Reflexivity

Dialogue: Identities
Whiteness (Race), Gender, Culture…

Our second dialogue on identity opened up difficult stuff.  We learned a few painful experiences these high school youth have had with some of their peers, and began to talk about college . . . what choices are available, and what effective communication strategies can they practice now to achieve success at college later? These bright and energetic high school juniors have a clear sense of why they want to go to college, but very little information about what college will be like. “I would rather have a career I pick than a job that picks me.” Lucii won Marissa’s congratulatory “boop” two times for making brilliant statements about the relationship between a college education and meaningful work. Natasha’s ambition to hang with nerds also met with approval. Noelani, Tiffany, and Lucii got in on the action:

“Nerds make all the money.”

“We’re putting a nerd monitor on you to check in five years.”

“They don’t go to NYC to go shopping!”

“They shop for books.”

On the spur of the moment, the only media image they could come up with about college was news-reporting about “what college students don’t know.” These are sensationalized stories that lampoon the Millennial Generation for not having the same knowledge base that was expected of their parents and grandparents. However, standardizing education in today’s Information Age is complicated. The challenge of education today is only partly with the content. There is a lot more information to sort through in today’s time than for previous generations. In the academic discipline of “Communication,”  the effects of constant exposure to media are explored in relation to the development of an individual’s consciousness, showing links between psychological awareness and societal customs.

Who do you want to be?

I’m wondering about identities, because they shift and change depending on who you’re with and what’s going on. For instance, I’m always a white person, but the ways in which I act white isn’t always relevant. I like the idea that I might be a nerd, too, but does a label that categorizes a certain kind of thinking carry the same weight as a label that categorizes an ethnic or cultural background? Again, it depends on who I’m with and what’s going on.

The important skill is knowing when and how to shift identities depending on what’s going on with the people I’m interacting with. If my friend who describes herself as half-Puerto Rican and half Black  is trying to figure out how to confront whiteness, I need to connect with my white identity in order to be able to share information and insight with her that helps her figure out a strategy. If my friend is struggling with chemistry, then I need to put on the nerd identity and figure out how to learn that crazy stuff too!

When it can get tricky is when we’re in our nerd identities and something, somehow, comes up sideways that has to do with ethnic or cultural or religious or national or sexual or some other identity that is a feature of the body more than of the mind.  The thing about learning (as opposed to teaching), is that when you’re learning you are aware that there is so much that you don’t know.  When you’re teaching, you can get fooled into thinking that what you know is all anyone else has to know, which can lead to a failure of curiosity. Just because a certain strategy works for me, doesn’t mean the same strategy will work for someone else.  This applies whether the topic is academic (like chemistry) or social (like which identity matters most right now).

The education young people need today requires more than balance between the social and the academic. They need skills of navigation so that they can know when to switch from one identity to the next in ways that move them further toward the goals they seek. Anyone who can do this socially can transfer that skill to academic or intellectual content, too. If you can make the identity switch that supports the kind of relationships you want with others, then you also know how to learn and problem-solve together on any topic – whether it is about learning in school, or figuring out a project at work, or helping your family and community find the resources needed to sustain itself.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Dialogue: Identities
Whiteness (Race), Gender, Culture…

Ten high school students in the circle.
(Another observing from outside).
Their regular teacher.
Three facilitators from UMass.

“I wanna have a cool name like that!”

“I hated the first day of school. For days, they couldn’t figure out how to say my name.”

“I like my name. It’s different.”

“[My full name] and I don’t get along. I use [a nickname]; it’s short and sweet.”

“I want an extra letter!”

“A vowel on the end makes it girlie.”

“I like writing my name.”

“[With my first and middle name], I have the same meaning twice.”

“My name is mispronounced often and people don’t accept correction.”

“My dad liked Slavic names. I like my name.”

“I wasn’t named by my mom or dad… I’m known as [a nickname].”

“It’s weird to think the people in [that city I'm named after] are my relatives.”

“I literally became a different person when I came to the U.S. because people couldn’t say my name.”

“I don’t like how I got my name.”

“People see my name and think something; then they meet me and I don’t look like what they expect.”

It’s about the structure

Talking about our names brought up a lot of feelings. Some experiences have been good, others not so much.  ”Should names follow the stereotypes?” Most in the group said no or shook their head. “Would you throw [that kind of] a curve ball to your kid?” Hmm.  What values are involved in this kind of decision? What does your name have to do with who you are? What does your name have to do with who other people think you are?

The diversity of names in this small group led us to ethnic and racial differences. The facilitators were curious how much these differences lead to cliques in school. For these young people, hanging out with people of similar appearance is something that happened up until about 9th grade, and they think most of that was because of location. Who they went to school with before was who they hung out with, at least until they got to know each other.

It is a deeper question to wonder if the clustering of certain groups in particular areas is simply coincidence.  Where did you go to elementary school? What section? Which house?  Were you in 16 Acres?  There was a hint of class difference…. and some groups seem to get swallowed up by others…. Dominicans, for instance, get lumped in with Puerto Ricans.  Relations within families are complicated too. “I’ve spent more time with white people, so I get along with my relatives who live in the North more than the ones in the South.”  And this quick exchange: “I’m the darkest one in my family.” “You’re not even dark!” “I know!” Some students aren’t sure “what” they are. “I’m confused. I’m a bunch of stuff.”

One young man was fifteen when a friend pointed to a photograph in his home and asked, “Who’s that white lady?” “Uh…” he sortof stammered, “Grandma?” raising his voice as if in doubt. What was obvious is how deeply he is connected to his Grandma, the pigment of her skin being inconsequential to their relationship.

language plays a part

“I start speaking in Spanish when I want to tell a secret.”

One student (a girl) wants to know: “¿Que? ¿Que? Translation?”

Another one (a boy) lets it go.  “I just walk away.”

That could be the gender dynamic. The boys were described as “a pack,” “they just get each other.”  “There’s no drama.” “They just let things go.”

…and then there is the future

“What happens when you go to college?”

This conversation was brief, but the immediate responses seemed to project a future environment similar to the one they’re in now. What these kids value is the intimacy of their 600-student high school, where everybody knows each other and the Principal knows everyone’s name.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Vernal Equinox

Full Moon Stories

On the night before Equinox I met The Milkman, a non-brown person appearing strange in rural Central America, now sharing lessons with me from Zen Buddhism.  Senor Leche shared a specially strategic communicative move with me from his years of arduous spiritual training, emphasizing:

“They hit you with a stick until you get the nose insertion technique correct.”

I was impressed by how long he could hold the pose. “Practice,” he encouraged me. “Years of practice.”

The Rihanna thing?

The Rihanna thing is a quick reference to an earlier conversation about Beyonce and Alicia Keys.

When I first came upon Beyonce, [in that There-and-Then context], I was figuring myself out as a woman. She was girl/woman/sexy/curvy but still a side character. Then I came across Alicia Keys, who is seductive and very strong.

Her songs are about love and loss…

Alicia gives nothing of herself away.

Alicia is the actor in her videos and the guys are decoration.

Make your move.

Word, word… twice in a lifetime.

“Alright.
I have lyrics.” [study]

So says Talib Kweli
performing with
Jane Doe, Wordsworth, Punchline, and Mos Def of
Black Star.

“Hi-Tek is the guy who
provides the
music in the back.”
[acknowledgement]

Popularity: 2% [?]