I Believe That Change is a Choice...

Theorizing Africentric Realities in Consideration of Wenger:

Etteine Wenger theorizes learning in a social context; coining the educational phrase "Communities of Practice," he examines the process of knowing and learning through human interaction. Wenger describes social interaction (overt and covert) within the group as a living curriculum. Simply put Communities of Practice are "formed by people who engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavor:"(Wenger) Communities of practice are common and we participate in multiple communities of learning without deliberation because they occur naturally in the course of living. Your family is most likely your first community of practice. These communities of practice are manifest informally and formally in the course of our social engagement with others. How can the study of Wenger benefit the Africentric Cohort? I assert that Wenger can be useful to us for a number of reasons. 

1. To provide us with a operational understanding of social learning which can enable us to; 

        a. develop a working knowledge of learning processes;

        b. theorize learning in academic sectors as competitive, well-informed education practitioners;

        c. provide a basis for Africentric theory examining learning processes in consideration of power, exclusion, identity, the social construction of race, theorize and write critical analysis' of our history;

2. To address the challenges to healthy identity development within the African Canadian community;

3. To optimize learning through program development;

4. To enable a productive response to the BLAC Report and the Reality Check; and bridge the gap in educational discourse and curricula by developing and applying an Africentic approach to learning;

Develop an operational knowledge of social learning processes

Wenger's theory provides us with a social normative for understanding the learning processes in human beings. As we better understand the process of knowledge reproduction within communities, we are able to identify the key factors influencing the development of current social practices, shared values and identity development. Understanding that learning is a social phenomenon effecting identity formation, provides us with a basis to enable us to critically examine the historical effect of white supremacist discourse, slavery, and segregation on African Canadians. 

Learning is something we can assume-­whether we see it or not, whether we like the way it goes or not, whether what we are learning is to repeat the past or shake it off (Wenger, 1998 at 8).

The social construction and deconstruction of race

Placing a deliberate focus on habitual, intuitive learning practices provides a baseline for educational assessment and critical analysis with respect to current practices, their effect on learning, interventions and change.

Ruth Frankenburg, in the Social Construction of Whiteness confirms the characteristic unconsciousness of racism and privilege, whether willful or not and affirms that racism shapes white women's lives as well as our own. 

Race is a social construction that has real consequences and effects. These effects, consequences and the notion that race is ontologically subjective is epistemologically objective. We know that race is something that is real in society, and that it shapes the way we see ourselves and others (The Social Construct of Whiteness at The Social Construct of Race ). 

Understanding racial construction and the process of its perpetuation, provides a unique in sight into its deconstruction and any possible interventions. Wengers theory and analysis of communities of practice, shared values and membership, provides a basis for critical Africentric analysis of social exclusion and racial construction. Considering Wenger through a critical lens, like using  Tanaki's’s work A Different Mirror: A history of Multicultural America, can be a powerful foundation for analysis (considering race as a social construct, produced by the dominant group in society and the dominant group's power to define us). In other words, the dominant group in society imposed the boundaries of group membership by defining race in terms of biology.

...racial discrimination, overt or covert, systemic or otherwise, has played a major part in denying African Nova Scotians equal opportunity to education. This in turn has had disastrous consequences in employment and access to other services. As a result, most African Canadian children are from birth trapped in a vicious cycle of societal rejection and isolation, poverty low expectations, and low educational achievement (BLAC Report at introduction, p. 12).

It is imperative we understand race and racial construction as we endeavor to deconstruct race and the social rejection of African Canadians.

There are locations, discourses, and material relations…whiteness refers to a set of locations that are historically, socially, politically, and culturally produce and, more over intrinsically linked to unfolding relations of domination. Naming “whiteness” displaces it from the unmarked, unnamed status that is itself an effect of dominance. Whiteness, white- race privilege and the dominance of whiteness is normative and invisible.(Frankenburg, at 6).

Identity and social status 

White supremacist ideology and status placement is historically entangled throughout our education and socialization. Research clearly shows that children, not only recognize race from a very young age, but also develop racial biases by ages three to five (Winkler at p.1). Wenger offers us understanding of the social process of learning. Used as a tool for developing early intervention, Wenger has the potential to enable us to interrupt the social entrenchment of racial bias and discrimination. Educational interventions can be helpful in addressing inequities within the Canadian education system but they are not the complete answer to the educational challenges facing African Canadians.

To break the cycle of failure and dependence, drastic measures must be taken to redress and address the inequities ( BLAC Report at 13).

Interventions may also be helpful with the development of identity. Understanding the current education system,  and examining formal and informal learning processes,  applying Wenger, allows us to examine the similarities and differences between diverse communities in the context of livelong learning and the effect within communities of practice. Unearthing racism requires a strong foundation of analytic theory and strength.

In order to uproot the causes of educational failure there must be an institutional and community commitment to naming racism and wrestling it to the ground in all those educational settings in which it is found. This review recorded numerous accounts of racism that had been experienced in school and, on the testimony of many students and parents involved, not satisfactorily addressed (Reality Check, at 10).

Optimizing Learning 

Wenger is an established thought leader in the field of social science. This theory of social learning has used a combination of accepted theories in anthropology and social science to build a foundation for the development of this theory of social learning. Wenger's theory is considered, "cutting edge" in its practical application for organizational knowledge management and optimizing performance in public and private sector organizations. Professional practices groups have been formed and structured to maximize productivity, increase learning and identify gaps and processes for organizational knowledge management. (My office implemented knowledge management strategies and professional communities of practice to optimize professional performance in my office more than 5 years ago. At that time Wenger was described as a thought guru.). 

We can use Wenger to build and maximize the educational performance within our community.   Maximizing learning within the African Canadian community requires deliberate curriculum development and implementation through the creation of communities of practice, created to address the issues of identity, skill development and shared enterprise such as the Africentric Cohort, the Summer Institute, or a Saturday School.

Address and Redress

Although, interventions strategically applied can made some improvements to our current educational dilemma by deconstructing current practices, they are inadequate and unable to completely eradicate the educational deficiencies.

I think interventions are important. I think it’s useful to try to understand who is resilient, who beats the odds however you’d like to characterize that. But I also think it’s a bit dangerous. In the sense that it leads to these sort of sense that romanticized visions of you know,  Horatio Aldazar of overcoming the odds and goes on to become successful. Most people don’t beat the odds. …… Gary Evans is a professor at Cornell University's College of Human Ecology (Poverty in Canada, 2010, segment 2,Child Poverty). 

Although, each of us can provide an example of someone who has beaten the odds and excelled despite the overwhelming challenges we face, just as High school drop out was not the end of my story, we must remember that these examples are exceptions to the rule, not the rule. We should not be complacent and can not accept "the Rose that has grown from the Concrete (Tupak)" as the example of progress when the struggle for education claims failure for the majority of our people (BLAC Report). What about the Roses that don't grow in concrete (Verena Rizt)? "You can't step up if your being stepped on!"(This is a great spoken word performance).

Just as "the systemic tools of the racist include the use of violence and genocide, racial hate messages, threats, denial, economic sanctions against the victim, softening and diluting incidents and terminology (Fontaine, 2010)."

We  must continue to fill our tool box with valuable tools useful in the dissemblance of race and racism. 

The choice of tool often varies with the class, position, or power of the oppressor. Lower- and middle-class members of the dominate group might use violence against racial minorities, while upper middle-class members of the dominate group might resort to denial, in their righteous indignation against “diversity” and “reverse discrimination.”(Fontaine, 2010).

As we strive to address and redress the realities of our educational experiences and unearth the effect of the prohibition on education and social exclusion for people of African descent we must create innovative initiatives to bring about meaningful change (BLAC Report, Reality Check). We need purposive and deliberate interventions and creative educational initiatives. As members of this community of practice we are a deliberate community of learning designed by ALI and Mount Saint Vincent's University in recognition of educational challenges within the African Nova Scotian community, for the purpose of creating change within us and through us. Change is a choice (Verena Rizt).

Kujichagulia: Self Determination: Internal and External conflict in the formation of Identity.

In my previous posting my final words challenged a deeper consideration of self through the reflection of our positioning. I would like to continue that discussion in consideration of community of practices as they relate to identity formation. With this in mind, it is helpful to integrate current scientific normative on identity development in both educational and psychological discourse as a means to understanding learning processes and their effect on identity formation and educational performance.

Eric Erikson’s model of psychological development in social environments is a “very significant and a highly regarded and meaningful concept” “in understanding the connections between life experiences and human behaviour” and can be used as a tool to “gain meaningful self-awareness” (Eric Erikson).

Ettienne Wengers concept of relational socialization as it relates to communities of practice and learning processes provides a basis for us to view and understand human interaction, social learning and identity development.

According to Erikson, healthy identity development entails achieving a coherent self-definition, which is stable across time and place, well regarded across significant others, and a source of purposefulness and direction in defining personal goals and values. The task of identity formation, or that of gaining a clear and coherent sense of knowing oneself, and what one will be in life, is regarded as a normative developmental process, influenced by personal and contextual factors. (Kaspar & Noh, 2001)

Erikson asserts that healthy identity construction is dependent upon developing a “coherent self-definition” (emphasis added) and the recognition of that “identity across significant others” (emphasis added, Kaspar & Noh; 2001). Wenger asserts that knowing and understanding becomes a matter of participation in the practice community and meaning becomes the manner in which the individual members experience the world and affix value, competence and purpose (at 4). Further, identity formation and system coherence is formed intrinsic to participation in the community (at 4). Considering both Erikson and Wenger analytically, provides an important element with respect to the identity formation of African-Canadians. If healthy identity formation is dependent upon social acknowledgment, consistency and societal support; and if value, competence and purpose are fundamental to group participation(Wenger); the historical (social) construct of race (still actively engaged today), and white supremacist ideology; together with the realities of historical slavery, form the basis of a serious conflict in the identity development of African- Canadians. Our journey to healthy identity formation is conflicted and oppositional to the Canadian societal normative[i] (Li, 1990).

The social construct of race inhibits self -identification and forcibly prescribes standards or normative on racialized groups. These forced identities are predetermined group think[1] and at odds with our own definitions of self. Racism attacks our very essence. It hurts. My belief in self and the belief in my equality to others is at constant war with societies’ forced normative of me. As an African Nova Scotian, I am constantly being told that I am less than, or not me, the others like me (are less than)… Canadian society taught me that I should know my place and that they, the White majority have the natural right to place me, below them (Lamey, 2011 at 6).My family taught me differently (Lamey, 2011 at 6).

My experiences are central to my identity.

Societal reaction to my African origins, my skin color and my gender are influential factors in the formation of my identity. My very existence challenges historical social categorizations and racial construct. The expectations of the majority with respect to"African" physical features and color are challenged through the lense of my existence. The color lines between Black and White are blurred (Scales-Trent, 1995).

It was considered “essential to the future of Canada that we maintain or racial purity” (Walker, 1997 at 16). Specifically, “the assimilation of Asians and Africans was considered “dangerous to Canadian interests,” a threat to “the life” of Canadian democracy, “perpetually and inconvertibly “alien”(Walker 1997 at 15, as it was read into Hansard))…Walker

Genetic assimilation between the European “races” was considered “possible.” however, “The Mongolians, the Hindus, and the negroes” would remain forever distinct…”(Walker at 15). Canadian social standards, convention and eugenic practice demands my social placement and racial classification. Members of the White community are constantly telling me what I am, even now they act as though it is their right to define me, to cast me. My life has been lived at the intersection of race, sex, color and country (Negro, female, Black, White and Canadian).

…because I exist at the intersection…I understand in a very profound way, that in order for me to exist I must transgress boundaries. I think this makes people profoundly uncomfortable (Scales-Trent, 1995 at 12)Scales-Trent.

I do not fit the stereo typical African image. My skin is not Black. My nose is not flat. My hair is not nappy(extremely kinky). I am however, misfit, in every breath an African-Canadian. People struggle with my classification.

The result is that white people are all “white” and that black people are a wide range of colors- white, rosy, olive, tan, brown, reddish, black. We are forced to choose up sides, but the American (Canadian) rules dictate that choice…For the truth is that all Americans (Canadians) with some African ancestry are indeed “black,” because that is how they are defined and that is how white people treat us, and that is how we are raised…(Scales-Trent, 1995 at 63 &63).

I was told that I was Black when I was 3 years old. Our neighbour, the mother of one of the other children, gave everyone else a popsicle but me, she physically kicked me saying, “get that little nigger of my doorstep,” and sent me home- forbidding the other children to play with me. This was not my only experience with my racialization. As a child, I struggled for the right to exist. I was the first Black child at St Augustine’s School in 1970 and continued to be isolate as the only Black student for most of my education. More than once, I was assaulted with rocks, physically beaten, the subject of name calling and racial slurs (Lamey, 2011 at 7). This is my reality in Canada.

Wenger acknowledges that information is transmitted and transformed in communities of practice. The use of historical/ social resources to develop shared enterprises, shared repertoires (ways to do things), shared practices and explicit (overt) and implicit (implied) relations and values (Wenger, 1998 at 47-49), perpetuate systems of enterprise and values. Community practices and learning are not clear and explicit. They are tactic and subtle including hidden meanings, language, well defined roles, procedures, codifications, expected practices, untold rules and hierarchal standards (at 47). The social context of learning creates common practice, shared values, shared understanding and a sense of belonging or disconnection. Identity formation becomes relational to participation in the group. The social formation of identity, real and perceived, issues of gender, class, age, ethnicity and other forms of categorizations become benchmarks for group hierarchy, inclusion or exclusion (at 12).

The application of supremacist discourse, whether explicit or implicit, teaches that we are sub-standard. Others learn that we are inferior and so do we. After years of mere survival in the Canadian education system, isolated and unwelcome, I quit High school in grade 10. I had accepted defeat like many others in my community. Or had I left to ensure my survival because participation in a system that did not include me and explicitly and implicitly assaulted me, was killing me. 

I was not only rejected by White Canadians. Initially, my own community rejected me also. I had to prove my allegiance and my Blackness, starting with familial identification, I am a Desmond,  and cultural behavior modeling. Supremacy and slavery have left African people with the legacy of self-hate, internal conflict and mistrust of each other. How could I claim my right to education in the midst of miseducation? I believe the answer is agency, self-determination, community and shared purpose. 

“Willie Lynch in 1712 came to America to tell plantation owners exactly how to control slaves,” “Now in 2005, although we are no longer slaves, Willie Lynch still plagues Black America because I am too light and he’s too dark or because her lips are bigger and his nose is broader and instead of building each other up we’re busy tearing each other down against the American standards of slim lips, slim noses, slim thighs until our self-esteem is destroyed. Those are the kinds of things that breed self-hate,”

…Dr. Woodson’s 1933 Miseducation of the Negro, saying Black people will never be able to define our existence until we properly revive and reform our mind, body and soul: “Once you convince a man in his mind that he is inferior, there is nothing else to do to make him behave that way, he will do it on his own.” “So, we are talking about re-framing the hearts and minds and souls of Black people for Black people because nothing about us or for us is by us”( emphasis added Lisa Jones, 2005) (Lisa Jones).

I intimately understand the ideology of cultural reformation, the goal of Kwanzaa. Like me, it seeks to develop a purposive and deliberate community of practice, designed to connect Africans of the diaspora to their history and tradition. 

Blacks who were born in this country had little which to combat such ideas [inferiority]. They were born into slavery, and died in slavery. What could they point to as proof that they were not inferior? Nothing, except a feeling within that it wasn’t true …[African born slaves] “knew something else besides slavery.”(Lester, 1968 at 87 & 88)Julius Lester).

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step (African Parable). Moving forward in education began with me. I began to rebuild myself. With community and mentorship, I sought education in formal and informal ways and practiced reciprocity. I worked hard,  taught myself about myself and worked to "emancipate my mind from mental slavery" (Bob Marley).  Others helped me, Black and White. I dared to do things for the first time and I learned to love myself. 

The designation of Drop out was not the end of my story...I am a Human Service Counsellor (Behavior modification), a civil litigation lawyer, (LLB-Crown counsel) and I am participating in an Africentric Cohort to obtain a Masters degree in Education. (Life long learning). I am teachable. So are my children. The key, is in what; and by whom, I am taught. How can we learn from our failures and experiences in the Canadian education system and develop sustainable strategies to engage our children in purposive learning that provides for them, a positive educational experience, builds identity and promotes personal and communal success? Identity is key!

Resolve to be thyself: and know that he who finds himself, loses his misery. MatthewArnold

Darlene M Lamey

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[1] Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that can occur in groups of people. Rather than critically evaluating information, the group members begin to form quick opinions that match the group consensus.

[i] Canada’s social grooming, originates from the British aristocracy and promotes an image of social propriety, hospitality and equality. The practical realities of race relations within Canada are in stark contrast to the Canadian image. Canada has emphasized the moral high ground on issues of race while quietly entrenching white supremacist laws which maintained legal and social segregation (Li, 1990; UNESCO, 1996-2011; Walker, 1997, generally).

APA Citations:
Kaspar, V., & Noh, S. Department of Candian Heritage, Ethnocultural, Racial, Religious and Linguistic Diversity and Identity Seminar. (2001). discrimination and identity: “an overview of theoretical and empirical research,” . Retrieved from Department of Canadian Heritage website: www.metropolis.net

Lamey, D. (2011) GSL6200-Lets talk about race: A Canadian examination of white supremacist discourse: The country and the skin I’m in.

Lester, J. (1968) To be a slave; Toronto: Scholastic Inc

Li, P. (1990). Race and ethnicity. In P. Li (Ed.), Race and Ethnic Relations in Canada (pp. 3-17). Toronto: Oxford University Press.

Scales-Trent, J.(1995), Notes of a white black woman, Pennsylvanis:The Pennsylvania State University Press.

Wenger, E. (1998)Communities of Practice, New York: New York, Cambridge University Press.

Walker, J. (1997). Race rights and law in the supreme court of canada: Historical case studies. Canada: The Osgoode Society of Canadian Legal History and Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

Voice, Silence and Analysis: Africentric Communities of Practice & Positioned Learning.

I was silent once, passive and quiet, in my youth. I sought to be liked and likeable in a legacy of racial supremacy that sought to discredit me. Voiced, I am now the aggregate of my familiarity.

My life’s experiences have been melded by the Canadian social construct with White Canadians believing they had a right to define me and rank me. My racial identity determined for them, my intellect, my character and my value. The “assignment of racial identity is important because from its beginning, American, and Canadian society have been structured on a racial continuum from white to non-white with whites receiving legal privileges not afforded to non-white groups (Hernandez, 1998, Lamey, 2011). From my birth, their identification of me was to affect my right to education, employment and participation in life... (Kaulback, 1990, Gould, 1981; Molnar, 1982 at p.1242; Payson, 1996).

(Lamey, 2011, Let's talk about Race: A Canadian Examination of White Supremacist Discourse- My Reflections of the Country and the Skin, I’m in GSL6200, Final Paper-December 28 at 4)

The reality is that my merit/ social ranking is determined by others. I am scrutinized as referenced by the social standards and values of White colonialism and my perceived compliance within their social rules (McNamee & Miller, 2004). My racial composition, gender, and financial circumstance (class) automatically ranked me in a deficit position (McNamee & Miller, 2004).

Over time I developed strategies to raise my social collateral and safeguard my aspirations. I was indulgent; a chameleon, light skinned and acceptable to them, my white teachers and colleagues. I acquiesced whenever possible. It was necessary for survival[i]. The expectation of silence and vassalage (subordination) were clear. I was silenced to the degree of my ethical constitution.

The voice speaks. Echo answers echoes. But what does the Silence say? What does the singer Sing that is more accurate and pure than the silence after the echoes have fallen? [ii](Miller, "Voice, Silence, Echos" in Miller; "Poems, Prose and Plays" 1990 at 43) 

The absence of voice is shrill and pierces the ear of equity.In the minority again, who would echo my voice? When vassalage and acquiescence are the valued expectation, who will stand by me?

The voice is from the beginning a form of architecture – not a means of self-protection but one half of an arch, an echo anticipation of an echo (Yeh quoting Carter, 1992 at 12)[iii].

Woodward and Minkley describe voice and silence as an axis of empowerment (at introduction; xxii). The relationship is hierarchal; opposite ends of the same continuum with voice as the extreme of power hierarchy and silence, the disempowerment.

Expressions of voice that fall outside of the normative are subject to rejection and exclusion. The First Lady, Michelle Obama captures the realities of so many Black women (and members of the Minority population) when she reflects on her experiences with voice.

I have a voice. Once quiet and uncertain, conciliatory and wide eyed hopeful, it was placed on community and office committees for that diverse input towards inclusiveness. Now characterized by the stereotypical Black norms, a voice lost and dismissed as “controlling, demanding, angry and threatening. It is no longer elicited or listened to. Heralding unpopular narrative, it is now stifled, muted, devalued and disbelieved as I am openly ignored, dismissed as crazy making , demeaned as too sensitive, whispered as incompetent and replaced on standing and advisory committees in favour of less experienced more popular people with favorable points of view. Michelle Obama

The intermingling of voice, silence, social hierarchy, subject matter and subjectivity affects group politics (Yeh, generally). Group members are strategic in their use of voice and silence ( Yeh at 329). I assert that the use of voice and silence in an educational setting requires serious consideration. (Yeh states that “one of the essential tools the professor uses is to have us reflect on and explore our own multiple social locations and identities, and how they affect us in the classroom and in our future profession as teachers (at 327).” This is specifically true and relevant in our current educational endeavor as members of an Africentric Learning community earning a master’s degree in education.

In consideration of Yeh’s professor’s expectation, that she use her voice, Yeh examines the authenticity of that expectation and questions the professor’s recognition of the professor’s own privilege as determined by the positioning of class and race.

On one hand, she aimed a pedagogy that speaks to “marginal and oppressed groups”…On the other hand, she failed to recognize her own “unearned privilege” that allows her to decide who is to be empowered and what voice is to be heard (Yeh at 327). 

Africentricity is based in critical pedagogy. Critical pedagogy endeavors emancipation of the silenced, oppressed “voice” and empower the oppressed to speak, to critic and to act against masculine ideologies in educational settings and discourses (Yeh at 326, quoting Luke, Gore 1992). As the current educational purpose of this cohort requires subjective voice and critical analysis, the recent questions raised with respect to professor Plumb’s racial and social positioning is valid and necessary. Yeh, referencing Orner, 1992, asserts that discourse on students’ voice in the name of their liberation and empowerment has been inadequately considered in juxtaposition to the binary oppositions of subject/object, student/teacher, oppressor/oppressed, and voice/silence (Yeh at 327).

Why must the oppressed speak? For whose benefit do we/ do they speak? How is the speaking received, interpreted, controlled, limited, disciplined and stylized by the speakers, the listeners, the historical moment and the context? What use is made of the “people’s voice” after it is heard? (Orner, 1992 at 76) Yeh at 327).

Within this oppositional context, “the pluralizing context of “voices” does not guarantee a safe place for speaking out or talking back about their oppression.”(Yeh at 338). The examination of subjective content requires secure interaction between the members of the community of practice.

Tomasello, emphasises that the species distinction of human being is directly related to their engagement in social learning (Tomasello, generally) The advancement of the species is reliant upon the interaction of the members for adaptation and continuation of the knowledge (ratchet effect). This means humans are historically and contemporaneously interdependent. Membership to the group is not automatic or constant (Wenger, 1998). Circularly, human interaction and value systems are determinative of culture. Culture is integral to human knowledge and understanding.

The adaptation and ratcheting developed by individual social groupings within the conspecies create subtle distinctions of culture. This divides the conspecies into individual cultural groupings with differing relational interaction and values. Although these differences may be characteristically minute, notwithstanding the minuteness of genetic difference separating humans from primates, the effect of culture is defining. The reasoning affirms that cultural positioning is relevant.

Yeh, in exploring consciousness, acknowledges Anzuldua, 1987 and Asher, 2002:

[all] identities are located at the intersection of race, class, gender/sexuality, culture, history and geography. All identities, cultures, representations are hybrid, dynamic, context-specific and negotiated. And encounters with difference, different others, influence/ have implications for self .(at 90).

Recognizing, my classmate, Falomi Jones’s blog, revealing the “big elephant” in the classroom.  I agree with her assertions, “ In order for education to become equitable to all people, we must begin with a more comprehensive understanding of how power and privilege intersect with a person’s ability to learn. “  In addressing, the “big” elephant in the classroom she states the glaringly obvious, an elephant is big, and we must acknowledge that class, race, privilege and gender, (social and cultural positioning) affect our learning, (its content and delivery and our degree and form of participation). Wenger, recognizes a profound connection between identity and practice (149) however, he fails to consider his social positioning.as he embraces a "one size fits all" approach to knowledge production and management.  In so much as Wenger, seeks to redefine the conversation within circles of social learning, his failure to consider power and privilege negates restricts its relevance to the African Canadian reality.  

Let us examine our individual and collective positioning; explore the oppositional positions that situate our cohort reality, and its effect on our learning. The tenants of Africentric analysis require it.

Darlene M/ Lamey

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[1]  For example, the Virginia assembly declared in 1662 that the mulatto children of slave mothers would be slaves. Mulatto children of this time period are believed to be largely the offspring of indentured white servants and blacks. See JOEL WILLIAMSON, NEW PEOPLE: MISCEGENATION AND MULATTOES IN THE UNITED STATES 8 (1980).

[i] I was the only Black child in any of my formal education until grade 10 (there was one other) and then at law school, I had some classes where there were two of us.

[ii] R. Miller; Voices, Silence, Echo in Miller, Poems, Prose, Plays ed. Lionel Abrahams,: Capetown; Carrefore, 1990 at 43.

[iii] P. Carter; The sound in between voice, space, performance: Kenzington, Mew South Wales UP, 1992 at 12. http://books.google.ca/books?id=P9SiY8EHUC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false)

Cultural Loss and the Miseducation of the African: Education & Africentricity as a Counter Strike

Prior to my participation in our recent class, I had some knowledge of the shared ancestor between primates and humans. It floated somewhere in my brain in the general trivia section, unexamined and branded as useless. The subject was of little interest to me and of little relevance. I was wrong.

The class content on Kwanzaa, the Black Candle and the related readings of  Tomasello and Wenger on cognitive evolution, culture and communities of practice and learning have an obvious connectivity. I can’t help but think I have been lead deliberately to this conclusion. The connection between the subjects incites deeper thought and provides me with a fundamental understanding of learning.

The materials require a critical element of thought that must come from the learner with each of us adapting the information to our positioning and through the blogs sharing the added value within the learning community. In effect, we are experiencing the very subject that we are studying. We are members in a community of practice in which we affect the learning by sharing our interpretations of the subject matter, changing the knowledge by our interaction with it.

Tomasello asserts that the characteristic of human cognition is unique. In summary, he theorizes that the evolution of human culture and the complexities of human social groupings surpass the commonality in the cognitive abilities of mammalian and primate species ( Tomasello at 510). The organization of human social processes is complex and an integral part of human cognition. It is humanities most distinctive characteristic. Human cognition (mental processes of perception, memory, judgment, and reasoning) is established by human social groupings.

These cultural and social practices are evolutionary and have an accumulative effect. Humans pass knowledge to other members of the conspecies (belonging to the same species) accumulatively. Social practice and process is adapted and modified with each member of the group, embellished and shared across time through generations(the ratchet effect) (Tomasello at 511). The majority of learning within the conspecies takes place in early childhood. Children develop an “ontogentic niche” or specific preference or appeal for the social culture they are members of( Tomasello at 512).

The reproduction of group process/ practice is not just behavioral parroting but a means to an intentional end requiring adaptation and social cognition ( Tomasello at 512). The result of participating in social and communicative interactions with others, understood intentionally, situates human children cognitively, conscious and intellectually active in the world in uniquely powerful ways embodying individual and group empowerment (Tomasello at 513).

If the development of culture is accumulative, I suspect that this very cultural connection and empowerment gained through collective adaptation and ratcheting has been interrupted for African people. As persons of the African diaspora forcibly displaced from our originating country, people and culture; we have suffered a disconnect from our traditions, social values and collective understanding.

Colonization and supremacist discourse has denied us membership in the operating social groups and situated us as property, designated less, as 1/5 of human value, disconnecting us from our historical social groupings and denyed us membership in the others. The deliberate denial of education, language and social connection has deeply interfered with our collective development and the historical accumulation of wisdom of our social grouping. Tomasello confirms that absent the social group a human child would not develop social complexity (Tomasello at 512). Colonization sought to eradicate our collective memory of self and propagated historical inaccuracies undermining our abilities and value.

        The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.
            Albert Einstein

The Africentric Cohort is a community response to that disconnect. We have been strategically chosen in implementation of the Africentric Learning Institute goal to correct the Miseducation of the Negro through re-education in created communities of learning.

To understand how humans learn and develop culture, Wenger  introduces the concept of learning through communities of practice. Communities of practice are not new enterprises. The term refers to the social groupings in which we learn (our families, our work groups, our friendships or associations). These groups may be formal or informal; regardless they develop terms of membership, shared values and a common discourse. Humans develop, gain knowledge and learn to apply that knowledge through the interactions within the learning group. Individuals may hold memberships in more than one group at any given time and the membership may change over time (Wenger at 6). We learn by social participation. We learn from within our families, our broader communities and or formal institutions.

Wenger extracts a general set of principles with the goal to enable a better understanding of the learning process and the learner. Our class discussions summarized these principles: Communities of learning shape and influence our practice (behaviours, processes and reasoning). They influence our identity formation. They are exclusionary, sometimes denying membership. They assign value and create behavioural norms.

Identifying these general sets of principles can enable us to better understand the effect communities of practice have on learning and strategically apply countermeasures in our role as educators. Although we learn throughout our lifetime, Tomasello reminds us that the fundamental cultural norms and identity are formed in early childhood (at 511).

In my opinion, the film, the Black Candle accurately describes the cultural disconnect of African peoples as a cultural crisis. Living the realities of a light skinned African Canadian woman, raising 4 sons, I have struggled with the experiential and statistical inequalities that define my people in Canadian society. Stereotyped as criminals, uneducated and unruly we are over represented in our justice system and an underrepresented in our universities. My sons face a society that seeks to devalue them and define them as futureless.

Racism has a powerful and damaging effect on the quality of life of African Canadians. It affects access to and the quality of education and employment, opportunities for advancement, the number and type of interactions we have with the police, access to good quality housing, health and wellbeing (James, Este, Bernard, Benjamin, Lloyd & Turner, 2010 at 19) James, Est, Bernard, Benjamin, Lolyd & Turner, 2010 at 19.

I wanted to do more to help my sons develop a secure sense of self and cultural identity. I wanted to counter the supremacist discourse and reconnect my sons to their cultural roots. My family having been in Canada in excess of 400 years had no tangible connection to Africa except our genetic legacy. I wanted to shed the propaganda of savagery associated with Africa. I wanted my children to have pride in their identity. I wanted to write my own story and tell it to my children. I wanted to celebrate who we are.

The Kwanzaa celebration is a deliberately reconnect to the values we strive to practice as a family and the connection we wish to make to our community. Kwanzaa supplied the general principles and symbolic ritual without dictating the confines of our personalized practice. I recognized  the seven principles as universal wisdom and wanted to develop them with our family. I acted deliberately and introduce them as values to live by, revisiting our commitment to them yearly. I recognize the wisdom in setting goals, renewing commitments and practicing behaviour. I also recognize the value in celebration, custom and tradition. Yearly Kwanzaa practice gave us all of this.

The practice of Kwanzaa is a formal community of practice that I used teach my children and myself. I first practiced Kwanza motivated by the love for my children and a sense of loss for my culture. It was difficult to establish the habit and tradition. I now practice Kwanzaa with a love for the tradition because it has enriched my life and strengthened our family and cultural connection.

My greatest joy as a mother is my witness of the strength of the seven principles as they are demonstrated in the lives of my now grown, children. I watch them define themselves within a cultural context, teaching their children, valuing their connection to their African roots.

Darlene M. Lamey