Sharpening the Mind
Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it. Marian Wright Edelman
One Tuesday morning in April the lecture pointed to writing a three-part statement for a research paper. The student writer’s goal was to move from a question about the research to its significance. I adopted the exercise from the book The Craft of Research.
The steps: (1) Name your topic: I am trying to learn about (working on, studying_____); (2) Add an indirect question that indicates what you do not know or understand about your topic: I am studying/working on________ because I want to find out who/what/when/where/whether/why/how_____; and (3) Answer so what? By motivating your question with a second indirect question that explains why you asked your first question. Introduce this second implied question to help my reader understand how, why, or whether.
(Booth, Colomb, Williams. The Craft of Research 46-47)
After reviewing the statement with the students, I gave an example because not only do I teach writing, I also write. Therefore, I understood the students’ angst when presented with a writing formula. I said, pointing to the smartboard and filling in the blank, “I am studying the Black Christ.” I had spent a week cobbling together what seemed like a simple blog post about the actor Harry Lennix’s lecture “Art & Spirituality,” but the work turned into research about the Black Christ, iconography, and Black Theology. One idea transformed into a new field of discourse to study. So, what I was teaching my students had manifested in my writing. What am I passionate about, have personal experience with yet need more information to make me more knowledgeable about my topic, my idea? A concept I expected my students to grasp. Instead, the thesis statement lecture accidentally transformed into a Black History lesson.
The Lesson
Adrian Miller, author of The President’s Kitchen Cabinet: The Story of the African Americans Who Have Fed Our First Families, from the Washingtons to the Obamas; CIA alumna Roshara Sanders, winner of the 2017 Faces of Diversity Award from the National Restaurant Association; and CIA alumnus Brandon Walker, executive chef and owner of Essie’s restaurant in Poughkeepsie, NY discuss their lives as black chefs, author and foodies.
One student, let’s call her Rose, raised her hand. She said, “I don’t mean to be rude or change the topic.”
I said, “Go ahead.” Rose is from Hungary and has been living in the US while studying at the Culinary Institute of America; therefore, I’ve grown accustomed to explaining American culture as I know it as well as learning about her country as she understands it.
She said, “When did Black people become so important. Since February there has been Black this and Black that.”
I paused. I smiled. I prayed for the right words to give Rose a Black History Month lesson in a nutshell. The remaining part of our 90-minute class was not enough time. I proceeded, gently.
“Your confusion stems from being a student at this school. The school was established in 1946, Black History Month began as Negro Week in 1926 and became a celebratory month in 1976. The Culinary started recognizing Black History Month this year 2018. I’ve been here four years and never has there been mention of Black History Month. However, Black people have always been important. This country was once divided as such America and Negro.”
At that moment, I felt the heat rise under my collar because the injustice of our people fills me with anger and rage, then and now. However, I had to remain calm and teach a lesson that was neither in the books we were studying nor the assignments we were writing. I continued.
“Black people built this nation and did not receive any recognition. Carter Woodson decided it was time for a change for black folks to be recognized for their achievements, like the traffic light, clocks, peanut butter. We were like a stain on America. White folks didn’t want us in their neighborhoods, schools or place of work as equal peers. We could wash their floors, breastfed their babies, cook their food and plow their fields, even entertain them with our music. Therefore, Woodson’s mission was to give our race a history and help school systems coordinate their focus on Black History.”
I didn’t finish. I had gone from teaching to proselyting. I couldn’t list everything. I didn’t talk about the separate bathrooms, and the education system, the lynching and the poor racist treatment of our former President Barack Obama.
Rose attempted to compare Black people in America to Gypsies in Hungary. Gypsies were not accepted because of their nomadic lifestyle. Although they have settled in homes, they are still an outcast not to be trusted. The term Gypsy is antiquated with old-fashioned prejudice, like the term Negro.
Black people in America were not comparable to Gypsies in Hungary. Black people in America have no roots, not in Africa, Asia or America. We do not have a home country to return to even though America should be considered our homeland. The Caribbean American or the African American living in American can return home to Jamaica, Kenya, or Antigua. Additionally, for black people owning a home and claiming a country as home has been a barrier and a dishonor since the colonial era. In the sixties, we did not purposefully roam about America causing mischief or riots. Since the summer of 1964 riots plagued the ghettos. However, those riots were incited because what “white Americans have never fully understood—but what the Negro can never forget—is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto. White institutions maintain it, and white society condones it.” The 1968 Kerner Report concluded that institutional racism and poverty caused riots. Furthermore, the report warns that the nation would continue on its path toward becoming “two societies—one black, one white—separate and unequal.” A society we Americans live in and often disturbs foreigners.
Another student, who is from India, asked if I could recommend a history book so she could learn about this American history. “Hah,” I guffawed. If it were in the history books, we wouldn’t have to have these conversations. Even in 1964 author, James Baldwin understood the mis-education of the black race. He said, “When I was going to school, I began to be bugged by the teaching of American history because it seemed that that history had been taught without cognizance of my presence.”
I’ve been sharpening my mind studying Black History for decades because I’ve grown accustomed to defending and learning about my race and sharing our history—in and out of the classroom; so I can be Black and proud of who I am and my people.