Lost in the Ghetto with a Black Heart

Lost in the Ghetto with a Black Heart

I know, I know, it’s been way too long since I have posted something. I wish I could come up with a good and interesting excuse like “Oh, I was off in the Amazon saving the endangered Orangutans” but unfortunately I am not that cool. I have been away because of, snooooooze, work and school. But hey, you have to do both in order to become a better person right? And that is everyone’s goal RIGHT? Ok, maybe not, but for me it keeps my mind at peace (generally speaking of course).

There are a few things I want to talk about today, mostly because it has been so long, and so many things have happened that I would like to try and rehash for you today. Please, bear with me, I might forget a few things, but you will hear about them later I am sure.

First, I just got done reading They Poured Fire On Us From The Sky. This is an absolute must read if you like any kind of true, heart wrenching, stories of triumph over evil. A basic rundown of the book is:

During the longest civil war in African history the Islamic Arabs of Sudan and the Islamic Government initiated genocide on the Christian Black Africans. The terror (ooh, sorry to use the soo dumbed down word of our own resident idiot) started in 1987 as the Arabs raided the villages of the African farmers, shooting down the men, raping and killing the women and young girls or taking them to be slaves in their land.

The boys, ranging in age from 5-12 fled their villages into the high grasses and deserts, running for their lives as their village chieftains had instructed them to, in order to find safety.

Over the course of their journey they fought hunger, dehydration, yellow fever, stomach problems from the un-ground grain that they sometimes found for food tearing their intestines and stomach linings, infection, soldiers, crocodiles, and themselves, completely worn down by war. For month these young boys walked, searching for safety and being treated as caged animals unworthy of life. Their walk started in Bor, Sudan and took them first to Ethiopia. After having traveled over 1,000 miles the boys faced more discrimination and hunger. After war broke out in Ethiopia the boys were once again walking, into another unknown land, into Kakuma, Kenya.

The story is about three boys, brothers, who faced this adversity for 14 years before finally being flown into the United States so that they could live a better life, in hopes that one day they would be able to rectify the situation. Alepho tells the reader of a dream he has as he is flying into the States that better shows the gravity of their need to help, “In my dream, after the truck passed Torit and got stuck in the mud, all of the soldiers jumped out just like they had in real life. I’d been curious and stuck my head out and seen many damaged trucks and human bones lying all around. But in my dream, when I looked out, all of those skulls smiled to me and said, ‘Son, you will fight this war. We all paid for it. Everybody will pay for it. To pay for it you must start the process.’”

I really wish I could tell you more about this book, but I fear that my over-excitement will diminish the book for you. I tell you this; this book will rip your heart out. If you are like me, you will realize that as you sat, eating your cereal, watching Sally Struthers talk about all the starving boys in Ethiopia and wondering “hmmm… could that be real” as an eight year old with no concept of the real world, that these are the boys that you saw on TV. The boys who had extruding stomachs from hunger, flies in their eyes, and no hope in their mind. These are the boys who would have benefited from those 20 cents a day, maybe giving them one more cup of grain for a 16 day period, giving them a total of four cups of grain (that took nearly 10 hours to prepare and cook) for half the month.
If you want to read more about the lost boys you can go to Lost Boys (red cross). If you want to learn about how you can actively serve populations such as these check out Doctors Without Borders or if you want to contribute International Release Committee.

Next…

I have just recently received that coolest compliment I have ever gotten. I was recently told that I was “Black on the inside”. Sound weird, it gets even weirder.

So a little background, I work at an inner city school with Americorps St. Louis. Needless to say, I am the minority by 293:7. Well, it’s difficult sometimes to listen to the jargon used by my little middle school friends, and I have been offended by the word “Nigga” since day one. Well, of course I tell the kids “NO N WORD IN HERE PLEASE” and never thought anything about it. Well, I was discussing this issue with a friend of mine, a friend who is very well versed in working with urban youth after having worked with Outward Bound for five years. I told her about my dislike of the word, and instead of saying “Oh yes Breeah, you are racially diverse and culturally competent,” she gave me a dressing down. She told me that my telling my little friends that they could not use a word, which in their culture was a symbol of friendship, acceptance and brotherly love, was just another way that I (the white authority) was taking away their freedom as black people.

Shock me stupid, she did!

The very next day I called my 7 kids together. We sat together on the floor in a circle, the way we always do when someone has something important to discuss with the group, and started the very difficult (for me) talk about race issues that we all sometimes face. After having talked for a while about what they felt, I brought up the word “Nigga”. They all looked at me like I was crazy, stating that they had never heard a teacher (I’m not a teacher, but I am an adult so they call me a teacher) speak so bluntly about the issue, but I continued on. I asked them why they thought that I did not like the word that I heard so often and they all answered with the right answer, because it’s bad, mean and racist. I told them that, yes, that was the reason I didn’t like the word, but furthered the conversation by asking them if that’s what they thought. Of course they said no, to them it was a sign of friendship, acceptance and familial love. I listened and interjected but in the end told them that yes, the reason I did not like it was because at first glance it seems derogatory to me. But then, unlike most adults, I told them that I was wrong. I told them that I had my own prejudice to the word because it was something that I did not know about. But, to conclude the conversation I told them that I was still not comfortable with the word in general, for a different reason. I told them that we were a team, and when they said that word it took me out, it made me unequal as I could not say that word without it being seen as racists. I told them that if our team was to be effective, we all had to be on even ground as much as possible without putting anyone out and being respectful of all our differences. After getting over the initial shock of my wanting to be equal to them, one of my girls look at me and said “But, Ms. Breeah, you black on the inside.” With a big grin on my face, I look at this girl that I love for her openness and say “so does that mean I can call you a Nigga?” and she says “Hell NO, you must be outta yo’ mind”. From the mouths of babes eh?

Some things I have learned-

1. You are ghetto if:
     a. you make your kool-aid with salt
     b. you own a pit-bull
     c. you play your music “hella” loud in a residential area
     d. you use your car hood as a sled in the snow
     e. you have different colored hair other than your natural color
     f. you scream at people down the street that you don’t even know
          and…
     g. you make lists like “you’re ghetto if…”
2. I guess that makes me ghetto (