Reflection: Thoughts Just After the KFLA Race Equity Meeting
My head has been swimming a little since our meetings in Denver in mid-October. Â A group of the Fellows gathered to plan a Call to Action, now titled “Race, Ethnicity & Ancestry: Securing Equity and Justice”
Without referring to J. Seale’s idea of social construction, it is evident that the idea of race and its definition is highly contextual. In some society, the very idea does not even exist. In Japan, non-Japanese people have a long history of being discriminated against. Many are Chinese, Korean, and other Asian people who, according to American idea of race, belong to the same race with the Japanese. In some instances, Europeans did better in Japan because of their white skin. People of a different race faced less discrimination because they did not have a history of Japanese occupation. So in many cases, racism is historically contextual. Additionally, discrimination against African Americans in Japan is something that was brought into Japan during the
occupation period after the war so it is new. It has a different meaning there. Kiuchi has an article to be published in the Journal of Pop Culture that is really interesting.
In France, racism is often related to religion. Whether or not some are allowed to wear religious veils is a big issue. White people who practice certain religion may experience “racism” albeit to some less extent.
In an American context, social, historical, and religions contexts are all significant. But economic issues is also big. When it comes to a contemporary style of racism, maybe_Bell Curve_ was a major turning point. As more and more people blindly believe in the idea of color blind society which in my mind makes absolutely no sense, the class has been a justifiable reason (for some) to sustain status quo. Class and race are highly correlated and in many cases, there is a causal relationship due to the history.
What is useful about this economy based arguments is that it encompasses all racial groups and goes beyond the black and white binary. But the risk is to ignore the historical roots that created racism.
There is no doubt that the black and white binary needs to be changed in this country and probably one of the first steps is what we begin to construct.
The KFLA will be hosting a summit on Race, Ethnicity & Ancestry: Securing Equity & Justice in November 2010. Â Stay informed on the process and how to join us.
What the Obama Administration Needs to Know About Reaching Youth
In the effort to guide our youth in a direction that promotes financial economic opportunity, continued growth, and enhanced education, it is imperative that the Obama administration take a long hard look at the signals that they send. Time has proven that the old method of doing things is simply that-old.
Youth are non-responsive to the methods that brow-beat them, and attack the popular culture that they have embraced and identify with. The fact that popular culture is often at the core of their personalization, is a fact that must be understood and dealt with in a manner that separates whatever disdain may be held by policy makers for this popular culture from the positive that can be derived and utilized in reaching them on their level.
By understanding what motivates and drives our youth, recognizing and acknowledging their concerns, and making a genuine effort to relate to them by creating some sort of common ground, policy makers open the lines of communication and begin to bridge the gap that has been ever-widening. The age old “Father knows best,” theory has been generally based on a platform that suggests that “I talk and you listen.”
This dominant and dictatorship method does not work, and often serves to make youth “turn up the volume” of the music in their heads. When it becomes clear that they are the only ones grooving to the beat of what drives them, they shut down and look elsewhere to find the answers and help they need. Often times, they don’t find it, and the downward spiral becomes a cycle of despair and inevitable doom.
Obviously as concerned citizens, no one wants to see a child fail, however not many policy makers are willing to take a step back and realize that perhaps their methodology is one of the barriers that makes success a pipe dream versus a reality for our nation’s youth and young adults. Policy makers and society as a whole have to shed their judgmental ideations about the popular culture teens have adopted, and begin to ask the hard questions. What is the message?
The seeming fixation on fast cash and “Pimpin Rides’” don’t necessarily indicate that teens condone the methods of obtaining the lifestyle depicted, but it does indicate that financial stability is of huge importance. Teens want to have some control over their futures and having grasped the dynamics of society, they do understand that money brings power. What parents, educators, and teen programs must do is find the thread that ties the ability to gain financial prosperity with the necessity of becoming educationally, emotionally, and physically sound.
By making this connection, policy makers have introduced a path that is alternative to the negatives that they perceive in popular culture, and still strikes commonality with youth by addressing their underlying concerns about their future. Connecting with youth is by far a task that is ongoing, and requires policy makers and practitioners to develop a systematic way of utilizing youth popular culture, peer influence and youth involvement in a way that promotes life, freedom and young people’s future economic opportunity.
This stuff is not taught: it’s caught. Policy makes must keep their thumb on the pulse of what relates to youth. The difference is that with today’s youth, that thumb cannot be used to apply the pressure of dominance that once worked. Teens are smarter and more conscious than ever, and want to be acknowledged as the authority of what is important to them as opposed to being told that they are giving up on their country when they drop-out of school. Adults must relinquish this notion, and consider that it’s us who gave up on them.
Edward DeJesus is the President and Founder of the Youth Development and Research Fund (www.ydrf.com). Reprint permitted with the author’s expressed permission from the Youth Engagement Blog.
Indigenous Consciousness as a Basis For Activism
Indigenous peoples globally, although tremendously diverse in the expression of traditions, do share some similar foundational values, based on the relationship with the Earth. Expressions of traditions are determined by the local environment. For example, my nation, in Anishinaabe centered philosophy, water holds great spiritual significance. We, Anishinaabeg are surrounded by water in the Great Lakes Territory. Indigenous thought always perceives the Earth as a living, breathing, conscious being, whose sacred duty it is to care for the ones living in, on and in relation to her, including humans. In Indigenous thought, humans are considered to be part of creation, not above it, as in the “dominion over all things” foundation of westernized philosophy.
All Indigenous Peoples have our own creation stories, our own genesis. These stories consist of two elements: 1) How we were created, and 2) How we are to live on and with the living Earth. This is commonly referred to as Original Instruction. Original Instruction involves concepts of reciprocity, always giving back, gratitude and caring. This assumes an intelligently caring creation, where all parts are aware of and care for all other parts. There are succinct spiritual statements within Tribal Nations that express these philosophies. Among the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota, “Mitakuye Owasin” means “All My Relations” and is a call to remember the relational precepts of Original Instructions. Anishinaabeg have “Mino-Bi-Maadiziwin” which translates to “The Good Life”. These are calls to remember Original Instruction and to remember the responsibility of our place in Creation.
In these philosophies, Indigenous knowledge is profoundly expressed. We are the Original Peoples of the land. We all trace our lineage to creation. We are made of the Earth. Our blood and bodies have gone back to her generation after generation, until the Earth is also made of us. This is why environmental degradation is so painful to us. We actually feel the pain in our bodies and spirits when we see any violation of the Earth as all. Because Indigenous Peoples are forced into the global market with only our resources and labor to negotiate with, we often find ourselves in the “either-or” conundrum of economic development or cultural survival. It is the ultimate irony that since our cultures are dependent on our relation with the land, and we must sell the resources in the land, we become economically dependent on our own cultural destruction.
Nevertheless, we remain connect to the expressions of cultural life and economic subsistence lifestyles everyday. We are who we are, the Original Peoples of this land with the encumbent responsibilities and obligations to her. Our cultural teachings and heritage live in each of us through our genetic memory which some of our elders refer to as “blood memory”. This identity is the source of knowledge and spirituality, which we can call upon to guide our values and ethics in all that we do.
Even though our access to our own Indigenous knowledge has been violently interrupted by colonization of the Western Hemisphere and its’ accompanying brutality towards us, it lives in us still. There are many people who carry and hold the specific teachings for us. The knowledge is available. For example, many Indigenous Nations have prophecies, such as the Seven Fires of the Anishinaabe (each fire representing a period of time), which foretold of the situations that we find ourselves in currently. Within the teachings are also the ethical responses that are available to us to guide us through our complex environmental and economic situations.
To operate from the cultural identity and Indigenous knowledge is always a position of strength. It is movement toward sustainability, healing, integration of wholeness for Indigenous peoples as well as models for all people of our beautiful Earth Mother.