Arizona’s Black History Debate: Erasure or Systemic Oppression

to celebrate and teach these stories. Yet many argue that Arizona's Black history is either sidelined or missing from the classroom. We will delve into why, despite the significant contributions and presence of Black Arizonians, their stories are frequently relegated to the background. We'll examine the reasons behind this historical neglect and question what it means for the broader narrative of Arizona's past. The Stories from Arizona Republic by Kaylee Mohan

Amanda Liberto on July nine, twenty twenty four. So I'm coming to you, mister Dickey, all right. You know one of the things that I know that we discussed in the background before we even got talked about. It's like the nuances in the layers that happens to be part of the story. Can you kind of just go over like some of your thoughts when you first came across it and read it, and what some of those layers are.

to make changes? And so one of the first things that struck me, and this was a podcast episode that we were listening to, and it was just there was just tons of material in there, and it was it was a fascinating discussion between these community leaders, and I just thought it was really interesting, and so I picked out a few quotes and and so I think, moving into the problem, it's it's important to recognize what exactly is happening here, so we we can look at what's

happening and then we can look at why it's happening, and then we can look at what can we do to improvement. And so this was just a couple of quotes off the beginning of the of the discussion. The first one was from Jessica Salo and she's the assistant

archivist of Black Collections at Arizona State University. She said, zero to two percent of known archival collections of institutional records, and she's talking about at ASU at NAU and at the University of Arizona, zero to two percent of known archival collections and institutional records represent myes and that includes Black,

Latin X, Pacific Islanders, LGBTQ plus and so on. Those groups represent forty two percent of the population, yet zero to two percent of their archival collections of you know, various things that they you know, documents and literature and whatnot that they collect at the at the libraries there.

It seems quite a bit unbalanced. Forty two percent of the population is representing in represented in the people, but when it comes to representing these communities in their history records, Okay, so we rely on None of us have perfect memory, and none of us have memories that can extend beyond our lifetime, and so we rely on documents and history to learn to I mean, it's important that we know about our history and not just our own personal history,

but you know, all all people that are in America and in the world and so on. So first, the first thing that jumped out to me was that, yeah, you mentioned this was from twenty twenty four, and this kind of thing is still happening. It would be it would be hilarious if it wasn't so tragic, and so, uh, it should be unexpected. But really it's you know, we we've come to expect this kind of thing, this kind

of marginalization and this kind of setting people aside. But this second quote is one that really stung me when I heard it, and as a public school teacher i teach at a state college, it's it really it really hit home. And this one was from Pastor Warren Stewart, and he said, you may not be a white supremacist,

but you're a white standardist. And so what he's saying is that there's, yeah, of course we're you know, we're all familiar with white supremacy and and obviously that's uh, you know, something to be fought against and so on. But the idea of a white standardist using the white life experience as the standard and and you know, like I said, as a teacher, that's something that's uh that hit me hard and and again, I my first thoughts were like, Okay, how am I doing this? And what

can I do to change it? And so it's it's frustrating because it's it's something that we've been dealing with a long time. You think we would be able to work this out, you know, you think we would be able to treat different communities fairly. You think we'd be able to recognize the rich diversity in our collective history. It's frustrating and it's sad, and you know, I'm hoping that it will continue to improve, but it's hard to be optimistic about that too.

doesn't even count. And then it was when that statement was made about white standardism that Scott mentioned, and I thought that was such a powerful distinction to make between like that standardism and that supremacy, because people who are not eager to recognize the types of behaviors that might be harmful or not quite the most beneficial, they're less likely to take a look at those behaviors if they feel like they're being called something like a white supremacist,

which most of the time isn't truly the case. They just don't realize that they are expecting everybody else to

accept their lens. And I realized that if I wanted to go learn about the history of my state, I could, and most, if not all, of the characters would be people just like me, straight white men, and I don't have the problem that if I want to learn about my history, I have to go to these great unfair I mean unfair iss the word I'm looking for, but these links that other people don't have to go to in order to learn that history.

who happen to come from marginalized groups. Remember, if we can go back into our history, Scott should know this being a teacher at all, that before we even had the invention of race, what was considered a civilized person is if you were an English Christian man. So, now that we have moved forward to invent race and how people fit in those particular racial nomenclatures, then that particular standard of what is considered as civilized versus what is

uncivilized or savage. Remember, like you know, especially like in the in the colonial period, the word savage was used as like you know, insane, insane, you know. So we basically have like hierarchy of a system on where people would fit in and how they are treated by law. That's white supremacy. But then we have the standard that all of us basically are measured by, including what we are taught about our nation. We're taught about ourselves, and

we're taught about how and what is considered important. As far as lessons learned, I can't even think for myself as an anecdote that even though that I being an African American, I went mostly to African American predominant schools, and until well, no and all of them my parents paid for. I did not know a lot of Black

history until I became an adult. And it was because I took the time to seek out that history, because I felt it was important to learn this history so I can learn more about myself, because I'm part of this group and I want to know what the contributions of my group was to what we call the United States. But the standard of what was taught in schools, what was presented as lessons, were not of that ilk. Even though I had some teachers who went out of their

way to teach Black history. But it was very much so on the tertiary level. It was not necessarily in in a way that could be as rich and diverse as Black American history is, and especially thinking of it as not just Black history or African American history, but

American history. But Jonathan, I'm coming to you before I, you know, start doing my sermon and then you know, doing the collection afterwards, I will be asking for tides on all for an agrical I'm going to hold you to that, but I but you know, but there was certain things that you mentioned that actually stood out see you the most when you was, you know, being exposed to story. Can you can you expand on that a bit?

them with people of that community. And that leads to the main point I want to make is that black students have to fight not only black students, but brown students, rainbow students. They all have to fight for equity and inclusion and are taught by white teachers and administrators and the majority of people who aren't even in their community, So their community stories, their community history is ignored. How

are they supposed to feel included? How are they supposed to feel part of something when they don't see themselves in those positions and you know, or people like them, And that has to have a great effect on their ability to learn, on their ability to grow as human beings, and their ability to participate in a society that is basically make them fight for inclusion in everything. And that's just,

you know, the conditions that we're in. But we can go a long way by recruiting administrators and teachers and librarians and people who are in the community so they can represent their community at the table where the decisions are made. And we have to think about not just doing it because they're of that community, but doing it in such a way that their inclusion is natural and

actually something that we expect to have happening. And I'm not in that community I'm in one of those communities, but I'm not in the community that is most visibly effected, and that means that I may not have the right perspective here, but I do have an irritating an irritation that the representation is deliberately not there, possibly not necessarily intentionally, but considered because the culture has evolved to that position,

the culture of the colonial culture has evolved to that position. And it's upsetting because I went to high school in a multicultural high school, but I wasn't aware at that time that all but one of my instructors was cis white male. There were a couple of females sis white females in there. We had one black instructor and I had one half it was half Island I think he was it was Tomorrow, But anyway, all that said, that

was it. And we had about a quarter of the high school population where Islanders there were Polynesians, about a third were black. There were probably another fifteen percent who were Latinos or Latinas, and then there was the white guys about ten ten fifteen percent. It was very rich culturally, but we didn't experience that in the education. So that's the point I wanted to make.

from your notes. Specifically from one of the panelists that was featured a belief her name of Chanelle Poe, who was an expert in education and advocacy and who also emphasizes the systematic issues of erasure of black history from

the school curricula. And one of the things that she said, and I'm taking from you is when I think about institutions, as a former school board member, I'm looking at our beautiful, richly diverse student body that was sixty five percent Latino, twenty five percent African American, six percent Quite, and six

percent Native American. As the mother of a black son who was frustrated, angered, and felt alone when my child entered the education system, who immediately started getting suspended from school, I had to take a step back and ask ourselves, why isn't there individuals serving on this board, the demographic of this district. I have another question, why aren't there educators that reflect the demographic of this district because there's

going to be a huge disconnect. Now, I believe that most of us are parents on this on this panel, and have a question to ask all the parents. Say to Jonathan, but I you know, but I I would, but I'm pretty sure that you've been around kids and you were one over sixty years. Well I'm going to well, I'll come to Scott and then to Eli. You know, as a parent, and and especially you know that cares about your your kids education. And you hear what Chanelle

Poe has said what strikes you the most? And and what and and how would you say that you're able to empathize with what she was saying Scott And then.

moved out to the suburbs. But we we deliberately kept our kids in the city schools and so in which we were allowed to do as long as we provided transportation. But we did that because we wanted our children to experience those those diverse life experiences, and they what we wanted them to see that there are other people. And I'm sure it's not surprising that the particular suburb that we lived in, the you know, the schools out here

are largely white students, you know, wealthy white students. And so we didn't want we didn't want that. And so I mentioned before that one that my perspective on stories like this is to first think about what am I doing to contribute to the problem, and what can I do to help the problem. And then I'm going to add this third thing, Now, what can I do to

help my children be better? Be more sympathetic, be more empathetic, be more able, and more willing, and to not only embrace diversity, but to enact change, to insist on that kind of thing. And so I that was just a baby step that we took at the beginning, you know, it was just a decision that we made. And so and as my children growing up, my youngest is seventeen now, my oldest is twenty one, and you know, we're happy

with the bright carrying people that they've turned into. I think beyond that, you know, talking about it is something that we can do, taking opportunities to support measures, not just short stop gap measures either. But this is a systemic issue. I think if all the research shows nothing else other than the fact that this is a systemic issue, and it will take a systemic problem and systemic problem

or sorry, systemic solution. And so systemic solutions often need to come from the ground up, from the grassroots up. And so by maintaining that kind of attitude, by maintaining that kind of of approach, I think that we feel like we're taking steps in the right direction. But obviously it's just a drop in the bucket. And so I think vigilance, I think discipline, I think consistency, I think perseverance.

I think all of those are going to contribute to things that I can do and that I can pass on to my kids as far as at least taking the tiniest little chip out of this massive, you know problem that we have here in the United States. Mean yeah, So.

history too. It may not you know, necessarily like I, I might not have as close of a relationship to it as he does, but that doesn't mean it's not important. And I wouldn't know the first place to start, you know, to teach him that.

school boards or things like that. And when you consider that this is one of the centers for white nationalism, we have many, many terrorist groups in this state who have made national news. So the attitude here against people of color is devastatingly bad. But I speak up when I see it. If I'm out in public and I see somebody being a jerk, I will tell them their

jerk and people using bad language. I literally came close to jacking a guy up, which would have put me in jail who was in my gym and using the N word a lot, and I just started yelling at him. And I realized that was probably not the appropriate thing to do, but it made me feel better appropriate. What do I stand up? You know.

And the places that we're seeing at the most is the book ban and book bands are coming married, but so after stories that contain the LGBTQI plus experience and the black and we're seeing more and more of these books that are coming off the shows. And we're also seeing either a dumbing down or a complete erasure of African American studies curricula, you know, in the public school areas all across the United States. And one of the things that I want to make our audience aware of.

You know that even though that it may not necessarily be a secular issue. It is a humanist issue, and all of us should be very much so alarmed and aware of these things. And we also have to understand, and I'm just going to say it, that the United States would not be the United States if it was not for black people. You remember that whole thing called slavery. Yeah,