Did we fail our youth in our effort for equality?

Earlier this week, at George Washington University, a class of high school students took part in a college advisory workshop about stereotypes and race. The students are Black and Latino from Washington D.C. The facilitators, two college aged TAs, asked the students, “So, with all these stereotypes about you and us, what can you do about it? What can be changed?”

“Nothing” said one junior, a 16 year old Black female. “It doesn’t even matter, people are going to think of you whatever way they want”

Another junior, Black male, said, “All you gotta do is stick to your own lane, do you, and nothing else”

The rest of the class agreed. The TA continued to ask what can be done, but after two more tries, they moved on to wrap up the class. The following day, my colleague asked a student, “what did the TAs talk about?” The student replied, “we talked about race, AGAIN, for the 100^th time”

When I’m not sharing sounds or pretending to be a DJ, I work as an educator. In two months, I will be laid off from this really cool job as an Academic Advisor for an Upward Bound Program at the Latin American Youth Center in Columbia Heights D.C. For those who may not be familiar, Upward Bound is one of several national federal TRIO programs, developed during the Affirmative Action/War on Poverty programs of the sixties, dedicated to addressing the lack of minorities in higher education. This Upward Bound is unique as it is housed in a Youth Engagement Center in one of the most “diverse” yet disastrously gentrified locations in Washington D.C. The center resides along a street that you can find bodegas, carry outs, and 7-11s with methadone clinics, subway stations, and huge Target/Best Buy/Staples megastores… there is also traces of corny “progressives” with vegan bakeries and what not. There is a huge underbelly of gangs, drugs, and section 8s that make this a very unique take on “development,” hence the need for a youth center.

With all this context and history, I was a bit surprised of the students’ reluctance and complacency in dealing with stereotypes and racism. I imagine these students entering college classrooms, tackling current issues and people, and keeping their mouths shut and stories hidden. Without an ability to speak up, and rattle the cage a bit, what is the point of sending them to school? Financial stability? Opportunity? To get a job they want? While valid reasons, they do not address the very reason why one goes to college, to learn.

There has always been passivity among us when it comes to race. There are many Black and Latino folk who’d rather not deal with it, because they deal with it too much or because they don’t know how to articulate these experiences. We now exist in a time where there has been over 50 years of race-talks, good and bad; bus boycotts, student movements, TV shows, national news, Hip Hop, educators, activists, etc. But this passivity takes a new twist for me as we now live in a “Post-Race” perception of mainstream Black music, President Obama, and the ability to hide behind avatars and Facebook anonymity. Besides the rise of Hip Hop as the musical genre of a generation, I cannot think of any other social or cultural movement that has any impact since the power movements of the late 70s. We also have thousands of college students who have bitten the apple of Teach for America, Americorps, Intergroup Dialogues, Civic Engagement, Alternative Spring Breaks, Diversity requirements, multicultural offices, cultural months, and so on and so on and so on…The benefits of this work should all be handed down in a nice clean platter… but somehow, the kids don’t want to eat what we serve.

As I mentioned earlier, not everyone wants to get down with this type of talk. What hurt the most was when my student complained that this was talked about “again” for the umpteenth time. Did we go too far? Were we so thirsty that we overwatered our youth? Did our lack of representation deprive us so much that we decided that every street needed a sticker or a tag all over it? Did we make too many mistakes?

What happened is we have not given our youth any motivation to become activists, fighters, and rebels. We have spoken about race and identity too much and with little consistency. Not everyone likes the word “diversity” not everyone agrees on what that means. We have highly unqualified people speaking on it and we have experts who cannot connect to their audience. We are overzealous to highlight how everything sucks, numbing folks away. Our measures of what success is, in regards to when we feel something went well to dispel myths and stereotypes (i.e. the election of Barack Obama) is inflated.

The biggest challenge is that we deal with a topic so ubiquitous in U.S. society that becomes completely unusable in the space of criticism and justice. Racism is the greatest gift and export this country produced; it is woven through media, law, government, education, culture, and so forth. Yet, I have sat in dozens of race conversations where audiences and participants are left in that awkward silence of wonderment because we really do not know what to do about it. Race becomes that decoration in your room that looks nice, but really has no place or space in your living room… we know its nice, but it just doesn’t go with anything.

Furthermore, the common assumption of race is that it is a passive construct; there is no practical application of race and diversity work. In my previous life as a higher education administrator, race resided in the world of demographic variables; percentages, retention, graduation, and satisfaction; static representations that handed over to mainstream people in power to only say “try harder” or “try something else.” So why would anyone really care about race when the work of protesters, marchers, speakers, rebels, thinkers, and educators have become regulated to deficit-based percentage points and long-winded rants with no solution presented? This piece I am writing is another drop in a bucket of complainers. We are socially conscious complainers with no tools to change the world.

Then, what would be beneficial for a 16 year old black male? What can we do to give this young person the urgency to address racism? First, is to curve the bombardment of deficit-based discussion and lenses when writing about race. Second, we need to provide our youth with more tangible successes than a protest, a soundbyte on the tv, or a pamphlet with statistics. The benefits of this work must be something worth aspiring to. We the race-fighters are a bunch of complainers who still end up paying the bills, complaining of our bosses, and acting like anyone else. How can our own youth want something that we are not benefiting from ourselves?

A quick sidebar, yes, things have gotten better… but look at the lack of social consciousness we see in our youth. Look at the attainment levels of Blacks and Latinos in education. Look at the overrepresentation of Black males in the prison system. Look at D.C. gentrification. Tell me it has gotten better.

What we are missing is follow-through, discipline, and tools. Our ability to see beyond the myths must also springboard new ways of walking, talking, behaving, and thinking that reap unique and wonderful tools. These benefits must be embedded into our work with youth, our education system, and our standards of a positive and just society. So often, I see “activists” use the same tools of hierarchy, linearity, power, and privilege to accomplish social justice goals. We have not changed. We left ourselves wasted and wasteful.

To my students, I worry we did not give you a good reason to join us. I’ll try my hardest for you to be proud of me, of the work we have done… so we can share and benefit together.

Elements of Diversity – How change agents, activists, advocates, and other do-gooders seem to not get it after 40 years of trying.

("Unfinished Painting" by Keith Haring)

I am disappointed in the still inconsistent and unfinished definition of the “D” word applied by mainstream spaces and do-gooder change agents. The word is a bad choice to describe the ideal we seek, and the most incomplete to describe the cure my social anger. “Diversity” has been tainted before I got a chance to play for the team, it’s the jersey we wear on the court, and few in the team know this.

This problem came to light when I attended “New Models in Media and Activism” sponsored by Campus Progress. The event was a panel discussion with Amanda Terkel - Senior politics reporter for The Huffington Post, Amy Austin – Publisher for Washington City Paper, Latoya Peterson – Editor of Racialicious.com, and Melinda Wittstock - Founder, CEO, and Bureau Chief of Capitol News Connection about the intersection of women, activism, and social media. The 80+ attendees comprised of about 90% 20-something white females, a sprinkle of Black females, drips of white males, and one Latino Albino (guess). The panel provided good insight, suggestions, and anecdotes on their experiences and contexts, showing a spectrum of voices from Print, Web 1.0, 1.5 to 2.0 media. The event also provided examples of the ineptitude of many change agents to grasp what diversity means in real-world situations. One panelist painfully tried to keep up with the others by saying things like “Well, that’s why women are better at getting along because we communicate better than men, which is why diversity is important” and other lovely words of wisdom. Throughout the event, audience members and moderators mostly framed issues of diversity in simple terms like getting more African Americans and women in the media. A white male student from American University correlated diversity troubles at his school with what was happening in the media, as Black candidates who run for student government president never win, asking “how can we combat that so we can be more diverse?”

Such comments assume that diversity is measured only by the number of Blacks, women, and Latinos in the room, without considering the structural reframing, process, and competencies that can make the term usable. “Diversity” as shorthand for a tally of physical bodies and archetypes is one of the major issues this term faces for validity and understanding. This incomplete definition makes whites feel apart and not responsible, targeted groups into tokens who feel responsible for carrying the burden in get-togethers, and ultimately diminishing collective knowledge. And for those who accompany the word with action, process, and competency, it annoys us when others in the choir don’t sing with the entire range of notes true diversity asks for.

Another saddening consequence is the neglect of the knowledge, processes, outcomes, and techniques diversity can offer for not just the eradication of inequity, but the addition of new tools of success and growth for organizations, people, and social institutions. There is an untapped resource here where folks can learn and utilize these beautiful gems of cognitive, psychological, leadership, and interpersonal skills. Latinidad, code-switching, double-consciousness, appropriation, Queer theory, communalism, liberation education, etc. can be used for science, math, engineering, business, politics, and health as tools to understand and navigate our society. You should’ve seen the look on people’s faces when I walked into dean’s offices, department meetings, and faculty task forces as they couldn’t figure out why I was sitting there next them… clueless Ph.D. holders.

The worst crime of limiting diversity to stockpiling identities is that it leaves black, white, whomever, oblivious and shackled from taking any social action. I have participated in too many dialogue sessions, hate crime debriefings, class discussions, and lunchroom chit chat where targeted groups have vent sessions, whites stay quiet, and everyone feels good for being in conversation, yet empty that nothing has been done. Everything returns to the status quo of disproportionate favoritism, neglect, anger, and struggle. Why is it that these feelings and situations do not convert well into action? Why do we like the notion of diversity so much, yet we still struggle in using it in the classroom? Why does a room full of positive change agents ask the question “What can I do?” The reason is because action steps, knowledge, competencies, and processes have been severed, or never included, in “diversity.”

In tribute to Strunk and White, I present some dimensions of diversity that should be in everyone’s composition. I would go so far as to say that “Diversity” is completely ineffective without these concepts, which are connected to action. They are abstract in nature because these are three sections that are to be designed differently for each situation.

1. Diversity is content knowledge and text: as stated earlier, there is a wealth of information, lessons, techniques, and vocabulary that diversity has unearthed and exposed for all people to draw from. Much of my own Latinidad was informed by W.E.B. DuBois’s introduction of double-consciousness to American culture. Gloria Anzaldua’s notion of borders can help higher education look at how they frame “global” “intercultural” and “internationals” as it has informed me with understanding the intra-group dynamics between Latinos who come to school as International Students, and those who are U.S. domestic.

2. Diversity provides a set of tools: When I first designed a Latino Leadership course for the University of Maryland, I introduced leadership halfway through the semester, not until we laid out a vocabulary of what Latinidad is in relation to social consciousness, followed by a survey of social issues affecting Latinos. Reappropriaton, code-switching, critical thinking, inclusion, dealing with difference, combating oppression, dialogue, and the third-eye feeds directly into Leadership as a tool for social change, a hybrid, not an addendum to be added afterward. Resulting models would inherently have these components within their DNA. Early Hip Hop is another example of a set of tools designed by a certain few, carrying on the ability to be held and utilized by many outside.

3. Diversity a continuous process with an outcome to be seen and felt: building blocks and  masonry must result in the creation of a building. But what does it look like? Take into account which voices were present, what conflicts arose and how were they addressed, what processes and structures were reframed for inclusion, what knowledge was unearthed, what issues of power and privilege eradicated in the process. In addition, the process of diversity means constant revaluations of the questions, which are answered and used again as a new equation to be recalculated again.

Some may ask, "...isn’t this Social Justice?” No, they are not the same. One of the toughest admissions to make is that there are a large number of people of color, folks with disabilities, and other oppressed populations who feel Social Justice omits them from the picture. I am a big fan of Social Justice, it has provided some wonderful tools that I think are great for many situations. But I also lose out on my Latinidad as an asset, my culture is left at the door for “common good,” which can mean a group-think mentality. Social Justice tools and techniques can work alongside the tools of “diversity,” they are schools of thought to seen as cooperative and not competitive.

I may be off here. But, I hope future events can take into account the entire scope and range of the “D” word. It hurts when people walk with you, but still don’t get you. Again, I’m not a fan of the word. I use it alongside “equity,” “inclusion” “multiculturalism” interchangeably. I’m not championing the word, but advocating for a more comprehensive terminology that does not leave me as a checkbox, but a complete change agent and contributor to the new.

Supplement: A corny exhibition of "Diversity" as the curse word...  highlighting my beef with its assumed definition.

How being an Albino can shatter "Big Brother" and teach a lesson to all you traditional race-thinkers...

Chris Scarborough (Nashville, TN)

As an Albino, I imagine myself liberated from assumptions that color is a part of race. The blood of my ancestors runs through me as much as any other Mestizo. My cheekbones, eyes, and nose tell me so, yet I do not have the dark hair or skin that my bloodline usually dictates for me. As a result, I see and feel my understanding of race as a true social construct. Therefore, I consider myself a somewhat victor over the device of separation that race was built upon.

It is a lonely place to be as an outlier. Many people feel sorry for me because of my "condition." But, I am also glad that I do not suffer their fate of normalcy that clips their wings of consciousness. A huge irony is that as I type this, I can't help but notice that the individuals that feel the most sorry for me are those who I would say have body, color, and facial structures that are "typical" of their race (obviously), and get shitted on from society because of it. I am outside of the games of "oh, they look white" or "damn, he's dark as shit" as many others are scrutinized over. Paper bag tests are pointless, and passing has been a device imposed upon me rather than chosen. Yes, there have been times where I chose to speak English over Spanish to Latinos and Spanish speakers, but that was more of an issue of acculturation and context rather than pretending to be something I am not. In the end, I speak English. And, there are plenty of Latinos that are as brown as the earth, but can't speak a lick of Spanish if a million dollars were placed on the table in case they pronounced their last name properly.

I do get jealous that I cannot represent on the outside the brownness and color celebrated by my brothers and sisters in poetry, books, and media. I feel left out on certain experiences that would draw me closer to my people. But trust me to the fullest when I tell you that racism and discrimination are some devious bastards and they will find a way to fuck up the day of the whitest colored Mestizos and Blacks. We all got our issues to deal with.

I began dating a white woman for the first time this year. As a person of color, I concerned myself of this notion of being "down" among my brothers and sisters for the very first time in my thirty-three years of life on this planet. These concerns go back to my earlier statement about wanting to feel a part of a shared experience with my brothers and sisters, not an indictment on who I am seeing. I spoke about this with a great friend of mine, another person of color and social activist who is seeing a white person. We shared how we feel a sense of scrutiny by our own people, perceived or real, from those who see racial identity from the function of their "typical" dark skin and hair. What I conclude is that obviously this should not be of any concern. My indictment towards those who think any less of me because of this, is that they are taking on the same act of purification and segregation their oppressors have imposed upon everyone. A preservation of social or cultural purity is completely nonsensical as each "race" has had social, genetic, cultural exchanges with one another since time began. The notion that my values will become affected, that my treatment of others will change, or that I feel that I am "moving up", is absolutely ridiculous. As I mentioned earlier, racism is a bitch. One if its keen tricks is taking on new forms to meet the nomenclature and framework of the day. The Jim Crow of yesteryear is the Prison Industrial Complex of today.

So after writing all this, maybe I do have my own crap to deal with. It may not be the same as the majority of Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, or Asian Pacific Americans, but I think it provides an opportunity for all of us to expand our notions of what this race thing is about. I feel like living proof that race is made up on silly measures and rules. I challenge every white, Black, or Latino to think about their understanding of race, whether its based on seeing it as a social construct or a genetic and biologically based categorization system. In the end its about how you treat others and leaving enough room to know there are other ways of seeing things.