https://www.facebook.com/Jamrockvybz/videos/884542238278462/
I cringed as I watched the teacher in this video drill these kids because I felt they were hard pressed to overcome their intimidation, even though they were with a teacher they knew, and who had probably drilled those affirmations into them along with their immediate families, I hope. I would like to do some research and find out how these kids fared in their lives, sort of like a follow-up to a documentary or something. We need those types of minds working with our kids all the time, because it does not look good for anyone who is willing to see it; I will share it with you if I am bold enough to tell what I see in the field. I am. Someone is not teaching their kids these truths, and these kids really need the reinforcement of familial breathing-down-the-neck, hands-on lessons. I said they need it, not that it is being done much. Our black kids are the witnesses.
I know this because I see it and hear it as I frequent schools doing substitute teaching somewhere in America. It is sad; it makes one want to cry. Just last week I told a classroom of high school kids that they made me ashamed of their escapism from blackness while remaining black. I was literally ashamed to witness what I did when I realized I was caught in the middle of who was black, who was black and not black after all, and who was TAR-BLACK! Some black students belittled a girl's brother (whom I do not know) about being “that nigga” and "black as tar" while she was asking them to leave her brother alone - he was not there to defend himself. I have seen word-wars among black kids who deny themselves daily, but I never saw anything like this until that day. The boys kept on with the "black as tar" line until I stood up. The roomful of kids said "Uh oh" and got quiet.
You would not believe those kids, and I am glad I never remember the names only the faces because I wanted to cry for them (which is often), and for us because they are our kids and we should be their models. I asked the boys to stop calling someone else nigga, who is the same color they are. That started the whole debate that made me ashamed of them or pitied them. I do not know which one I felt more. Those boys are black-skinned boys, but they called another boy black, which I said was the skin tone they are also. Then I told the black kids in that room that they are all black, I'm black, and nobody is any blacker than the other since we are all black.
There was not one Mulatto student in the room who might have objected to that (although I'm sure they probably would not, since multiracial people usually identify with their black portion of ethnicity, which should be one’s own choice either way). The black kids loudly objected to me calling us black people! I got backlashes from most of them. Some of them were a little quieter, but one girl stopped when I pointed to several of and said, “We are black.” That student said she was not black, she was brown. I said again that we are Black. She repeated that she is not black, she is brown. “Paper sack tan,” she said, “Not black.” I wanted to cry. There was a black girl next to her whom she was very friendly with, but the girl was black-skinned, just as the girl whose brother was being belittled. The "brown" girl was not even "high yellow" but just a little less than paper sack tan as some so proudly assert that they are (with or without the help of Olay).
When this girl was still determined to be brown and not black, I then showed her who the brown people were. I went to the desks of a few brown students who did not deny they were brown when I told us: "These are brown people; we are black people." The brown kids never muttered a denial, but the black kids still argued with me about their blackness or lack of it. It was a shame. These kids really mean what they say. They are so disconcerted, bewitched by something enticing, and confused such that they do not know who to call "nigga." Therefore, they call everybody that if they can get away with it. On the other hand, though, the brown kids and white ones will too, if they can get away with calling someone nigga as a friend or a foe. None of the kids of any color or ethnicity can be allowed to belittle themselves or others with those words or the alternative is to go on a date with Security, because the worst profanity that they learn from home and/or hip-hop/rap music, they demand to use it in my face if they are allowed to do it. They are not.
A last thing the confused youth demand that the system's sitters accept: Not long ago, I got some insight into what enables these kids in the system to do things they should not get away because it wreaks of bad ethics, which (good ethical conduct) most school systems do not teach, I am told. I was in conversation with a teacher about the worst of the worst in her room. She took the time to tell me as if making an excuse for this child from New Orleans that he was raised differently from "other" kids, and all that vulgarity is natural for him because that is his upbringing. Without saying it at all, I understood the message. That youth is representative of all blacks in the eyes of the system that does not expect more than that from their caretakers since that is what she meant – his parents or somebody made him into what he is, and we just have to do the best we can with what another system sends into the schools. I understood it plainly although the nice teacher probably never knew she might be telling the truth about how all minority children are seen, and the homes they come from are considered mirror images.
