Six
years ago when I had my son I knew it was my responsibility to provide
him with the best that I could. When he was three someone told me about
progressive education, which peaked my interest. These are
schools that teach critical thinking as oppose to following orders. A
huge difference between how poor children and rich children are
developed. Outliers: The Story of Success written by Malcolm Gladwell, explores these and many other dissimilarities. Poor
kids are usually taught to follow authority where rich kids are
encouraged to be inquisitive. They are more likely to go to a doctor and
ask questions that they have a right to know, like why are you putting
that instrument in my ear?
The school that I ended up enrolling my son in teaches kids
to be thought leaders and citizens of the world. This entails asking
questions and exploring different answers until they make sense. The problem is, this makes for a difficult relationship between my son and his Trinidadian grandmother, (my mother).
One weekend I left him with her. She sent me a text telling me to pick him up earlier than we discussed before she wrings his neck. He called to tell me that my mother is very negative.
My
mother is old school, children don't get to have conversations with
their elders about why they can't do something. The answer is, because I said so, and if you question me again I will beat your ass. That's the thing about being an Urban Chameleon and raising one, it's always about trying to figure out how to navigate the cultural conflicts that nobody prepares you for.
Oh well, maybe when he becomes president of a company or nation my Trini grandmother will appreciate his independent mind then;)
Have your Urban Chameleon story and or opinion featured by emailing tickles.tv@gmail.com
"If technology doesn't see race, that's actually a problem."
by HaJ
Left to right: Ayo, HaJ, Pamela Jennings, Sabrina Harvey and Nicole Valentine
This past March I was invited to speak
on the Blacks in Technology (BiT) panel at South by South West (SXSW), Elevate the Game: Maverick Women
Recode the Future, along with Pamela Jennings, CEO of Noble
Wire, Sabrina Harvey, CEO of Art of Genius Tech Education
& Women Interactive, and Nicole Valentine, President of Synergy Business
Development and Ayoka Chenzira, filmmaker and interactive digital media artist
as well as my co-creator and director of HERadventurean
interactive, sci-fi movie. Ayoka and I developed HERadventure, which also debuted at SXSW.
Left to right: Denver Louis, Mary Pryor, Nicole Valentine, HaJ, Ayo
On the first day of the festival that
takes place every year in Austin, Texas, we ran into social media guru Michael
Street and urban socialista Mary Pryor at Whole Foods. I guess a gathering of
people of color was unusual here for minutes into our conversation an older
white woman came up to us super excited expressing that she had never seen
anything like “this” before. She admired Mary’s Afri-centric head wrap and
complimented how beautiful everyone was while continue to stare in awe at the
brown people before her. She then returned to finish drinking wine with her
male friend who was about 20ft away. Even after returning to her table she kept
staring at us. This woman’s perspective seemed to be a reflection of our
presence at SXSW. Out of thousands of attendees you could probably count the
number of people of color on one hand and have fingers left over. Ayo and I
were apart of a smaller number of people of color who were presenting a project.
One could argue a number of reasons as to why that was but it certainly isn’t
because people of color aren’t innovative.
During out BiT Panel, meaningful
conversations came about as it related to the importance
of women and people of color advancing in the field of technology, specifically
gaming and coding. However if the funding and information is only being distributed to largely one
group of people then the experiences developed from new technologies will not
reflect diversity of ideas and perspectives. Remember the YouTube video of the Black guy pointing out that the HP face recognition technology didn’t seem to recognize his blackness?
This is
why initiatives like Black Girls Code founded by Kimberly Bryant are so
crucial.
BiT has taken a tremendous step in the right direction with
creating panels and programming to provide information from people of color in
technology and entertainment that's innovative at SXSW. We can only hope that initiatives alike
will continue to be embraced, supported and expand into an integrated
experience for everyone (including white people).
A friend of mine said to me that the Internet does not see
race, it just calculates information according to zeroes and ones. I would
argue that NOT seeing race is a problem. Or, being so in shock like the woman
at Whole Foods because you’re not used to seeing a group of people of a
different race is a
problem.
Being a part of a woman and gaming panel and presenting HERadventureour interactive,
sci-fi movie starring a reluctant, female, alien, superhero who also happens to
be a woman of color allowed us to continue pushing
(or rather opening up) the envelope to empower those who seem to have gotten lost in
the zero and ones. To find more about HERadventurevisit the website
www.heradventure.com
Have your story or opinion featured by e-mailing tickles.tv@gmail.com
Six
years ago when I had my son I knew it was my responsibility to provide
him with the best that I could. When he was three someone told me about
progressive education, which peaked my interest. These are
schools that teach critical thinking as oppose to following orders. A
huge difference between how poor children and rich children are
developed. Outliers: The Story of Success written by Malcolm Gladwell, explores these and many other dissimilarities. Poor
kids are usually taught to follow authority where rich kids are
encouraged to be inquisitive. They are more likely to go to a doctor and
ask questions that they have a right to know, like why are you putting
that instrument in my ear?
