What does blackness mean to you? My black is colorful, witty, dynamic, innovative and brilliant. My blackness meant that I grew up by straightening my hair with a hot comb that burns the top of my ears if I didn’t keep my ears down quickly and effectively. That meant my mom had a personal fried food and would make catfish and fries for breakfast before going to school. At the same time, she taught me about classical music, how to ski and expand my worldview in a way that has travelled far beyond the south side of Chicago. My aunt told me about our historical excellence and instilled me in the importance of learning about the amazing things our ancestors did. She showed me that my path in life was destined to follow theirs and that I deserve greatness. For me, blackness has always been vast and multifaceted. It doesn’t fit within boxes, stereotypes, or cultural ideas.
Unfortunately, this does not apply to some children, especially those early in identity development. They hear the word black and quickly make a harmful association with the word and color. Nursery and kindergartens associate mud, dirt and poo with the words black. Students rarely name it as their favorite color and only reserve the use for bad guys or bad things. This creates a barrier to seeing many aspects of blackness and creates a fundamental negative association with color. This association directly affects the way children start thinking Race and Identity. To combat negative associations and give Black children the opportunity to build a strong sense of self, we must create an early school environment where we can explore and build positive racial identities. yeah.
Knowing that racial identity is formed early in children’s development, I am actively working to combat the role of anti-blackness in our work. Affinity groups are one way that you can do this because they provide a safe and connected community where children can look at the mirrors of themselves and their families. The dedicated and purposeful work that occurs within the affinity group is not carried out in the silo. However, it is only one aspect of the work that must occur within early childhood educational settings that help students develop black identity. Teachers, administrators, caregivers, staff and other students all come together to create a space for Black children to evolve with their identity. They do this through exploration, community building and celebrations.
Exploring your identity
When I first asked the black kids in my school, “What does black mean to you?” they answered in confusion, saying they don’t know, and others said they didn’t know They say that they are not black people, but that they are “just people.” Others focused on the idea of just being there, talking about playing with friends, and preferring to be fun and kind. Many of them were able to talk about how their parents and friends are black and seem to distance themselves from the idea of blackness.
With my black kindergarten students, we read the book.honeysmoke“We’ve created a list of words that might describe our skin tone. In many cases, children begin to have negative associations with black and brown colours, and they start to retain positive associations with beige, peach and white. We continued to work on this list and asked students to expand their ideas and think about other things “make us happy.” At this prompt they unite words like caramel, sunshine, honey, strong, black and brown coffee, slowly build a path to discovery, naming their skin tone, and understand the meaning of black Take a step forward. At each step, they learn more about their identity and pose questions that will help them promote our quest. This exploration continues in their home environment, allowing curiosity to flourish.
Early in this work, parents began to share what they noticed at home, focusing on the development of their children’s identity. They found positive change and pride in being black:
My child had a bit of trouble totally loving the skin. We’ve been hearing a lot about how they really want white skin… well, the other day I was rubbing lotion on my feet as usual. I started to fall off the blue with the usual “We have to keep your skin beautiful and beautiful”, they replied “It’s already beautiful!!!!” So much to be able to cry I was happy. Whatever you are doing, just keep doing it.
My child is very excited about lunch with Lauren and looks forward to it every week. She is keenly aware that she is one of two black children in her class. She went home the other day and reported that she was the only black child in her extended day class. She shared that it made her feel sad. We are grateful that our children are supported, their racial and ethnic identities are praised, and that they are creating this environment where they can develop a sense of belonging and community. It’s very important! thank you!
Each of these stories examined the need for an identity-focused work in the early days, encouraging them to create more space for their children. From creating a theme song full of assertiveness to starring in their own music videos, we certainly found an additional way to celebrate blackness.
Celebrate and build communities
In the act of visibility, we focused Black faculty and staff on creating “The Black Joy Project.” I showed it to all six of my second grade classrooms and all my students (white and coloured students) were excited to see it. After watching the video, the children felt “pride”, “ecstic”, “safe and comfortable”, “great” and “sadly enough that black people aren’t always safe.” Ta. deep. ”
Eventually, other community members noticed our childhood identity work and sought to participate. Black Student Association It is made up of black high school students from lab high schools. In partnership with their advisors, I have had some of these black high school students visit my first year. They introduced themselves, played games, were colored with hairstyles and connected. We filled our hallways with joy as we saw teenagers laughing and laughing while engaged to their young children. After they returned to campus, I asked to reflect on what their visit was like, and this was part of their reaction:
“Yes, can you imagine what would happen now if we had it?” “When we were on campus in our childhood, they split us into two, and each class was more likely to have more. Make it look diverse. At one point, one child was the only black student in his class. “If they had more black teachers, counselors, and staff. What if only the black space existed? ”
These children understand the importance of creating an environment in which children can become themselves, learn about their identity, and fully embrace blackness. More importantly, they can viscerally understand the outcome of what happens when positive tests around the beauty of blackness are grown, grown and not amplified.
Black futures
Afrofutism Rethinking black history through art, music and cultural practices and acknowledging black past, present and future. It combines science fiction, African mythology, and social and political liberation to create a vision for a more empowering and enjoyable future for Black people. This is the future I imagine for a black student. It is a future in which they can exist uniquely and non-appreciatively within their blackness.
Previously, I spoke about how black children within PWI responded when they first asked them, “What does being black mean to you?” After years of exposure to early childhood curriculum and pedagogy, this is how our black children discussed blackness at the end of first grade.
“It means I can do anything I want. I’m brave, I’m passionate about myself and I love being black because black is beautiful and powerful.”
“Being black means we have more opportunities, we are strong and we can do whatever Black people want to do!”
When I see my black students, developing a positive sense of identity brings me great joy. Their words fill me with light and make me smile in ways that hurt my cheeks. I see them in the hallway, and as they run towards me, their excitement validates my presence, their stern embrace makes it all real.
I feel as much pain as I feel joy in this work of identity. I do this job for the black kids in school and still face many challenges. The work is not easy and very labor intensive. I often think about balance and make sure I take care of myself while caring for many others. It’s all a labor of love – it takes a huge amount of time to design the curriculum, examine pedagogy and make sure we continue to respond culturally. After all, the risk of burnout is real.
It also can arise when discussing racial identity with young children. It is possible to argue that in early childhood environments it is necessary to affirm blackness, but this is something that is threatened and many are not permitted to do this work. There is space. When I often find myself in the anti-black age, what is the future of black space?
With all things in mind, I continue to be committed to this job. It reminds me that every day I need it and I have no choice. I look to the future and stand strong so that more black children, as a whole, can develop positive development around multifaceted blackness and identity. As one of my beautiful melanetized black students said, “Being black means I have beautiful skin. No one else is like me, I am Being perfect as ourselves, we can change the world.”
