Joe Clark Just Died. So Did the Notions that Made Him Possible.
Joe Louis Clark, the hard-charging, bat-wielding New Jersey principal superbly portrayed by Morgan Freeman in the movie Lean on Me, died yesterday. If there is anyone who personified the searing tensions of our current times, it was him.
On the one hand, Mr. Clark reached Black and brown kids believed to be unreachable, and was a source of inspiration to many of them. Bullhorn in hand and scowl on face, he represented an ideal of what we think disenfranchised kids of color can achieve if they get tough love, honor traditions and weed out their bad actors. It was a compelling story that played right into our confirmation biases, and none of that made me love Lean on Me any less.
And in some ways the approach Mr. Clark took had clear success: test scores at Eastside High improved, drug-related crimes decreased, and he was widely credited for the school’s turnaround in the 1980s.
But the fantasy of Joe Clark included some iffy assumptions: first, that the problems of Black and Brown life stemmed from a lack of personal responsibility; second, that the threat of those problems could only be handled by “strong leader,” more or less an autocrat, a leader using colorful bravado and threatening tactics. And a third assumption too: lazy teachers were doing those kids a grave disservice and being protected by unions. Any of these sound familiar?
More than any year, 2020 has disavowed us of many of the assumptions that made Mr. Clark possible. Our movements for justice help us realize that only in a poor Black community would his tactics be tolerated (sound familiar?). The notion of the good-for-nuthin’ teacher has receded into the horizon, as those of who are parents have gotten a taste — thanks to distance learning — of how difficult teaching really is. And we learned firsthand the danger of unchecked autocracy (even a well-intentioned one), and we’re not out of the woods there yet.
Mr. Clark embodied our hopes for what disenfranchised Black America can be, even though we vehemently disagree about the way to get there. Rest well, and may our unhealthy notions about who we are rest with you.
