I had a completely different blog planned for today but because of these little pings on my phone that popup news alerts without any warning that ANOTHER BLACK (SUPER) HERO has DIED, I am here. For all intensive purposes the Black Panther has just died as we mourn the death of his human form in Chadwick Boseman the actor. This comes on the larger-than-life tragic death of Kobe Bryant and of course woven into this trauma is the countless deaths of young black lives shot at or murdered by law enforcement. Lives like Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbury, George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, Tamir Rice, Oscar Grant, Michael Brown and Jacob Blake just add to the larger than life tapestry of black trauma in America and it is frankly too much. So yesterday, when I heard the news that our Black Panther died, I was triggered back into a space of more black trauma, not just for me, but now for our children. With limited affirming on-screen representation for black children, Black Panther was more than another Marvel character. He was/is the longed for super hero that rooted our blackness beyond chains and slavery but into a new infinite space of possibility that the world has never seen (or wanted to). He countered the history book narrative of Africa (and its people) as a vast bastion of emptiness and brought to life a world where blackness is thriving and an ever-evolving force to be reckoned with as a global leader. This narrative is what all the black kids ( and black adults) needed in a time where the trauma load had been and continues to be simply overwhelming. So on Friday, when I got the innocuous ping alert on my phone, it knocked me off my feet and I mourned ( ugly cried) for the loss to millions of black children across the WORLD that found relief, love and a true hero in King T’Challa. I cried because I knew the significance of this moment only added to their tapestry of black trauma that few may even be able to understand. Recently, I met one of these kids during the first week of school. During our icebreaker, I asked the simple question “What is something you love?” and he quickly replied, “ All things Black Panther” as he beamed with pride from ear-to-ear. I can’t say I can think of another person that a black child can reference in this same regard right now. Sadly, this is what makes this loss that much harder as I prepare to go “back to school” and mourn alongside him (virtually) through this. Yet, while this trauma is not new to black children, as I’ve already shared black trauma is almost a birth story for every child, but this triggers a collective trauma felt when we lose our leaders the most. For all the times blacks have been accused of being the villain in everybody’s story, in this story WE WERE THE HERO. What’s more, as an English teacher, it is not lost on me that in the Black Panther story both antagonist and protagonist were black but as Chadwick shared they really BOTH were HEROs in their own story. We just have to choose to believe it. So in this spirit, I challenge us to all acknowledge this profound grief and trauma of black children in this moment as they just lost a hero in their story. Don’t discount their pain, provide space for them to share their thoughts and feelings, their tears and their pain for the loss of their (ONLY) super hero. Yes, Black Panther can be recast but we can never get the spirit of what Chadwick Boseman brought to this character in the indelible minds of our children, teens and even adults. Also understand that this experience may have created triggers for our children of other loss that they have experienced especially during this pandemic. Let’s make room to discuss what triggers are and how we can support children in being self aware of their feelings and how they experience trauma especially in black schools and communities. (Yes, we still segregated guys) Let’s remove the stigma so we can begin to tear down our tapestry of trauma, unpack it and heal from it. If not for us, definitely for our black kids who need us to help them be their own hero in their own story to conquer all this trauma. (Now, let's make Wakanda real frfr) #WakandaForever
0 Comments
It’s the “First Day of School Eve”for me and as I prepare to meet my new students in a little box on Zoom, I find myself in a space of anxiousness for so many kids on the other side of this little box. In this little box, across Atlanta and America, students are gathering to learn and to start their own journey of “distance learning”. But I am anxious for the little faces I will not see in my little box. For far too many of Atlanta’s kids, there's so many barriers already for them to learn and now in the continuous saga of this Pandemic, now there are entire boulders. From internet connectivity, lack of devices, and limited parent supervision, teaching in this climate just got a whole lot harder than ever before. That’s why when I got a text yesterday to help give kids lunch because Atlanta Public Schools (APS) added another barrier to the list for kids to get food, I grew even more frustrated. APS required families to preorder lunch a week in advance ONLINE. Did they miss the memo that families already are struggling with internet access? Did they not consider how their lunch request process would adversely impact the very community of students they sought to help? How did they not understand that families with so many odds against them would find it more than difficult to request food online a week in advance? Why didn't they provide a call-in option or other alternatives for ordering food?These were the million and one questions in my mind because I knew kids would go hungry if we do not find alternative solutions. Now more than ever, we must be more intentional about how we create solutions in this season. Yes, we are all under a great deal of pressure and must meet a ton of ever evolving needs but we must stay intentional about how we design solutions during and after this pandemic or we risk deepening the hole of inequity that we seek to solve. So, tonight I answered the text of course ready to help and advocate for families that could not. I made lunches for the local nonprofit who is standing in the gap for working parents, frustrated with broken systems and continued inequity but resolved to be apart of the solution. Yes, I pray that my little bit of help removed some of the barriers that some of our kids are facing so that more kids in Atlanta can be ready to learn from their little box on the screen. But it still reminds me that we have so much work to do as we begin to reimagine rebuilding education better than before. We don't want to ever go back to "normal" or where we were because that did nothing for poor black and brown children. We must use this space to retool ourselves, introspectively root out inequity, build new systems and processes that are rooted in community and people, and most importantly include those very people every step of the way. We no longer can build solutions without the people we are building for and just show them a fancy presentation at the end. In the words of Dr. Amber Johnson, we have to radically include them at the beginning. Solutions must speak to the human experience and not a business and efficiency one. Yes, that may take longer and may feel uncomfortable but if we don't we risk more generations of families stuck in poverty, low income communities with poor health and poor education. If I have learned nothing else from this pandemic, is we must be willing to do something radical in this moment to get to where we are going. I mean the FDA has a projected vaccine in 1 year when it normally takes a decade. So yes, we have to be willing and ready to be radical. On this "First day of school eve", I am challenging every teacher, community leader, parent and elected official to be radical as we rebuild for our future so we can remove these boulders that stand in our kids way and so those little faces in those little boxes have a fighting chance. As we’ve just celebrated the life of the civil rights icon, John Lewis, who began his activism at the tender age of 16, I ask myself why don’t we celebrate the same revolutionary power in our youth. Why don’t we lift up their voice more? Just as Lewis’ consciousness was shook at the death of Emmett Till at 15, so too have our young black children at the similar lynching of George Floyd and so many others. Our children understand all too well what is happening, yet are constantly not provided a seat at decision making tables or asked for their input. However, the reality is the collective consciousness of black children has always had to mature faster and learn the harsh realities faster than their white counterparts. I think of my own childhood where I learned at 8 that I was a “nigger” and my new “friend” Mandy could not be friends with a black gir because her grandfather told her so. At 8, I had to sit with a new consciousness and grapple with the existentialism of racism instead of innocently just play with dolls and sell lemonade. So nobody can tell me that our kids don’t know or have a wealth of experiences to pull from to weigh in on this pivotal moment in our history. Yet, we still relegate our kids to the ephemeral “kids table” to go play when they have invaluable insight to share about their world view and how they can contribute to change too. Heck, I have to ask my 1 year old all the time for her input or her daily dinner will be all over the floor because she will show me better than she can tell me that she doesn't like it. With the emergence of a global pandemic attacking the already vulnerable lives of black children and their families and their continuous battle with systemic racism embedded in every facet of their lives, they too have an opinion. Yet, every important decision, coalition, task force and advisory council leaves them entirely out of the loop. For instance, Mayor Bottoms, created an Advisory Council on Entrepreneurship YOUTH programs to seek out alternative solutions for unsafe street solicitation of water and even with YOUTH in the name and the target group is Black kids, no black child was appointed to the council. Again, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms created a Use of Force Task Force to grapple with humane policing policies in communities of color. Yet, black children are the MOST over surveilled children in the country with police over represented in their communities AND schools, but there was limited black youth engagement represented in this task force.(While there were 2 collegiate black youth on the task force, black elite groups tend to cherry pick black elite youth that present as polished and fit the trope of the “respectable black child” as a facade for true youth engagement and feedback). Sadly, the people who do get to sit at the table are mostly white elite corporations, agency and organization heads that are far removed from black youth experiences and have little insight to speak to the unique experience of a black child in 2020. We proclaim to the hilltops that black lives matter but that must include the voices of black children who will grow to be our next generation’s revolutionaries. We cannot wait for our children to grow up, be polished and presentable for mainstream consumption and then parade them around as a talented tenth or that is all we will ever have is a fraction of all the potential we will need to fight the oncoming battle for our humanity. We must uplift, champion and deeply listen to all our black children ( not just the elite and “respectable” ones). We must create space for their voices in every decision and radically include their voices, as we not only create solutions for them, but alongside them as well. This is how we harness their strengths, talents and gifts to nurture the next revolutionary iconic John Lewis or Angela Davis. |
AuthorEducator, student advocate and community activists. Archives
October 2021
Categories |