Raising awareness of Black Lives Matter within literature
To make it clear, your homework for this week is to read these 2 short stories and be ready to discuss:
Read GIRL by Jamaica Kincaid
Read SWEETNESS by Toni Morrison
However, in order to really engage with the material, why not (before and afterwards) read through this blog I've just written....
---
Dear students of 2IGCSE1, 2AGA, 1AGA, 1AGD:
As you are all fully aware, I have changed this week's programme to give us time to reflect upon the important call for change that is being made just now not only in American but all around the world.
The Black Lives Matter's movement is vast and complex and important, and worth engaging in whatever your mindset and preconceptions of self-worth.
As with any movement, one can enter by many doors. As a white women, I only have limited rights and only so much say in the matter; however, that is a good thing!
This is not my turn to talk but to listen.
As I have already said to so many of you, we have to be careful we study literature in Europe for we have grown complacent and often accept without thought the mostly white (and male) reading programmes we are presented with as exact and correct.
Perhaps now is time for change?
Today, I would like to expose you to reading lists and online works for art.
Today, I would like to show you a start pointing. It is not the only starting point, but it is a starting point.
However, to be ready, you (whatever your skin colour and ancestry) have to be ready to ask yourself questions about your education and how you view the world.
What have you been taught?
What have you accepted?
How do you feel about your perspective?
Should schools work harder at presenting a wider range of ideas and perspectives?
Should we read about the experiences of the so-called winners and losers ?
Should we challenge the status quo?
And, if so, how should we go about re-organising a system?
You will not be the only one asking such questions... and change is already underway.
Indeed, European and American literature has too long considered the white point of view as central and the black (Mexican, Asian etc) one as 'other'.
Today, massive and important organisations like the Poetry Foundation are asking themselves important questions. Surely, you can too...
Here's a list of Black British Literature created by goodreads.com
Plus a link to how British bookstores and authors are reacting.
And here's a list of Black American writers.
This Literary Arts community has created an excellent list of resources on the movement, and a thoughtful video on a very vocal black writer and activist: James Baldwin.
This book shop created a Black Lives Matters reading list that I feel is well organised and makes for a good starting point for investigation and discovery.
The writer of the webpage also links into a syllabus that was created in response to Beyoncé's Lemonade album and sixty-five minute film (see trailer here)
As you are reading through these documents, listen to some music and/or the voices of change.
Put on some good music: Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzerald and company
React to some protest songs: Nina Simone, Billie Holiday's Strange Fruit, Dylan's Ballad of Emmet Till..
Recognise some powerful speeches: Sojourner Truth's Ain't I A Woman, MLK, Mohammed Ali...)
Question yourself and our society, whatever your origins and whoever you believe you are !
peace !
Mrs C
ps/ here is a white female Irish friend's reflection on the matter.... and how she feels about dealing with BLM in the middle of the Covid crisis.
pps/ Miss Ruch drew my attention to this poem, which was written and performed by Vanessa Kisuule in response to the toppling of the Edward Colston statue in Bristol on Sunday 7th June 2020.
Read GIRL by Jamaica Kincaid
Read SWEETNESS by Toni Morrison
However, in order to really engage with the material, why not (before and afterwards) read through this blog I've just written....
---
Dear students of 2IGCSE1, 2AGA, 1AGA, 1AGD:
As you are all fully aware, I have changed this week's programme to give us time to reflect upon the important call for change that is being made just now not only in American but all around the world.
The Black Lives Matter's movement is vast and complex and important, and worth engaging in whatever your mindset and preconceptions of self-worth.
As with any movement, one can enter by many doors. As a white women, I only have limited rights and only so much say in the matter; however, that is a good thing!
This is not my turn to talk but to listen.
As I have already said to so many of you, we have to be careful we study literature in Europe for we have grown complacent and often accept without thought the mostly white (and male) reading programmes we are presented with as exact and correct.
Perhaps now is time for change?
Today, I would like to expose you to reading lists and online works for art.
Today, I would like to show you a start pointing. It is not the only starting point, but it is a starting point.
However, to be ready, you (whatever your skin colour and ancestry) have to be ready to ask yourself questions about your education and how you view the world.
What have you been taught?
What have you accepted?
How do you feel about your perspective?
Should schools work harder at presenting a wider range of ideas and perspectives?
Should we read about the experiences of the so-called winners and losers ?
Should we challenge the status quo?
And, if so, how should we go about re-organising a system?
You will not be the only one asking such questions... and change is already underway.
Indeed, European and American literature has too long considered the white point of view as central and the black (Mexican, Asian etc) one as 'other'.
Today, massive and important organisations like the Poetry Foundation are asking themselves important questions. Surely, you can too...
Here's a list of Black British Literature created by goodreads.com
Plus a link to how British bookstores and authors are reacting.
And here's a list of Black American writers.
This Literary Arts community has created an excellent list of resources on the movement, and a thoughtful video on a very vocal black writer and activist: James Baldwin.
This book shop created a Black Lives Matters reading list that I feel is well organised and makes for a good starting point for investigation and discovery.
The writer of the webpage also links into a syllabus that was created in response to Beyoncé's Lemonade album and sixty-five minute film (see trailer here)
As you are reading through these documents, listen to some music and/or the voices of change.
Put on some good music: Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzerald and company
React to some protest songs: Nina Simone, Billie Holiday's Strange Fruit, Dylan's Ballad of Emmet Till..
Recognise some powerful speeches: Sojourner Truth's Ain't I A Woman, MLK, Mohammed Ali...)
Question yourself and our society, whatever your origins and whoever you believe you are !
peace !
Mrs C
ps/ here is a white female Irish friend's reflection on the matter.... and how she feels about dealing with BLM in the middle of the Covid crisis.
pps/ Miss Ruch drew my attention to this poem, which was written and performed by Vanessa Kisuule in response to the toppling of the Edward Colston statue in Bristol on Sunday 7th June 2020.
Listen to the poem; https://www.youtube.com/watch?
HOLLOW
Vanessa Kisuule
You came down easy in the end.
The righteous wrench of two ropes in a grand plié.
Briefly, you flew, corkscrewed, then met the ground
With the clang of toy guns, loose change, chains, a rain of cheers.
Standing ovation on the platform of your neck.
Punk Ballet. Act 1.
There is more to come.
And who carved you?
They took such care with that stately pose and propped chin.
Wise and virtuous, the plaque assured us.
Victors wish history odourless and static.
But history is a sneaky mistress.
Moves like smoke, Colston,
Like saliva in a hungry mouth.
This is your rightful home,
Here, in the pit of chaos with the rest of us.
Take your twisted glory and feed it to the tadpoles.
Kids will write raps to that syncopated splash.
I think of you lying in the harbour
With the horrors you hosted.
There is no poem more succinct than that.
But still you are permanent.
You who perfected the ratio.
Blood to sugar to money to bricks.
Each bougie building we flaunt haunted by bones.
Children learn and titans sing
Under the stubborn rust of your name.
But the air is gently throbbing with newness.
Can you feel it?
Colston, I can’t get the sound of you from my head.
Countless times I passed that plinth,
Its heavy threat of metal and marble.
But as you landed, a piece of you fell off, broke away,
And inside, nothing but air.
This whole time, you were hollow
Vanessa Kisuule
You came down easy in the end.
The righteous wrench of two ropes in a grand plié.
Briefly, you flew, corkscrewed, then met the ground
With the clang of toy guns, loose change, chains, a rain of cheers.
Standing ovation on the platform of your neck.
Punk Ballet. Act 1.
There is more to come.
And who carved you?
They took such care with that stately pose and propped chin.
Wise and virtuous, the plaque assured us.
Victors wish history odourless and static.
But history is a sneaky mistress.
Moves like smoke, Colston,
Like saliva in a hungry mouth.
This is your rightful home,
Here, in the pit of chaos with the rest of us.
Take your twisted glory and feed it to the tadpoles.
Kids will write raps to that syncopated splash.
I think of you lying in the harbour
With the horrors you hosted.
There is no poem more succinct than that.
But still you are permanent.
You who perfected the ratio.
Blood to sugar to money to bricks.
Each bougie building we flaunt haunted by bones.
Children learn and titans sing
Under the stubborn rust of your name.
But the air is gently throbbing with newness.
Can you feel it?
Colston, I can’t get the sound of you from my head.
Countless times I passed that plinth,
Its heavy threat of metal and marble.
But as you landed, a piece of you fell off, broke away,
And inside, nothing but air.
This whole time, you were hollow
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