creating and environment that encourages growth and discussion.

God bless your next journey.

R.N.

Cuanda.

And I used to always call it Cuanda.

And it's Cuanda.

K.A.

Capital K.A.

Capital W.A.

I was like, oh, okay.

Got to get it right.

83321210.

Thank you.

That was very nice.

So Kathleen said, why didn't you like the ending in the book?

The movie ending was good.

Okay.

Let me go back.

So before we went to break, we were talking about the title.

I'm going to kind of break down what Spook means.

Because you know, white folks used to call us Spooks.

It was a derogatory term, racial slur.

But it also means an intelligence operative.

In Great Britain, in England, there's a long-running TV show that ran for about 10, 15 years called Spooks, which I thought was kind of funny.

Because different things mean different things in different countries, right?

Okay.

And so, what is it?

In the Middle East, the peace sign means basically FU.

It's the equivalent to the middle finger, stuff like that.

So, you know, things like that.

So when you hear it, think about the symbolism, right?

The Spook who sat by the door.

Right?

The way that you get in or out.

Those old mafia hangouts in New York where there was a guy always sitting outside that was the gatekeeper that let people in and out.

Right?

This guy, the only thing they would let him do is sit by the door.

And so, in the movie and in the book, he became an administrator because he's not smart enough to be an intelligence officer.

What?

And they put him in the office of the director of Central Intelligence, DCI.

And when they put him in, that's where he got access to all of the information and all the things that were going on and who did what?

And who saw who and what connected what?

And that's how he was able to piece together that power.

Now, the fact that he was a token, you know, sitting by the door, yeah, we'll let people see you, but you got to sit here.

And they had him sit in a place where when people walked through the office, they would see him.

If they came for a tour, I'm Senator, so and so I'm coming for a tour.

That's the person they would let do it.

Like a little doggy and they pat him on the head.

No real power can't sign for anything visible, but no power.

Nothing.

Zero.

It was the same as everybody was crying about DEI, right?

You had diversity, but you didn't have any authority.

Diversity was never the issue.

Inclusion was never the issue.

The big fight against DEI that they always talked about those two, it was equity.

To fathom that a person is equal to you and has the ability to do what you do as an intelligence officer.

Was wild to them.

Think about it in companies, four to five hundred CEOs, women, politics, media, academia.

My question to you was, what's the difference in being included in actually having power?

The most powerful person in an office, you know who that is?

The personal assistant or the secretary.

The person that gate keeps who gets in, who gets out.

That person has power.

And if they can block it so the boss never knows and block it so the person never gets in,

you'll have no idea that that was actually the person.

You're mad at the boss when in fact the boss never knew.

There's a distinct difference to be able to sit at a table, but you can't talk.

Your words dismissed.

And I've been there where it's happened to me.

But when you get to a position where you have power, I've had to tell people, excuse me.

Yeah, this isn't a decision that that person makes.

It's a decision I make and this is what we're doing.

Not because I'm trying to flex, because I'm trying to tell you that this is the right thing to do.

And we go through that every day of our lives as black people.

And it's amazing because the things that we use,

I sit and listen to black people talk about all the things that are happening in the world

how they throw things away and I'll even use Sandra as an example,

you know, kind of tugging cheap playfully.

You can't run from technology and you need to figure out how to adapt to it.

You have to.

Because when we come back, I'm going to talk about weapons.

I know I'm not talking about those kind of weapons, guns and bazookas and how it serves and bombs.

I'm talking about real weapons that black people need.

It's truth in the afternoon with Dr. Ken Harris on 1017 The Truth, The Truth App.

And 1017TheTruth.com

Man, I thought that was staying.

Anyway, I got to hear some staying today.

8-3-3-2-1-2-1-0-1-7 is the number you're listening to Truth in the afternoon.

YouTube chat says,

I never knew white folks called the Spooks.

That's what Jasmine said.

Little do they know.

We are awesome.

Everybody remember old school names?

Okay, I'm not going to go there.

Some stuff has to stay.

I don't know.

Right.

Todd said Dr. Ken information is king.

I always thought it was cash, but okay.

So before the break, we were talking about the meaning behind the title.

You know, using Spook who sat by the door.

I don't want to talk about weapons.

I want to talk about like we talk about power, but to have power, you need a weapon.

We say we don't, but you do.

Your brain can be a weapon, but the character Dan Freeman looked at intelligence gathering,

being quiet, systematically gathering information, communications,

how people respond to each other, covert ways of doing that,

how to create a psychological operation,

siops to get people to think a certain way or do a certain thing,

or be where you need them to be.

He took a street gang that was all over the place,

helped their leadership remain a leader,

but then gave them the organizational discipline to get things done.

It's like children.

It's like anything.

When you first do something, it's always hard.

I've said that before.

Everything that's easy to you, speaking, walking, talking, writing, was hard at first.

Incremental steps, small chunks, got good at it, then better at it, then best at it, then excellent at it.

So what do you think Dan Freeman's greatest strength was?

Now this is just me, but what do you think his greatest strength was?

It was an emotion. We know that.

It was patience and preparation to quietly and slowly move and grow and learn

by taking on the knowledge that he needed to defeat a system.

So then how do we do that today?

One, technology is the most important thing that every single human being who's alive

I don't care if you're 105 or 5 years old or 5 days or 5 hours or 5 minutes or 5 seconds old,

you have to understand technology.

It is going to be in your life, it's going to be woven in your life,

but you also have to have what I talked about the other day, those old-school skills,

because when technology fails, it fails spectacularly.

When one module on your car goes out and it's the wrong module, your car will not run.

I don't care how much gas you got in it, I don't care if all your tires are new,

I don't care if your engine is sparkling clean and you got a full tank of gas.

It ain't running.

Did I say that already?

Anyway.

You have to be literate in AI.

That's number two.

You have to be literate.

You have to understand it, how it works, what makes it good, what makes it bad,

who's winning the race as it relates to this is legitimate, this is not.

Google has standards on there, so if you ask chat GPT a question and you ask Google a question,

Google is probably more accurate.

You have to tell chat GPT not to do this, not to do that,

but now chat GPT and Google, they're almost equal.

How do you know that?

How do you understand that?

You have to be literate in some type of AI.

It makes you efficient.

It makes you have the ability to do things quicker and faster.

Will it replace people?

I don't think so.

I think what it will do is replace a person doing a particularly low-level job

so they could do something else.

And that's what you have to be ready for.

Financial education.

Know about money.

I've been banging on about that.

That's one of those phrases from England.

Banging on, talking on, talking all that.

About understanding money, understanding investing,

and then ownership.

Own something.

That's yours.

Not necessarily a house, but property that can give you revenue.

And then you just need a strategic network.

So rounding yourself with people that are able to fill in the gaps that you have as a person.

There are some things I can't do.

I can understand it, but I can't do it.

So I need a network where somebody over there is good at transportation.

Somebody over there is good at nonprofit management.

Somebody over there is good at finance.

Somebody over there is good.

Whatever they're good at, that is what you need to put in your network.

But you have to be strategic.

That means you have to know yourself.

You have to know yourself.

This is an example in this book, even though it's fictional,

of what happens when overlooked people become skilled.

And that's my question to you.

What happens to overlooked people when they become highly skilled?

Think of some of the homeless people, or y'all call them unhoused.

Anyway, homeless people who are highly skilled and used to be,

demolition experts in the army, or the Navy.

Think about that.

Now reverse it.

How many of our kids that are sitting in school that if they just learned how to read,

they could be the next physicist that connects black holes with another universe.

I'm just making it up.

But think about that.

We overlook people because they don't have certain skills.

When the problem is, they just may not have learned them.

That is why school is so important.

But that is why so many other people try to control what we learn in school

so we don't learn what we need to learn.

Why are suburban schools learning things that Milwaukee Public Schools are not learning?

Well, I don't think they can do it, but they can't do it because you didn't teach them.

This dip in reading and writing and arithmetic didn't happen after COVID.

It happened before COVID.

It happened before Donald Trump got an office.

It happened before Barack Obama got an office.

It happened when we had mayors and not.

The only people that are responsible are the superintendent

and the school board.

Systems that overlook kids

and now your kids are going to get overlooked because they're not highly skilled in reading, writing and arithmetic.

But what if they were?

What if the next United States poet laureate is sitting somewhere in a classroom in seventh grade

with second grade reading skills?

And the poke is simply

they read a book one day of Japanese haiku

and their world turns upside down.

Think about that.

The things that we could do to change

and entire community are so simple

that one man, when he got a job, signed up in a lot of himself to be a token

to become a spook who sat by the door

and came and changed that entire city.

Made people who were undisciplined, disciplined.

Took their scattered knowledge and made it organized.

And they became some of the most powerful men that ever lived.

And we can't say we can't do it because we know we can't.

We've had it too many instances, too many inventions that were done by black people.

That we just overlook.

The most prolific in my book is that every time you stop at a red light,

Garrett Morgan, who invented the electronic traffic signal.

But how many kids know that?

They know it's Garrett Morgan, but they don't know it's black men.

The fold up bed, the ironing board.

All those gadgets we needed because we had a problem.

Those are the things some of our kids that are there now

need a Dan Freeman in their life.

Not to that extreme, but need a Dan Freeman in their life

to take a group of overlooked people,

make them highly skilled and change it entire world.

But we don't have to change it entire world.

We need to change one person on one block in one house or apartment,

in one neighborhood, in one community, and in one city.

Just one.

Think of the power we would have if you took what you learned,

your organized knowledge, and shared it with one person.

You're listening to Truth in the afternoon.

I'm your host, Dr. Kim Harris.

Our book, Black Book Thursday, is a spook who sat by the door.

It is a powerful book.

It is a book by one of my favorite authors, Sam Greenley.

And we'll be back with more.

And of course, top five at five up next.