Choices Orientation Reflection
By: Sonjanita L. Moore
Friday, October 24, 2008

I was nervous about how things would go in the Choices Orientation today, but things went smoothly. The majority of the teachers were there on time. They had great rapport with each other and with me, Chuck and Nomi. The space was great – modern, welcoming, spacious. The orientation was very fluid – I think Chuck and I work well together. I had great individual conversations with a few teachers…

One teacher talked about her PhD work in which she is using Warriors Don’t Cry. She also referenced the “legacy” theme of this year’s CPS history fair. She is immediately looking for Chicago connections to Choices (eyes on the prize).

Another teacher wanted to know more about resources for immigration unit that is new for them this year and was inquiring about accessing more copies of Warriors Don’t Cry.

I spoke with a teacher about The Giver and its impact on her classes, but we also spoke of various titles on the resource table and talked about connections to other FH resources. She referenced her attempts to balance her principal’s insistence on moving away from Basil reader to using only novels. I was able to give her film and lit suggestions. We also talked in general about the state of schooling in Chicago for African American students, in particular males. She spoke of friends who have encouraged her to come to FH for the last year. She left very excited.

Two teachers from a local (spanish) bilingual school are looking forward to getting resources in Spanish or having digital copies so that they can have time to translate materials prior to student use. Ironically, they are working with reps from YWLCS in the development of outcomes and are interested in having further conversations with me about outcomes and FH connections.

Three teachers from the same school were glad that they were all able to attend and are going to “push” their principal to let them all attend the December session together all 3 days – rather than splitting them between Jan and Dec and urging them to only miss 1 day of instruction.


Moving forward I think the following should be taken into consideration:

1. Move the start time/agenda up 30 minutes – the beginning felt very rushed since library opened at 9, we all arrived earlier than 9 with materials and were standing outside and food arrives at 9. There’s no time to mingle and welcome when we have to rush through setting everything up and getting started.

2. Plan ahead to have at least 1 Choices teacher present for 10-15 min Q & A – Laura was unable to come today which was fine but in lieu of comment cards I think it would be helpful

3.Plan ahead to distribute Road to Brown or send out an email to new teachers to check with previous Choices teachers as to the location of the DVDs given last year

The "Choices" that Warriors Make

In watching Central: 50 Years Later, it was clear to me that Minnijean Brown's pain and agony at seeing a segregated classroom today was troubling. Was it more troubling that the students self-segregate and see nothing wrong with it? That the teacher would allow such segregation? That African American students seem to be tracked in lower classes? Or was it troubling to think that all her sacrifices had been for naught? My heart aches for her and all of our Civil Rights warriors who look at the state of affairs with today's youth.

Revisiting the whole issue of integration and the Civil Rights Movement brings up painful, lingering questions that I'd struggled with in my academic career and personal life. The most prominent question or issue has been - Do the advantages and benefits of integration outweigh the disadvantages and detriments to the African American community? It's a hard question to answer as I ride down Chicago's once thriving African American neighborhoods and look at what could once be described as the "Black Metropolis."

The "metropolis" has declined into a segregated ghetto on the verge of "progress" by way of gentrification. A byproduct of integration and the opening of city and suburban areas to upper middle class and upper class Black families in the 1960's and beyond. What is to become of Black youth whose daily role models are those that thrive on a life of crime and quick money? Gone are the throngs of educated entrepreneurs and businessmen/businesswomen that were a consistent visible sign of the benefits to hard work and cooperative economics.

When I think about the modern educational system and my own experiences in it, similar sentiments arise, but also other questions. Would it have ever been possible to develop a "separate but equal" system? Would that have been wrong? I think about the hundreds of Blacks that sacrificed personal safety to gain an education and advanced degrees in segregated institutions, but I also think about the thousands that earned degrees in historically Black colleges and universities. Up to the 1960's, maybe even late 1970's, the bulk of these scholars returned to their communities as educators, activists, politicians or entrepreneurs dedicated to uplifting the race in any way possible. How many of today's African American scholars have the same drive or dedication? E.W. Blyden worried about such a phenomenon in the late 1900's- "All educated Negroes suffer from a kind of slavery in many ways far more subversive of the real welfare of the race than the ancient physical fetters. The slavery of the mind is far more destructive..." Has education just become a means to acquire material wealth in the hopes that you will be able to get out of the old neighborhood rather than a means to come back & improve that neighborhood?

What about those youth that don't even make it to college? What do integrated schools have to offer them? What is authentically engaging to these Black youth - so consumed with pop culture and materialism? Could the smaller schools with dedicated teachers and community support of old be a better way of keeping them enrolled? I wonder what would have happened if segregated Black schools would have had the same books, resources,etc. How well would the students have done? Many did well with less. What's the problem today? Do the numbers indicate that more children of color drop out or don't graduate today than before integration?

I don't know the answers to all of these questions. I know that we will never go back to segregation legally, but I also recognize that economically, segregation does exist in our urban centers. I recognize, too, the value of small, independent schools aiming at culturally education alongside academics such as, the Betty Shabazz Charter School in Chicago, Sankofa Shule in Lansing, Blyden Delany in Milwaukee or Malcolm X Academy also in Milwaukee. In these schools, I see the type of community spirit that I feel when reading about Minnijean Brown, Melba Patillo Beals or any of the other "Little Rock Nine." In the current public educational school system, the same sense of urgency, collective work, responsibility, unity, faith and purpose isn't there. Schooling is not about strengthening communities and building new leadership it's about individual success. This is the antithesis of what "the Nine" fought for, in my opinion.

Jomo Kenyatta , in Facing Mt. Kenya, expressed it this way, "..to the Africans the ideal is the right relations with and behavior to other people...knowledge thus acquired is related to a practical need, and therefore, knowledge is merged into activity and can be recalled when that activity is again required." Ignoring the need for this practical, human element in education, Kenyatta warns, "creates conflicts of ideas in the mental outlook of pupils." What can be done to encourage our youth today to make better choices? What can be done to improve not only the educational system, but society so that they have a real desire to participate as proactive citizens? How can we improve their mental and moral outlook? With the Civil Rights Movement (1950's-1960's) and the Black Power Movement (1960's-1970's), the Black community (with the backing of community groups, new legal precedents and new legislation) found ways to motivate children to academic success and encouraged them to be vanguards in community maintenance and development. It took an entire nation to make this happen then...is the nation ready to do it again?

DuBois, Race & "Negroes" in the 21st Century

David Levering Lewis dedicates a portion of his book to describing the social implications of the September 23, 1927 public debate between William Edward Burghardt DuBois and Theodore Stoddard on the topic - "Shall the Negro Be Encouraged to Seek Cultural Equality?" DuBois was no stranger to the topic and was one of the leading Negro (African American) scholars of his day. He is most remembered for his initial push to remove negative perceptions of Blacks that were unfairly applied to them as Whites, he believed, judged the race based on the unproductive members of the Negro Race.

Conversely, DuBois felt that if judgements of Negro worth/intelligence/contributions had to be made that the frame of reference for Whites should be the very best of the Negro race ("the talented tenth concept). It was this idea that put him in conflict with Booker T. Washington in the 1890's and with Marcus Garvey in the 1900's.

Dubois would eventually become a founding member of the NAACP (which grew out of the work of the Niagara Movement), published The Crisis Magazine and became a Pan-Africanist, urging Blacks to not only unify and work to better themselves in America, but that their efforts should improve the entire African Diaspora. His best known work is The Souls of Black Folk (1904), in which he said "The problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line...No sooner had Northern armies touched Southern soil than this old question, newly guised, sprang from the earth, - What shall be done with the Negro?" It was this same question that was pondered at the end of the Civil War, at the Berlin Conference in the 1800's (Europe divides Africa) and Lake Mohonk Conferences in the 1900's (conferences on the "Negro" and the "Indian" held in New York state).

Unfortunately, undignified sectors of American society continued to discuss the issue and came up with violent solutions as evidenced in the work of government leaders, like Bull Connor, Gov. Wallace and Strom Thurmon or with the works of individual citizens, like Citizens Council or White Knights of the KKK. It is a question that has never left the American consciousness and this "race question" or "race card" as it has come to be called resurfaces at the most controversial of times. DuBois' prediction about 20th century American culture appears to hold true for this century, as well - as far as we have come, race/racism is still our biggest problem. Every Black leader has attested to this fact no matter what approach they chose. Rev. Dr. MLK, Jr knew race was an issue just as much as Malcolm X did. DuBois recognized race as a deterrent to intellectual and economic success just as Booker T. Washington or Marcus Garvey, but all three sought "Negro/Colored" liberation in different ways. Jupiter Hammon's "Address to the Negroes of the State of NY" has a different tone than David Walker's "Appeal." Yet and still, in 2008, we ponder whether or not a half Black man is worthy to hold the office of President of the United States!

Medgar Evers spoke of the urgency...the importance of controlling the vote. Charles H. Houston, along with the NAACP legal team, highlighted the importance of standing firm on the constitution as a means towards civil rights. Dubois, in his debate against Stoddard said, spoke to the fear America has of the "rise of black men" and the fear associated with allowing him access to every aspect of American culture, government and civilization- even though it goes against the very nature of the religious and constitutional ideals espoused by the nation. He makes the point that "civilization is the rightful heritage of all men and cannot be monopolized and confined to one group."

If we are to move forward as one nation, if that is indeed possible and if the powers that be are amenable to it, we've got to move past the desire to label, separate, limit, and censor the intellectual, social, economic and political abilities of the darker peoples of the world. DuBois warns of the dangers of such a hypocritical stance - it's dangerous to the moral fiber of the country, its citizenry and to our global relationships with people of color across the world. He says, " ...you are standing before the whole world, with hundreds of darker millions watching. No matter what happens to us, these colored people of the world are not going to take forever the kind of treatment they have been taking." In this time, perhaps more than ever, this is a point well made and that should be heeded.

Escape from Slavery by Francis Bok

To acknowledge that any form of slavery still exists today is difficult. To think about the enslavement of any member of the Afrikan Diaspora is excruciating. To reflect on the fact that modern enslavement is again steeped in racism and religious discrimination is mind-boggling. Yet Francis Bok (Piol Buk) stands today as an ex-slave and an abolitionist lecturer, much like Frederick Douglass did in the 1800's.

In addition to my own struggles as a descendant of African slaves from Guinea-Bissau, I am also disturbed from the aspect of being a Muslim...having to again defend the essence of Islam against the daily rituals and practices of individual cultures. Much of my study of slavery and slave systems has been looking at the distinctions between the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, Trans-Saharan slave trade and those African slave systems in existance prior to that. I never expected it to be so in a modern world.

What it brings me to is the same sentiment I had at learning of the discrepancies in treatment of Haitian refugees vs. Cuban refugees (since the 1980's) or Rwandan genocide victims vs. Bosnian genocide victims (1990's) - this feeling that the peoples of the Afrikan Diaspora are still looked upon as "less than" or as people not worthy of immediate support/help/salvation. It's a hard pill to swallow as a citizen of a country that supposedly is based on liberty, but has yet to even acknowledge or apologize for its own role in slavery hundreds of years ago.