| Doesnt happen often but today I feel like writing. Slightly heavy so proceed with caution.
This summer I am going to be working with elementary aged school children. Our time together is to be spent doing a lot of cultivating: a love for literacy, a recognition of the power that they have as the youth of tommorow, a recognition of the value of their African-American identities, a recognition of the inequalities that exist in their schooling, neighborhoods, and life experiences, when contrasted with those children who are of the dominant culture or have been allowed to "pass" into that culture. The most important cultivation that is to occur is that of molding these recognitions (Recognize!) into a thirst and hunger for freedom and then mobilizing this appetitie into ACTION!
On issues of Freedom
At home taking care of the babies I had not given much time to thinking about the magnitude of this responsibility. I am a not just a teacher, I am not just a mentor, I am a servant-leader. These children are coming from deprived neighborhoods, broken families, inadequate educational experiences. Can a summer of Freedom School really reverse that? Is that our intention? Is that the intention of the Children's Defense Fund? Of Beacon? of Penn? Is that my intention? Or is our intention to spend 5 weeks making reconition (Recognize!) of their backgrounds and situations, sharing their burdens, and trying to empower them with the knowledge that is neccesary to acheive true freedom? Is that enough? Do I really believe enough in Freedom for my people? Do I believe that it will ever come? Do I believe that the killing of black men, black mother's sons, will EVER be as important as the killing of white men, white mother's sons? In Ella's song Reagon writes, "We who believe in Freedom cannot rest until it comes." Am I ready/willing/able to devote myself to never resting until it comes? Do I really believe in Freedom for my people? Do I believe that it will ever come?
On issues of Privelege
I am many things. I am a person of Faith, who not only believes in the power of the Almighty but has been/is/ and will always be dependant on that power. I am a person of compassion with intentions that often jump from being pure to impure. I am an African-American woman, who defines the census term in a manner different from most. Yet a stranger seeing me walk down the street sees nothing but a 5'3, African-American female. Despite the 'hollas' of my brothas in the communities inhabited in mass by my people I feel welcome there. There my mind isnt working overtime about the stereotypes I need to be breaking down. There I can flow, I can speak my thoughts in the what is often reffered to by folk who, stay tryna be pc, but really just be upsetting folk, as "Black Vernacular."
I know that despite my feelings of being at home, I am only a visitor. We share the same skin color, or at least a common hue. We share the same concerns. We share the same hopes and dreams. But they dont share my privelege and that pains me. They dont share my experience of a history of positive interactions with white folks. They dont share my experience of benefiting from institutions historically used to serve whites. At the end of the day their experience, or lack thereof, [because hypersegregation is more than just a sociological term] often warrants mistrust & feelings of hopelessness. At the end of the day I go to bed wondering if my concern, my color, my few negative experiences with "the man trying to keep me down" really make me any different than the traditional stereotype of a person of privelege.
I wasnt raised in no ghetto. Even the few years where we lived by "the projects" [which till this day I swear didnt look like no projects to me!] Mr. & Mrs. Umoh kept us on lock. I didnt attend schools where more than 90% of the student pop were poor people of color and as such was underfunded. Quite the contrary. My pops has never been in jail. I aint never seen no one get shot. I aint never waited with anticipation for teh first of the month. For these blessings, which I oft take for granted, I am priveleged. Can I truly share with my underpriveleged brothas and sistas? What does that mean?
It has only been a weekend and the freedom school has got me going on all of this. Answers are few and far between. I know now what I knew Friday morning as I flew into Philly...
Until we are all free, aint none of us free,
Peace & Grease homies,
Nse |
