Not Short and Sweet: A Conversation with Boston Student Organizer Jahi Spaloss (Part 2/3)
This is part two of the second installment of our “Not Short and Sweet” series where we present stories from real students around the country at length and without a filter.
The Student Voice Tour recently left Boston where I had the privilege of interviewing student organizer Jahi Spaloss. You might have seen some of Jahi’s handiwork this past school year when thousands of Boston students walked out of class to protest cuts to education. You can catch part I of the series here.
Part II of this conversation with Jahi touches on the walk out itself as well as lessons learned along the way. Happy reading, and watch out for part III!
Feel lost? Please check out “Part I” of our conversation with Jahi.
Andrew: This gets to an interesting point now right? So you’ve obviously been watching a lot of the organizing happening with Black Lives Matter and other groups around the country. I’m from Kentucky which is a very white state, and I’ve heard a lot of push back against these disruptive tactics. Why do you think they are necessary as part of organizing?
Jahi: I believe it’s always necessary. It’s always a reliable thing. The one main problem a lot of organizers face is when the masses don’t really understand why people are doing an action. It’s about delivering a message and doing so in a way that will make sure you are acknowledged and taken seriously and not as a joke. Because there’s a lot of times where people will just brush something off. White conservatives always ask why the black lives matter folks are blocking the streets and the highways. Well, are you actually going to acknowledge a protestor if he’s on the sidewalk? And actually listen to what they are trying to convey about their campaign or about their movement? About the injustice? Of course not.
Andrew: Well I mean the pushback would be, when you’re blocking the highway you aren’t getting listen to either they are just becoming annoyed.
Jahi: Well yeah but they are still being known, though. They got their attention. They are visible.
Andrew: Would you say you learned a lot of these advocacy tactics from MBTA?
Jahi: Yeah, a lot of my foundation came from there but after a while, I got involved with another organization called the Boston Area Youth Organizing Project who also helped with the walkout movement that I spearheaded. BYOP was more proactive, and their style of organizing was much more what I wanted. We focused on a lot of city issues and education reform. We also collaborated with Black Lives Matter. We were always involved in multiple campaigns, but our main mission was to basically unite the city together and help solve the problems youth were facing. Education reform is most of the work we have done. Right now we are working on a National Student Bill of Rights which is the 15 rights every student should have when going to school. A couple of them are the right to free housing, the right to a free education and college. We go around the country every summer to campaign around the Bill of Rights and get as many signatures as we can.
Andrew: Why did you join BYOP?
Jahi: I got hired by BYOP because they saw me as someone who could organize with them. I checked out the place a little bit, but one of the biggest reasons I joined BYOP as an organizer is because they have this certain love for any individual that could go in there…it’s just so welcoming and loving. It’s not something you could really walk away from and to have that type of love and community around you and people coming together regardless of what difference they have shown is really amazing. It’s really something every organizer should have. To be able to bring your community together really matters.
Andrew: Ok, Let’s talk about the walkout.
Jahi: Well, it first started after I was listening to the news radio and I heard that there was going to be a deficit of more than 50 million dollars cut from public schools yet we had the funding for a big GE tax break. The city was trying to bring GE over to Boston to create more jobs for the city. I was very concerned. It was my last year in high school, but I was more so concerned that this budget cut would go through and a lot of my underclassmen, my brothers and sisters, are going to be screwed out of their education. I also heard that we were going to lose programs. Extracurriculars, classes, teachers, AP opportunities, special education. It really hit home for a lot of people. So I collaborated with six other students from different high schools. We organized over social media and created a group chat. We started with planning the routes of where we were going to lead people. We also had chants for getting people riled up and then we also came with a plan as well to testify at the state house. We wanted to get our voices heard and let the mayor know how we felt about these budget cuts.
As the day came we expected only 500 or 600 people to come because that’s how many RSVP’d on the Facebook page, instead we had over 3600 students from about 25 different schools who wanted to fight for the public schools. And surprisingly it was a very beautiful moment. It was so amazing to see so many students, so many kids, actually care about their future, their education, their schools. And like, what’s going to happen to them?
Andrew: How do you know they care and aren’t just trying to get out of class?
Jahi: Well I mean, why wouldn’t you just go home if there is a walk out? Why would you actually be there, protesting, chanting, even testifying to government officials and such? And it’s funny too because that’s actually an argument that I heard from lots of adults. There was even a rumor after the whole thing was over and we made national news that the teacher union was behind it. No one could actually believe that only six kids could organize an entire walkout with thousands of kids walking through the streets. To them, it seems like young people aren’t capable of doing something so big unless they have some adult help. Which is funny too because the only thing we asked the teacher’s union to do was to march with us. To show solidarity with the students.
Andrew: Why do you think the city of Boston was so willing to cut public schools in order to provide subsidies to this business?
Jahi: I believe it’s because they feel as if the students are something that should be taken for granted. They say we are the future and yet they are cutting the future away from us. So it’s a little bit ironic. I feel like just in society itself — they don’t want you to be well educated enough or successful enough. They want to keep you at the same level you’ve always been. It’s funny though because if we are funding GE to bring more jobs aren’t we also taking away potential workers for those jobs by cutting education? It was all very contradictory. Boston is one of the first places in America that had public schools and so what they were doing made no sense to us.
Andrew: What did you say when you were testifying?
Jahi: We talked about what we were losing and how this is really affecting us. A lot of kids broke down crying speaking at the podium and such. They spoke about their families and their backgrounds — where they came from. And how right now they are the only chance for success. The only ones that are even bringing money to the table. They seek out school for those opportunities. They don’t want to put all this work out and just be treated like dirt at the end of the day. For them, school is hope. It’s a way for them to get out of their tough situation now, and build upon and invest into something greater. For a lot of them, it’s not even for them, It’s for the common good of their families. To put their mark on their city and to leave a legacy. And some of the parents spoke out too about their kids and their futures. Some of the kids have disabilities and yet a bunch of money was taken from special education. What are we going to do for kids with certain learning disabilities if we can’t help support them?
Stay tuned for more from my conversation with Jahi next week.
