A Trip to Zonkizizwe Secondary on Mandela’s 94th Birthday

I have only just arrived in Johannesburg, so I am pleased that the months of work trying to set up connections before I came is coming to fruition.  Thanks largely to a sister named Lerato, an employee of TEACH South Africa, I am able to link with teachers and principals from four different schools over the next few weeks.  My hope is to find at least two schools with teachers who will use the Dialogues in the Diaspora curriculum on “this side,” such that they will be able to link with the teachers who are using the curriculum in the States, and we can collectively create this particular diasporic dialogue between youth focused on social action. 

This is the students’ first week back to school after the three-week winter break, and it is also Mandela’s birthday week.  In Mandela’s honor, many public schools have a celebratory and action-oriented vibe this week.  In accordance with the UN-declared Nelson Mandela International Day, it has become a South African tradition to spend 67 minutes engaged in positive action for social change, to honor Mandela’s 67 years of civic service.    

It is with this contextual backdrop that I visited the first of four schools.  I was rolling with an entourage – 7 deep – from TEACH South Africa (TSA), which is a South African NGO based heavily on the Teach for America model.  It was clear that the principal had prepared extensively for our visit, as the three founders of TSA are super VIPs in Johannesburg and nationally: one founder is the chairwoman of Deloitte South Africa, another founder is a well-known medical doctor and public health practitioner, and the third founder is a prominent educator who grew up in the anti-apartheid struggle. 

I experienced a heavy dose of the imposter syndrome, as I was asked to join the TSA big-wigs on a stage in front of the entire student body when we arrived.  I was thinking to myself “I just met these warm folks this morning, I have no business being on this stage!”  I was also highly aware of the influence that six particular letters had in shaping my role in the experience.  The “P” the “h.” and the “D.”, coupled with the “U.” the “S.” and the “A.” seemed to open many more doors than any six letters should, so I felt overwhelmed and thankful simultaneously.  We were welcomed heartily in the student courtyard, by the students singing a welcome song as well as their school anthem. 

My heart was warmed when I looked out into the sunny morning courtyard filled with about 200 students.  I was excited to finally have reached the spot where I have anticipated arriving for so long.  And I was encouraged by the feeling of momentary completion in witnessing the truth of the contemporary Black Diaspora, as evidenced at this moment by the globalization of fashion.  I promise you I could have been standing in front of any (Black) school, USA, as I looked out on the student body and saw the oversized plastic eye-glasses and the school-boy fresh attire that marks the most stylish US teens as well.  As the principal introduced us one by one, there was a familiar adolescent excitement of visitors at school, coupled by loud, high-pitched cheers from the girls when the two handsome men in our crew were introduced. 

Amidst the similarities, however, I felt one palpable difference from many of the schools contexts I have experienced in the States: the students were there.  They were present.  They were not jittery or sleeping or shouting obscenities.  The principal did not have to beg for their attention.  All of this, yet they were not robotic.  There was an air of respect that the kids seemed to have for their teachers, principal, school, and the visitors. 

So I was up on stage, taking all of this in, when the principal announced that Professor Jillian Ford would now address the school…  (!!).   Not having expected to even be on stage, let alone address the school, I walked over to the principal slowly as the students cheered. 

I took a deep breath, and began.  I told them that I was thankful to be at their beautiful school, especially on Mandela’s birthday (more cheers).  I told them how wonderful I felt to look out and see my students’ eyes in their eyes.  I explained to them the project we are working on, and the importance of recognizing shared struggle and resistance in the African Diaspora.  I thanked their teachers for the extraordinary amount of work they do.  I picked up on a theme that the principal had been stressing – about the importance of their South African citizenship – and challenged them to imagine also a kind of world citizenship that might connect them with youth in Atlanta, in Chicago, in DC, and beyond.  There was no microphone, so my years of using my teacher voice paid off; I saw teachers in the back of the courtyard nodding supportively.

After the program in the courtyard, I had an opportunity to build with three teachers: two English, one history.  I showed them the documentary and we talked for a long while about the curriculum.  I explained to them that I was not trying to come in there and give them a pre-packaged curriculum and expect that it fit their context, so I was seeking feedback and dialogue about its relevance and feasibility.

Their interest and engagement was encouraging.  Their feedback was invaluable.  They have agreed to be a part of the project.  And so it goes! 

Through a Black Diasporic Portal

I have always known that Africa is in me.  In middle school, Mrs. Mabel Welch invited me to be a part of the Culture Club, an afterschool club for Black kids to learn about our history.  For a 12-year old biracial girl growing up in a predominantly white town, my participation in that club had a profound effect on me.   In high school, I was a part of Pathfinders, which was an extension of the Culture Club.  In college, I was a part of the Griot Society, which was also an Afro-centric extracurricular club that my homegirl Latasha Levy founded.  While a part of the Griot Society, I co-founded Know Your History, a Saturday School program for Black kids in Charlottesville to learn about the Black history that was missing from their social studies curriculum, as it had been missing from mine.  When I started teaching at Tri-Cities High School, a predominantly Black school in East Point, Georgia, I developed the Know Your History club: an extension of all that I experienced until then.

It was a beautiful gift from the universe, then, when I received an email from my brother Lewy last fall, connecting me to a sister named Bernadette Atuahene.  This is what he wrote:

            Hi sis,

My friend Bernadette is a law professor who is working on a documentary movie about land rights/land redistribution/social justice in South Africa.  Connected to that project, she is working on a curriculum (for high school, I think?) to deal with some of these issues.  She asked me to give it a once over--might you or any of your people have an interested in exploring this with her?  Obviously, this material is just in draft form and not for formal distribution.

Love,

L

When I scrolled down to see what my brother’s friend had written him, this is what I read:

Lew, I have yet another request.  They just keep coming, eh?  You know we founded a nonprofit called Documentaries to Inspire Social Change (DISC) that is producing a film about South Africa called "Sifuna Okwethu: We Want What's Ours" (www.discwebsite.org).  We also have developed a curriculum to go along with the film.  If you have time, we would appreciate it if you could comment on the attached curriculum.  Also, if you have any curriculum specialists in your network that you could connect us with, that would be fantastic.

Let me know if you can help us out!
B

It turns out that specific objectives of the curriculum are that students will learn about the history of colonialism, apartheid, and resistance in South Africa.  The broad objectives are that students will understand common oppression and shared struggle throughout the Diaspora. 

So just like that – really, through Diasporic connections that exemplify the broad goals of the curriculum itself – I got linked into this phat project.  Bernadette welcomed me into the project warmly, and invited me in to pilot the curriculum and revise it accordingly.  As such, I piloted the program this past spring in Atlanta.  Since that time, we have established connections with folks in DC and Chicago, who will teach the curriculum in schools there in the fall also.  Our vision is that all of the teachers and students who participate in the curriculum will connect with one another, so that they can understand how similar issues take shape in different geographic contexts. 

All of this brings me to this current trip to Johannesburg.  As part of a grant I was awarded from the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Kennesaw State University, I am able to travel to the city where the original documentary took place.  While in Jo’burg, I will talk with teachers, principals, professors, and students of education about using the curriculum in schools there.  Again, we hope to link all participants together using the marvels of modern media, such that a young person in Atlanta can hear from a young person in Jo’burg, who just built with a young person in DC, who just spoke with a young person in Chicago.  Because the curriculum includes a social action project, we envision that the youth will share ideas, resources, and perspectives that will help teach these youth about the power of global connections.

Just in the way that the universe (with the aid of some focused, hard-working folks, no doubt) continues to propel this project forward, I believe the universe also set it up to send me off through what seemed to me like a majestic Black Diasporic Portal to the world outside Atlanta: The Maynard Jackson International Airport Terminal.  Um… WHAT?!?!  Have you been there yet?  Even if you do not have an international trip planned any time soon, I recommend you checking that place out.  As Asha drove me up the rounded road towards the terminal, the sight literally took my breath away.  “It’s like Mecca,” I whispered (and I ain’t even Muslim!).  Inside, my amazement was magnified still: everyone with whom I interacted was kind and encouraging and warm and beautiful.  These Black folks were collectively creating a space of human interaction that was even more unique and breathtaking than the architectural masterpiece inside of which we found ourselves. 

I found myself wondering what forces had coalesced to create such a truly beautiful space.  Had Mayor Reed had something to do with this?  Was this Mayor Jackson’s spirit living on?  Were other passengers feeling what I was feeling?  I felt proud of my folks, and I felt proud of my city.  Everybody knows that Atlanta is one of the few (major) Chocolate Cities in the US.  I am thankful that Atlanta chose to construct such an important institution – the international terminal of the US’s (world’s?) busiest airport – with faith in the beauty of the Black Diaspora. 

i'll begin the story where the story began...

In trying to figure out how to condense a nearly two-year journey into twenty minutes, I decided to begin the story where the story began. What follows an excerpt from the researcher’s orientation section within the Methodology chapter of my dissertation. Given the intensely personal connections I have had with my doctoral research, it seemed the most appropriate place to start. As a student in middle and high school social studies classes, I became increasingly aware of – and progressively bothered by – the Grand Narrative tradition that celebrated a pro-(mainstream)-“American” tale. Informed in large part by my identity as a female student of color, I sought extra-curricular ways to learn a more complete and accurate depiction of history and civic engagement than presented in my social studies classes. Though I did not have the language for it then, my family experiences made hybridity and complexity my norm. As such, I have always had low tolerance for the simplistically dichotomous nature of the social studies curriculum in the United States (for example: heroes vs. villains, right vs. wrong, Black vs. White). My life experiences did not match up with the historical narrative I encountered in most of my social studies classes.

My three years teaching social studies at a predominantly Black high school and my eight years of volunteer work within the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Questioning (LGBTQIQ) youth community allowed me to see that many students battle a similar disconnect between their lives and the social studies curriculum.

In addition to my experiential background, my perspective as a researcher was deeply influenced by womanist theory. Womanism provided me a set of lenses-as-tools that I employed to “queer the gaze” of civic education research. That is the context in which this study was born and in which it developed.

Excuse me, sir

(I wrote this piece over the summer, but think it's madd relevant during the cold winter months as well. Perhaps most especially during the holidays.)


The blazing yellow sun beat down on the curvy black road so fiercely that I wondered if I would witness a hardened street turn back to the same soft tar it had been when the sturdy brown men had laid it three years ago. I was in that fresh zone that accompanies participation in social movement for positive change; I was full in the throws of it this day a few weeks ago. My homegirl Keisha had called to say we were going to have one of our final building sessions to think through the logistics of this Children’s Social Forum that was to commence in three days, and to ask if we could meet up at my spot. Kate Shapiro and Karen Lopez – two young sisters whose veins pump organizing-type blood – were going to come over so we could talk about lesson plans, order last-minute supplies, and re-check our story telling/music creating/sign painting/capoeria playing schedule for the youth. Keisha, doing her usual million-and-one things at once, was out 20-W by Six Flags, and had decided to come over a bit early. I was running a bit late, because I had taken longer than I planned in the supermarket.

I knew I was trying to make this new dish Lewy had told me about with chicken and onions and tomatoes and garlic. I knew I wanted Italian seasoning in it, and I decided to go with boneless breast meat instead of drumsticks and thighs. The Tyson chicken had a “Manager’s Special” stamp on the price tag, so it was a little less expensive than usual. I thought for a moment about what it means for meat to be on sale. Is it bad? Going bad? Do they just have too much? The sell-by date was still two days away, and the isle was so air-conditioned that I figured the chicken – resting in an even cooler refrigerated shelf – was fine. I decided for sure that the chicken was just on sale because there was too damn much of it. It was stacked neatly from my knees to above my head. Chicken packages stretched several paces. Then the refrigerated meat section turned to turkey. Then to pork. Then to beef. Just beyond the meat section was the fish market. And just beyond that was the dairy…

I was surrounded by food. I regarded my grocery-shopping task as I often do: a necessary errand that was one of many items on my to-do list. I spent time in the produce section, and picked out what looked best. I decided on grapes (green and seedless), peaches (instead of nectarines) and salad-making veggies. I threw cheese in my basket. I figured beer would be nice. I wanted to put the chicken dish over some pasta. Fusilli or Rotini? Rigatoni or Spaghetti? I decided on Linguini, to be on the safe side (??), and realized that I forgot tomatoes. I zig-zagged back to produce hurridly, chose grape tomatoes over cherry or vine, and checked the time on my cell phone.

It’s crazy how we get trapped by goodies that are intended to make life easier.

I picked up the pace and tried to ward off that localized headache that I get sometimes when I am running late. In the line, I chose mint mojito gum, browsed through People and Us, and threw Essence on the belt. The seventy-eight dollars and seventy-eight cents caught my attention not because it seemed like too much money, but instead because it’s the year of my birth, twice. Seventy-eight seventy-eight. Not too much money for a 28-year-old graduate student to spend on some groceries.

Back home, I prepared some food while Keisha read in the living room. The temperature was nearly 100 degrees outside, but “my” air had “my” condo down to 72. I own 800 square feet of property. I am a successful American. I am a successful African American. I am a successful biracial American woman. I chose my identity. I create my subjectivity. I have a bachelors and a masters degree. I’m working on another one still. I say who I am and where I live and what clothes I wear and what kind of tomatoes to buy. I decide when to take out the trash from my little kitchen.

So I did this day, I took out the trash because I wanted my guests to be able to throw away with plenty of space. I jogged down to the dumpster. It was absolutely blazing hot outside.

This is where my memory turns into s-l-o-w m-o-t-i-o-n. There is a way that I have to swing my garbage a few times, to get up the momentum to get it in the dumpster out back. It’s the type of industrial-sized dumpster that has a rusty door that slides back to reveal a window opening, about chest high, through which to throw one’s trash. With heavy bags, it’s actually a bit tricky to get it in, but I have had much practice and have come to perfect the craft. “One… two” I said to myself as I swung the trash back and fourth. Just as I was about to swing on three, I looked at my target and saw a man stand up. Inside the dumpster.

I froze.

He put his hands up.

“Excuse me ma’am. I – I’m sorry ma’am.”

His hands were still up, in a freeze-stance I have seen when people deal with cops.

“I’m sorry ma’am,” he said quietly. “I’m just looking for some food to eat.”

I stayed frozen.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled again softly.

I laid the heavy bag of garbage I was swinging on the side of the dumpster and I gently put up my hands to mirror his. “I’m sorry,” I repeated softly, and I turned on my heels and ran.

Irantothehouseandcollectedlotsoffood:cheese,grapes,crackers,andtomatoes. I hurriedly told Keisha what had happened and I darted back out the door to bring him what I had gathered. I was shaking and running and out of breath.

But when I reached the dumpster and peered in, he was gone.

I stood there, shocked and scared and embarrassed and devastated. Why had I not said anything? Why hadn’t I been faster? Why was he in there in the first place? Where had he gone?

Slowly, slowly, slowly, I headed back up to my air-conditioned space, to build with friends about social justice.

The Light From God

Saturdays are fresh in my world. They always have been, and I try to keep them that way (incidentally, I love Sundays and Tuesdays too, for other reasons I may write about later). But Saturdays are extra cool these days, because I have an opportunity to build with a set of super dynamic young folks at the community center where I have volunteered for several years: Refugee Community Center.

I have come to expect madd interesting conversations, whether they unfold with students, other volunteers, or staff at the center. Such is the case, I think, when a small group of folks engage in innovative projects where all the participants are expected to shape it. What I don’t presume to expect is how the conversation will unfold, with whom, or about what. Yesterday was no different.

When I asked one of the students, Nurea, if she knew the meaning of her name, she smiled and told me “Ah yes, there is a story to that actually.” We sat down together, and she organized the papers in front of her, as though she was gathering her thoughts about where to begin. “I asked my father about this, some time ago. He told me my Grandmother had named me, and he told me that she told him that ‘Nur-’ the first part of my name means light in Arabic. The rest my Grandmother just added on… I guess she thought it was pretty or something,” she said and shyly looked down at her hands.

“It sure is,” I told her, and I wanted to clarify what I had heard her say the first part of her name means. “So, the first part of your name means ‘light’ as in…” I asked as I motioned up to the florescent classroom-style lights above.

At this, she laughed briefly and then seemed to check back with me to see if I had been serious. “Well, light, yes, but not this kind of light Ms. Jillian!” I raised my eyebrows as if to say, “Oh? Do explain.”

“No, not this kind of light. I’m talking about the light that shines from God. I mean, you know what I mean, right? The light from God, Ms. Jillian. We all have it.”

The Difference Between Phoung and Phung

It is said that much is held in a name. Step into the Refugee Community Center, and you’ll be surrounded by folks whose names are frequently mispronounced or misspelled. To be sure, the names take on this hard-to-pronounce trait specifically because we are within these walls; within this city; within this context. Mambala and Zlata and Huy and Tuaka and Farishta and Florent are here. No matter that in Gambia and Bosnia and Vietnam and Nigeria and Iran and Sierra Leon their names may ring like John and Jenny and Bob and Bill and Becky and David. In this country, they signify “otherness.” To those with whom these children interact, this impression may carry a positive or negative charge. Neutrality does not emerge here, as they are undoubtedly always the “other.”

I sat with a young child yesterday, and today it seemed as though we had known each other forever. Third graders have a way doing that easily; no consideration of what has come before. It seems that if one is willing to help, one gains instant celebrity status among a classroom of elementary students. So as I entered today, she waved her arms with wild excitement from her seat “Oooo! Miss Jill! Can you help me with my homework?” Pleased that someone remembered me, I smiled and sat down next to Phoung. Or is it Phung.

She asked me quickly, in a high-pitched, third grade intonation, “do you remember my name?” I was pleased I had gone over the names in my head last night, and said (almost proudly), “yes, sweetheart. It’s Phoung.” She giggled and said, “No it’s not! It’s Phung!” Knowing that Vietnamese is a tonal language, but not ever really knowing what that meant, I could hear the slightest difference in the tone and sound of the two names. “O.K., Phung,” I started, “thank you for correcting –” “Noooooooo! It’s Phoung!” I stared at her, trying to discern whether she was teaching me about her culture or simply playing a trick on me. I was suddenly aware of my own brief otherness as I looked around the table and three other Vietnamese children started laughing and speaking to each other in Vietnamese. “Which name to you prefer?” I asked her. “Well, the thing is, Phoung is Vietnamese, Phung is Chinese.” My mind was now racing with Chinese occupation and Vietnam War information, as I tried to fit this conversation into a context that I understood. “You see,” she continued quickly, “ in Vietnamese it means far, far off place; in Chinese it means distant place.” Now it was my turn to giggle, as the stress in her explanation did not fall on “far, far off place” or “distant place” as it would have in this culture. Instead, she stressed the words “Vietnamese” and “Chinese” (which we would do also), but omitted the stress on the differentiating characteristics. So why did I think that Vietnamese was a tonal language and English is not? “Really,” I said, in genuine amazement. “Which do you prefer?” “Well,” she continued, “my real name Phoung, my nickname Phung. My parent call me Phung, my teacher call me Phoung. Around here, they call me Phung.” “O.K., hun. So Phung it is,” I declare, trying to do things as they do “around here.”

“No,” she said as she pulled out her worksheet. “Phoung is fine.”

Stonewall, Davis, & Lee: We are not daunted

Y’all remember the song Things that make you go hmmm? Many props due to C&C for that one. We incorporated it into regular conversation, and it became a common refrain (often said with raised eyebrows) when things just didn’t add up. Is a perfect sentiment to sum up the entity that is Stone Mountain, Georgia.

If you have not been there, imagine an enormous rounded granite stone on otherwise pretty flat terrain. They say it’s the largest mass of exposed granite in the world, but I sense there is some strange loophole-slash-caveat to that statistic. Perhaps I’m just reluctant to give it that recognition. Like many spaces in this region, Indigenous folks were the first to visit what would become Stone Mountain, several thousand years ago. They say that when the White settlers came with disease and destruction in the 18th century, that previously embattled Indigenous nations collected together to form a coalition. But by the early 19th century, with forced removal and genocide virtually complete, Stone Mountain had become a popular resort spot for White Atlantans. And in 1915, inspired by Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, the Ku Klux Klan was re-established at Stone Mountain. That was about the same time that the Stone Mountain Confederate Association funded the start of what would become the largest tribute to the Confederacy in the world. The place has a troubled past, to say the least.

Last week, we brought the Saturday school students from Refugee Community Center (RCC) to Stone Mountain. The irony was deafening, as we gathered in the parking lot at the foot of the mountain. We were Black Americans, White Americans, Sudanese, Russian, Liberian, Afghani, Rwandan, and Iraqi refugees, Latino and Western European immigrants, and mixtures of all of the above. There we stood, about 25 deep, in a super-multicultural clump on the most uniquely “United Statesian” holiday weekend we have. To be sure, we were thankful to be there and to be together. But the majority of folks in our group hadn’t celebrated Thanksgiving earlier that week.

We huddled together to ward of the chilling wind, and we hustled into the Main building to watch the Stone Mountain Movie. Though I have visited the place before, I must have missed the movie, so I was very interested to see how the story of Stone Mountain would be told. To my surprise, the film said very little about the Confederate “heroes” to whom the Mountain is dedicated. Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis, and Robert E. Lee received about as much air time as it takes to say their name on the video. Nor did the film talk about the Indigenous genocide, the founding of the KKK, or the century-long intentional symbolism of the White South. Instead, the film focused on the feat of creating the monument; indeed it really was quite a feat.

Talking with a few of the students after the film, we agreed that our presence was testament to how things have changed. We laughed at the thought of White supremacists seeing our group; we found strength in confronting the hate of the not-so-distant past.

Such is paradox of Stone Mountain and like places in this country and in our world. The sordid past of such places understandably repels some from visiting them at all. But others gain strength from journeying directly to the jaws of the enemy. From celebrating in spite of – perhaps because of – that same history.

To tell you the truth, it fascinates me. The multiple layers of natural and human history make our every step matter in ways that we may or may not know.

Matter of fact, if anyone wants to head out there with me next Fourth of July, I’m down to roll.