We versus I

I'm working on a theory in order to answer a question I was asked the other day. The question was, why are black youth so at risk in Canada?

Here's where I am as I continue to clear myself to have a possibility revealted. I'm starting from a comment that was made by Angela Davis when she was here in February. She pointed to the fundamental difference between black folk and white folk being summed up in WE versus I.

Black people generally have an immediate reaction to any of the following experiences:

• news report about someone having committed a crime. "Oh lawd, I hope they aren't black!"
• your behaviour or lakc there of, represents the community
• you already have two strikes against you: you're black and you're a woman (parent's comment to his daughter when we met last week about her poor grades and attendance)
• you have to work twice as hard to get ahead in this place
• even when there is some thing to celebrate about someone, if they are black, we are all proud

The entitlement of white supremacy has it such that white people do not have a collective responsibility to their entire race. In Canada, the much lower population of black people has created or amplified the need to be a collective or critical mass. That's why we always look at solutions that have us "speak with one unified voice" (my personal pet peeve)

Is it possible that unconsciously black youth have tranisitioned to the position of "I" or "self" about all? The fit or expressions of that, are such an unnatural fit to our nature and spirit as African people, it has resulted in a complete disregard for anything, a lack of focus, disengagement at all levels, self-destructive behaviours, no vision; just to name a few.

As this is examined by gender, there are perhaps different expressions of this for girls. Black girls in Canada continue to have an "abnormal" upbringing which I have observed has resulted in the pendulum swinging in the complete oppositie direction: sheltered, inexperience, study hard into permiscuous, self-destructive, lack of direction or focus, negative attention seeking behaviours.

I said to my friend Michelle Walker the other day that the worse person to ask about racism in schools is a student. They often respond with a cultural incompetence. The idea for what recism actually is has become so covert in Canada that when we think we are talking about it, turns out we are merely being tolerated. No deepening of the understanding at all and no one is really comfortable having the conversation eventhough they pretend to be invested (my brain leaps)

That leads to my area of focus. This generation doesn't see our challenges as a "community" through the same filter previously used. Critical thinking, organizing for the purpose of releiving a social ill, bettering a circumstance through hardwork and committment, social justice etc are not tools from which this generation sees their opportunities (generally speaking)

That's why when I look at some of the scheduled workshops this week at NABSE, many of them focus on reengaging students by reconnecting them to those previous overstandings. In the April Journal of Black School Educators, they speak to using more "culturally enriching extracurricular activities" as a tool to engage black males and improve their academics. Many of the workshops and the work being done targetting black youth that has been relatively effective, are somehow a return to some thing from our past that we have somehow discontinued.

I don't believe I have noticed anything new or different but I'm just looking. What are your thoughts?

In university I wrote a paper about the Sociology of the Dance party as a means for transmitting and reinforcing Caribbean culture as a tool for survival in the developed world. In the 70s my parents use to have some wicked basement parties. Ottawa's black community was small enough for everyone to know everyone. My parents had supported and helped several people to come to Canada. Our house was therefore an unofficial community centre. If they weren't plotting to overthrow the government they were liming and partying in that same basement. at 1465 Beaverpond Drive. That's where we learned everything we ever needed to know about what it meant to be black, to be from the Caribbean, to be adult etc. That is so different to the experience of black youth today. Why did we stop doing things like that for ourselves and with our children?

The good news about all of the above is that I know so many young people who once given a chance to see themselves newly and powerfully, they have done some absolutely amazing things. Hope springs eternal.

Damn, I think flying made me smarter!

Shifting!

Entry -- November 22, 2007

As many people are already aware, it is very challenging to work with young people. My challenge occurs most through my work as a coach of boys basketball. This year's basketball team could be a very talented group of 10 players. If talent was all you needed in this world, I wouldn't be worried but many of them are floundering in life, in school, and on the court. I've always framed it for students that their attitudes are standing in their way of succeeding. That has not been computing and I was getting frustrated with my inability to articulate my message. The cosmology of the International Black Summit space provides me with access to the conversation that needsa to be had in order for me to transform this challenge.

To demonstrate what happens when we don't SHIFT our understanding in order to et what we want/desire etc, I took one of my players down to my car in the teacher parking lot. I drive a manuel transmission vehicle. He was instructed to sit in the 'driver's seat' and I got in the passenger seat. In order for us to move the vehicle, there needs to be a change in the condition of the vehicle -> start the vehicle. We still can't move until he "puts it in gear". We pull off. The next natural thing for him to ask is, "where are we going?" My job, as passenger (coach), is to direct him where he is to go. In order for him to move with 'velosity', he will need to SHIFT gears. If he doesn't shift, the vehicle will not move faster. As his confidenc increases, he will want to move faster and therefore will need to SHIFT faster and move efficiently in order to get where he is being directed. Once he's arrived at his destination, he can then direct me with confidence or direct himself anywhere he wants to go!

Deborah's response:

This email message triggered me (in a good way) as I just spent the Thanksgiving holiday (and my birthday) with my son, Eb in Utica, N.Y. We always have very interesting conversations and this trip was no exception. Utica is one of the many “dying cities” in central and upstate NY – places that once had a thriving industrial and commercial base and now are mostly populated by the elderly and the poor. In talking to Eb about poverty and how to address it, he made a distinction between people who don’t have money (or not enough of it) and people who are “poor”. In his definition poor is a state of mind that may be related to the amount of money you have access to but has more to do with how you see the world. Poor people have a limited view of the world and of their ability to access the things they want in it. Their view of what is valuable is driven primarily by the popular culture and tends to focus on the material and quantifiable as opposed to the existential and philosophical. People without money (or enough of it) often have broader and higher aspirations but lack the means or a clear method to achieve them. People without money are easier to help – all you have to do is increase their income and/or their ability to reach their aspirations. Poor people are harder to help – the lack of self-awareness regarding their limited perspective combined with behavior that is often frowned upon by other classes – creates a reinforcing dynamic that is often hard to break.

Over the course of the two days I spent with him we watched two programs that clearly demonstrated the distinction he had defined. The first program was “I Love New York” on VH1, a spin-off from the wildly and in my mind unfathomably successful “Flavor of Love” starring former Public Enemy member “Flava Flav”. Flavor of Love premiered about 2 years ago and quickly garnered more regular viewers than the beleaguered CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. The programs is basically a competition among a varied group of ostensibly single and rational women for the affections of Flava. “New York” was one of the contestants from the first season of Flavor of Love and was so dramatic and compelling to viewers that she got her own show, featuring a collection of men who are competing for her affection. For anyone who has viewed either show, they represent a new low in the portrayal of black folks on television. I’ve boycotted them on general principle for their regular reinforcement of every negative stereotype of black behavior but agreed to view them with Eb who ridicules my attachment to public affairs shows, documentaries and classic movies that are so old they predate color – Smile................

Apparently, the woman who plays “New York” is originally from Utica, NY and can still be seen hanging out in local clubs with her older, Caucasian, unattractive boyfriend. On the show, she is surrounded by an assortment of studly men who are aggressively competing for her affections. Like the reality show ‘Survivor’ they are often required to compete in various challenges that test various skills – from kissing, to cooking and the all important “booty shaking”. One of the shows we watched included a cooking competition where the men were charged to come up with dishes that would be pleasing to “New York” and her mother (a regular on the show). The contestants were advised that one of ‘New York’s’ favorite culinary enhancements is ranch dressing and the contestants would be well advised to include it in their recipes. The men dutifully complied and added ranch dressing to dishes as diverse as fajitas, salmon salad and cheesecake. During the tasting session anything New York didn’t like was unceremoniously spit out into a silver bucket, giving a new role to the traditional ‘spittoon’ and bringing it firmly into 21st century media. Eb made the observation that despite the tens of thousands of dollars that ‘New York’ was now earning as the star of a very successful cable reality show, it had done nothing to improve her tastes or perspective about what was valuable in life and because of that she was still very much a “poor” person. I had to agree. The second show we watched was another reality show geared to black audiences, this time on BET (owned by the same company that owns VH-1, Viacom). It’s entitled “Keyshia Cole: The Way it Is”. The star is a young, black R&B singer named Keyshia Cole who overcame a lot of obstacles growing up (including her mother’s addiction and incarceration) and is now navigating her way through life and the tough world of show business. Keyshia loves her mother (who has struggled with alcoholism and crack cocaine addiction and at the beginning of the show is serving a sentence with the California Department of Corrections) and her sister (Neffeteria) who has two children and is in denial that she too has an alcohol dependency problem. However, as becomes clear throughout the show, her sister’s biggest problem is a her view of life and her relationship to others that leaves her unable to measure her behavior against a generally accepted standard and views any criticism as suppression and elitism. As Eb aptly observed, this attitude and behavior pattern is often associated with “poor” people and other marginalized groups.

How does this relate to the question and concept regarding ‘shifting’ that Afua (aka Adrienne) posed?

After a certain amount of struggle and denial I have had to admit there is a certain truth to the assertion by Bill Cosby, Alvin Poussaint and the next President of the United States – Barack Obama – that some black people in the U.S. suffer from a ‘poverty of the mind’ and ‘ expectations’. A self-limiting view of the world and one’s place in it along with a mentality that assumes defeat before the effort is even begun. This type of poverty has left many of us immobilized, risk-averse and extremely defensive. This attitude is reinforced by a social, economic and political system that denies the various institutional barriers that impede progress or applies a different standard of measurement for achievement by people of color. The phenomenon is manifest in the cultural expressions many have adopted to identify authentic “blackness” or “keeping it real” as adhering to a very retro view of who we are that elevates negative stereotypes into virtues and labels our higher aspirations and goals as suspect because they appear to be an imitation of ‘white’ behaviors and expectations. In fact, these are traditional values and mores that transcend race and have been adopted and followed by almost every upwardly mobile group.

Two generations ago African-Americans were unapologetic in our pursuit of the American tradition ideal of upward mobility and economic security– it was the foundation for the civil rights movement of the 60s and frame for the black nationalist movement initiated by Malcolm X under the auspices of the Nation of Islam. While the rhetoric has changed, I believe the majority of black folk in the Americas (I’m deliberately including our brethren in the Caribbean, Central and South America) still want the same things they wanted and demanded at the 1963 march on Washington: Jobs and Freedom. It’s interesting to note the specific demands of the marchers were: the passage of meaningful civil rights legislation; the elimination of racial segregation in public schools; protection for demonstrators against police brutality; a major public-works program to provide jobs; the passage of a law prohibiting racial discrimination in public and private hiring; a $2 an hour minimum wage; and self-government for the District of Columbia. [I guess one out of seven is about par for the course] In some ways the militant glorification of underachievement prevalent in contemporary ‘hip hop’ culture is a reaction to the vocal and demonstrative disavowal of successful blacks who abandoned ghetto communities as soon as they were able and continually denigrate those left behind to a predictably dismal fate. I don’t think we can continue to pretend that the space inhabited by many marginalized youth is okay and that they can and will succeed regardless of our intervention. I think we are at a critical juncture in our history here in the Americas and what happens in the next decade will determine the future of our people for the next century. If those at the bottom of the social, economic and political system are not provided with a hand and a boost up..............the future for all of us is dismal. Consequently, I think those of us who work with youth have to find a way to help them see a different future and vision of themselves – one that emphasizes their strengths over their deficits, their resiliency over their failures and their capacity for leadership over the self-destructive path glorified in our commercial consumer driven culture and reinforced by media images and references. In addition to ‘shifting’ gears we have to help young people reassess the vehicle they want to utilize and the direction that leads to real success. Let’s keep this conversation going..................