Naming Ceremony

 We gather to recreate and reclaim those cultural and communal practices that serve to lift our families and strengthen our communities. In traditional societies marriages are between families not between people. And children are the responsibility of the community not just the parents. This is reflected in the wisdom saying "it takes a village to raise a child." We hold ceremonies and rituals like this one today to create the village.

In traditional societies naming is a meaning making process. A person's name is more than a label. It is their legacy. When we name our children it creates expectation from those who hear the name. It sets expectations for the child when they know the meaning of their name or the legacy of those they are named after, it can motivate.

Today, we are living in a land and in a social system that is not designed for our benefit. It is our responsibility to make a way out of no way for our children. We are announcing the name of each child and the significance of the name so that the community can share in the responsibility of guiding these children. The parent will whisper the name of the child into the grandmother's ear. She will whisper the name into the ear of the child and then announce the name of the child to the community.

In this way, we connect the child and the community through a way of knowing and being together.

Clarity around strategy and tactics

I have grown-up as part of the post-civil rights baby boom. One of the "cultural tropes" of my generation is that you must engage in electoral politics both as a privilege long denied people of African descent and as a way of honoring our ancestors who made sacrifices of safety, security, life and limb. Ase. Ase. I feel that it is important and appropriate to do so. Not only as an acknowledgment of a debt owed to our ancestors but also as a way of shaping the present and conditioning the future. But we need to be clear regarding what role this practice plays in the development of ourselves, our families, our communities and the society.

It it important to recognize that voting/political engagement is a tactic. It is not the goal that we are striving for. The extent to which we can impact our condition is circumscribed by the political process and the context of the electoral process. We may not (probably not) be able to bring about the changes that we ultimately aspire to manifest through electoral politics but it can be a tool We should use it.

Along this same line we recognize the importance of acceptance of complicity by all the perpetrators in the African Chattel Enslavement System. One response to this need resulted in the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N'COBRA) to have adopted the call for federal participation in addressing the need for repair from the injuries inflicted on people of African descent and their descendants. This call has taken the form of lobbying for federal legislation that has come to be known as  House Resolution 40  (HR40). I think there are those who have been so intensely engaged in the fight for reparations that they have forgotten that HR40, or any legislation, is not our goal. It is a tactic. Whether we are successful in passing the legislation or not, there are injuries suffered as a result of African Chattel Enslavement and their vestiges won't be addressed, can't be repaired through legislation.

Even the reparations movement is a tactic. The dehumanization of the African personality in the european imagination was necessary to treat people as property. Reparations means repair. The reparations movement is advocacy to start the process of repair. The reparations movement is a tactic. Most commonly the call for reparations is interpreted in economic terms whether a demand for the value of the labor provided or a share of the profits produced. While this may be necessary it is insufficient to address the harms that were the essence of the African Chattel Enslavement System. A full accounting of the injuries suffered as a result of the African Chattel Enslavement experience would call into account healing for the injured and the injurer. The goal that we seek is not transactional. It is relational.

The idea of people of African descent moving back to the South and populating the Black Belt, i.e., the states where the majority of people of African descent resided in the U.S. before the Civil War. This idea of a reverse migration is a tactic. The idea of the reverse migration includes the potential for political ascendancy based on the principles of democracy. It is suggested that this would give the residents of the Black Belt states access to the resources due to states and municipalities as part of revenue sharing. While this makes sense if the people involved are willing to be sensible. That has not been the case for europeans in the past. We have well known example of attacks on communities of African descent due to economic and/or political ascendancy. It is a tactic that should be explored and utilized but we must not mistake it as our goal.

The strategy that underlies all these tactics is a return to human wholeness/full humanity for people of African descent. That is the strategy. There are some things that can happen through the effort and involvement of those outside our community. But there are also some things that only we can do, We can demand and garner resources for repair from outside our community. But the healing is a function of what we do within the community. No one else can do that for us. Also, there is a brokenness that allowed the european to think that their actions were acceptable and appropriate. That hurt and injury must be addressed as well. They (eruopeans) don't need or deserve what people of African descent may require. We match the remedy to the injury. But we know that we are not struggling around a broken labor contract. We are struggling due to a broken human covenant.

Culture as conduit for consciousness

 I came across a listing of cultural practices that contribute to collective consciousness. I will credit the source when/if I figure it out.

1.) Sankofa (learn from the past);

2.) I to We (from individualism/me to collective/we)

3.) Mi Casa es Su Casa (a spirit of generosity)

4.) Leader among equals (dignity culture)

5.) Leaders as guardians of public values (leadership as public benefit not private property)

6.) Leaders as community stewards (Role of leaders is to represent interests of community)

7.) All my realities (we are multidimensional but we are one)

8.) Gratitude/Hope/Forgiveness (gratitude for the now, hope for the future, forgiveness for the past)

* people-centered

* community-focused

* advocacy-oriented

- Common abilities

- Unique differences

WE                I

collective        individual

people            person

consensus      command

integrate        segregate

consent        coercion

disagreement    defiance

conflict            questions

advice            adversarial

opinions        attacks

transformative    transactional                 

Schooling and drooling - the effete efforts to increase inclusion

I have lived in the city of Manchester, NH and parented two children through the public school system. They both attended Hillside Jr. High and Central High School. When me and my family arrived in the early 90s, the demographics of the state of New Hampshire and the city of Manchester were significantly less diverse than they are now. Many of the struggles that both the school district and the families served by them are the same. What we witness, by and large, are differences in degree not differences in kind.

 When we arrived in Manchester, NH the school superintendent was John Ludwell. I remember the discussion regarding him and his experiences that would allow him to effectively manage the, even then, coming changes to the demographics of the school district's student body. It was many years ago and I cannot quote him. But I can offer a paraphrase which was that his previous experience in urban school settings positioned him positively to address the increasing diversity of the Manchester School District student body. He only lasted a few years. I think part of the reason for his leaving was the reluctance of the school board members to embrace his vision for the future based on their longing for a golden past.

After Ludwell came Tom Brennan. I was active in the community vetting of Brennan. He shared that this would be an appointment late in his career so he wouldn't hesitate to make the hard choice and risk pissing somebody off because he was not trying to build a career. He was pretty much true to his word and was in place when the U.S. Department of Education expressed concern about the lack of student demographic diversity in advanced course placements. He entered into the resolution agreement on his watch. His career ended due to health rather than political problems.

Debra Livingston came after Brennan. She worked hard to implement many of the initiatives that Brennan had started. I don't remember much about her tenure. But I suspect that is because she was dutifully doing the work. Her tenure was a little like dental work. You don't really think about your teeth unless you have a toothache. Dr. Livingston seemed to have exercised good dental care as a metaphor for her service. But she left the district due to frustration with what I think I can accurately paraphrase as obstructionism from the school board. Dr. Livingston did very little to advance the resolution agreement entered into by Dr. Brennan. I think the one victory she scored was to have free SAT testing for all students who qualified as a means of removing the economic barrier to participation for the students included in the resolution agreement.

Bolgen Vargas came with a vision that was drawn from his experiences in a similar sized city in upstate New York. He was respected as a hard worker. I had hoped to do more to provide a social environment that was welcoming and supportive. I don't know that I did. I certainly did not accomplished what I had aspired to do. He provided updates on actions to implement the resolution agreement in a way that hadn't happened before. However, after a few years, he was ready to move on. Again I suspect it was due to institutional inertia and social apathy concerning the issues outlined in the resolution agreement and its implications for all students.

Michael Goldhart was the next superintendent. He came with a good faith effort to create a school district that was supportive of all students and through that process uplift the elements of the resolution agreement. My sense is that he felt the resolution agreement was just good sense and by doing what needed to be done for all students regardless of nationality, ancestry or economic status, he would by default make progress on the resolution agreement goals. He too left after a few years (4?) due to what was intimated as intransigence and lack of cooperation of the school board. However, he positioned the school to make progress, I guess, as good as he could.

Jennifer Gillis was hired as an "inside candidate." In one conversation with a school board member during the superintendent search, I was told that the preference was for an inside candidate who understood the culture of Manchester (I am paraphrasing) because a lack of cultural understanding was the cause of the short tenure of the previous superintendents. So Ms. Gillis was plucked from her role as Asst. Superintendent and elevated to the Superintendent position. Her time as superintendent has been shaped and possibly shaded by forces set into motion by Goldhardt, the previous superintendent. Possibly it shouldn't be surprising but the role of the Manchester, NH business community has loomed large. The school district budget is passed by the City Council and the city budget is subject to a "tax cap." This has limited to ability of the school district administration and the school board in what it can do. That has resulted on a reliance on grants for more than the basic operational budget. Manchester Proud has been described by some as a shill for the business community. But it is thought to have a significant influence on the school administration through its funding of district staff positions and other activities.

Where does this leave the efforts to be more equitable and inclusive in terms of how the school district deals with melanin enhanced and non-native english speakers? Pretty much were they were before the resolution agreement. There has been some movement but not much progress to report. No blame. Just facts.

Making Meaning

 

 As we think about what constitutes the basis of what we value and believe is

 

MAKING MEANING

Our life and love
our creation and care
makes manifest and brings meaning to us,
Through us, between us.

That which is done allows us
to do that which is in us,
Enters and passes through
ideas to action, belief to behavior
meaning is manifest in joy and grief.

Waste is the source for new creation
what is done,
what is now,
what was then
For what we consider waste
is often potential
in disguise. 

(8/14/2021 7:05pm)

White Supremacy Social systems defined

White Supremacy Social systems defined

The concept of whiteness has been a metaphor for melanin deficiency. The lack of melanin has been associated with purity or whiteness and the presence of melanin has been associated with contamination/contagion or color. These ideas that categorize and define the human family as being able to be "only one thing" is a factor and facet of European, capitalist, industrial society. This stems from a binary approach to reality. It is either this or that, us or them, you or me, black or white. 

This binary approach then contributes to a low context view of reality. It allows for abstracting experience from their context. We see this reflected in ideas such as "externalities" in economics or "collateral damage" in war. We also see it manifest in the dehumanization of the African personality in the european imagination. 

For the author of the American Declaration of Independence to assert that "all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights" while at the same time   alienating African people from those rights required an "othering" that is reflected in the black/white race-based binary view of reality. It also reflects the low context view that allows for compartmentalization and othering. Both the binary and low context views are products of the much hallowed "enlightenment area." But to use this aspect of the enlightenment to demonize it is to acquiesce to the dominant narrative that you can only be one thing. It has its strengths and its weaknesses.

If the factor, indeed the major factor, is this enlightenment era approach to reality that is based on binary categorization (purity) and low context characterization (othering), then the facets of white supremacy culture are: 

1. melanin deficient dominated (the melanin deficient higher on human hierarchy than melanin enhanced)

2. Obsessed with european cultural standard  (the "right" way is based on euro-standards)

3. melanin deficient (white) identified esthetic (melanin deficiency considered desirable and standard)

4. melanin deficient (white) centered perspectives (perspectives that support/promote the interest of the melanin deficient are the focus)

These factors and facets are combined to both condition individual behavior and to create institutional behavior:
Social system (institutional) > path of least resistance > Individual (personal experience) > make systems happen > social systems.

Possibilities of power and potential

The United States of America is still under the sway of the persuasiveness and profitability of African chattel slavery. The psychological payoffs offered to those who were melanin deficient at the expense of those who are melanin enhanced proved as appealing and attractive as the economic rewards associated with the system. 

The willingness to maintain emotional ignorance as an excuse and justification for plausible deniability of the horror and injustice embedded in that world view that supported African chattel slavery and its social, political, economic and real-life consequences is a basis for rationalizing the continued existence of the resulting inequities and the lack of involvement or enthusiasm for change.

The story of the social implications of African chattel slavery have been twisted to obscure the torment, human cruelty and the sexual savagery that ravaged American society. In order to engage in the socially degrading (for perpetrators, collaborators and victims) and sexually debased behaviors that African chattel slavery allowed, there had to be a corresponding justification that allowed for the debauchery without condemnation. This flowed from the enlightenment ideas that postulated a polygenetic origin for the human family. Prior to the enlightenment, when religion held sway as the supreme wisdom, the main lens through which eruopeans viewed the world was religion. If you were christian you were with us. If you were not christian you were subject to conversion or domination. Evangelization was in part the early justification for much of european internal strife and external forays into what the considered "the new world" as well as continued exploitation of the known old world, i.e., Africa, China, India.

The historical policies and practices of physical /psychological domination and control have remained in place as institutionalized elements of the european presence in the world. We see the attempts at physical domination and control by various european countries in turn. From the Crusades to the Spanish invasion of the Americas to the sun never setting on the British Empire to the Pax Americana. Each in turn highlighting the military technological advantage and social pathological indifference that combined to spawn again and again crimes against humanity. The psychological component of the onslaught was designed to minimize resistance, anesthetize resilience and eradicate remembrance of a before time when european thought and interests did not dominate.
  

The cultural apparatus necessary for the type and tenor of the campaigns of coercion was a propensity for cruelty and violence that was grounded in the spiritual hostility between man and GOD evidenced by the rejection, shame and damnation of being driven from the Garden of Eden. Used as both a cudgel and a comfort, the estrangement from the relationship with divinity allowed for abhorrent behavior used as a cudgel that was rationalized as necessary for a wayward humanity and provided comfort in knowing that it was allowed due to original sin (Old Testament) and redemptive as an evangelizing activity (New Testament). The basic idea being to break the body to save the soul. This low context, binary, dualism created a paradigm that allowed unacceptable behavior to be accepted. It ultimately served as the rationalization of the exploitation of non-european people. From the slavery associated with the colonias of the conquistadors to the chattelization of African peoples the motivation was understood and explained as an extension of the biblical injunction of dominion.

African chattel slavery was a crime against humanity and the crowning accomplishment of the religious rationalization that served as a veneer for the economic exploitation that emerged as capitalism. Early efforts of enslavement of the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas met with the physical constraints of the people and the practical constraints resulting from their cultural knowledge and knowledge of local geography. The european weapons and warfare technology gave them the ability to command. Locally rooted culture gave made it difficult for the local people to be controlled.

The story of humanity is the path of order, disorder and reorder according to Joseph Campbell. I think we see in that observation a truth that is applicable to a wider universal experience. It is reflected in the traditional wisdom of "as above so below" where we see the tendency for order to transform into disorder and respond as reorder. It is the caterpillar that dissolves itself and after reordering emerges as the butterfly. It is the female that creates and cultivates the egg that reorders itself into a new being. It is the seasonal cycle that takes the order of summer into the disorder of winter and on to the reorder of spring. It is the order of thr human form that grows into disorder and death returning its form to its constituent parts that are taken up through the environment as the nutrient building blocks for egg and sperm to reorder as life again, But this cycle in human affairs is subject to cultural choices and preferences in terms of how if not what. 

We can't change the cycle. We are part of it. But while we don't define our options
, we do determine our choices. We may not make a difference in the grand scheme of things but we can make a distinction. We can throw one starfish back into the sea from among the thousands that litter the beach of life. Throwing one back may not make a difference in the grand scheme of things but it makes a difference for  that one, Who or what will be your starfish?