Friday, January 23, 2015

Black Lives Matter: What has happened to our children?

On this past Monday, in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, students from Virginia Commonwealth University took to the streets and stopped traffic on Broad and Grace Streets during rush hour, peacefully, silently. It was their seventh march since Thanksgiving, and the march that prompted the Richmond Police Department to ask urgently for dialogue to commence. The students who were interviewed cited the differences in the treatment of VCU's white students who "misbehaved", who were not arrested, harassed,  or given any reprimand from the police or the University.  The students were incensed and passionate, but they were peaceful. I was proud of them.
            The appalling issue was that there were no students from Virginia Union University or Virginia State University present. Surely, so I thought, they must be aware that this matter affects them, too. They compete against each other in athletic events, and party together on the weekends, and the press which defames and degrades affects the HBCU students even more than the students at VCU ( a PWI.. predominantly white institution) should spur them to action or at least support. The schools are in close proximity, and because of social media, it would have been fairly easy for them to communicate their intentions and elicit support  from their peers, but that didn't happen. I was disappointed.
             I knew that the current dilemma over funding and administrative inconsistency was prevalent in the minds of many of the VSU students, but I also knew that the funding issue was part of a larger political effort to further disenfranchise Black youths, who, in the eyes of the public, are unruly miscreants who really don't deserve to get assistance in raising themselves above the poverty level.  So, because of my weekly contact with over 75 VSU students, I decided to ask them about Martin Luther King Day, and what it meant to them. I expected them to at least know about the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's, and to have some idea about the marches and sit-ins which gave them many of the simple freedoms they now enjoy. What I discovered was that they knew fairly nothing about the movement, nor what it actually did for them. It was not presented as a part of their history lessons in school, or in church, nor was it taught in their homes. The only thing they knew about was King's "I Have a Dream" speech, but not even when or why he made it, and that was only presented to them during Black History Month in their schools. I was saddened.
            Because I am an English teacher with a passion for history and a keen interest in African American studies, I launched into a history lesson that went back to slavery and what it meant for and to us, and proceeded through reconstruction and the Jim Crow era, into the Civil Rights Movement  and finally into Black Lives Matter and what prompted the current movement. I made it a multi-media presentation, by utilizing websites to find pictures, videos, and recorded accounts to make it more interesting for them. I did this "on the fly", since I had no idea that morning that there would be a need for the lesson, but I'm always flexible, and I could relate this to the autobiographies they were scheduled to submit as part of their weekly assignment. I asked them what the people who lived through each era could possibly include in their autobiographies. I was reminded that, at the last Black Alumni Weekend, the first I had attended at UVA, I learned that we were pioneers in many ways and we had no idea of our impact on the students who followed us.  Many students were interested, or at least they pretended to be, but some were convinced that I must have been fabricating some current issues. I knew that I had to prove to them the realities of being Black in America. Knowing that the journal reading/response for this week was "Literacy Behind Bars", by Malcolm X, I knew I had opened a door for further instruction, discussion, and learning.  I was inspired.
            In order to refine my presentations, I have access to the thoughts, opinions, and input of some more "seasoned", non-traditional students at the community college, in my African American Literature class. I am depending on their insight and experience to point me in the direction I need to go for the latter half of the semester in my freshman writing classes... the half that deals with critical thinking and writing. To get them started thinking, I planted an idea. I asked them, as they walked through Southpark Mall, and shopped in the only stores that many of  them have access to, to pay attention to the fact that there were security people who follow Black people around as they shop... moving when they move and stopping when they stop. A few of them had already noticed, but many of those who hadn't, vowed to pay attention. The few who had noticed had also noticed that there were white kids, in the mall, who were loud and disruptive, and some who were even observed shoplifting, but no special attention was paid to them. I asked them how they felt about it, and they were quick to recognize that it didn't just happen at that mall, but also in the malls and stores close to their homes. They talked about Black kids getting busted for doing nothing more than staying in one place together for too long, and white kids just being told to "move along". I explained to them that Black Lives Matter is what that is all about... that Black people, especially young Black males, can get busted, beaten, and even killed, and it didn't seem to matter to anyone... until now. I'm on a mission!    https://www.facebook.com/thomasine.b.hill/about

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