Literacy with an attitude

I promised myself I was going to read this entire excerpt, I wasn't just going to skim through chapter 13, but I was going to read the entire thing.  I really wish I hadn't.  I am no saying that this piece did not have some interesting facts, or that thee writer did not make some great points, because he did.  But I have to be honest and say that I dozed off more than once while reading this.  It was not as captivating as the other readings we've done and I struggled to follow along with some of it.   I believe that his argument is in line with Lisa Delpit's on that those with the power receive a better education than those without.  In fact in the preface one of the quotes that stuck out to me was:  "There have been times in history when the prospect of literacy of the have-nots has been a source of endless angst of the haves".   I also felt some Johnson in there when he state, again in the preface, " The status quo is the status quo because people who have the power to make changes are comfortable with the way things are.  It takes energy to make changes and the energy must come from the people who will benefit from the change.  But the working class does not get powerful literacy and powerful literacy is necessary for the struggle".    Then again I heard Delpit when Finn said " I was from the working class and I knew how working class and poor kids related to authority.  They expected people in authority to be authoritarian".   

I honestly do not understand what Paulo Freire 's teachings were, that whole chapter went over my head

I found Anyon's study to be very interesting, and I can definitely see the validity in her assessment and conclusion's.  pg 20 " The working class children were learning to follow directions and mechanical low paying work, but at the same time they were learning to resist authority in ways sanctioned by their community.  The middle-class children were learning to follow orders and so the mental work that keeps the society producing and running smoothly.  The affluent professional children were learning to create products and art, symbolic capital, and at the same time they were learning to find rewards in work itself and negotiate from a powerful position with those who make the final decisions....They were learning to become masters of the universe."

The last quote that really hit me was from pg 25, " Those who are the smartest and work the hardest go furthest?  Who's kidding whom?  When students begin school in such different systems, the odds are set for them." 

The Problem we all live with podcast, with Ira Glass and Nikole Hannah Jones.

Wow.  What a changes from last weeks assignment.  I will begin by saying that I truly enjoyed listening to this podcast, as well as reading along.  It opened my eyes to the fact that there is still serious racism and segregation happening, even in 2017.  I mean I don't live under a rock, I realize that there is still an abundance of racism, but I was not aware that in this day and age there was still segregation in school and people fighting to keep it that way.  There were parts while listening to this that I wanted to reach through my computer and slap people.  How dare they make those kids from Normandy feel like they aren't good enough to attend Frances Howell.  Who are they, judge, jury and executioner?  Like Nikole stated, how do they know that one of those trouble makers from the other side of town won't be the one in ten years to save your life?  It amazed me that ere are people out there who still posses the audacity to think that they are better than someone else because of the color of their skin.  It brings me back to Johnson's mention of the Watermelon Man.  These are the people who need to wake up one day with a different skin tone.  These are the people who need to walk a mile in another's shoes so that maybe they would be less judgmental.  This also made me totally rethink those teachers that I judged so harshly in Delpit's article.  It's because of the white people that were present in that town hall meeting that black teacher's feel like they need to just smile and ignore what white people are saying.  I can honestly say I am appalled and mortified by the way those people were speaking.  Sorry Armstrong and Wildman, but colorblindness is not an issue here.  These people have no qualms about expressing their racism.  

This is probably my favorite assignment so far.  I found this podcast to be heart wrenching and real and honest.   Before I get into the quotes that really stood out to me I am copying the link for the . TAL, which I have to be honest I am not entirely sure if I did that correctly.  

The first portion that struck me was the discussion on how basically bad schools, in the poverty portions of town, stay bad, while the good schools stay good.  Looking at this and thinking about Rhode Island you can see how this statement rings true.  Compare Providence or Pawtucket schools to Barrington or East Greenwich.  The poverty areas, which are mostly black and Latino, Providence for example, cannot keep up with a fluent school district like Barrington, which is predominately white.   And I can only imagine what a town meeting in Barrington or East Greenwich would sound like if they were told that South Providence was going to be busing their kids into the schools.  I would probably be just as appalled as I was with the parents of Frances Howell.  But in doing so it would be doing what Nikole was talking about, integrating and getting those black kids what the white kids already have, access to quality teachers and quality instructors.   I truly did not realize the extent of segregation that is still affecting our society until I listened to this and sat back and looked around. 

It truly does need to end.  All of our students should be given the same opportunities no matter where they live, or what color their skin is.  Look at Mah'Ria.  She was an excellent student, and once she was attending Francis Howell, she was making the honor roll, on the volleyball team, and had friends.  Yet her mother had to fight to keep her there as opposed to sending her to a school with non-accredidation.  Really??  So instead of offering this bright child everything we can, we are going to send her to a district that is destined to fail because of the color of her skin.  It's just despicable. 

The other quote that truly pulled at me was Nedra saying " I literally, mentally, had a vision of a herd of cattle being pushed back on a truck, being herded back to where they came from".  That is just awful.  It's awful that it is being done and it's awful that a parent has to feel that her child is part of an unwanted "herd".    Life is hard enough, let's give these kids a fighting chance, and let's make school a place where they feel equal and safe and all can learn.  I keep going back to Rodney King's " Can't we all just get along?" .  How many times will that question be asked before it starts to sink in and mean something.

The next thing I am enclosing is the link to Michael Brown , being that they mentioned his name often throughout the interview.   The shooting and death of Michael Brown is believed to have been one of the reasons that the Black Lives Matter movement was started.  

Lastly, I am also adding in a song that can be considered a response to Nikole stating that she feels like no noe is even trying anymore.  Some of us still are.  And if enough of us can keep trying, then we shall be free.....If you have the 3 minutes seriously, watch this...it's worth it.

We Shall Be Free

Other People's Children by Lisa Delpit

Ok, this article was a little more difficult for me to swallow.  I actually read it two days ago and am just now bringing myself to be able to write about it.  I can honestly say I do not like Lisa Delpit's style of writing at all.  I understand and even somewhat support her argument that in the field of education dialogue around race has become silenced.  According to the previous articles we have read, dialogue around race is silenced or difficult in an adult setting, so of course its going to be going on in the schools as well.  Up until this point I have agreed with and judged myself on the need to end racism and to stop people from pitting one race or gender against the other.  But then I read this.  I felt attacked.  I felt like she was actually contributing to pitting one race against another by some of the comments in the article, such as:
     pg 21 " White folks are going to do what they want to do anyway.  It's really hard.   They just don't ;listen well.  No they listen, but they don't hear..."


     pg22 " they wear blinders and earplugs"


     pg29 "some had added that the liberal educators believe themselves to be operating with good intentions, but that these intentions are only conscious delusions about their unconscious true motives"
She goes on about how white parents ask their children to do things while black parents have to give more instruction and then once they are in school and the teachers are asking them to do things instead of giving instruction, black students are struggling.  The only time I ask my son to do something is if its to help me with something, otherwise I am constantly giving detailed instructions on what he needs to do.  He is a child, albeit a white middle class male, that still requires INSTRUCTION!!!  To say that race determines how a child reacts, responds or learns to me is just too general. 


I will say that there were a few things that I agreed with.  Those were:
     pg37 " Children have the right to their own language, their own culture.  We must fight cultural begemony and fight the system by insisting that children be allowed to express themselves in their own language style.  It is not they, the children who must change, but the schools.  To push children to do anything else is repressive and reactionary"
      pg46  " To put our beliefs on hold it to cease to exist as ourselves for a moment and that is not east"  This is my absolute favorite line from the article.  It touches on what Johnson was saying.  We need to put aside our discomfort and our prejudices and come together as one. 

This assignment contained two readings, so I will begin by first discussing my views on Armstrong and Wildman's   Colorblindness in the new racism.   Reading this article was difficult for me, it brought to light that although I always considered myself to not be racist, I do fit into the profile of colorblindness.  As quoted by the authors " If a racist is a person who categorizes based on race to the detriment of non-whites then, whites reason how can they be discriminating if they do not think about no -whites in a derogatory manner, especially when they are thinking about race at all".  This particular quote touched a nerve with me because I always considered myself as non racist because I don't see color at all I just see people.  However this author argues that not seeing race, and not doing anything about the discrimination's that non-whites face is pretty much the same thing.  The exercises that the students did concerning paying attention to discrimination's or white privileges they saw for a 24 hour period really opened my eyes up to the everyday struggles or privilege's that I encounter myself that I don't pay attention to.  For instance, one of the students spoke of going to a nail salon where Asians work, and observing how most people do not speak to or barely acknowledge the men or women whom are waiting on them.  Thinking back to the many times I myself have gone to these salons I can safely say that I have observed and participated in the same behavior.  Because of the language barrier and fear of being insensitive when I don't understand what they are saying, I myself have avoided conversing with these men and women.  I am always very polite but the conversation is usually pretty null and void.  Another quote from the article, pg 67 " White fear creating the impression that they are insensitive or prejudiced".  Is this me?  Am I colorblind?  Am I part of the new form of racism?   When I think back to Johnson I realize that he hit the nail on the head when he said that " we don't have a complete understanding of the problems we are all facing regarding gender, race, sexual orientation, ethnicity and social class".    Both authors also touch on the fact that it is difficult and uncomfortable to talk about race, however, Armstrong and Wildman state that " because colorblindness has become the new touchstone in race discourse it is more difficult than ever to recognize discrimination and talk about it" .  This again struck a chord with me because now I feel as though by participating in colorblindness, I am also participating in discrimination.   This article, however does believe that there is a way to work on overcoming colorblindness, and that is called color insight.  Color insight is defined by the authors on pg 67 as " Color insight admits that most of us do see race and underlines the need to understand what that racial awareness might mean".    They even go into 4 steps to developing color insight on page 65.   These steps are "considering context for any discussion about race, examining systems of privilege, unmasking perspectivelessness and white normativeness, and combating stereotyping and looking for the me in each individual".  While reading this article I kept thinking of the song Free your mind by En Vogue, which I am including here.



My favorite quote from this article is from pg 67, " Society cannot battle a phantom that it cannot recognize and name".   We can name it, it has been named as color blindness, now lets start to fix it.   Lastly on this article I am attaching a link that is a movie that is mentioned in the article, but also really supports the premises of the article that we don't realize how extensive the problems of race our in our culture.  This is Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible.

     Next on the assignment was All lives matter by Kevin Roose.  This article/blog has to do with people changing the slogan of Black Lives Matter to All Lives Matter and how this is again taking a movement that was designed to bring light the racism that African Americans face and making about whites.   Black Lives Matter is not just a slogan, but a movement that was started in 2013 to bring attention to the police brutality that black people face.  As Roose states " saying all lives matter is willfully going back to ignoring the problem.  It's a way of dismissing the statement by falsely suggesting that it means only black lives matter when that is clearly not the case".  This movement was started for a reason, can't we as people realize that that reason is important and stop trying to diminish what this movement actually means and stands for?  Are we that ignorant and uncomfortable that we can't even admit that this is a legitimate movement and leave it as it is and maybe support it instead of trying to change it to be more socially acceptable?

I truly enjoyed reading this excerpt from Johnson book and I completely agree with everything he had to say.  I agree with him that we don't have a a complete understanding of the problems we are facing regarding gender, race, sexual orientation, ethnicity and social class.  As Johnson states we are ll stuck in out social class mindset but unfortunately it is not something we have created but rather has been passed down to us from generation to generation.  The author also states that " as a species we are creative, generous, loving, helpful, and adaptable".  Yet we are still unable to provide an answer to Rodney King's exasperated question of " Can't we all just get along"?  The author admits that he himself has fallen into the trap of being able to openly discuss these social issues while working with an African American woman with whom he was teaching a class on with regarding this very subject.  SO if he is having a hard time how are we, the average person supposed to step up and start making changes.  How do we go about not pitting people against each other, especially when competitiveness is humanly ingrained in each of us.  How do we get these conversations started without putting people on the defense or offending others?  How do we open up "privilege to everyone so that there is no more privilege just humans?  These are some of the questions that came to mind while I was reading.  Just a few sidebars.  Johnson talks about how blacks have to learn how white males live and respond so that they can please them, especially the cops.  My son has a friend who is multiracial and there was an incident at school.  Long story short, his fathers response was "I was about his age when my father had the talk with me about being a black man and how we need to work harder to stay out of trouble".  When the mom of this boy, who I might add is one of the most amazing, well behaved and caring boys I have ever met, told me this it broke my heart.  But unfortunately it just goes to show that the world, as much as we want it to, is not changing.  Our children are continuing with these same stigmas and it needs to stop.  The author argues that its easy for the white privileged heterosexual male to take a back seat and not work on solving these problems, when in reality they are the ones with the power to do so.  I am including a short excerpt from a stand up that Chris Rock did on being black,  Please note that there is strong language and if you will be offended than please don't watch it.  But as I was reading this article, this popped into my mind and I had to share it  .

 I also am including the wiki site for the plot of Watermelon man, which a movie mentioned by the author that I haven't seen so I looked it up to read what it was about Watermelon Man.   I am looking forward to discussing this in class!!!  I believe that the author is arguing the point that it is easy for the white heterosexual privileged male to take a backseat and not work on solving the problems, but they are the also the ones who have the power to solve the problems.

Hello!!!  My name is Danya.  I am an RN and currently working as a substitute nurse for the Coventry, Johnston and Lincoln school systems.  I am working to get my SNTC through RIC.  I have been married for 12 years this year and I have a son named Patrick who will be turning 11.   I love my family and spend all of my time with them.  I come from an Italian American family so I have a large extended family but I also have 3 siblings, I am the oldest.  My husband also comes from a large family and has 4 siblings so my son Patrick has a ton of aunts and uncles and cousins.  I am also currently working per diem at Oakland Grove in Woonsocket, where I work with dementia patients which I love.  I originally went to school for Marketing and Management, where I obtained my BS at JWU.  I worked in management for approximately 15 years, both while I was in college and once I graduated.  After having my son I decided I no longer wanted to be in management but I wanted to change careers and become a nurse.  My husband completely supported my decision and now I am truly doing what I love.   When I actually have free time I love to read, and I actually have a room dedicated as a Library in my house because I have so many books.    I am nervous and excited to begin this class and start my first blogging experience!!