get is from black people that have a hard time digesting the conversation that I’m trying to have with them. That’s an issue. That’s a problem. That if you think yourself only in terms of the lesser, when in actual fact that’s not your position. So for me I struggled also because I often wondered why I was not told this as a child. Maybe you weren’t ready... It seems to be a very loaded thing to say to a child especially if you don’t have the tools to investigate at that age? But see, therein is the problem…We conceive that children are incapable of handling the truth; and that is furthest from the truth and I can now say this as a father. It feels to be the most pertinent time to put in that sort of information. As Malcolm X once stated ’only a fool would let the enemy teach children…’ and that is exactly what the education system is doing In my opinion considering my 17 years and education as a teacher; It is the killing field, no doubt about it. When the agenda from the moment you step into the building is to teach you everything about someone else and not yourself - and then they grant you only one month where you’re supposedly supposed to explore that sense of self - I find it to be very interesting on the psyche. (Black History Month) It comes around in a very short month, a cold month, the weather signalling to me death (February in the U.S) if you want to look at it from an esoteric perspective. So when you speak of programming, when you speak of education, if you’re not going to teach children properly then don’t teach them at all. Don’t do them a disservice as they have enough already in prolonging or promoting them as being lesser. It’s not for the faint of heart. It’s the most important job that a person can take on because you’re actually training people to thrive and survive in society so they are entrusting that you give the children truth. So when you’re not doing that and instead giving them a curated story then it’s not the job for you.
In your challenge to ‘shared’ histories to present a more empowering narrative for black identity’’: what do you hope audiences will feel when they view your work and how can this repurpose the term ‘black’? I personally don’t use the term black; I am an indigenous American. So what is that does that mean people often ask me. it means that I am a pre-columbian American. It was a regional thing, and even the term Indian became passeé and ridiculed even within groups of people of colour in the early 1900s. And you’ll be surprised about how many historical figures knew about their indigenous heritage; Malcolm Luther King and Sammy Davis Jr for example… James Baldwin once said ’what do you do when your whole life you been rooting for the cowboy, and find out your the Indian…’ Google books has a wealth of resources upon which to begin your research and in my opinion we have lost our complete identity in terms of who we are as a people. So often I find that when you get into a space of existentialism it feels like a rabbit hole that never has a floor… You have to ask yourself ‘how in the hell did we find ourselves here?’ I think it has a lot to do with the omnipresent slave narrative which provides - in a strange way - a sense of comfort; that if that’s our history than any action against it is a form of empowerment and reactionary… but there is also power in saying that’s not my history... Yes! yes there is! I think it becomes scary to lot of people because they realise that if they are an agreement it means a lot of research and they often don’t have the time to do that research. Oftentimes it’s probably an issue of economics as well... Yes I completely agree with you.
THE THREE ‘ISM’S: NEGOTIATING RACE, SEX & CLASS. // 51