Allow me to answer for the Black Folks

At the risk of overstepping my bounds of "speaking for my race",I am going to attempt to answer some of the question raised in "Teaching Black Boys". I think that you're confusion stems from two points. One being that people who are visibly of the same culture, react and interact with each other differently. And this question stems from a debacle within the heart of black culture. To write about this, I have a two front war, and this is often the position I find myself in. As an intellectual, I can see the clear paths, the logical connection from point A to B. As a black man, I can also see the subtle nuances of black culture and how they can flavor an agreement but still have just as much credence as the former.

Let's start here;What is black culture and what is it defined by? I think this is the essential question to the African American mindset when it comes to dealing with matters of races. And the issue arises from the fact that for so long, black culture has been defined in terms of it's contention with white culture. This is less obvious now to some, but the contention still exist. Especially within black culture itself. We have a dialogue that needs to be completed within our own culture before we can actually have a dialogue with any other race. And I think that this is where the lines of communication begin to break down.

I think that black people have come to look at white people as the Other. And that we do not allow ourselves to be stratified within our own culture. As far as I know, the social distinctions that exist within white culture are far less pronounces and much more murky in black culture. To speak from experience, the concept of subcultures is in my mind not a black method of expression. When I say subculture, I mean things like goth culture, or Jock Culture, and things of that nature. Not to suggest this is ever present in white culture, but it just seems much more pronounced. I get the feeling as a black man, that white culture is built upon exclusivity, and that black culture is built upon the tenets of exclusivity. To make this clearer, in black culture I think people are defined by their adherence to certain social and cultural norms. Those who are not in line with these are then label as "white" which as I stated earlier, is the Other. Does this make sense?

I think that's why you are having such a clash. You are stepping on toes not because you are wrong, but because it seems presumptuous. I think the key here is this, nobody wants to seem helpless. And for black people, much more than white, culture is an extension of self. Therefore, if my culture is ailing, then I myself am ailing. And in the case of education, when a white, Jewish woman wants to help it make stick in my craw. No necessarily due to her own motivations, but how my own predilections color her motivations in my own eyes. I think that black people have learned to be suspicious of  Greeks bearing gifts.

This brings me into another realm of things I need to explain but I think this is the basis of the issue.

Teaching Black Boys

So I want to talk about whether I can teach black boys.  Because it is actually my favorite thing to do.  So, for the last two years I've had a personal crisis of faith, so to speak.

So, I am a white, upper middle class, liberal, Jewish mommy.  Does that automatically eliminate me as able to teach black children - especially boys?  After my conversation with MC and his comments on white women generally, I got the sense that it did.  Was I not listening?  Did I hear him wrong?  My sense was his issue with white women (and maybe me in particular??) was multi-faceted.

One is misplaced liberalism as paternalism (which I agree with).  There is a lot of misplaced liberalism that is really paternalism.  I am thinking of the board member who wants to go out and educate black parents on parenting.  She means well - but is insulting that she thinks she knows better. So, the question for me is. . . is my liberalism misplaced or am I being paternalistic?   I think education, to some extent, is inherently paternalistic as it is "pedantic."  I am "delivering instruction."  The notion of education is to empower kids to become good decision makers -- so its ultimate goal of education is to destroy paternalism... Ha, the great irony of education.  (Which is why life is probably the best educator).  So, as any teacher - I think I am caught in that irony.  But I don't want to "save" or "teach" my black students anything different than I want for my white students.  I think the pathway to enlightenment is an individual -- not even communal (I am not a utilitarian.)(despite the fact that education is set up entirely as a utilitarian endeavor).  I am also interested in educating the whole child - I don't care if they like the book if they don't like themselves or life.  (One can make a serious argument that I cannot education black boys for this reason - how can I teach them to like themselves . . .  but I don't buy that either.  People are people.  Love, loss, sadness, grief, pain... we all experience this -- we all experience it in different ways -- but happiness and pain is universal and relative.
 I do not see it as different for Jews, for blacks, for girls or for boys.  I think that content and methodology must be flexible and appropriate for each and every audience -- when HPHS teaches all books with no female characters, when any school teaches eurocentric history, whatever. . . all instruction must be tailored to inspire the particular audience sitting in front of me.  I cannot use only football analogies in an all-girl classroom and I cannot use dead white men as the only representations of literature.  So, I don't think I am paternalistic.  Other than the institutional irony of "teaching."

Am I paternalistic because I think I'm good at teaching black boys?  I don't think I'm better than black teachers PER SE. I think I am a great teacher.  There are teachers who are better than me (white, black, male and female).  There are teachers who are worse than me (black, white, male and female).  Can I teach black boys better than black men?  Some.   There are some black male teachers who can kick my butt teaching writing and there are some black male teachers who can kick my butt teaching the whole black child.  But there are some really crappy teachers out there -- black men included.  So, statistically speaking -- couldn't make an argument.  I don't think we can measure or predict successful teachers in this kind of way.  

What am I missing -- what else does it mean to be paternalistic???  Is my culture or way of life better??  It is relative and it depends and how can I say blue is better than white?  Okay. . . I'm entering the slippery slope of relativism.  But I believe in cafeteria living -- I'll take some of this, leave some of this... education's job to help us learn to make good choice for what is best for us. WHAT AM I MISSING????

Now.. my misplaced liberalism.... Yes.  It is at times misplaced.  For sure.  I want to save the world from unhappiness.  I want easy fixes - even though I know they don't exist.  I can only see my misplacement after-the-fact though.  Right, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  More later.  Please respond Big D

a smash cut to violence

In response to Solly's last post: "Let the 76th annual Hunger Games begin!" No really, aren't we all living in the reality of the Hunger Games? For those blogger watchers who haven't read the book I'll summarize.

The Hunger Games is a young adult fiction trilogy. It's set in a post apocalyptic world where America has been devastated by war and famine and then reborn under the guise of Panem, a pseudo-dictatorship that is separated into "Districts" which each specialize in a certain kind of industry. Because a bloody rebellion,seventy-four years previous to the first book in the series, the government of Panem, called "the Capitol", forces the districts to hold an annual lottery and select 2 children, one male and one female, between the ages of twelve and eighteen. The two "tributes" are forced to compete in a televised battle to the death with the other children chosen from the other districts.  

Are you getting the picture? Needless to say, the book is extremely pessimistic and violent. In my mind it's a reflection of the depravity of the powerful. Now Solly's question is, should she allow her 10 year old to read this book. My response is of course yes. Demeter, they will bleet, " the material is to harsh for someone that age", "It promotes the glorification of violence!", "He won't be able to understand the allegory/metaphor".  To all this I say, yeah well there are some people that live the reality of this. It's a story, but it reflects on the nature of humanity as a whole. Creating some fake insular world of fluffy bunnies and caramel kisses around a  child doesn't make them any less likely to become a messed up person. It makes them more likely because that person comes to believe that this is how all normal humans interact. And sadly it isn't.  Enjoying watching fictional violence doesn't preclude someone not being a violent person.

The point I want to make here is this: correlation does not imply causation. That is to say that, just because two things happen seemly together, does not imply a link between the two in the manner of one leading to the other.There are more important considerations than just coincidence.This is important in two ways for this conversation, the first is that people have conflated maturity with age. The second is that we have conflated watching or even reading violent material, specifically material that glorifies or normalizes violence, and being a violent person. And I think "normalizes" is the key here. This is the question that I think is most important; does the work attempt to make violence normal in our world or is it simply an illustration of how things could be or are? I think that in the case of the Hunger Games it is the later.

Let's take for example, a family in which violence is commonplace. Abuse and violence then become status quo, and non-violence or passivity become the aberrations. These are the moraes of the Hunger Games; loss, neglect and oppression have become so thoroughly ingrained into society, so integral to it's survival that no one questions why children are being sent to their death. No one, except the reader thus creating a bleak world in which violence and oppression have become the common denominators by juxtaposing it against our own world view. I see the book as almost a lithmus test of someones outlook on the world. Some might react with stark horror, while people like me who have first hand knowledge of how harsh the world can be don't bat an eye. However, this has nothing to do with the writing itself, this is the filter of the reader.

We come loaded with preconceived notions. Solly I wonder where I got that concept from?  We are never blank slates, we always have our life experiences to color what we read and hear. So then the work is understood by what is already present in the mind of the reader, a posteriori. A person used to violence will see nothing wrong, a person not used to violence will be repulsed.

So then we have to look at the individual and what we think about their mindset. Why set an arbitrary age at which by some magically process someone is now mature enough to handle "sensitive material". Can we at least agree it's not a matter of age, but maturity and ability to cope with serious subject matter? There are some adults who probably shouldn't be reading the Hunger Games, because they mentally are not capable of seeing the meaning behind the violence.

In all my waffle, what I'm saying is that you shouldn't judge the work when asking should my kid read this. You should judge your progeny. Ask yourself, is my kid up to this with constrictions for age thrown to the wayside. I would say yes, but that there should also be a dialogue on the side between you and him about the themes of the book.

Maybe it's my glib pessimism about the world, or maybe it's testosterone induced madness caused by being a violence loving man. Either way, I think that aggression has a place in society, it's a part of the human condition and we will never be above it unless we discuss it. It harken to the discussion of abstinence only Sex Education in schools. It mutes the subtle nuances of humanity by trying to make them black and white. Nothing is good or bad. It's all about what we cull from the experiences we are given.Chemically speaking evolution itself is functionally promoted by the will to survive, and by proxy aggression. Only when we don't talk about things are they allowed to get out of hand and become something ugly.