We've been 'Bamboozled'!

Post Movie Brainstorm

My students are angry, they been 'Bamboozled'. They've been fooled to think that being Black was a negative thing, and now they don't know what to believe.

Spike Lee's movie 'Bamboozled' was a real eye opener. Basically the movie is about a television network that airs a modern day minstrel show, complete with black face and tap dancing to the delight of a hungry American audience. Its mirroring the Hip Hop industry where hungry young artists become minstrels for large entertainment and production companies and sell their souls for the sake of a dollar. Eventually their investment falls apart being underpinned by racism and exploitation. Does this same fate await the Hip Hop industry?

We've been fooled to think that Black is bad.

The network Bamboozled all of the people involved with the production of the Minstrel show, and all of the people who watched it. They bought what 'CNS' was selling hook-line-and sinker. They began to exhibit a group think. One being guided by the media and their definition of what blackness is.

Hip Hop, Enough, The Minstrel Show, Beyond the Beats

At this time in the course the class has been examining Hip Hop it's beginnings and it's current effect on the Black community here and throughout the world. We are working with a couple of different books as reference: ENOUGH written by Juan Williams and Dr. Raphael Heaggans' book 'The 21st Century Hip Hop Minstrel Show'.
Both books examine Hip Hop's history and influnce within the Black community. The class examines how Rap started out as a true reflection of the community incorporating elements of the civil rights movement with instrumental beats as a background.

According to Dr Heaggans, These five elements were the cornerstone of early Rap:
1) DJ'ing
2) Graffiti
3) B-boying and B-girling
4) MC'ing
5) Knowledge, culture and overstanding

We have to ask ourselves if these five elements the same today? Has Rap changed? We are now coming to the understanding that it certainly has changed. It has changed into Hip Hop. Just as Black culture has been co-opted by large corporations, Black music has been as well. The question is almost 'chicken-egg'. Which was the first to be commercialized? As seen in the video documentary studied in class, 'Hip Hop, Beyond the Beats and Rhymes', it would seem that the music has influenced the community . In this video we come to understand that violence, misogyny, homophobia, and commercialization are defining the new Hip Hop and that Gansta Rap has become the predominant form excluding all other forms of Rap. This creates an ever narrowing definition of the musical form and a degrading and self-defeating environment for young Black males and females.

Is Racism Dead in the age of Obama?

What The ????

Check this out. This is from 2010, not 1942.
For the whole story check out the Link below. . .
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ontario/ontario-legion-branch-shut-down-after-kkk-halloween-costume-debacle/article1784812/

Michael Eric Dyson's response to 'Attack' on young Black People

Hey,
Check out Michael Eric Dyson's response to Cosby. We have to understand that
everyone has
a point of view. This is a well respected and educated Black professor who is
speaking out
against what Cosby is saying. He makes a great deal of sense. I feel that
somewhere in
between lies the answer.

Both men speak with passion and conviction.

The main thing is that both men are speaking out!

click the link below:
http://www.michaelericdyson.com/cosby/points.html

Cosby's Concept of cool as detailed from his book Come on People

In class we looked at Bill Cosby's 'Concept of Cool' and how it developed from a
defense mechanism for Black men attempting to shield themselves against racism and discrimination
but soon morphed into a desensitized detachment from needed and necessary emotions like
caring, love and paternal compassion. It was channelled into a rage that permeates the Black
male community and retards the emotional growth of our young men.

Is Cosby right?

Life and Debt, Studying the results of IMF financial interventions

As we study reasons why many leave their point of origin to live here in Canada we look at the 'Push and Pull' factors we focused first on the former; What pushes people to move from where they were living?
In our quest for understanding we used Jamaica as a starting point.

We watched the documentary Life and Debt. According to their web site the movie is described as follows:
    Life and Debt is a feature-length documentary which addresses the impact of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and current globalization policies on a developing country such as Jamaica. More on Life and Debt...


This documentary sheds light on the 'Push' factors shared by many developing countries in a similar state as Jamaica. 


It also helps answer the question asked in class: Why are you here?

Why's are you here?

Why's are your here? Most of the students in the class or their parents are from somewhere other than Canada, but the craziest thing is many have never asked their parents why they left their homeland to come to Canada. Home is always home and most have a romanticized view of what home is or was. At times, this romanticized view gets in the way of embracing Canada and becoming part of the Canadian network. This part of the course addresses both the push and pull factors of immigration and the reasons why many of our students are here in Canada.

We will begin by having the students ask their parents or grandparents why they came to Canada. We will then study and examine the documentary 'Life and Debt', which is an expose on Jamaica's relationship with the IMF (International Monetary Fund). We will be examining the IMF's affect on Jamaica's economy and international debt.

Chris Rock asks who is more racist; Black people or White people?

Chris Rock asks who is more racist; Black people or White people?

Who is more racist? This is a question that must be asked. Is there a
civil war brewing within the black community? Has it already started?
What are the different sides and who is right? Watch this comedy
routine by Chris Rock as he discusses how he `Loves Black People but
hates N__gers, and why.

Who's More Racist?

Visible Knapsack Project

Using Peggy McIntosh's article 'Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack' as a reference we have been able to examine the phenomenon of White priviledge. McIntosh has described it as a weightless, and invisible backpack containing those things which give an advantage to a certain group without them being aware that they have it. Many of those factors have been shown in an earlier post.

I've described the 'Visible Knapsack' as something that people carry within the Black Community that contain things that are both evident and detrimental to development within that community.

The assignment is the displaying of those factors and the presentation detailing how those things slow or hurt the Black Community's ability to manage in mainstream society.

Many people within the Black community are trapped in their own Matrix.

I believe that many people within the Black community are trapped in the Matrix of a warped definition of what it is to be Black. Just like in the movie, the Matrix uses humans to siphon away their essence and energy to fuel a distorted, self-serving and lifeless system of control. Neo's power is only released when he is made aware of his mental prison and given the training and tools to understand the true world.

What are you trying to tell me? That I can...dodge bullets?

Morpheus : I won't lie to you, Neo. Every single man or woman who has

stood their ground, everyone who has fought an agent has

died. But where they have failed, you will suceed.

Neo looks puzzled

Neo : Why?

Morpheus : I've seen an agent punch through a concrete wall. Men have

emptied entire clips at them, and hit nothing but air. Yet

_their_ strength and _their_ speed, are still based on a

world built on rules. Because of that, they will never be

as strong, or as fast, as you can be.

Neo : What are you trying to tell me? That I can...dodge bullets?

Morpheus : No, Neo. I'm trying to tell you, that when _you're_ ready...

_you_ won't have to...

Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

WHITE PRIVILEGE: UNPACKING THE INVISIBLE KNAPSACK
Peggy McIntosh
       Through work to bring materials from Women's Studies into the rest of the curriculum, I have often noticed men's unwillingness to grant that they are overprivileged, even though they may grant that women are disadvantaged. They may say they will work to improve women's status, in the society, the university, or the curriculum, but they can't or won't support the idea of lessening men's. Denials which amount to taboos surround the subject of advantages which men gain from women's disadvantages. These denials protect male privilege from being fully acknowledged, lessened or ended.

       Thinking through unacknowledged male privilege as a phenomenon, I realized that since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there was most likely a phenomenon of white privilege which was similarly denied and protected. As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something which puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage.

       I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was 'meant' to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless kapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks.

       Describing white privilege makes one newly accountable. As we in Women's Studies work to reveal male privilege and ask men to give up some of their power, so one who writes about having white privilege must ask, "Having described it, what will I do to lessen or end it?"

       After I realized the extent to which men work from a base of unacknowledged privilege, I understood that much of their oppressiveness was unconscious. Then I remembered the frequent charges from women of color that white women whom they encounter are oppressive. I began to understand why we are justly seen as oppressive, even when we don't see ourselves that way. I began to count the ways in which I enjoy unearned skin privilege and have been conditioned into oblivion about its existence.

       My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor, as an unfairly advantaged person, or as a participant in a damaged culture. I was taught to see myself as an individual whose moral state depended on her individual moral will. My schooling followed the pattern my colleague Elizabeth Minnich has pointed out: whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work which will allow "them" to be more like "us."

       I decided to try to work on myself at least by identifying some of the daily effects of white privilege in my life. I have chosen those conditions which I think in my case attach somewhat more to skin-color privilege than to class, religion, ethnic status, or geographical location, though of course all these other factors are intricately intertwined. As far as i can see, my African American co-workers, friends and acquaintances with whom I come into daily or frequent contact in this particular time, place, and line of work cannot count on most of these conditions.

I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.
I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.
I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
When I am told about our national heritage or about "civilization," I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.
If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.
I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods which fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser's shop and find someone who can cut my hair.
Whether I use checks, credit cards, or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.
I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.
I can swear, or dress in secondhand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to bad morals, the poverty, or the illiteracy of my race.
I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.
I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.
I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world's majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.
I can criticize our government and talk about how much i fear its policies and behaviour without being seen as a cultural outsider.
I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to "the person in charge," I will be facing a person of my race.
If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven't been singled out because of my race.
I can easily buy posters, postcards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children's magazines featuring people of my race.
I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, or feared.
I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of my race.
I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.
I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me.
If my day, week, or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it has racial overtones.
I can choose blemish cover or bandages in "flesh" color and have thme more or less match my skin.
       I repeatedly forgot each of the realizations on this list until I wrote it down. For me white privilege has turned out to be an elusive and fugitive subject. The pressure to avoid it is great, for in facing it I must give up the myth of meritocracy. If these things are true, this is not such a free country; one's life is not what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own.

I am going to free your mind Neo!

Free from what?
 
 
​MORPHEUS
​From the Matrix.
 
​Neo locks at his eyes but only sees a reflection of
​himself.
 
​MORPHEUS
​Do you want to know what it is,
​Neo?
 
​Neo swallows and nods his head.
 
​MORPHEUS
​It's that feeling you have had all
​your life.  That feeling that
​something was wrong with the
​world.  You don't know what it is
​but it's there, like a splinter in
​your mind, driving you mad,
​driving you to me.  But what is
​it?
 
​The LEATHER CREAKS as he leans back.
 
​MORPHEUS
​The Matrix is everywhere, it's all
​around us, here even in this room.
​You can see it out your window, or
​on your television.  You feel it
​when you go to work, or go to
​church or pay your taxes.  It is
​the world that has been pulled
​over your eyes to blind you from
​the truth.
 
​NEO
​What truth?
 
 
​MORPHEUS
​That you are a slave, Neo.  That
​you, like everyone else, was born
​into bondage...
​... kept inside a prison that you
​cannot smell, taste, or touch.  A
​prison for your mind.
 
​Outside, the WIND BATTERS a loose PANE of glass.
 
​MORPHEUS
​Unfortunately, no one can be told
​what the Matrix is.  You have to
​see it for yourself.
 
​NEO
​How?
 
​MORPHEUS
​Hold out your hands.
 
​In Neo's right hand, Morpheus drops a red pill.
 
​MORPHEUS
​This is your last chance.  After
​this, there is no going back.
 
​In his left, a blue pill.
 
​MORPHEUS
​You take the blue pill and the
​story ends.  You wake in your bed
​and you believe whatever you want
​to believe.
 
​The pills in his open hands are reflected in the glasses.
 
​MORPHEUS
​You take the red pill and you stay
​in Wonderland and I show you how
​deep the rabbit-hole goes.
 
​Neo feels the smooth skin of the capsules, with the
​moisture growing in his palms.
 
 
​MORPHEUS
​Remember that all I am offering is
​the truth.  Nothing more.
 
​Neo opens his mouth and swallows the red pill.  The
​Cheshire smile returns.

Bill Cosby's Speech, May 17 Wash

Ladies and gentlemen, I really have to ask you to seriously consider
what you've heard, and now this is the end of the evening so to
speak. I heard a prize fight manager say to his fellow who was losing
badly, "David, listen to me. It's not what's he's doing to you. It's
what you're not doing. (laughter).


Ladies and gentlemen, these people set, they opened the doors, they
gave us the right, and today, ladies and gentlemen, in our cities and
public schools we have fifty percent drop out. In our own
neighborhood, we have men in prison. No longer is a person
embarrassed because they're pregnant without a husband. (clapping) No
longer is a boy considered an embarrassment if he tries to run away
from being the father of the unmarried child (clapping)

.

Ladies and gentlemen, the lower economic and lower middle economic
people are [not*] holding their end in this deal. In the neighborhood
that most of us grew up in, parenting is not going on. (clapping) In
the old days, you couldn't hooky school because every drawn shade was
an eye (laughing). And before your mother got off the bus and to the
house, she knew exactly where you had gone, who had gone into the
house, and where you got on whatever you had one and where you got it
from. Parents don't know that today.


I'm talking about these people who cry when their son is standing
there in an orange suit. Where were you when he was two? (clapping)
Where were you when he was twelve? (clapping) Where were you when he
was eighteen, and how come you don't know he had a pistol? (clapping)
And where is his father, and why don't you know where he is? And why
doesn't the father show up to talk to this boy?



The church is only open on Sunday. And you can't keep asking Jesus to
ask doing things for you (clapping). You can't keep asking that God
will find a way. God is tired of you (clapping and laughing). God was
there when they won all those cases. 50 in a row. That's where God
was because these people were doing something. And God said, "I'm
going to find a way." I wasn't there when God said it… I'm making
this up (laughter). But it sounds like what God would do (laughter).


We cannot blame white people. White people (clapping) .. white people
don't live over there. They close up the shop early. The Korean ones
still don't know us as well…they stay open 24 hours (laughter).


I'm looking and I see a man named Kenneth Clark. He and his wife
Mamie…Kenneth's still alive. I have to apologize to him for these
people because Kenneth said it straight. He said you have to
strengthen yourselves…and we've got to have that black doll. And
everybody said it. Julian Bond said it. Dick Gregory said it. All
these lawyers said it. And you wouldn't know that anybody had done a
damned thing.



50 percent drop out rate, I'm telling you, and people in jail, and
women having children by five, six different men. Under what excuse,
I want somebody to love me, and as soon as you have it, you forget to
parent. Grandmother, mother, and great grandmother in the same room,
raising children, and the child knows nothing about love or respect
of any one of the three of them (clapping). All this child knows
is "gimme, gimme, gimme." These people want to buy the friendship of
a child….and the child couldn't care less. Those of us sitting out
here who have gone on to some college or whatever we've done, we
still fear our parents (clapping and laughter). And these people are
not parenting. They're buying things for the kid. $500 sneakers, for
what? They won't buy or spend $250 on Hooked on Phonics. (clapping)


A\Kenneth Clark, somewhere in his home in upstate New York…just
looking ahead. Thank God, he doesn't know what's going on, thank God.
But these people, the ones up here in the balcony fought so hard.
Looking at the incarcerated, these are not political criminals. These
are people going around stealing Coca Cola. People getting shot in
the back of the head over a piece of pound cake! Then we all run out
and are outraged, "The cops shouldn't have shot him" What the hell
was he doing with the pound cake in his hand? (laughter and
clapping). I wanted a piece of pound cake just as bad as anybody else
(laughter) And I looked at it and I had no money. And something
called parenting said if get caught with it you're going to embarrass
your mother. Not you're going to get your butt kicked. No. You're
going to embarrass your mother. You're going to embarrass your
family.


If knock that girl up, you're going to have to run away because it's
going to be too embarrassing for your family. In the old days, a girl
getting pregnant had to go down South, and then her mother would go
down to get her. But the mother had the baby. I said the mother had
the baby. The girl didn't have a baby. The mother had the baby in two
weeks. (laughter) We are not parenting. Ladies and gentlemen, listen
to these people, they are showing you what's wrong. People putting
their clothes on backwards. –isn't that a sign of something going on
wrong? (laughter)



Are you not paying attention, people with their hat on backwards,
pants down around the crack. Isn't that a sign of something, or are
you waiting for Jesus to pull his pants up (laughter and clapping ).
Isn't it a sign of something when she's got her dress all the way up
to the crack…and got all kinds of needles and things going through
her body. What part of Africa did this come from? (laughter). We are
not Africans. Those people are not Africans, they don't know a damned
thing about Africa. With names like Shaniqua, Shaligua, Mohammed and
all that crap and all of them are in jail. (When we give these kinds
names to our children, we give them the strength and inspiration in
the meaning of those names. What's the point of giving them strong
names if there is not parenting and values backing it up).



Brown Versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person's
problem. We've got to take the neighborhood back (clapping). We've
got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace
Corps. It's right around the corner. (laughter) It's standing on the
corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I
can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you
is go, ra," I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid
until I heard the mother talk (laughter). Then I heard the father
talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the
corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody
knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You
can't land a plane with "why you ain't…" You can't be a doctor with
that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that
has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that
they're moving ahead on this. Well, they know they're not, they're
just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting
in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough
to get a job and move out.


Now look, I'm telling you. It's not what they're doing to us. It's
what we're not doing. 50 percent drop out. Look, we're raising our
own ingrown immigrants. These people are fighting hard to be
ignorant. There's no English being spoken, and they're walking and
they're angry. Oh God, they're angry and they have pistols and they
shoot and they do stupid things. And after they kill somebody, they
don't have a plan. Just murder somebody. Boom. Over what? A pizza?
And then run to the poor cousin's house. They sit there and the
cousin says "what are you doing here?" "I just killed somebody,
man." "What?" "I just killed somebody, I've got to stay here." "No,
you don't." "Well, give me some money, I'll go…" "Where are you
going?" "North Carolina." Everybody wanted to go to North Carolina.
But the police know where you're going because your cousin has a
record.


Five or six different children, same woman, eight, ten different
husbands or whatever, pretty soon you're going to have to have DNA
cards so you can tell who you're making love to. You don't who this
is. It might be your grandmother. (laughter) I'm telling you, they're
young enough. Hey, you have a baby when you're twelve. Your baby
turns thirteen and has a baby, how old are you? Huh? Grandmother. By
the time you're twelve, you could have sex with your grandmother, you
keep those numbers coming. I'm just predicting.


I'm saying Brown Vs. Board of Education. We've got to hit the
streets, ladies and gentlemen. I'm winding up, now , no more
applause. I'm saying, look at the Black Muslims. There are Black
Muslims standing on the street corners and they say so forth and so
on, and we'rere laughing at them because they have bean pies and all
that, but you don't read "Black Muslim gunned down while chastising
drug dealer." You don't read that. They don't shoot down Black
Muslims. You understand me. Muslims tell you to get out of the
neighborhood. When you want to clear your neighborhood out, first
thing you do is go get the Black Muslims, bean pies and all
(laughter). And your neighborhood is then clear. The police can't do
it .


I'm telling you Christians, what's wrong with you? Why can't you hit
the streets? Why can't you clean it out yourselves? It's our time
now, ladies and gentlemen. It is our time (clapping). And I've got
good news for you. It's not about money. It's about you doing
something ordinarily that we do—get in somebody else's business. It's
time for you to not accept the language that these people are
speaking, which will take them nowhere. What the hell good is Brown
V. Board of Education if nobody wants it?



What is it with young girls getting after some girl who wants to
still remain a virgin. Who are these sick black people and where did
they come from and why haven't they been parented to shut up? To go
up to girls and try to get a club where "you are nobody..," this is a
sickness ladies and gentlemen and we are not paying attention to
these children. These are children. They don't know anything. They
don't have anything. They're homeless people. All they know how to do
is beg. And you give it to them, trying to win their friendship. And
what are they good for? And then they stand there in an orange suit
and you drop to your knees, "(crying sound) He didn't do anything, he
didn't do anything." Yes, he did do it. And you need to have an
orange suit on too (laughter, clapping).


So, ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for the award (big
laughter) and giving me an opportunity to speak because, I mean, this
is the future, and all of these people who lined up and done..they've
got to be wondering what the hell happened. Brown V. Board of
Education, these people who marched and were hit in the face with
rocks and punched in the face to get an education and we got these
knuckleheads walking around who don't want to learn English
(clapping) I know that you all know it. I just want to get you as
angry that you ought to be. When you walk around the neighborhood and
you see this stuff, that stuff's not funny. These people are not
funny anymore. And that `s not brother. And that's not my sister.
They're faking and they're dragging me way down because the state,
the city and all these people have to pick up the tab on them because
they don't want to accept that they have to study to get an education.



We have to begin to build in the neighborhood, have restaurants, have
cleaners, have pharmacies, have real estate, have medical buildings
instead of trying to rob them all. And so, ladies and gentlemen,
please, Dorothy Height, where ever she's sitting, she didn't do all
that stuff so that she could hear somebody say "I can't stand
algebra, I can't stand…and "what you is." It's horrible.


Basketball players, multimillionaires can't write a paragraph.
Football players, multimillionaires, can't read. Yes.
Multimillionaires. Well, Brown V Board of Education, where are we
today? It's there. They paved the way. What did we do with it. The
white man, he's laughing, got to be laughing. 50 percent drop out,
rest of them in prison.

You got to tell me that if there was parenting, help me, if there was
parenting, he wouldn't have picked up the Coca Cola bottle and walked
out with it to get shot in the back of the head. He wouldn't have.
Not if he loved his parents. And not if they were parenting! Not if
the father would come home. Not if the boy hadn't dropped the sperm
cell inside of the girl and the girl had said, "No, you have to come
back here and be the father of this child." Not .."I don't have to."



Therefore, you have the pile up of these sweet beautiful things born
by nature raised by no one. Give them presents. You're raising pimps.
That's what a pimp is. A pimp will act nasty to you so you have to go
out and get them something. And then you bring it back and maybe he
or she hugs you. And that's why pimp is so famous. They've got a
drink called the "Pimp-something." You all wonder what that's about,
don't you? Well, you're probably going to let Jesus figure it out for
you (laughter). Well, I've got something to tell you about Jesus.
When you go to the church, look at the stained glass things of Jesus.
Look at them. Is Jesus smiling? Not in one picture. So, tell your
friends. Let's try to do something. Let's try to make Jesus smile.
Let's start parenting. Thank you, thank you (clapping, cheers)

Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

Peggy McIntosh's Invisible Knapsack

This is an article written by Feminist Peggy McIntosh about `White
Privilege'. In the article she examines the phenomenon of White
privilege and how it benefits the mainstream White community and as a
result is detrimental for Black Community.
She offers examples and indicators describing the scenario above; all
in all an informative and intellectual critique.

A Slave Mentality

The Slave Mentality

We examined the definition of being Black in Canada and found that the
majority of the issues and factors tended to be negative. We also
understood that we as a people accepted this definition as normal
within the Black community. We've accepted this negative limiting
label but never asked ourselves why?
I told you that many if not most of us suffered from an unconscious,
slave mentality. We then defined that term as having value in the
following areas:
1) Athletics (being a good slave meant being a physically strong one)
2) Being able to make babies (free slaves for the master)
3) An entertaining slave (you had value if you could entertain the master)

Below were ways that you weren't valued:
1) Being able to read
2) Being able to write
3) Being able to do math
4) Being able to run a business

The real question for us today is. . . Do we value ourselves in the
same way?

Problem Solving Method

The Problem solving Method

I asked you what the problem solving method was, and many of you
didn't know. This is the Problem Solving Method:
1) Understand the Problem
2) Make a Plan
3) Work the Plan
4) Reflect
5) Make modifications

I told you that unless the Canadian Black community understands that
there is a definite problem, and what that problem is, that we will
remain in that problematic state.
This was the reasoning for the first few weeks of class. We have to
know first that the community has a problem before we can form a plan
to fix it.

What is Being Black in Canada?

We took two classes to define the definition of Being Black in Canada.
As we started to brainstorm we began to notice that the majority even
the large majority of the things discussed were negative. I submitted
to you that many even all of you have never taken the time to
define 'Blackness' and what that entailed. We discussed that since the
majority of things written on the chart papers from class to class were
negative that we as a group define ourselves as negative. That this
situation is and will have a negative impact on the black community and
that it is counter-productive.

Why African Studies

As discussed in class, you've been in school for 12-13 years of your
life , most of you not questioning why? In the first few classes I've
challenged you to answer that question. Why have you come to school
today, and what do you want out of this institution? Also, answer this
question. . .What do you have to offer Weston?

I've asked these questions to give you a purpose for coming, giving
you a sense of ownership over your own education.