Tell her story pass it down let our voices be heard!

 Racism has existed for centuries all over the globe and it is the most streaming topic. Currently we are facing inhuman actions in society, a young girl by the name of Breonna Taylor lost her life in a shooting  in her Louisville, Kentucky apartment on March 13, 2020. The shooting was led by a white police officer who set out a warrant believing there were suspicious activities. She was hit with six bullets by the police. Unfortunately she did not get justice, the verdict is that the police that were involved did not get harsh punishment, two were arrested and the reason was that they hit a neighbors wall. A wall had more justice than a powerful strong young black women whom was an innocent bystander. Before this incident there was George Floyd who was suffocated by a police officer. The white officer knelt on his neck putting pressure on him during his arrest as this was happening another officer just stood by and watched. As times go on racism has been evolving and it is still on going. Sad to say but will there ever be an end?  

 In this article the author Beverly Daniel Tatum speaks about her experience in institutional settings and teaching the course of Psychology of Racism. She speaks upon how she constructs her classroom to be a comfortable and respecting setting. Through out the reading she discusses the term racism, prejudice and the fundamentals behind them. There a couple of statements that stood out to me.

 

This is one of the quotes which is based on racism and prejudice,  "Because of the prejudice and racism inherent in our environments when we  were children, I assume that we cannot be blamed for learning what we were  taught (intentionally or unintentionally)." (Tatum, P.4) Children are not born with racism and prejudice they are taught and or they witness the action of it. Children are molded into their adults beliefs it is not until we are adults and educate ourselves we build on what is right and wrong. 

I believe there is a lack of talk about race especially institutions. In high school we talked about African American Studies but I learned it from the point of view of white dominant. As a high school student I never had the chance to speak about race. While being enrolled in Rhode Island College there was not much talk about the top not until in one of my social work classed we went heavy on the conversation. It was intense and eye opening. I learned a lot from that class, I had the opportunity to watch a couple films in that class  which were 13TH, When They See Us, and When the Levees Broke. Each of these documentaries are based on racism in different sceneries. Because of this class I began to start keeping up with the world and especially on race. I don't think race should be an awkward conversation, its there let it be present, speak upon it. 

These are links to the three documentaries that I have seen and a link to the article

When the Levees Broke

https://www.hulu.com/movie/when-the-levees-broke-a-requiem-in-four-acts-acts-1-2-96d7ca61-046a-4af5-915c-8fcd7c7668de

When They See Us

https://www.netflix.com/title/80200549

13TH

https://www.netflix.com/title/80091741

Talking about Race, Learning about  Racism: The Application of  Racial Identity Development Theory  in the Classroom

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17i4UW3qm6JLa-IPCC_PP-WLLCJIMtKYL/view

  Happy Hispanic  LATINX Heritage Month

Feliz Mes de la Herencia Hispana LATINX

Dominican Merengue

Dominican Mangulina

Questions to Stop Asking Latinx People with Francia Raisa | Hispanic Her...

Party of Five x ATTN: | Latinx Representation in Media | Freeform

     

        Hi folks! Back again to share another reading. This reading comes from a chapter book called Troublemakers by Carla Shalaby. Carla was a  former elementary school teacher. She received her education at the Rutgers and Harvard graduate schools of education. She focuses on the critical role that children and teachers play in the ongoing struggle for justice. Here is a website that speaks more about the book and you can have access to purchase the book if you are interested 👉 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29502429-troublemakers 👈

    In this post I will speak about the chapter on Marcus, the author is the person that is observing Marcus. Marcus is a student who is filled with energy and light. He is surrounded with adults that are actively helping him and caring for him.  What I liked about this chapter is that Carla broke it down into tips that she informs the mother that will help him and other children in the future. In each of the tips there are examples of Marcus's behaviors and how the adults handle it. Also Carla speaks on how the adults play a role in his daily life and how they view him as a person. 

    The adults that are mentioned in the chapter are his mom Cheryl, the teacher Emily, the counselor, the principal, and the librarian. These adults view Marcus as hopeful, they all give him a chance to turn around and make a better choice. Cheryl sees her son as a leader and a loving helpful boy. 

    Emily faces many obstacles with him but she manages to have patience with him. Even when he refuses to listen to her she tends to ignore him and continues to help the other students. When the teacher runs out of patience she sends him to the other room or the principals office. Emily has tried many ways to help him stay on task. She tried doing a rewards method, she noticed that he liked helping others so his reward was going to the kindergarten class to help. She said that he didn't get the chance to earn that reward. 

The Librarian was a heartfelt moment. During library class Marcus began to disruptive and say negative comments about books. Instead of the librarian kicking him out of class she spoke to him about his actions, she finds out that he does not own books and gives him books to take home. 

Carla struggles in the classroom, she doesn't want to step on the teachers toes and she doesn't want to be seen as another authority figure. There was one incident where the teacher assigned the students to write a letter. She noticed he began to become fidgety and disrupt the class. Emily believed that the students should be independent and figure problems on their own. Carla notices that Emily's hands are all tied up so she sits between him and another student that he was playing around. She mentions that it was his brothers birthday and suggest that he should write a letter to his brother. There are other moments where Carla wants to step in and help. The tips that she writes is what she sees the type of person that he is and should be treated as. 

     I felt like I was in a time machine when I was reading this article. I used to work in a special education classroom and we had a student with similar behaviors. Marcus reminded me of this student, the staffs in the building and in the classroom struggled to understand him. There were a lot of ups and downs but at the end of the day we all wanted the best for him just like how all the adults want the best for Marcus.

**Remember link is posted for more info on the author and book** Below there is a link to her twitter account**

 👉 https://twitter.com/carlashalaby?lang=en 👈

 

    Young people have been dealing with stereotypes for decades. Adults have been viewing young people as a social deficit ; teens should be taught what's right from wrong, do the correct thing, behave certain way. If a teen behaved a certain way they belong in a certain group or class and vice versa. Reading the article Redefining the Notion of Youth by Shirley R. Steinberg https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-_q9XUofqrmV1BEYTFtY2pVNVE/view and watching the YouTube video End Adultification Bias. I realized that stereotyping starts off with adults.

     The article speaks about how adults stereotype teens and believe that the youth should not be leaders, they do not have the capability. The way the author described how past teens were treated reminded me as a caged animal. That is such a horrific perspective to view teens but that was the reality of the past. Do I believe in certain ways that teens are still being treated this way? My answer would be yes, it could be from a caretaker or even an educator. Young people have the power to speak up and become leaders. There is a statement that I agree with the author, “Youth development is not in stages: it is culturally and socially defined by the surroundings and experience of each young adult. Facilitating youth to become socially aware and ethical leaders requires a deep read of the lived world of each young man or woman.” (p.273, Steinberg). We as educators must adapt to the young people’s environment and become role models 

  The  YouTube video speaks about adultification bias. Young black girls were viewed differently compared to their white classmates, the video starts by saying “black girls are seen less innocent and more adult like than their white peers.” They give different examples and share stories on how young black girls are viewed. 

     Between the article and the video the three stereotypes that are mentioned are racial profiling, group of individuals and culture. These three stereotypes are impacted by race, class, gender and sexuality.

                Race: In the video young black girls were viewed differently compared to their white classmates, the video starts by saying “black girls are seen less innocent and more adult like than their white peers.” Also one girl shares her story on how the nurse asked her aunt if she was socially active but did not ask her white friend. 

               Class: In the article they inform on how if a young person is from a low income area they are most likely to be in gangs or a minority,sexually active and doing illegal activities.

                Gender: if you are a male you are dominant and a female is viewed as weak and 

                Sexuality: if you identify yourself as part if the LGBTQ+ community you are group of individual

    Growing up as a young person I viewed the world as an ocean, I was this tiny fish trying to fit in and find the right ‘school’ or in other terms the right clique to be in. I believed that finding the right group is what defines yourself as a person and a student. I remember in high school you could clearly differentiate each group. I did fit in any of the groups such as the Spanish clique, the cheerleaders clique and the upperclassmen clique. I always felt cautious around my teachers with who I was seen talking or sitting with because of the reputation. Being in an all white school stereotypes was huge. The cheerleaders were viewed as clueless and careless and the upperclassmen were seen as dropouts and or rebels. The Spanish clique were seen loud, annoying, wild, drinking, doing drug, having sex and or viewed as an adult. In my case I felt that I was viewed as the Adult Spanish cheerleader,the girl that did not need protection, did not need second chances, viewed as an adult and sexually active. A little background of myself: I stayed back in the first grade because of the language barrier and I started school late because of my birth date so by the time I was a junior in high school I was 18 years old. I always talk about my experience with my guidance counselor. A guidance counselor should be a person that brings you comfort and makes you feel hopeful for the future education wise. In my case my guidance counselor was the opposite. When I would go into her office I never felt that I could be a successful student. I remember when she said that she was proud of me for completing  high school because there's always a high percentage of minorities dropping out, she also said that I wasn't going to get into a good college. 

         

Get to know me...

   

Hello humans, welcome to my comfort safe space. My name is Milary Tavarez and my pronouns are she/her. I am currently a senior at Rhode Island College majoring in Youth Development. Youth Development is a program that prepares you to become a professional working with the youth in settings such as after school programs, recreational centers, community arts and so on, the ages run from 3-21. I started working with the youth journey began my sophomore year in high school. I participated in my first pageant, Hispanic United Development Organization (HUDO) that lead me to do community service. As a tittle winner one of my responsibility was working with the community of Providence. I worked a great deal with young girls such as creating dances for cultural events, teaching them about women empowerment, and modeling and fashion for fundraising fashion shows. I also had the oppertunity to work and build the foundation of Latin Dance with the after school program City Year/Providence After School Alliance (PASA) http://www.mypasa.org/ 

 After my reigning year my community work was not over, I decided to compete for Miss Dominican Republic of Rhode Island. This is when I knew where my heart belonged. As a queen I worked with a large group of young girls teaching them about the Dominican culture, modeling, working with others, discipline, and responsibility. I represented Dominican Republic in a pageant that lead me to become Miss international. I participated in fundraising fashion shows such as  the LUPUS Foundation. Organized a toy drive during the holidays and participated in toy drives dressed as Mrs.Clause. After my reigning year as Miss DR of RI I continued to work with the non profit organization Quisqueya en Accion https://www.facebook.com/quisqueyaen.accion.5. I took over the dance group of the organization that consist of 32+ mix of boys and girls from ages 4-18. I prepare them for the annual Dominican Festival in Providence, Rhode Island. I prepare and organize the Miss Dominican Republic of RI event where the girls are recognized for their talents and participation. We also organize fundraisers for charities, we recently donated winter clothing to Family Services of Rhode Island. We perform for other cultural events and lastly we volunteer our time for the annual Broad St. clean up on Earth day. 

    Spending my free time with the community and working with the youth opened my eyes that my heart and soul belongs to working with the youth so why not get a degree to what you love doing. 

 

Know: The term deficit and resiliency I have heard of them before in a class. The definition  of deficit in my own words is a decrease in existence. In this case the article uses the term as a looking into what brings the youth down. What are their downfalls. The deficit approach was mainly used to fix the problem. One program that I have heard of which is the D.A.R.E program that deals drug substance abuse. This program failed because they were trying to fix teens. One of my good friends was part of the program and she would describe the program as overbearing, they were not much of a support system, the program felt like another parental role.  The term resiliency I would define in my own words as to bounce back from a situation, recover and looking into the positive. In this article they did they reflected on the resiliency research approach, which focuses on the youths problem and how to help them succeed. Present day I have seen that there are programs that have used this method such as the program called After Zone. This program has different activities that captivate the youth's interest. 

                            Learn: In the Youth Development Guide article I learned the history behind Youth Development. The different philosophies and approaches each organization done to help the youth. In the late 1980s advocates and practitioners began to reshape the services of the youth and redefine success. Reading about the past and looking at present day I started to realize that generation changes and the term success is redefine. I believe that we should adapt to the youth and fulfill tier own needs. Instead of telling them what to do and how do it. I

                                                        More: what I would like to know more about different methods and research. The statistics of the two research that were used in the article. 

This is not really about knowing more, I do have a comment the term "at risk" is being used throughout the article. In my opinion the term  risk seems a dark and negative term to describe the youth. Is there any other word replace the term?