Like most celebratory events, I don't really celebrate Black History Month. I respect the sentiment, and the fruits of the endeavor, but I dislike the compartmentalizing notion of "The Month". I guess you could say I fall into "that camp": I think the veneration of African-Americans who have made exceptional strides in American (or global) culture is something that should be as everyday as anything else. Sometimes I feel we get too bogged down in slaves and Civil War-era freedom fighters and abolitionists and Civil Rights era figures.....it can like wallowing in the struggle for a month sometimes. On one hand, you can't deny the inspiration you get from seeing the power of generation after generation making better-than-the-most of their situation in a larger struggle for freedom of a people. You can't deny the power of central figures and leaders both known and lost to history (and maybe still alive in some family stories) through out the centuries who've ignited the passions of their peers to come together and make great gains in equality in short or long amounts of time. But at the same time the enormity of all of that can sometimes obscure the importance of the lesser-known (or at least lesser-acknowledged) gains that are the result and accumulation of all of that history.
For me, I feel like we need to take time daily (or one month out of the year at least, if that's really all you can muster) to think about the people who came AFTER the Civil Rights era...and the people out there right now, all of whom are making the most out of a few new laws here and there and some gradually changing perceptions and opinions in the general American society. I'm talking about that first generation of African American teachers at all levels who hung in there and did a good job and made it possible for a next generation to get there, or somewhere else after the students attained a degree and became first (or second or third and so on) generation African American Senators or surgeons or scientists or engineers or successful auto dealers or five-star restaurant owners or artists of all types or where ever else their ambitions and ability (natural and honed) took/takes them. People who made the most of of the minimal amount of opportunities in a world stacked against them, who made the world better if not more interesting.
When the Nat Turner movie came out recently (Birth of a Nation, it was called) the artist known as Nicki Minaj** said something along the lines of "I don't want to see another slave movie" in regards to seeing said movie.. And that's sometimes how Black History month feels to me. Like one long trudge through the most painful memories of a culture. It's good to remember MLK (for example), but with remembering MLK comes remembering things like the dogs sicked on people, some of whom are still with us today. Some of those people who lived through the dogs and hoses and night sticks and night riders and lynchings and fires and such are now Senators/Congresspeople and scientists and teachers and all the other professions listed above and more. And if we're being honest, some just didn't get the opportunity.
Most times I'd just like to hear more about the successes ( major and minor) on a day to day basis and not dwell on the pain so much. So that's what I do. I try not to forget the REAL struggle (past and present) and the figures involved in that, but I try not to let that cloud my vision and lose sight of the progress made. The good and the bad have context today, not just the bad. A few months ago I listened to a conversation between Sa Neter**** and Brother Polight and Young Pharaoh (and maybe a few others?) about being from "the hood" (for lack of a better term, I guess....personally I think it's kind of a dumb word to describe a more complex environment but I guess it IS kind of a universal, cross-cultural term) and moving away versus being from there and staying there. The general gist, to gloss it over, was that there's a conflict in the community as to whether you can do more for "the hood" by being in "the hood" than you can by living and working "on the outside". I heard valid points from everyone in the conversation. You can make a valid argument that having some positive figures who have college degrees and good jobs living in "the hood:" has a positive influence on the general atmosphere of the community. People who have more (if only in terms of opportunity) and still face the day-to-day struggles that go with living in that specific community, and who can continue to do positive things. in that environment. You can also make the argument that you need some of those positive figures (hidden or not) in the "outside world" to help in influencing more doors (and thus opportunities) to open up and improve the general situation for everyone, as much as possible. People who basically act as diplomats in a society where segregated schooling isn't even 100 years in our past. They all have an important role to play, both in practice and also in the general conversation of Black History and what that history has accumulated to in the present.
All I'm saying is: try and balance out the stories of pain and struggle with at least an equal amount of stories of success and progress. Celebrate and remember the past history without forgetting to celebrate the present history.
I'll give one such (personal) story as an example of the type of positive story I'm trying to promote:
In my 3rd paper on here, I gave a dedication to my 4th and 5th grade math teacher Ms. Mitchell. She happened to be African-American. I'm not going to sit here and say something like "She was the one who inspired me to go into mathematics" or anything. What she did for me (and I assume other students) was to give a picture of what a strong, proud African-American sounded like and acted like. This was the lady who would go on the PA and read "Black is Beautiful" on the morning announcements. Her classes were always inclusive; it wasn't like some of the other classes where it'd be an obvious (or even not so obvious) bias towards the white Milwood kids. She treated everyone equal whether it was in terms of praise, discipline, or those in between interactions. She taught us (kids who didn't always have the "normal" home life) how to meditate and clear our minds to prepare for our work. She wanted our success. At least for one hour out of the day we were ALL human and equal to one another (in 5th grade, I was lucky to have my homeroom teacher who was also African-American, and she had a similar approach, too. Her name was Ms. James. She was a little tougher on us sometimes, but it came from a kind place, I feel.).
It's not a dramatic story/testimonial. But I hope it shows that...fostering equality and justice in life and education doesn't always have to be some huge dramatic event. The dramatic events lead to people like Ms. Mitchell having the opportunity to get in and do the leg work that doesn't make headlines and offer a voice of comfort in a system that doesn't have many of those voices.
On a related note, congratulations to Robyn Fenty on winning the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations Humanitarian of the Year Award.
I hope...I'll even go so far as to say "I BELIEVE"... her scholarship fund will open the doors of education to the many young, bright Afro-Caribbean youth who have everything BUT the money to make it in higher education and the world that opens to those who attain degrees. Usually I think celebrity-backed "funds" are kind of suspect (in the same way I feel televangalists are always kind of suspect), but I think this is open of those exceptions...it seems pretty sincere the people from the region she comes from. And that's just a region where the education system could use the extra help in getting their students involved in the bigger, global picture of research and education. It's a region that gets ignored a lot, and I don't think it's coincidental that it's also a region that has a very large majority African population. It's a very NON-Western region that just happens to be located in the Western Hemisphere, we'll say, and as such I think the Western educational/research community tends to overlook that region, and some very bright people suffer a lack of ability to learn AND contribute in the larger global context because of that. And, yeah, I mostly just wanted an excuse to post a link to the scholarship.
**Yeah, I'm a Nicki fan. She's got that real NYC hip-hop vibe to her even though she's a cross-over star now. She's a pop star, but she'll still have bars that make me think she's Sean Price (Heltah Skeltah/Boot Bamp Clik/MFC) (RIP) in a woman's body. Just way over the top, out of bounds, totally hilarious lines. Not safe for the blog type stuff that's basically the dozens plus a dozen. Word play and punchlines. To me, it's important that there's still at least one major chart topping artist out there that's willing to have Cam'ron do a feature on the ALBUM, not just the streets-only single. And she always shows respect to the Dancehall music scene, which is also both important to me and very, very NYC hip hop (in terms of how I think of NYC hip hop and what it is to me). I'll be disappointed if she ever starts doing albums with appearances by only artists like Beeburr or the little girl who licks doughnuts.. I respect her life story and that she "straddles the line" so to speak between "real" and "celebrity glitz" despite being a big enough star where it would probably be easier for her to just go full on "glitz".
**** If you're looking up these names and saying "Oh no, Jonathan is glorifying a conversation between people LIKE THIS?!" (emphasis on LIKE THIS to convey me using a sarcastic/humourous tone mocking people who actually say "people like them" or "people like that" in a derogatory way), I'll say: I don't necessarily condone some of the views these guys may have, in the conversation I'm referring to or outside of that particular conversation. I reference that particular conversation because of the individual contexts of the conversation those three represented and voiced give specific viewpoints from different aspects a certain subsection of our society. Brother Polight comes from the place of someone who was involved in a...shall we say seedier element...of his neighbourhood, but he came out of it with the desire to do something positive. He's been successful, and he's moved out of the neighbourhood, which I can understand because sometimes the best way you can ensure staying on the positive is by getting away from the negative things you're trying to not be a part of. Sa Neter comes from the perspective of the same type as Polight, but the difference is he stayed in the neighbourhood to make the effort to build a more positive community. Which I can understand because that's his sense of responsibility and that's what's in his heart. And Young Pharaoh is the same as the other two, but the difference is he's young and still hasn't reached that crossroads yet (the young man has an old soul, for sure, but he's young. Smart as hell, but young). He's a voice for the young, poor blackman who's trying to do the right thing and is still trying to find his success in an environment that isn't particularly conducive to success. I don't condone any criminal past they may talk about (and if you listen to them, you'll realize that they don't either), but I DO condone the fact that all three are trying to do the best for themselves and their people and are having a conversation about it, and posting that conversation in places where others can join in and offer their viewpoints and opinions. Sometimes those conversations take turns into rhetoric I don't particularly agree with, but that's life. I will note, though, that almost every conversation about crime or whatever that these guys have (individually or collectively) is always about 'How do we stop this from continuing?" and never "How do we perpetuate more crime?". It's never "When do we riot and go crazy on all the white people"; it's always a conversation about "Are we going to be able to integrate? And if we can't, how can we get our own place in this world to just live in with out oppression?". These are intelligent gentlemen having an intelligent discussion (amongst many) on subjects they have first hand knowledge of. These are the type of people academics studying inner city problems should be talking to if the academics what a true, honest opinion of what's going on in the inner city neighbourhoods in America.
(At the same time....sometimes people say stuff that makes you think "Damn, why am I sticking up for, bordering on promoting, the ideas of this crazy mf'er?" Sometimes you agree with the good in someone's message, and you like that, but then they start going back to some negative or ignorant or petty, inconsequential ideas. I try to "give an assist" to people who I see as offering a clear, articulate view of where they're coming from and where they're trying to go (or where they've arrived at). But sometimes people just say some...stuff... that makes you think "Damn...what?!". That's why I qualify that I don't always agree with everything everyone says even if I consider their viewpoint worthy of being part of "the big conversation of life" or whatever you want to call it. I'm qualifying that in perpetuum, in the positive and negative directions, origin inclusive. )
Even if I don't condone someone's beliefs completely, I still listen to them. I don't condone Milo Yongaga's viewpoints by and large, but I do note his opinions and the way he starts conversations about those opinions. Same with the Bern, same with Deray McKeeson, same with Trump, same for Jill Stein, or Hillary or whomever else is at least trying to start a conversation about important issues, no matter their stance on those issues. I may not agree with their opinions, in whole or in part, but I do consider what they're conveying and how people react to that. Part of that means considering the "fringe" groups in our culture. What they have to say is important, too. Sometimes that means hearing things that offend your better sensibilities, but, again, that's life. The best way to understand peoples intentions and beliefs is to listen to them and have an actual conversation.