If we are talking about why black people aren't critical enough of our popular image, I think it is much deeper than parenting. Many parents nowadays don't see anything wong with the images of black people in the media. I think that the acceptance of the "ghetto-ization" of the popular black image has more to do with a more essential crisis in our community- illiteracy.
Now, when I say illiteracy, I am not talking about not being able to see a word and say a word, that's more of a phonic-word attacking skill. I am talking about a level of literacy that is about comprehension of ideas, analysis of the ideas, criticizing the value of the ideas, and synthesizing new ideas. This is the level of literacy that is necessary for our people to be able to think critically of the images, no matter who produce them.
This year, I decided to take a job as a special ed teacher in the public school system. So far I have learned some fascinating things about education in general and special ed in particular. Over half of all students who recieve special ed services in the US are labelled as Learning Disabled (LD). Officially, (Under federal law) LD is defined as "A defect in the psychological/cognitive processes involved with learning that result in a significant difference in demonstrated ability and measured achievement in students". LD is an educational diagnosis (not medical), which means that a team of people that are directly interested in the education of the child actually make the call as to who is LD. If a child has a high IQ but poor achievement test scores and grades, and there is nothing medically wrong with the child, chances are the team of educators and the parent will come to a conclusion of LD. Now, in LD research it is found that the main problem with LD is a severe lack of reading skills. Basically, if you cannot read on a third gade level by the time you leave the 4th grade, chances are eventually you will "get" LD, end up in special ed and drop out when you turn 16. Why? because so much of learning after the 3rd grade is based on you having mastered those basic literacy skills learned in K-3rd grades. So LD is "legal-ease" for "I can't read worth a squat!!!" It is important to note here that an LD diagnosis really means nothing in the real world. You can't sue a company under the Americans with Disabilities Act because they won't make accomodations for your literacy problems. So what does all this have to do with the ghetto image being accepted by black folks?
In His Book,
Black children and Middle Class Teachers, Dr. Jawanzaa Kunjufu notes that as many as 40% of the kids that recieve Special Ed. services in the US are black, with 80% of those kids being boys. Many states project their future prison population by looking at the literacy rates of their 4th grade students, because chances are those who haven't learned to read by then will make up the bulk of the new prison inmates in the next 10 to 15 years. Kunjufu notes that 75% of the black men that enter prison are functionally illiterate-which means that their reading skills will not allow them to function productively as adults, hence why they end up in prison. Do these kids end up this way because they never learn to say "jump" when they see the letters"j-u-m-p" in sequence? No, most of the kids I teach can call out plenty of words, but they have a very limited vocabulary, thus they have very low comprehension. They end up this way because reading becomes so difficult that they don't do it on their own. Since they don't do it on their own, their academic potential never fully develops because they only rely on natural ability when it comes to learning things, never putting forth the effort and discipline it takes to read the content of a lesson and wrestle with the complex ideas that help develop critical thought. To put it plainly, we are not critical of these images as a whole because we don't know how to be.
My job entails teaching kids who have been diagnosed with LD about the US Government. The textbooks that I use are on a 3rd grade level. The kids are officially in the 9th grade, but most of their reading level is somewhere around the 3rd to 5th grade. What this does is makes it really hard for them to grasp certain concepts like liberal and conservative views of government, democracy, justice for all, etc. I do not have time to teach these kids how to read, at least the amount of time it would take for them to develop critical literacy skills, and teach the mandated curriculum. So most of the kids flunked my class the first quarter, and looking at yesterday's quiz scores, they will probably continue to flunk. A bunch of 15 and 16 year old (mostly black) kids flunking a class that has at its core a 3rd grade textbook is just pitiful
.
Another thing that Kunjufu notes is that the culture of many of our homes dictates that children are raised in a home that has multiple stimuli that only attain to the physical (not cognitive) senses. In other words, the only stimuli children are gettng is entertainment. Since things like government, history, and literature are not entertainig, children don't know how to attend to them. With no attention to these things, there will be no development of critical thought. My question is why now, all of the sudden, does the black commuity have this immense literacy problem? It wasn't always this way.
When Bro. Dr. W.E.B. DuBois was the editor of
The Crisis it had a circulation one time of over 50,000 readers, even though at the time, the NAACP only had about 4,000 paid members. People from all walks of life read the magazine, with its history lessons, literature corners, and political commentaries about the day. Nowadays, I would venture to guess there are more black households subscribing to
The Source than to
The Crisis if they are reading anything at all. My questions is why? You don't have to have a degree in order to be a critical thinker (in fact, many would say having a degree is no indicator of your true intelligence). The masses of black folk in fact do not have a college education. Yet this is no reason not to be critical and smart, and to make decisions that reflect that you have critical thought. The article on consumerism hit the nail right on the head with the notion that folks back then understood to have money didn't necessarily mean one had to spend money. The lean towards consumerism is great example of people making decisions uncritically. Vesting so much of your esteem in material possessions I think is a spiritual-identity issue that I will not spend time here discussing, but I think it is a very valid point.
How has this happened? How did black people, decendants of people whom developed the pursuit of knowledge in all of its forms, come to a point where we value that pursuit so little now? I think the answer to that question will give us insight into how we become so accepting of not just stereotypical imagery of us by us, but larger values that we accept in general, like our acquescence to captialism and inequality in general.
Blackwatch!!!!!!
Is the answer a parenting issue?
. we are a great people. we come from kings and queen. we ruled continents! not the penal system.
Hybrid Mode
