So, I was reading Charles M. Blow's The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto and had an idea.
Well it wasn't an idea for a course, but I decided to revamp/reconfigure/redesign an existing course ('The Black Atlantic') cause I said, why not?
I'm always trying to find ways to improve my pedagogy and root it in praxis. I always want to find ways to position history, and my history courses, to contemporary society and Black Futures (a new area for me that I'm very much interested in).
I'm also trying to find ways to address (not fix - I know the solution, but it ain't all that palatable to the masses) racism. And I believe that we can use the classroom to explore these ideas and it isn't just for 'consultants,' 'public intellectuals,' and keeping it real, social media, to lead the charge in the 2020s and beyond.
Background:
I did a lot of research during my PhD on historical Black settlements across Canada, and mainly in Southwestern Ontario and the East Coast. Lucan, Shrewsbury, Buxton, Dawn Settlement, Africville, North Preston, those spots.
I also did/do work on 'Back to Africa' movements/settlements from Canada and the US (not just Garvey, but the 19th Century debates between whites and Blacks in Canada and the US), Maroon Communities in the West Indies, and generally have a personal interest in what's happening in places like Ghana with their Right of Return.
Problem:
Anti-Black Racism in Canada. Not interpersonal, but systemic.
That's the problem.
Solution:
This course. Duh.
The idea for this course is for us to explore an 'alternate B[l]ack Future.' The idea is to look back to go forward (Sankofa).
We ain't going to talk about defunding the police, or Black Studies programs & curricula, or bias training, or anti-racism training, or hiring more Black doctors/judges/profs/teachers, or any of the 'solutions' we throw around to 'fix' anti-Black racism. Those all of have merit (maybe not the bias training, but this isn't the course for that).
Feeding off of Blow's book and the few hundred years of 'Black Settlement' histories, we are going to imagine a realistic "B[l]ack Future" settlement, right here in Canada.
Where you ask?
Nova Scotia.
Why?
There are approximately 1.2 million Black folx (as of 2016 census) in Canada.
There are approximately 970,000 folks that live in Nova Scotia (as of 2016 census).
Coles notes solution?
The massive issues that Black folx face (particularly in Ontario) as they relate to anti-Black racism, fall under provincial jurisdiction: health care, policing (municipal and provincial), judicial, child welfare, and education.
The idea is that if every single Black person in Canada moved to Nova Scotia (there are approx 21k Black folk already living in NS), we would be the majority.
Nova Scotia also has a rich Black history and a lot of the Afro-centric infrastructure that doesn't exist in other provinces.
Meaning?
We would be in the majority of who we vote for and who runs the show. Yes, representation isn't the solution to oppression; however, it's a shift of who has the power to be our neo-colonial overseers.
And those overseers would look like us.
We'd have political power.
And we wouldn't have to leave Canada. We would still pay taxes. As Canadians. In Canada. And contribute to the Canadian narrative. Just in a 'Black provinces' - which for the record, wouldn't be closed to non-Black folks, and also one that we would have to respect the Two Row Wampum.
The Course:
Clearly this isn't a fully flushed out idea, and that's the point of the course:
To flush out this idea (manifesto?).
This is a senior-level course (it is a 4th year History course) for folks/folx that are serious about independent and collective learning, followed by public sharing of their work.
Students would be tasked with taking on an individual topic (chapter) to create a collective idea (book) to 'imagine' this Black Settlement in Canada. The topics would be historical, contemporary, and futurist issues that we would need to address in order for us to make this B[l]ack Settlement happen.
The only hard course reading would be Blow's book. Otherwise, students are on their own to make the magic happen. Yes, we would still be meeting weekly to flush this all out, but we're learning for a purpose. As change agents.
Proposed Topics (chapters):
- Histories of B[l]ack Settlements across the Globe - focus on North America, the West Indies, and West Africa. With a focus on lessons learned;
- Historical Black settlements across Canada, with a focus on Nova Scotia (i.e. Africville);
- A history and contemporary realities of Settler Colonialism and Indigenous peoples in Nova Scotia;
- Histories and contemporary realities of Afro-Nova Scotians;
- Histories and contemporary realities of political/constitutional structures in NS;
- Histories and contemporary realities of education, justice, child welfare, employment, and real estate for Black folx in NS;
- Climate and ecological impacts and forecasts;
Pretty much this course is about exploring what is possible, as opposed to harping on what is (im)possible. We are taking a Sankofa approach to this work.
Let's try something different.
And worst case scenario? We write a book.
Or move to PEI.
Christopher
Comments
Post a Comment