This is the history we were never taught, the history that is being systematically removed from advanced curriculum and libraries. Thank you Xavier for refusing to let it die. I hope you find ways to protect your heart as you write it. Thank you.
I taught American Literature for 35 years. One four-hour class, one night a week. In this class, I showed them that American lit. reflects three themes: man's inhumanity to man; man's inhumanity to nature, and man's inhumanity to himself. By the end of the semester, my Black students accused me of knowinig more about their culture than they did. DID. I thanked them and told them, "I studied it. I needed to try to understand." Had I read Xavier then, I'd have added, "They watched freed people risk everything for freedom, watched mothers and children drown for it, watched families get shattered in front of them, and something snapped into place. Not pity. Respect." I told them I learned about their culture so they could respect themselves a little more through my teaching.
You were ahead of the curve Debra, I wish you’d been my teacher. Here in Florida, I didn’t learn much black history until I took a black history class in college. We had a wonderful professor who made me realize how little I knew. It made me hunger for all history from different perspectives. We are profoundly ignorant in our country.
I taught a lot of Black authors in my classes. They reflected the histrory of the time. Authors from The Harlem Renaissance, and later, James Baldwin. Anything by more current, writers like Toni Morrison or Maya Angelou, are also amazing. They used their writing to tell readers about their people. They are part of American Lit., and at the University where I taught, I had a lot of Black students. Turns out most of my students—white or Black—had not read Black writers in high school. A CRIME. The emotion pours from their souls into their work, and all of my students were grateful for the exposure.
OH MY GOSH!! I am so ignorant but slightly enlightened now. Upstate NY history classes never taught this part of history 70+ years ago and probably not today either.
As a door you have to walk through, because the rest of the story does not make emotional sense unless you feel what was done to people who had already tasted freedom and were told to wait for it politely.” The similarities to current events where black and brown people are being kidnapped, detained, and deported; those who have been waiting politely, following all the rules set out for “their kind”……what a step back the fed govn has taken. I despair that we have ever really moved forward.
As a door you have to walk through, because the rest of the story does not make emotional sense unless you feel what was done to people who had already tasted freedom and were told to wait for it politely.
This old lady hit the post button while trying to put in quotation marks! My next post actually articulates the thoughts engendered from the quote from your essay.😎
Keep stripping the "Good Guys" varnish off of the narrative. History is recorded to favor the victors, and the inconvenient, uncomfortable parts denied by omission.
Just stepped into the Author's Room. I agree, Xavier. This event needs to manifest before Chapter 1, perhaps in the preface or introduction.
You will have no trouble finding a source for your foreword, if it feels like part of the manuscript.
This is the history we were never taught, the history that is being systematically removed from advanced curriculum and libraries. Thank you Xavier for refusing to let it die. I hope you find ways to protect your heart as you write it. Thank you.
I taught American Literature for 35 years. One four-hour class, one night a week. In this class, I showed them that American lit. reflects three themes: man's inhumanity to man; man's inhumanity to nature, and man's inhumanity to himself. By the end of the semester, my Black students accused me of knowinig more about their culture than they did. DID. I thanked them and told them, "I studied it. I needed to try to understand." Had I read Xavier then, I'd have added, "They watched freed people risk everything for freedom, watched mothers and children drown for it, watched families get shattered in front of them, and something snapped into place. Not pity. Respect." I told them I learned about their culture so they could respect themselves a little more through my teaching.
You were ahead of the curve Debra, I wish you’d been my teacher. Here in Florida, I didn’t learn much black history until I took a black history class in college. We had a wonderful professor who made me realize how little I knew. It made me hunger for all history from different perspectives. We are profoundly ignorant in our country.
I taught a lot of Black authors in my classes. They reflected the histrory of the time. Authors from The Harlem Renaissance, and later, James Baldwin. Anything by more current, writers like Toni Morrison or Maya Angelou, are also amazing. They used their writing to tell readers about their people. They are part of American Lit., and at the University where I taught, I had a lot of Black students. Turns out most of my students—white or Black—had not read Black writers in high school. A CRIME. The emotion pours from their souls into their work, and all of my students were grateful for the exposure.
We learn so much from you.
OH MY GOSH!! I am so ignorant but slightly enlightened now. Upstate NY history classes never taught this part of history 70+ years ago and probably not today either.
Wow! I was there. I could see it, feel it, smell it all. Everything.
As a door you have to walk through, because the rest of the story does not make emotional sense unless you feel what was done to people who had already tasted freedom and were told to wait for it politely.” The similarities to current events where black and brown people are being kidnapped, detained, and deported; those who have been waiting politely, following all the rules set out for “their kind”……what a step back the fed govn has taken. I despair that we have ever really moved forward.
As a door you have to walk through, because the rest of the story does not make emotional sense unless you feel what was done to people who had already tasted freedom and were told to wait for it politely.
Thx for that advice. Where were you 10 years ago? 🫤
This old lady hit the post button while trying to put in quotation marks! My next post actually articulates the thoughts engendered from the quote from your essay.😎
Keep stripping the "Good Guys" varnish off of the narrative. History is recorded to favor the victors, and the inconvenient, uncomfortable parts denied by omission.
Just stepped into the Author's Room. I agree, Xavier. This event needs to manifest before Chapter 1, perhaps in the preface or introduction.
You will have no trouble finding a source for your foreword, if it feels like part of the manuscript.
I look forward to reading it.
You are opening my mind to issues I’d only peripherally understood. Thank you