About

kpbarnes@rittermail.com 

Why I Am Here

I had a job. I taught Special Ed and History at Ripley High School for ten years.

I quit. That doesn't mean I can stop being a teacher.

I could have found another school, but RHS and its people had nothing to do with my final decision. The school systems are full of people with good hearts.

Here’s the thing; never mind the restrictive (often counterproductive) nature of the work environment, we’re doing it wrong.

I don’t care why. I don’t care who made the scattered mess we call education. Blah blah…Education politicians…blah blah…school boards, schools, teachers, parents, students…blah blah…bus drivers for crying out loud.

I didn’t like doing it wrong. I quit.

I'm not saying I know how to "do it right." What I am saying is that I wasn't part of the solution as long as I stayed inside the old school school systems.

What I've Done Since

I wrote a novel, an alternate history fantasy set in Ancient Rome. It’s terrible. I love it.

I’m writing a second similar novel set in a version of Memphis during the first year after the Civil War.

When I decided on Memphis as the setting, I knew I had to do my homework, otherwise I’d be asking for trouble from everybody with an axe to grind or an injustice to claim.

HEY -- Here’s an idea -- what if an old mayonnaise sandwich white guy tells a story about what life was like for the formerly enslaved people back in the day?

Why would I do this? 

Because, I see light in Memphis. Think about it. We have actually done pretty well when it comes to how the races treat each other here, but we're no where near where we might ought to be.

What's keeping us from rising to our potential?

Can we admit that the racial lines we've been struggling with for over a hundred and fifty years have something to do with it?

Can we agree that your generation isn't to blame, so maybe it's your generation that can finally come to grips with our past, and move on to more positive challenges?

 Many of the lines that have been drawn between us, the lines between the "races" were first drawn between 1863 and 1878.

Reconstruction was the time period when our American brand of racism came into its own. It was the first missed opportunity in a long line of opportunities we've had to live up to the self evident truths that are the basis of our Declaration of Independence

"...that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights..."

That's all Martin Luther King Jr. wanted. That's all W E B Duboise and Ida B Wells wanted. That's all the formerly enslaved people who left the plantations wanted. They wanted us to live up to who we say we are.

How about if we dig up some of the stories that tell the other side of the story from the one we told to our separate and unequal selves, and told everyone else to accept because if they didn't they were asking for trouble.

I don't look for ways to ask for trouble, but I do it all the time. All I want to do here is find a way to relate our shared History, So that's what I'm going to do.

I guess I should warn the haters that I've taken a good long look at both sides of the story, and that I have informed opinions and signed papers on my side, so don't get all bitter when I point out your mistakes.