On Monday, I chatted with Terrence at Whole Foods, lamenting on how he sells groceries he can't afford for himself ("I have to work a couple of hours to even justify a $9 chocolate bar," referring to the customer before me). Tuesday, @snoble1025 and I briefly lamented on Essence magazine hiring a white fashion director (and the "yall need to have a seat" letter that followed by the editor in chief). Wednesday, I attended a panel discussing minorities in business school, (and get no further in deciding if an MBA is in my future) and talk to @craziijnell about the FDNY's desperate push to hire 1,000 African-American firepeople in response to being found using "discriminatory practices" in their hiring process.
A conversation with my mentor in Sigma (and life) on education (find her blog here: nucitynuview.blogspot.com) including black literature in curriculum planning, and what the hell we educators are missing in producing a more successful generation of academics. Our more affluent peers aren't struggling in the same manner. Their children are born into a pep rally of success and the desire to succeed. There are constant and consistent messages to pursue higher education, apply and attend the best schools, interview and become employed by the best companies. Those who stick to the plan learn the best is what's expected and as you move up, the faces, names and affiliations will stay consistent too.
We educators try changing the variables: lower teacher:child ratio, pay teachers more, make teacher certification stricter, or conversely, make teaching an entry-level position, so millenial college grads can create a corps of younger, brighter, innovative teachers, sent to the front lines to fight the good fight on behalf of the black, brown and in some parts of the country, white, faces. Faces that have stories and names that will equally blow your mind, and may not know or realize they're worth fighting for.
While great gains have been measured from these actions, we've experienced an interesting history of educational access. In the course of a few hundred years, black people-a catchall moniker afforded much later-weren't worthy of being mentioned in the same breath of education. Over the years, literacy and learning became the best-kept secret-a financial best-practice in keeping your "staff" loyal to the business. Once we were given an inch, our people took an ell-a few ells-in proving that yes, we can, and that we will-for our fathers of the past and the sons of our future. It was an unspoken promise, a mutually understood agreement.
Black people, with or without intention, made their mark in every field: medicine, law, business, arts, humanities, engineering, sports and yes, education. We, over the last hundred-some-odd years have become a list of "first Negro/African-American/Black (to)________", trotted out in certain chapters of our history books, certain months of the year, or whenever the "hey, black people can do it too!" argument needs to be made.
The MLKs, Thurgood Marshalls, Shirley Chisolms and Charles Drews of their generation experienced similar struggles my uncle wouldve faced as a Navy man, or my aunt as she worked through medical school. Educational access was still a rarity, a combination of hardwork and right place, right time, a pass to the other side. Blatant racism and discrimination lived unashamed and the struggle to succeed was an expectation. Through this, I'd like to think these groundbreaking "black firsts" were role models, offering my elders (not even my mother, a child of the 80s, but perhaps my grandmother/aunts/uncles) inspiration and motivation to do better and be the best.
I know, motivation and inspiration comes in different packages.
What's the disconnect for my...differently motivated peers, those led by the "fuck bitches, get money" movement? Today's teachers and educators can answer this better but I'd love to flip through today's English and history books. I'd guess, for our children, the list of writers and history-makers have not been updated to reflect recent history (and I use "today" loosely as I recall my textbooks were as old as 1973). Will my nieces, nephews and cousins still be reading about Rosa Parks, Malcolm X and Jesse Owens in 2010 and beyond? Will Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou, among others, continue to be the black highlights of high school required reading? Surely there is room for more thinkers, writer, and leaders to put rims on these wheels.
I hardly discredit any of these people, but my (grand)mother's heroes are not always my own. Should history be recorded as fast as its made? How do we accurately define what is history, and what is just something that happened to someone at some time (a question for journalists and educators alike). Over the last 15-20 years, a reasonable timeframe for history to be "made" and have a lasting effect on the next generation, who (and what) will be recorded as a testament to our children, that we black, brown (and even white) people made valuable, thought-provoking, ground-breaking, and even teachable contributions to this country and world?
Thought about it? Great, now cross out everyone in sports and entertainment. Now let's work from there.
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