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