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Clint Smith - How to Raise a Black Son in America 

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Clint Smith - How to Raise a Black Son in America 

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There's no question that black and white kids are raised differently. Clint Smith explains how we are not equal until we can be raised equally. This disproves any theory that we have really moved forward. We are not equal. Being raised black by black parents is also different than being raised black by white parents. I remember when I had more freedom. I remember being able to bike to dance, until the boys who had called me the "ugly Ni**a girl" showed up on my route, and my mom realized it wasn't safe for me to be out by myself. I remember having more freedom and less fear when I was younger, until we realized how serious things were. It took moving to a white community to realize how different we were. Being black affects everything I do. Who I'm friends with, my extra curriculars, what sports I played, what dance I took, who I dated, my extracurriculars, everything. Can you say the same about whiteness?

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As kids, we all get advice from parents and teachers that seems strange, even confusing. This was crystallized one night for a young Clint Smith, who was playing with water guns in a dark parking lot with his white friends. In a heartfelt piece, the poet paints the scene of his father’s furious and fearful response.

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(A Marshwood High School student who said she has repeatedly been the victim of racial slurs and threats by her peers on the school bus urged parents to teach their children to call out those using racial slurs. “Teach your kids to stand up. That bus ride still sucks every day and it gets worse,” said Jalion McLean, 16. “Teach them that they will get a lot of backlash, people are not going to be happy if they are standing up for someone, but it has to be done.”) on a local level, we are moving into tensions high enough to stimulate a race war. People are afraid to stand up, and when they do, administrators are awful to the,. To stand up is to risk so much, and to put your name out there. The girl who spoke at this meeting spoke under the pretense that she was minor so her name would not be released, but it was. Her identity is out there. Before it was just "a kid calling out injustice on a bus ride" now her name is in the media and it made her a target to her peers. She was subject to vicious rumors. "Kill all Ni**as" is not a meme, as the school treated it. "Kill all Ni**as" is a statement that she had grown up hearing and being told variations of, and she did not have the time nor the energy left to let there be any chance this threat was real. We are not moving forward until not one person thinks "Kill all Ni**as" is a joke or funny statement or a harmless expression of free speech that just 'happens to be limited in a school setting" according to anyone's principal. there should be no excuse for this behavior, and until we stop excusing it, we cannot even pretend we are moving forward.

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SOUTH BERWICK, Maine - About 100 locals turned out Tuesday evening for a discussion aimed at encouraging parents to speak to their children about race and empower them to be compassionate and conscious individuals.

The town's public library hosted the "How to Talk to Your Kids About Race" community conversation, co-sponsored by the Central School PTO and facilitated by Will Lusenhop, a clinical social worker and professor at the University of New Hampshire. Lusenhop, a South Berwick resident and parent, urged the crowd to become curious about racism, to educate themselves on the history of the topic and work to grow comfortable talking about race and creating a community willing to create change.

Library Director Karen McCarthy Eger said she was pleased with the number of attendees and that she is glad people are ready to talk about race in this majority-white town.

"Bloomberg listed South Berwick in 2013 as the best small town to raise a family in Maine. We have had some racial incidents in town and I'm sure there is a lot we don't know about, so maybe it's not the best town to live in depending on who you are," Eger said.

Rather than focus on racial incidents on the Seacoast, the residents, educators and students on hand were encouraged first to explore in small groups why it's sometimes uncomfortable talking about race.

"It's a hard sell, but I try to convince people not to embark on this journey saying you are a racist or you are not a racist, because you might as well be saying you are a pedophile, drunk driver who killed someone. It's viewed as such a terrible thing to be racist and it causes people to be defensive and say I'm not, rather than examine the prejudices inside us, how they happen to us and how we enact them. When we realize they are in there, we need to examine them and determine how to change them," said Lusenhop, who is the chairman of the Diversity Committee in the UNH Department of Social Work and is a member of the diversity task force in the College of Health and Human Services and provides in-service training on diversity to the N.H. Department of Children, Youth and Families.

Despite his experience, Lusenhop repeatedly said he doesn't have all the answers and reached out to the attendees to share techniques they have found successful.

One mother of a 5-year-old in town said she keeps it simple when teaching her daughter. She proudly displays a sign in front of their home saying: "Hate has no home here" and explains to her daughter in basic terms what this means.

A Marshwood High School student who said she has repeatedly been the victim of racial slurs and threats by her peers on the school bus urged parents to teach their children to call out those using racial slurs.

"Teach your kids to stand up. That bus ride still sucks every day and it gets worse," said Jalion McLean, 16. "Teach them that they will get a lot of backlash, people are not going to be happy if they are standing up for someone, but it has to be done."

A small group of South Berwick residents began presenting programs on race two years ago after national attention was drawn to police shootings of black citizens across the country. Another conversation is not scheduled at this time but Lusenhop said he expects more opportunities will be planned.

"There was a lot of tension at the end because people really need to talk about this. It doesn't get its due and I felt bad coming to a close," Lusenhop said.

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SOUTH BERWICK, Maine - About 100 locals turned out Tuesday evening for a discussion aimed at encouraging parents to speak to their children about race and empower them to be compassionate and conscious individuals.The town's public library hosted the "How to Talk to Your Kids About Race" community conversation, co-sponsored by the Central School PTO and facilitated by Will Lusenhop, a clinical social worker and professor at the University of New Hampshire.

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This source was important because it relates to both the slam poetry and citizen. It understands the "sigh" and is written in a way that can be decoded by black women. it alludes to situations black women go through without even explaining them. This is a heavy knowing, to understand a horrible but exclusively relate-able kind of thing. This source speaks on the "picked personas" from different parts of the black woman identity, something that is so true but often goes unnoticed. Something I hadn't even realized.
Identity is huge. Jim isn't even an identity in the book, he is a slave, he is black, but he isn't given time to process anything or be anything other than a support to Huck.

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Things I tell Myself about Myself - Alyesha Wise 

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Things I tell Myself about Myself - Alyesha Wise 

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This poem is about being a black women that doesn't fit the mold of a "black woman". As a light-skin black woman without a black figure I heard her and felt her words clearly. What Alyesha says about self love and understanding that you are Who you are and not only accepting it but praising it... what she said about boys calling you chocolate like it's a compliment and wanting you for your skin... that they call us exotic and that we must always be warm "like a black women doesn't have enough cause to get cold sometime." This cold comes from many things but it stems from that too. I've been so angry with the way I'm approached. I'm expected to be docile, smile and except these weird comparisons and compliments and when I don;t I'm the angry black women. Like my anger is unjustified. What she said about dancing in the mirror and waiting for your hips. Too often girls are black but not seen as women. When she said our worth was in something to hold on to, How many times had I heard that before? She starts her poem with "Remember that time I questioned why god molded me out of tar and sky?" I remembered.

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Alyesha Wise - Things I Tell Myself About Myself

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Sometimes we need to remind ourselves of the beauty we always have been. Just a reminder...

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Citizen is a declaration of emotion by Claudia Rankine. Citizen is a mix of art and poetry, art in relation to black bodies and corresponding poetry. It is a beautiful read and very relate able. Citizen talks about the eternal sigh that black people live in. It talks about how we are raised to be caring and polite so we don't come across as agressive, because the second we are feel any emotion it is seen as agressive or overwhelming. This is a reason why Jim's character is so tired, overplayed. He is caring and patient and as a black person it's overdone in my opinion. I know it was made to show him as good in comparison to the white characters, but it is unrealistic to be expected to act like that. But many black people feel like they still have to act like that. We have not progressed at all from that perspective. We are seen as larger than life, terrifying. So we have to down play our emotions. We cannot be loud or passionate or upset without being seen as dramatic or loud. And if you are dramatic or loud, they say it's because you're black. (example: this weekend I got upset about something when I was out with white friends and they told me my "black" was showing)

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black women and their efforts in the current civil rights movement, including the mother of Trayvon Martin. This source states that women of color are still working in this new civil rights movement. They are doing amazing work, but it's work that they have been doing for what seems like forever. And now they are doing it missing sons and losing more and more with the weight of the restless on their shoulders. They are doing enough. But people are tired, people want to see change in their own lifetimes. But these women continue to work their hardest, even as they grieve. (Marvel Source)

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Hooded is a film that changes the view of black boys in hoodies. It is the unsaid response to Trayvon Martin's death. It is beautiful. The point of the video is to show that black boys are beautiful and gentle and are not the public image they are given. Black men are gentle and deserve to be able to express this. We see this gentle nature in Jim, but he is still the strong character because he has to be strong, throughout the entire book.

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Sheryll and Paul on who can use the word

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Sheryll and Paul on who can use the word

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First and foremost. Nobody ever said Latinos could use the word. There is a cultural divide between the oppressed, and even tho they are POC, the current inter-web debate on the subject (and from person experience and friends experience) most black people agree that even as a POC, if you are a nonblack POC you can NOT use the word. Every group has a derogatory term attributed to them. and if you are not of that group you do NOT say it. The debate should be (WITHIN THE BLACK COMMUNITY) whether or not Black people want to keep using the word or if they should stop saying it.) I know policing the word is hard, but if white people were as invested in policing the N word as they are with policing the derogatory terms for Jewish people or even now how they police the derogatory term for gay, we wouldn't have this issue. White people don't abuse the derogatory term for the Chinese like they abuse their term for Black people. White people need to step up and police themselves, because a white person who disrespects black people enough to use the word, is not going to listen to a black person telling them to stop saying it. When Paul says he did not stop his roommate, and is bothered by it even now, I do not blame him. Living in a multiracial unit and being the sole black member is a lot of responsibility, and if his roommates had responded by ganging up on him it would've made the rest of his college experience uncomfortable. White people feel verified by white people. Unless another white person speaks up to them they respond with something along the lines of "maybe I am only offending this one black person" and because of it, they refuse to change. I speak from experience. I choose not to say the N word because I am living in a white community with a white parent and it is uncomfortable, but you know what is comfortable? Black people reclaiming the word and turning it into something beautiful. Black people spinning the word into something synonymous with "brother" brothers that only they have, brothers that know what they've gone through, are surviving the struggle, are building an empire on the positive use of the word. If black people choose to use the word it's theirs to use and theirs alone. let them change its definition. Black people fighting to take back the word, being able to fight back is progression, white people refusing to accept this and using the word to insult and as slang is oppression and grounds for civil unrest, not progressing at all. I feel we've moved sideways on this.

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This one's interesting. Maya Angelou says we have forgotten our past, and because of that we cannot move forward. Yes we have forgotten our gods and culture, but brought to a strange place and pressed upon with new beliefs, we cannot blame ourselves for everything is lost. In the final line, Where Maya says we must honor our ancestors, it struck a chord with me. it's 2017, and many African Americans are using the available technology to find their roots, and honor their culture that had been lost to them before. Of course, we do need to protect our brothers and sisters, and not only educate them but educate them on themselves. Black men and women are so much more than the identities that are sold to them. Honor Black friendships, Black love, Black art, Black interaction, black businesses. We should no longer make Black children overachieve to achieve anything at all. White people say they will help, but they don't know how. Black people cannot help because they are too far behind. No one knows how to fix it all, but one thing we must realize it that there is no beginning. We must pick a point to start at because there will be no starting point, and we mustn't be discouraged when we still cannot see the finish lie. Black bodies need to lift black bodies. support black bodies. Because no one can understand a Black body unless they have one. We are just people, but we are not the people we have grown up being told we were. We are so much more, and if we look into the past we can see that we have been so much more. Black bodies built empires. Hell, black bodies built America, but the black bodies we are fed as children, we do not respect. We do not respect, do not love, do not want Black bodies. We are shown and represented by traits society also teaches us to be uncomfortable. Violent, over-sexualized, unsuccessful, we are taught not to trust black bodies. And Unfortunately, we as black bodies, have to erase an image that others drew of us. We must stop our brothers from perpetuating stereotypes. We cannot afford even one of us to be uneducated, we will be picked apart and told that that is how we all are.  We are family, and we must protect each other from this.

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This Amazing, Troubling Book reflection. 

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This Amazing, Troubling Book reflection. 

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The text itself was a lot to take in, and this piece about the text was even more so. the author makes a good point that Jim is still a slave, even as a father figure. He is written as a slave, his character traits are that of a slave, and some of his defining character traits work that way as well. Jim would not be the right father figure for Huck in the book if he did not have these “slave traits” because the stability Huck wants is control. she points out that the story isn't about Huck's escape from a racist society, his depression and issues solved by Jim do not sway him away from society. They sway him towards Jim.