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Pride in the Weeksville community. 

That is what I felt hearing after hearing about Black New Yorkers effectively building and maintaining a community together. It was really nice to have this conversation while I was sitting amongst Krystal Cerisier and Aliyah Grant, other Black New Yorkers. To none of our surprise none of us had ever heard of the community. This is in part because none of us are from Brooklyn but it is also  a huge oversight in the New York Education system and government, as this community has been based in that area since before the times of the civil war. Weeksville is currently sandwiched between Bedstuy and Brownsville which have a reputation for being some of the roughest and most dangerous parts of the whole city. Danielle Moulton mentioned that the boarders of Weeksville have historically been less defined as they are now so it has sparked my curiosity about Brooklyns particular historical development. It was nice to learn from Danielle of The Weeksville Heritage Center that awareness of the Weeksville community and its history has risen as well as funding. This increased funding has allowed the community to enhance the physical space of its heritage center and the quality of  the educational and culturally rich community programming. Danielle shared that the heritage center takes the crucial step of addressing the modern repercussions of historical oppression such as holding sessions on financial literacy and encouraging black youth to be historians right now in their own communities. This work is important in addressing the gaps in knowledge that current systems of white supremacy and capitalism have perpetuated.  

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I would like to propose the use of a new content note: MMW or Messaging Meant for White People. I also would like to call on  LIU Global to action anti racist practices by being more clear about who, in any given activity, is its intended audience. 

After reviewing  the materials for speaker Andrew Kang Bartlett, I was left confused and slightly uncomfortable. The resources contained mainly white people who were taking action against racism. This effort is commendable however, its messaging assumes that it’s audience is white without ever clarifying who its intended audience is. This lack of clarification is dangerous as it can create confusion about responsibility. In Andrew Kang Bartlett’s presentation he clarified which organisations messaging was for white people and which groups weren’t. Though without this clarification the organisation Showing Up for Racial Justice appeared to be obliviously exclusive and ultimatley counter productive to its name. This same dilemma shows up in our own universities culture. Often times class activities are meant to lift the vail of privilege that shields my peers from critically engaging with oppression. This work is important but to not explicitly state that the messaging is meant for white students has made me feel trapped under the weight of a system that has never given my voice the space it deserves and has caused me to spiral into feelings of helplessness. When in reality my experiences have better prepared me to address oppression in other ways. This distinction is crucial in empowering all of your students to be change makers because it provides a systems view. I hope that as Global continues to evolve it will acknowledge and move further from white centred messaging. As we can see in Andrew Barlett’s work, not teaching students about the importance of target audiences can lead to unintentionally exclusive practices in other organisations. 

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“Staten Island is the worlds largest dump” is now just something other New Yorkers say about the forgotten borough but 19 years ago this insult was a fact. Rachel Aronson, the education program coordinator for Freshkills Park Alliance, shared with us the history, impact, and transformation of what was once the worlds largest dump. This dump was originally placed on top of tidal wetlands which today we know our one of the worlds most highly protected environments. This dump was established in the mid 1900′s, this was a time period that was booming with industry and capitalism while simultaneously marginalising and ignoring those who were not white, able bodied, straight and male. Although looking at the pictures of the wetlands before it was a dump and after it was cleaned up its hard to imagine how anyone could disregard the sacredness of that land in such a heinous way. This prompted me to explore my own connection to land and waste as well as the relationship to those same things that white, able bodied, straight men have. It’s challenging to put myself in the shoes of an identity that is so foreign to my own but I do identify as able bodied. As an able bodies person I have the luxury of not consistently considering how I will physically engage with my environment. I understand that people with disabilities often times rely on a degree of preparation and accommodation to navigate a space. Often times an accessible space is one that is wide and clear of obstructions. This lens of interacting with space probably makes a person more aware of how changing a physical environment can pose challenges to navigation. This underlines the importance of having people with diverse lived experiences on your decision making team to provide perspectives that might not naturally be considered by someone with your lens. However the immense lack of foresight signals a cultural negligence of waste and resources. The landfills last accepted dump came in the form of the tons of ruins from the World Trade Center. It is unfortunate that it took such a heinous atrocity to shed light on how and where New Yorkers deposit of their waste. I currently do not know where my trash ends up, I wonder if it will be the next foundation of another park. 

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der·mis /ˈdərməs/ noun : The thick layer of living tissue below the epidermis that forms the true skin, containing blood capillaries, nerve endings, sweat glands, hair follicles, and other structures.

In prep for facilitating the class discussion I annotated the International Affairs Webinar: Toxic Masculinity and Terrorism (2020). In this presentation Elizabeth Pearson says “toxic narratives occlude: complexities of how masculinities are constructed and performed; and by who” (2020) in this way she demonstrates  the limitations that make the term not ideal tool to addressing extremism. This criticism of toxic masculinity accounts for the internal and external circumstances in a way that seems to be in conversation with Micheal Wilson’s project Dermis. Dermis is a photo series of subjects with a projection of their own skin onto them, in this way “Small movements present distortions, contradictions, and surprises living on and just below the skin.” in this way the project presents a tangible person who has complexities constructed and projected on to them. This could make the photo project, Dermis, a more effective tool for investigating the real world complexities of societal pressures like masculinity, reimagining masculinity and restoring community than the term “toxic masculinity”. According to Micheal, his work with The Man Question has engaged people who identify as men in intimate reflective conversations about that identity. 

As I reflect on my own experience of gender and the conversations I’ve engaged with in our class room, I continue to wonder how posing The Man Question fits into the larger question of humanity. I wonder if by othering the subject in a similar way to white people posing the Negro Question if we lose even more of the humanity that is fuelling the issue. 

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Provide identifying information, describe key points that strike you, link the experience to others you may have had at Global or elsewhere, and reflect on your experience.

Location, location, location. The CCCADI, Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, stands on the Eastern most side of 125th st aka Spanish Harlem. Some of my teen years were spent running past this museum on my way to the west side of 125th for school. Yet my first trip to an exhibition there only just happened in Fall of 2019 when they presented The Color of Power which featured superheros of Color by POC while Aaleah was doing her IRIS with them. Aaleah expanded on CCCADI’s programming in this class presentation sharing other community events like film festivals that I never knew went on in my community. Reflecting on my high school experience at Columbia Secondary School (CSS) now, it disappoints me but does not surprise me that the school, whose larger institution is Columbia University, did not meaningfully engage with community based institutions. CSS was a fairly new school when I started going and it was focused on Math, Science and Engineering. It was no secret that when the administration had changed hands the school shifted its target student audience from the black and brown students of the surrounding East side and Uptown, to more hone their targets on white families from the West side and Downtown. So although I’d never encountered CCCADI down the block, you can bet that trip to the Holocaust Museum and The Met are in my memory. These choices to center certain narratives and overall lack of community based cultural appreciation was supported by the larger New York Sate curriculum and from my understanding of Aaleah this could also be said about the New Jersey State curriculum. Our early academic experiences highlight the current relevancy of having the CCCADI exactly in the location its in, serving exactly the objectives it aims towards. The CCCADI supports the use of the lens of a united African diaspora. This allows for a more inclusive narrative that centers identity in community. 

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Being tasked with facilitating the group discussion, taking notes and sharing the information heightened my focus on the flow of our class conversation. The recommended and requiring readings were densely packed with facts, information and statistics. This was an unusual way to look at a topic that is typically regarded as sensitive in my community. For most everyone, their family history of immigration is an intimate story that can sometimes be hard to access wether that be due to lack of access to that information or privilege or because it’s still a developing status. So I felt it was important to pull out some of those more personal experiences with immigration to further develop the context of some of the many stats we reviewed. 

Being apart of a majority white institution has given me a more critical lens of what it means to be a White citizen in America. Spickard, Almost All Aliens: Immigration, Race, and Colonialism in American History and Identity pages 4-28 explored the myths and truths of American citizenship and immigration rhetoric in the U.S.. In class my personal understanding of these truths came up when I asked the class about their own family histories of immigration. My fathers family came to the states at the time of the triangular trade and my mother’s family has colonized citizenship as Puerto Rican’s. This very deep history of American Immigration is one of the significant cultural traits that I’ve noticed radiate in my family dynamic. I have heard my black family proudly claim a hand in the construction of the US and I have seen my Puerto Rican family look down upon other Hispanic people who currently don’t have citizenship status. Both sides do recognize the privilege their citizenship affords them yet the reality of their status as citizens of color never leaves them either. My Puerto Rican family are all admit voters because they remember what it feels like to watch the politics affect them and not have a voice when they weren’t living on the mainland. Even Hawaiians have the right to vote because those natives were deemed to be more desirable than the Puerto Ricans by white Americans. My Black family fears for the way they threaten the system by existing. True citizenship in my experience in America isn’t based on where your family has claims to land but on the whiteness of your skin and name. 

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Our classes virtual experience of the tenement museum was framed primarily through the exhibition of a Puerto Rican family who took up residence in one of the apartments. The museum guide shared the story of a woman named Romonita and her families experience as residence in this tenement building on Orchard St in the Lower East Side. As we clicked through the slides of replicas of once aromatic kitchens and imagined lively living rooms with plastic wrapped couches the imagery the guide spoke about appeared in my mind as memories.

My great grandparents, who I call Mama & Papa, were born in 1930 and came to New York in the 1950’s. My Mama, who like the example family mom, name is also Romonita was a seamstress and teacher who raised my grandpa and his two sisters in Parkchester, Bronx. My Papa, named Marcos, served the US military as a Pilot and later worked as a baker. Their three kids grew up in the Bronx in the 70’s and lived lives affected by the complicated politics of being Puerto Rican at the time. So as the guide shared the families uncompensated stories I could tell someone left out some of the complicated bits. It was not shocking that the guide only brought up warm and fuzzy moments painting the family in a relatable way as a model Puerto Rican family. My Puerto Rican family has expressed pride in not being what many Americans would assume of a Hispanic family, the primary difference being our colonized citizenship status. The privilege of being citizens was not lost on my Mama and Papa so they proudly went to Macy’s in Parkchester in their best fits on Sunday’s. Always displaying an image of success. So even as other life complications arised for their kids growing up in New York in the 70’s and moving into the 21st century like drugs, sex and American pop culture, my Mama and Papa continued to maintain their resolute appearance as model minorities, ignoring many dangerous issues in that images favor.

Don’t get me wrong my Mama and Papa are beams of light walking on Earth but they are not perfect. The narrative that the guide propagated is dangerous. No family is perfect and to claim a replication of a home and story depletes my culture of its nuances and minimizes the complications of coming to NY from PR. It felt limiting to see a story so familiar to me be shared in such a way that zapped it of the things that truly make me proud to be Borquien.

A glance at the staff page confirmed my suspicion that this problem could be resolved by having more voices that reflect my community on the board instead of centering a white Western way of engaging with minority culture (not history bc homes just like the one we viewed thrive in projects of the BX in 2021).

If the replica home was missing the smell of coffee... put a pot of coffee on.

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Stretch the Canvas with the National Museum of the American Indian

Scholder, F. (1970) The American Indian. Smithsonian 

Through Vera Sheehanv’s explorative presentation of the National Museum of the American Indian we got the opportunity to glance into some key features the space has to offer. Vera’s introduction began with the lay out of the museums NYC location. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the hard colonial name and exterior were not reflected in the layout and pieces of the space. The museum has no set order to be experienced in, though upon entering you walk into the pop art section. I think this may be an effective way to have visitors quickly investigate their basis’s and perceptions of Native American art and culture in a similar manner that Vera posed questions about our current knowledge of indigenous art as her opening question to our group. Being able to bring the eraser of Native American life to the fore front of the discussion as we explore the art in the museum I think was really important as many of the artist also incorporate that history it into their pieces, even if in name and architectural design the nyc institution itself in many ways can be seen as perpetuating a colonial narrative. I remember during my IRIS I walked past the building  National Museum of the American Indian as I headed to battery park for the climate march, Nicole, Seriena and I gawked at the imposing boxy colonial architecture and the huge odd stereotypical statues that guarded the front of the building. It was no surprise to learn from Vera that this location was perviously the Alexander Hamilton Customs House which was built in 1907 and converted into the home of Native American art 100 years later. The National Museum of the American Indian D.C. location in contrast was designed by architects who reflected the history of the art that hung on the walls, it was built in 2004 with indigenous art concepts and designs at its center (after a thorough Google search I could not find the names of the D.C. locations architect however the architect for the NYC location was readily available.).  You can see that in the absolute lack of corners and focus on circulator that is prominent in the D.C. locations design. The difference between these two buildings is so stark that the purple that bleeds under the shadow of the flag wrapped around a chief in a painting entitled “The American Indian” seems like a perfectly simple way to show the darkness that surrounds the relationship between Native American and colonizer.