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!
