Promise, Perspective, and Privilege

Promise, Perspective, and Privilege

Hello again Friends!

So much has happened since my last post, I almost don’t know where to start! In any event, I title this post as such because I have a few reflections to offer that in their own ways capture the experiences that have given me the most food for thought over the past week and a half.  

Promise

I speak of promise because for me, that is exactly what the young ladies I’ve been working with represent. Amidst the myriad of structural and cultural influences that wish to reduce their lives to another data point within a population some might think, similar to the moniker for New Orleans, “care forgot”, they show up ready to challenge those realities daily.

                                                                                  Sister's Keeper ladies creating the "talking stick"

Monday through Friday, for about an hour and a half each day, we spend time strengthening the structure and culture of the Sister’s Keeper program. We did this first by creating a space over which the ladies felt they had ownership. This essentially boiled down to about four things: 1. Create ground rules for the space, 2. Create a method that would allow us to communicate clearly in the space, 3. Create a tool for voicing feelings or concerns that may be difficult to voice in the group at-large, and 4. Create a name for the space. My local colleague had already spent time working with them informally on some of these things, so rather than reinventing the wheel, I simply continued from where she left. The girls decided to call the group Sister’s Keeper and under this umbrella, I gave them a day and a half to collectively create these items with an arsenal of art supplies at their disposal. The project was complete only when each of them were able to add a piece of their creativity to all three of the items. The end product was a handmade list of rules they collectively created and agreed on for the space, the "talking stick" that once in one’s possession would give that individual the floor to freely communicate without interruption, and a box for confidential sharing, which they decided to call the “talking box.”

                                           Sister's Keeper ladies creating the "talking box"

Our sessions begin and end in the same way each day. We start with a short warm-up that’s often a combination of stretching and some kind of vocal exercise to prepare ourselves to enter the space. We then each find a chair to create our Sister’s Keeper Circle and begin our “memorable moment session,” which gives each young lady the opportunity to share something interesting that may have happened in their lives since meeting in the circle the day before. At the end of every session, I ask each young lady to find someone within the circle to hug, and tell the other person, “Thank you for sharing.” The intention behind all of these activities is to not only make this space special from the other spaces in which they may be interacting with each other and others, but also to develop a sense of trust and comfort within the space that will allow us to dig deeper as the weeks progress.

                                                                           Pictures from one of our blindfolded trust activities

Each week of what we have estimated will be a 4-5 week intensive program, we focus on any one of the following themes: Trust, Communication, Support, Self-Esteem, Confidence, Abuse, Leadership and Empowerment. These were the themes I realized were most important to focus on after my initial group sessions and one-on-one interviews with the girls. The intention is to build on these themes after each week so that by the end of the program, we will have been able to offer the ladies the tools with which to confront these themes in their lives. Developing an environment of trust has been the hardest of all tasks so far, but in my opinion the most critical, and I am thankfully seeing some progress. We dedicated the past week to focusing entirely on Trust, Communication, and Support, which he have through incorporating a series of games and activities that are intended to strengthen these skills in a group setting. We participated in rounds of Trust Falls, Talent Chairs, blindfold activities that test their communication skills, and series of written and theatrical exercises that allow them to communicate in different ways their relationship with any of these themes. After each exercise, we then devote time to discussing takeaways and lessons learned from the exercise. Some of these activities have been more successful than others, but I can see that after each session, the girls are learning to interact with each other in a more respectful and supportive manner.

                                                                                      Pictures from Joint Sister's Circle

The most impactful of activities happened in the final days of the week. In one exercise, I asked them to choose someone in their lives who were a poor representation of trustworthiness, communicating effectively, and supportiveness, then with a partner act out a specific scene that one of those moments. This was after asking them a few activities earlier to choose characters from a book or TV show then individuals in their personal lives that best represented     trustworthiness, strong communication skills, and supportiveness and present to the group. The scenes were telling and made me realize the extent to which some of these young women are dealing with harsh realities of verbal abuse. The second was what we called a joint Sister's Circle in which we invited the female American student volunteers for ArtWorks for Youth to join the circle so as to facilitate a mutual learning experience for both groups of girls. Among many other discussions, the young ladies were able to learn of both similar and different challenges each of them face as young women in their respective communities. The last session marked an important moment for the program, as the girls were able to comfortably share some of their deepest personal challenges. I look forward to seeing what happens in the coming week as we focus on Self-Esteem, Confidence, and Abuse.

Perspective and Privilege
My reflection on privilege and perspective came after the past week and a half of several interactions with individuals who in one way or another echoed the sentiment that the level of crime, violence, poverty, and injustice that exists in "Africa," and South Africa in particular, is to a disturbingly higher degree than that which exists in America. To that, I said this:

Statements like these deeply frustrate me. First, when we begin to get in the business of saying "my injustice is better than yours," we are traversing treacherous territory that makes such statements neither productive nor useful. MLK reminds us that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere". Period. Secondly, I ask you to critically consider that statement in the context of the lived realities of MANY other Americans who do not have the privilege to speak from such a favorable reality. Tell that to a mother in southside Chicago who fears for her child's life every day he or she leaves the house because her child is more likely to die to gun violence than graduate from high school. Tell that to churches, physicians, and activists working to reduce the overwhelming numbers of HIV/AIDS infections in our very own nation's capital of Washington, D.C., whose HIV rate is greater than SEVERAL sub-Saharan African countries. Tell that to Tanya McDowell, a homeless mother from Bridgeport, Connecticut who was sentenced to 12 years in prison for enrolling her child into another school district for better educational opportunity because schools in Bridgeport, ranked #161 out of the 165 Connecticut school districts, were inadequate for her child. And tell that to the parents of Trayvon Martin who fought hard for justice to be served for their son, whose life was abruptly stolen because he was armed with a bag of skittles, a hoodie, and the color of his skin.

Like many others, I too would like to think that these realities are the exception to America's meta-narrative of equal liberty, opportunity, and justice for all, but friends, it is NOT. This is regrettably the reality for many Americans. What is it then about America that makes it so exceptional from the rest of the world? Are people not suffering, hurting, and dying in the America much like people in any other part of the world? One's distance from these realities in America does not deem them nonexistent, less relevant or less important. Before we make grossly generalized statements about America relative to the rest of the world, I ask that you pause to consider the reality that the America you have either heard about or have had the privilege of experiencing may still be an America that many other Americans have yet to experience. 

Each of us, and each of our experiences, deserves the dignity of being acknowledged.

This experience is teaching me to be ever mindful of my privilege and the ways it can shape my perspective on how I view the world around me, but most immediately, how I view my work with these young people and their community. It’s less important how different their experiences are from my own, but rather how much they can teach me from their experiences how to be a more effective and more humane public servant. Stay tuned for next week as I continue along this journey!