Who loves healthy family debates?
My mind goes back to last week.
It was my siblings against my brother who is also known as 'Alatenumo' this his nickname I think literally translates to 'A person that can go on and on about something'
Those of you that know of him will know that he is racially and politically conscious. A voice for the underdog and he puts it out there in his writings. He does not mince his words.
Anyway he is role model for my 7 year old nephew and 9 year old niece who are quite close to him. Like all kids they look forward to their birthdays and Christmas when they are assured of receiving interesting gifts from uncle.
Well in recent years there has been this emerging pattern of Post 'person' Pat (sorry can't say 'man' anymore as it is sexist!) arrives, delivers package, kids rush to the door, package is opened and out drops a book! The books are usually age appropriate and my niece and nephew have always been able to read and comprehend them with ease. So what's the big deal in him buying books for a child, I may hear you ask?
Well expecting my brother to buy the classics i.e. Little Red Riding Hood, The 3 Little Pigs, Goldilocks And The 3 Bears, 3 Billy Goat Gruff (Why are these characters always in 3's?) or books authored by Enid Blyton would be asking too much.
The book titles my nephew and niece have been reading other the years range from:
Obama
Malcolm X
Martin Luther King
Let's Talk About Race!
Africa And The Slave Trade
Who Was Nelson Mandela?
Who Was Rosa Parks?
Who Was Gandhi?
His most recent birthday gift to my niece is book titled: We Are All Born Free: The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights In Pictures!
Mum said she looked at the book and thought to herself 'like seriously' as my niece snatched book off her and skipped off happily to digest contents.
She calls me and says I need to see the latest book Alatenumo has sent the kids this time around!
When we all met up over the weekend she tabled the matter asking couldn't he lighten it up a bit and balance the books out as she didn't want the kids becoming angry black kids, after all they are both well aware of what goes around them, as both she and my other brother are also racially conscious, work on the kids and discuss challenges they face growing up as an ethnic minority.
We spoke about making it a bit more balanced and letting them read about the likes of Abraham Lincoln for example, so the kids don't think all white people sing from the same hymn sheet. The children were with us at the time and kept interrupting with 'But mummy we love reading all the books uncle sends us and they are much more interesting than the other stuff they make us read at school anyway'
Their mum rolls her eyes as this buttresses her point, that uncle has slowly 'indoctrinated' them over the years.
Alatenumo's take on the matter is they just have to be aware as to what goes on out there, which we all fully acknowledge, however we just don't want him to 'over do'.
Anyway back to school this week and as per the usual trend at home, my nephew and niece are giving my sister a run through matters arising at school, when my niece, K says 'Oh yeah mummy my teacher said I have to cut my hair'.
Mum stops what she is doing and asks 'What do you mean K?' K replies that during swimming lessons at school that day because she was having difficulty tucking her afro hair into her swimming hat, teacher got fed up and made the comment about cutting her hair.
As my sister was sitting there thinking 'Ok, here we go again' (I assure you there are many of such instances) and brainstorming whether she should have a 'quick word' with the teacher in question or whether it warranted her sending an email into school, my nephew interrupts her thoughts with a 'Mummy during playtime at school today an older boy told me all brown people should be killed'
She's like 'What? He said what?'
And my nephew replies "Well Mummy, he didn't actually say the word 'kill' he used another complicated word that he thought I would not understand, but another older boy told me what it meant and I had guessed anyway'"
Well, by now my very much 'aware' 9 year old niece is reeling off words synonymous with 'Kill' to her brother and has brought out a dictionary; Exterminate, Eradicate, Extinguish, Slay, Assassinate, Massacre, Slaughter, Waste, Obliterate, Root-out to mention a few, until he eventually identifies the word.
I'm not going into further details but the school are aware of the incident as my nephew brought their attention to it, he knows what is wrong and what is right.
Thanks Uncle for 'those' books.
Personally what I can't get over is the deviousness of this older child trying to bamboozle my little nephew with big words. To me this clearly shows the 'intent'. At what stage does a child become racist? Do they learn it from home?
Share your thoughts please.
On that note let's thank God it's Friday and have a great weekend
Racism is when the white iPhone costs more than the black one ~ Unknown
I know right, how dare items be priced by colour.
ReplyDeleteMy advice: buy a black one, then put it in a white phone case!! Shikena.
I am a self-confessed and I like to think also intelligent bounty bar.
1. I think your brother and sister-in-law ought to visit that school and give them "both barrels". There are serious issues there.
2. @alatenumo needs to balance things out.
I also have read books about slavery from both sides of it. There is no question that slavery was inhuman and sometimes unforgivable. Ask yourself though, how did the slaves come to be slaves?
Foluke,
ReplyDeleteYou comment about how did slaves become slave is a bit simplistic. It is what white supremacy has fed us to diminish their role in slavery. Admittedly their were a few pple who sold their fellow brothers to slavery, but this would not have been done if their was not a willing buyer. Is it not like blaming a woman who LV bag has stolen because she wore an expensive bag?
We need to Stay WOKE.
As I would always say, you can speak the queens English, go to the best schools, have all the white friends in the world, but at the end of the day, when you turn your back, you are nothing but a bloody NIGGER.
Foluke, I suggest you thoroughly analyse the interplay between power, privilege and prejudice when you are reading the white mans version of slavery.
Selah.
Alatenumo
Whilst the topic of slavery is heavy, they will be learning about it in school at some point. It's much better for them to learn about it at home first because the way that the UK education system approaches black history is highly questionable.
ReplyDeleteIt might have improved since I was in school (doubt it), but from what I remember it was we only really learned about slavery and oppression, nothing positive... EVER. I mean MLK was mentioned in passing a couple of times, but that is about it. I also remember a particularly strange rant by a teacher about how much she hated Malcolm X.
The height of it though was when we had a History lesson, where we had to write a pamphlet listing KKK ideologies (I'm cringing as I write that, because I'm still in disbelief). I just sat there and refused to do any work for that lesson.
Did you hear about the story about the children's book publish earlier this year describing slaves as happy? (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/a-birthday-cake-for-george-washington-childrens-picture-book-pulled-for-insulting-depiction-of-a6820696.html).
Slavery might be uncomfortable to speak but I’d rather get in there first, because they are going to learn about it anyway and there are too many people in this world who are willing to downplay or just flat out provide them with the wrong information.
Hmmm.... dealing with that everyday here. Growing up in Nigeria, we didn't have to explain our blackness. Now, it is not so. Makes raising children extremely tasking.
ReplyDeleteAlatenumo, my 17 years old daughter would absolutely love such books from you. I will send my mailing address and her date of birth to you. Please add her to your mailing list LOL! On a more serious note, one of her comments on her college applications, is that she grew up reading fictional books that lacked diversity or any in dept as to her life. Of course, when I read her cooment, my reaction was "ouch"! That was a dig to me. Egg on my face with the Cinderella, Dora, Barney, Little Women and Charles Dickens books. I thought I was doing right by my kids. Bottom line people, we need to prepare our kids for the reality of our blackness. One of my daughter was called a "cocoa bean" because she is black/brown. The school didn't think it was offensive. Here is their response - "it was merely descriptive. We apologize if your family is offended." Really????
Knowledge is Power and we can only do right by giving our children the kind of knowledge that will make them powerful in a society that try to make us black people powerless.
Wellsaid Seun. When you listen to the white supremacy of Malcolm X, he is taught to be a man who was evil while MLK is painted as an Angel. What they fail to acknowledge is that towards the end of both of their lives, they began to converge to a similar position. MLK became more radical as he questioned AmeriKKKa's role in the Vietnam war and challenged the capitalistic AmeriKKKa ideology while Malcolm toned down on his Whites are blue eyed devil narrative. Unfortunately, Malcolm X has been airbrushed from history even though a lot of things we preached about is still relevant today.
ReplyDeleteWhite supremacy also extends to our education system in Nigeria and parts of Africa. I recollect being taught in school that Mungo Park discovered River Niger and Christopher Columbus discovered America. It was not until I grew up that I realised that it was River Niger that discovered Mungo Park.
Absolutely Sister Ronkus.
ReplyDeleteAny black child living in the West needs to understand where they come from and the struggle of their people. As Marcus Garvey once said, a person who does not know his/her history is like a tree without its root. White supremacy would have us believe that all you have to do to escape racism is to get a good education and come out with good grades. Very often we pass this on to our children who only grow up to be ignorant about the injustice surrounding them. As consequence, we are at risk of raising a generation of children who in the process of achieving the so-called British or American dream become well adjusted to the status quo.
No matter how hard we try to suppress our blackness, we will still be defined by it. That's because white supremacy makes us responsible for the misdeeds of a few blacks, while when white folks commit any crime, it is brushed away as an isolated incidence. We have to explain when blacks knife each other ,join gangs, Serena misbehaves or Obama messes up. We have to explain "Black on black" crime even though whites are never held accountable for white on white crime ( which is at the same level as black crime). But when say Sharapova dopes or Donald Trump engages in sexual harassment, the white race is never indicted.
Your daughter is on to something when she says we read books that lack diversity. That's the reason why we need to balance our knowledge with our blackness and African heritage. If we don't search for it, white supremacy ain't going to guide us to find it.
We owe it to the next generation to make them aware of not only racial injustice but other types of injustice (class, gender , economic etc).
Why are we going far? Talking about white supremacy and black opression. What happens back home when a poor mans child is a housegirl and is treated like a dog purely because shw comes from a poor household. Are we still to blame this on the oyigbo man?
ReplyDelete
ReplyDelete@Alatenumo, we agree to disagree on this issue.
By the way "Simple Simon met a pie man"
I like pies, so it's all good.
@Alatenumo very true the most evil things often start off like childs play, the pigin english proverb goes 'escort me, escort me, na im slave trade take start'.
ReplyDeleteWe must not be complacent ,stamps it out from the onset and teach the child.
Interesting read @Risinyname. Here's a summary of my views, a quote by Chimamanda Adichie;
ReplyDeleteSo that is how to create a single story, show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become..... All of these stories make me who I am. But to insist on only these negative stories is to flatten my experience and to overlook the many other stories that formed me. The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.”
@Tatenda
ReplyDeleteFood for thought!
Thank you for this quote.
Chimamanda puts it succinctly.