- 2 days ago
Black school is a radical black school and their mission is to use art and activism to promote liberation.
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00:00Music and AI. Yesterday we talked about community activism and right now we're
00:05talking about black school of thought. What is black radical thought and how do
00:09we start schools to educate ourselves and design our futures? My name is Ross
00:14Jelani. I'm from the Brooklyn Arts Council. I'm a guest here. I give thanks to the
00:18ancestors that built this land called Balbancha that we now call New Orleans.
00:23We give thanks to the ancestors who put their blood sweat and tears to have and
00:27put our feet soiled on this land in order for us to move forward and
00:31technology is our wisdom. Alright? So I'm gonna bring up two friends. Joseph Colley
00:37and Shani Peters of the Black School. Give them a round of applause. Thank y'all.
00:42Thank y'all. How y'all doing? Black utopians.
00:48Okay, okay. So we worked together for years but you're natives to here, to NOLA, right?
00:56So tell the folks a little bit about the black school. What you do, who you are, and why you do it.
01:02So I'm Joseph Colley. I'm from Marrero. That's right across the river. If you're not a New Orleans native.
01:13I'm an artist, a designer, and an educator. Thanks y'all. My name is Shani Peters. I'm originally from Lansing, Michigan.
01:22I spent the last 15 years in Harlem before moving here. That's where I got to know Russell so well.
01:28I'm an artist, a teacher, and someone who's been making imaginative black community spaces
01:34for the past 16 years. All right y'all. So we're gonna get to it. What the hell is the black school?
01:40Yes. Talk to the people.
01:41So we both co-direct this organization called the Black School. It's a black radical art school.
01:48We take an experimental project approach. We teach workshops around art, design, and black radical politics and history.
01:58And our mission is to use art and activism to bring forth the liberation for our people, centered in healing, black love, and self-determination.
02:07And if you look at the screen, you can see we're working to build a community center to serve our community of the Seven Ward here in New Orleans,
02:16where we'll house a community garden, which is currently up and running. But we'll have a design apprenticeship where we teach young folks graphic design.
02:25We have a full-service design firm where we're doing client work for organizations in our community.
02:32What else are we gonna have at the black school?
02:37After-school programming, library meditation space, gallery community space, maker's lab, computer lab, artist exhibitions, art residencies, all the things.
02:50A very holistic kind of constellation approach.
02:53So this is interesting.
02:54Yes.
02:55So black school is both an imagination and a practice simultaneously, right?
02:59Yes, yes. We've been doing the black school since 2006.
03:05In the beginning, we are very mobile in our architecture.
03:10We would partner with different schools, youth organizations, any place where there was folks who were interested in our program,
03:18wanted to learn about black radical politics and activism through art and design.
03:23And as of the next, the last few years, we've been working to realize this dream of planting roots down here in New Orleans
03:32and building an actual building that will house our programming.
03:37Thank you. So, I would imagine, I'm sorry to ask the audience to join us in the conversation,
03:43but I have a couple of questions for y'all to kind of kick this off.
03:47You have a practice, you have an imagination, you're building a black school around black radical thought and education and politics.
03:56How do you even start a school, right?
03:59There's a lot of people who are, we kind of have the privilege to just kind of walk into educational systems,
04:04but y'all have a bigger vision around this.
04:06So talk to me about the vision and talk to me about setting the foundation of starting an actual school.
04:12It starts with an idea, you know, really this is an art project that has become two organizations, right?
04:19And we chose the word school intentionally because that's something that, never mind an art project that somebody in your neighborhood is talking about.
04:27Hey, hey, come over here.
04:28When we say school, that's a meaning that has meaning in our community.
04:32That's a word that has meaning, has value.
04:34That's a place where we protect our kids.
04:36That's a place where our community comes together.
04:38So it started with that idea and then it's just one step after that, one step in front of another, right?
04:43It's very daunting to imagine how do we create the world that we want, but it starts with taking one step at a time.
04:51You can't snap your fingers and make this happen.
04:53It's hard work.
04:54It takes collective, it takes community, but one step at a time with clear vision, transparency, communication, you get there.
05:03Yeah, and I think the quote, you know, each one teach one is a great place to start.
05:09You start by being a student and then when you have a skill or some knowledge to share with folks, you start sharing it with one person.
05:18You know, two people build and build at a point that you're sharing with the whole community.
05:23And essentially that is a school.
05:25That's right.
05:26Wherever that is.
05:27As long as folks are exchanging knowledge, then that's a school.
05:30And I've been with y'all on the journey, especially I noticed that you've activated and utilized residencies, awards, grants, museum exhibitions, taking over the Book and Children's Museum.
05:46And they were doing a lot of work in New York City.
05:48And I remember talking to you one day and you're like, I'm taking this shit back home, right?
05:52So talk to me about building an idea with resources and then taking all that wealth and resources and bringing it back home to building your community.
06:02Talk to me about that.
06:04Yeah, that work was important to me.
06:06I come from a legacy of black educators.
06:09Like I said, I'm from Marrero right across the river where my grandfather built the school is still there as named after him.
06:17So it just it felt like I had this ancestral calling to continue that legacy and continue that work right here in New Orleans.
06:27And it's also not a hard sell.
06:30You know, this is New Orleans.
06:31This is a mixing up.
06:35This is an epicenter of black culture and history.
06:38So it only made sense for the black school to be here.
06:42And our vision is very hyper local.
06:45We're serving the seven ward.
06:47But that doesn't mean that you can't take what we're doing, be inspired by it and recreate it in your own community.
06:55We're completely open to share how we did it.
06:58And anybody who's already doing this work who can learn from what we're doing.
07:03Again, it's the black school.
07:04We're happy to teach them.
07:06Anything you want to add to that, Shawnee?
07:07Yeah, I'll add practically because I know, again, it can be really overwhelming.
07:11Practically, it also made sense for us to come home because we have a child.
07:16We were two transplants trying to raise a family in New York City.
07:19Right.
07:20And so for me, it was like, I want to bring my baby somewhere where I got babysitters, where I got support and where she can really see her parents build our truest vision, you know, not limited by anything.
07:33I love that.
07:34I love that.
07:35So we forgot to mention, this is a couple, a married couple, y'all.
07:37Building a school and starting with their family and spreading it out in their community.
07:41So there's always hope.
07:42So I'm going to bring it to the community.
07:45Speaking of community, this is a town hall.
07:47So y'all part of the conversation too.
07:49Essence is recording it.
07:51We have Essence cameras here.
07:53So you might show up on Essence.com.
07:55But if you have any questions for Shawnee and Joseph, this is the time.
08:00And then also, if you have any thoughts around a black school, what does a black school mean for you?
08:07And what are you seeking within a black school?
08:09I'll see you right here, brother.
08:15Hi, my name is Devin.
08:16I'm actually from Miami.
08:18It's my first time being here.
08:20Please speak up a little bit.
08:22My name is Devin.
08:23I'm a photographer from Miami.
08:25It's my first time being here.
08:27It's just amazing.
08:28I find a better word.
08:30My first question, or actually just can you explain a little bit more of the Art Federal Presidency and how that works?
08:39Great question.
08:40It's still to come.
08:41We actually just brought on our curator at large, Ryan Dennis, who's been at Project Row Houses for 15 years,
08:47the Mississippi Museum of Art, and now the CAM, Contemporary Art Museum in Houston.
08:52She'll be working with us kind of low res to develop the artist gallery and residency.
08:58So there's illustrations that you see of a building to come.
09:01Once that's here, that's going to be the residency space.
09:05So be patient with us.
09:07We're working on it.
09:08But also, you could go onto our website, sign up for our newsletter, and you'll get all that information as it comes.
09:13But the vision for the residency is continuing that community education model.
09:20So we want artists, designers, different cultural workers and thinkers to come into the community and share their practice with our community so that we can, you know, build that collective vision, you know, share the creativity, share the ways of getting solutions to these issues that we're experienced from New Orleans to Miami to Detroit to Chicago.
09:45You know, if we start generating those ideas and sharing them, then we can overcome.
09:51I love that.
09:52And I want to expand upon this question, too.
09:54How did y'all utilize?
09:56How did y'all get into residencies?
09:58You know, how did y'all get in that pathway of getting residency security spaces?
10:03As an artist, I'm pretty sure he's curious about that, too.
10:06Yeah, early on, we took residencies as opportunities to create little small versions of the black schools.
10:17So one year we did a residency together at a new museum.
10:22We had a gallery space.
10:24We had the support of their education department.
10:27And we that's where we first started thinking about space and thinking about architecture.
10:33So we built the exhibition that was completely interactive, that people could go into, sit down and engage in this black radical etagogical approach that we had.
10:46There was workshops, performances, and it was our opportunity to visually make art that looked like what we wanted the black school to eventually look like.
10:58And I'll add that as a black artist traveling and doing a lot of residencies, sweating, right, working to get in those programs,
11:05and then getting there and being like, this space feels white and uncomfortable and unsafe as hell.
11:11Like, why am I breaking my back to be here?
11:14I really wanted to be able to create a space in this black city for black people to come,
11:19where you don't have to deal with having this white created space all around you as you're trying to interact with this black city.
11:25People come to New Orleans for us, right?
11:27So we wanted to create a black space for people to be in and for New Orleans artists to be in as well.
11:32Yeah, translation is a very interesting thing, but it's different when it's coming from your own.
11:36So going back to the question for y'all, what do y'all need out of a black school?
11:41When I think, when I say black school, what do you think about, right?
11:44So they're creating one. I'm curious on what y'all are imagining for yourself.
11:49I'm wondering how mental health can be integrated into the program.
11:55Like, will you guys have someone on staff or will you guys have a course maybe to discuss self-care and how to take care of your mental health?
12:04Yeah, absolutely. That's always been central.
12:06Black love, healing, and self-determination are our key principles.
12:10So on a simple scale, you know, we begin workshops with meditations.
12:15We provide resources to young people and we've been able to grow that as the program has grown, as the budget has grown.
12:22And now we're looking forward to this realization that we can't just have a staff of teaching artists or a rotation of teaching artists in the space.
12:29For every teaching artists in the space, we also need to have a social worker or a trauma-informed educator in the space because it's too critical what our babies are carrying.
12:38The support that they need to be able to even start at the classes and the information that we're sharing.
12:44Yeah, we've started interacting those ideas in our design apprenticeship program where once a week we have a social worker come in.
12:54We do group sessions with the social worker and on a one-on-one basis the young folks are connected to the resources they need through the social worker.
13:04And we plan to expand that across the entire school, you know.
13:09So yeah, that's a very important part of what we're doing.
13:12Yeah, and for me it harkens back to y'all being parents and knowing firsthand what's needed to grow a child and grow a mind.
13:20So that's really great. Again, we're talking about the black school. What does a black school mean to you?
13:25What do you need from a black school? So when I say that, what comes up for you?
13:29I'm going right here to this brother right here. State your name.
13:33My name is Daryl. I'm going to be sad.
13:37So we're talking about art, right? What's art without music?
13:43Hey, we all go together, you know. We all go together.
13:49And so, like, what are we going to do for our kids who are musicians?
13:55And so the kids are curious because growing up I didn't know I was a pianist.
14:02And I'm in college now majoring in piano performance.
14:06And it's been really nice for me.
14:09But I always stop going, where would I be had I had the resources soon?
14:17So, that's my question.
14:21We speak really broadly about what art is, especially in Black people, but doesn't show up in one way.
14:27It's not just paintings and sculptures. So there's always space for the integration.
14:31We do have more of a base in visual art, graphic design, but it's also about building relationships.
14:37So this exchange program that we just did that took our kids to New York and brought some New York kids down here in both cities.
14:44They were able to record in professional studios, and it's amazing to see that overlap.
14:49The kids that show up for visual art are also talented in music.
14:53So, just trying to create all the paths and networks to be able to do what we can do.
14:58No one person can do everything, but if we connect, we can get those supports out.
15:03And again, we're talking about Black Utopia. In this context, we're talking about Black school.
15:08So, this is a case study of two folks who came together, saw something that was missing, and imagined it, and started to build it.
15:17So, in the context of a Black Utopia, in the context of a Black school, how would you, and what would you include in a Black school?
15:26This notion of music is a great one. So, thank you, brother.
15:31Actually, we'll be able to go to the system.
15:35Hello. My name is Raquel Wilson. I'm a former educator and CEO of Four Our Last Names, which we advise education and investing.
15:42I'm wondering, considering Utopias, we think about Black wealth a lot in terms of Utopia and what we could have access to a close iteration of the Gender Wealth Act.
15:52What's currently being done for financial literacy, or is that an area that needs expansion?
15:57If expansion, I'm happy to support.
16:00To answer your last question, yes, there's definitely an area in our space that needs expansion.
16:07Again, we're working with young people in the graphic design program.
16:13We bring in a social worker who, in turn, has bring in, like, financial literacy people to help the kids talk about budgeting,
16:22talk about investing in the future, talking about, like, making most of what they have in, like, getting out of the situation they're in.
16:31So, yes, it is a part of what we're thinking about.
16:34And we're thinking about it in a holistic way, too, not just how can we teach our young folks about financial literacy,
16:42but how can we teach Black wealthy folks about philanthropy and how they can support these collective efforts that we have in our community
16:52to not be reliant on white dollars and white foundations?
16:58How can we support our own?
17:01Because we know, like, sometimes they care about us, sometimes they don't.
17:05And that's the trend that we've been going through in our lifetime, and our ancestors have, too.
17:10So how can we sustain the work we're doing when they do decide, oh, Black people, they good.
17:17They ain't trendy no more. We don't really got to worry about racial justice.
17:21And then $100 last year, they good, right? Three years ago.
17:24Yeah, we can't make our culture a trendy economic strategy, right?
17:30And this is the real conversation.
17:32How do we take our culture and make it a critical form and a critical pillar of our liberation?
17:38So as we talk about a Black utopia, liberation is in that frame.
17:41As we talk about a Black utopia, education is in that frame, liberation.
17:45So how does liberation show up in your methodology and your vision for the Black school?
17:52One thing I think we haven't gotten to yet is just, like, a broader idea of what we're teaching ourselves.
17:58Are we teaching ourselves to go make money, you know?
18:01Are we teaching ourselves to be able to get into an Ivy League school that no longer has an affirmative action program to even let us in?
18:10Or are we teaching ourselves to survive, right?
18:14And thrive.
18:15To thrive.
18:16To thrive.
18:17Are we teaching ourselves to teach our babies what they need to mentally survive, right?
18:22The intricate web that it is to be a Black person in 2023.
18:27So holistically, liberation looks like for us teaching those critical things, whether they're listed in a formal school syllabus or not,
18:36those critical things like how to plant food, right?
18:41How to save your money.
18:42You don't learn that in school either, right?
18:44That holistic vision of what we really need to survive and thrive on the day to day.
18:49Yeah.
18:50How to address issues in your community using your creativity and your collectivity.
18:56We're essentially at the core of what we do is self-determination, which is independence.
19:03How do we run our communities?
19:04How do we run our communities?
19:06Because, you know, we may live in Black communities, but they're run by white politicians or, you know,
19:16the American government system or white corporations.
19:20We still don't really have that Black community that we say we have until we have independence and we can take care of ourselves.
19:30So that's essentially what we're teaching our young people.
19:33We won't have liberation until we have self-determination.
19:37That's right, because even when you think about some of the HBCUs that name after a lot of white colonizers and, you know,
19:44has white backing behind it.
19:46And, you know, give thanks for the Quakers and the abolitionists who is giving money, but also shame on those who are hypocrites, right?
19:56So I think one of the parts of liberation is knowing who your allies are, truly, by way of values, and knowing when you're up against hypocrisy,
20:05that someone is only in it because they're trying to hit a bottom line and check a box, right?
20:10And we cannot be a trend.
20:12Blackness cannot be a trend.
20:13It's a culture.
20:14It's a way of life.
20:15It is a people.
20:16It's a diaspora.
20:17And what the Black School is showing us is that we have to crack our imagination around being codependent
20:23or white supremacy in order to be liberated, right?
20:26So this is an example of what we're talking about here.
20:30We were having a conversation earlier about how do we fund imaginations radically, right?
20:36So coming back to funding your project, how are you funding the Black School?
20:41Like, what are some of the ideas that you're expanding to and open to in funding, and what are the no-no's?
20:48What are the things that's, like, hard stops?
20:51Early on, we were thinking about how can we diversify our funding.
20:58So we get funding from grants.
21:01We get funding from donations.
21:03But we also created an arm of the Black School that is revenue-generating.
21:08So we have a design firm.
21:10We have a merch shop on theblack.school.shop, theblack.school, not .com.
21:17And that's where we raise a lot of our own money so that, you know, if tomorrow folks decide to pull a plug on us, we can sustain ourselves.
21:27We can still sustain the essentials of our programming.
21:30And I think going forward, we're just going to keep continuing to build that diverse approach to funding.
21:38You said it.
21:39You said it.
21:40Well, I'll add that we also really made a huge leap in our organization through crowdfunding, right?
21:45In 2020, we were able to raise $300,000 to build the schoolhouse.
21:50And that increased our visibility.
21:52And it showed to the foundations, the Millons and the Ford Foundations of the world, that our community is with us, right?
22:00Before anybody else.
22:02So galvanizing that community support first can help push you past that.
22:07And how are y'all investing in yourselves as well?
22:09How do you take the money that you have to, you know, revenue-generating and then invest that back into the black school?
22:16Ooh, that's a juicy one because, you know, hot tape, nonprofits are for rich white women with wealthy husbands.
22:24Like, it's very difficult to start a nonprofit.
22:28Sorry to break it to y'all, y'all.
22:30And build anything for yourself, for your children, right?
22:34Legally, they're structured that way for people who already have money.
22:39Correct, yeah.
22:40So we were very intentional going into that process.
22:43We really had to, to be able to grow to this volume.
22:45But we didn't have to do it just one way.
22:47So we researched and we do it actually as a hybrid structure.
22:50So we have the nonprofit and the for-profit that we own, that we can pass down to our daughter,
22:56and that can generate money to independently support the nonprofit, whether the foundations want to do it or not.
23:02So we had this talk about the black school.
23:04I'm pretty sure y'all weren't expecting to get schooled today, but it's all good.
23:07So, we're coming back to the audience.
23:09Do you have any questions for Joseph and Sharni?
23:13And, or, what does it look like?
23:15What does a black school look like for you?
23:17When I say black school, what comes up for you?
23:19Any, any hands?
23:21I'm gonna come back to you.
23:22Let me see if I can get someone else.
23:23I'm gonna come back to you though.
23:24Anyone else?
23:25Alright, so I'm coming back to you.
23:26By default.
23:27Hey y'all.
23:28So, this is something I think a lot about because I think we just don't know this as a people.
23:39But I think one of the biggest things that we really need to start doing, we need to teach our history better.
23:48Our history is just slavery, civil rights, oppression.
23:54No, we were not always that.
23:57Do you know about Timbuktu?
24:00This place was just amazing in its heavy days.
24:07And that was all us.
24:09It was all black people.
24:11The emperor rolled around the continent of Africa and Europe.
24:15Just giving out the old and what not once.
24:19And, hey, we run out.
24:21That was all us.
24:24And I think a lot of people don't like to study our history because they just seem to try it.
24:30So, I think what we can really do for the black school would be teach our history.
24:36Yeah, it seems to try this stuff.
24:39That has to be done because it still may occur.
24:43But it seems to be good too because we need to inspire this because we need soldiers too.
24:51We are not always slaves.
24:55We are not always oppressed.
24:58We are not always broken poor.
25:00We have black Wall Street.
25:02Let's bring that back.
25:04We have so much.
25:05We have so much.
25:06We have so much potential today.
25:08And I think as you guys were talking, I was just thinking about that.
25:15So, thank y'all for taking the question.
25:18Yeah, let me respond to that.
25:20So, essentially at our core, as artists, as educators, we're not interested in like selling
25:33black or trading on black trauma.
25:35We're interested in black radical politics, which is all about solutions.
25:41How do we find solutions to the issues we see?
25:44And what you said is perfect, brother, because if you look at black history, the solutions are there.
25:50People have been dealing with what we've been dealing with since we've been here.
25:55And they found ways to get around it and navigate to survive.
25:59That's why we're here.
26:00So, we look back, we can find inspiration.
26:03Or we can find like technical how-tos to how to do what we do.
26:08You know?
26:09And that's what we essentially did when we were starting a black school.
26:13We were like, who were building black independent schools?
26:17The Panthers, Booker T. Washington, my own family legacy, my grandfather, Shawnee's family legacy with her dad.
26:26You know?
26:27It's there.
26:28And if we go look back to it, our ancestors will tell us everything we need to know.
26:32They just waiting for us to act.
26:34We just gotta pull it forward.
26:35You know?
26:36We can't keep starting over every generation after every generation.
26:39How can you take what your ancestors did, what your family did, whatever it is, whether that's formal, whether you can Google it or not,
26:45how can you take that and pull that legacy forward to keep making this progress?
26:49Because it's not gonna happen in one lifetime.
26:51But if we keep pushing it, it can.
26:53Thank y'all.
26:54Thank y'all.
26:55That was fantastic.
26:56So, we're about to wrap up.
26:57I'm going back over to the audience.
26:58Do you have any questions?
26:59Any questions for the audience?
27:01I saw you.
27:02I saw you.
27:03All right.
27:04So, I saw her first.
27:05You, then you.
27:06Okay?
27:07Cameraman.
27:08Over here.
27:09To the sister.
27:10Thank you guys so much for taking the time.
27:15Because my voice is loud.
27:16Thank you so much for taking the time and sharing your story and, you know, coming up here and doing so much.
27:28Just by being here, I feel like your energy, your passion is very clear.
27:33And I feel like you can multiply this energy just by speaking how much you're doing.
27:38So, thank you so much for that.
27:40You guys brought up a couple things that really sparked my interest and I really got to thinking.
27:48You talked about sustainability and, you know, measuring.
27:52Something that I think about in, I work in operations, and I think about how you measure success in order to show your stakeholders what you're doing.
28:03And I feel like when you're making an impact and it's emotion-based, obviously, and it's people-based.
28:12How do you guys measure your impact and then how are you able to share what you're doing and, like, have people learn and maybe, like, duplicate what you're doing or have others duplicate?
28:25Because it's kind of hard, right, to do what you're doing.
28:29There's a lot going on.
28:30But I'm just curious to know, how are you guys able to duplicate this and, you know, create this, like, liberation, sustainability, this consistency, this growth that you guys have going on?
28:43How do you guys measure it with all your stakeholders and how are you able to teach others to do what you guys are doing?
28:52We go back to this word practice and, like, reflective practice.
28:57So, we are always measuring ourselves.
29:00We're always getting responses from participants in our programs, from young people, and we're building that out more and making that more formal as we go.
29:09But it's also about just doing.
29:13You know, you can always look to us whether you can find a formal report online that measures our statistics in a, you know, in a numerical form.
29:21You can always come to our Instagram page and just see that we are always doing something.
29:25You know, we're really working at it.
29:27We're spending the majority of our time and our focus in the work and reflection on how we're doing the work and bettering the work incrementally versus all of that kind of back-end business.
29:37I think a lot of times developing a business, you can be psyched out by what you don't have together.
29:42Right?
29:43You don't have the business plan, so I'm not ready.
29:45How about you do the thing first?
29:46Like, really do it, you know?
29:48And in that process, the business plan is going to present itself.
29:54And I think we take a multi-pronged approach to like, like you said, evaluating if we're doing, what we're doing is effective.
30:03So, at the most base level is numbers, like how many people are we serving?
30:09You know, how many young folks are we graduating through our apprenticeship program?
30:14So forth and so on.
30:16At a higher level is like the actual output.
30:19Like we're an art school, so we make things.
30:22So you can look at the things and see that you can see the values in the work.
30:27You can see the quality in the work and surveying, talking to our people, you know?
30:33Like, hey, what did you think?
30:35Did it fulfill what you set out to accomplish in this setting, you know?
30:41Yeah, I love that question, too, because I think depending on your business or your practice or your organizations, your measurement of success looks different, right?
30:50So, if you're trying to be a Fortune 500 company, it's bottom line focus.
30:55If you're a non-profit, it's about how much grants for your operating budget and how you give back your community.
31:01If you're doing something more like a social practice, that's really about how to connect with people.
31:06Also, it's okay to be small.
31:08It's really okay to be small, right?
31:11So even here, within Essence Fest, this is a big motherfucking festival.
31:16But the conversation we have here is a move for setting a seat of how we can imagine our future in a way that is not over-commercialized or corporatized.
31:27We're not in a conversation about the black school at Essence Fest, right?
31:32So that's what I mean by that's a good point.
31:35And I'll also say set your own goals. That's important for us.
31:42Like setting our own goals, not having funders or outside people setting what our goals are.
31:49And then us assessing if we're getting closer to our goals.
31:53And the choice, how are you guys?
31:56How are you guys?
31:57How are you guys?
31:58I've never heard of you guys before.
32:01I've known you guys since we've had success before.
32:03So it's my first time here.
32:05And I'm glad to be here.
32:07And you guys, I'm gonna figure out how to get in touch with you guys later.
32:12guys later. But one thing I want to leave you guys with real small. Does anybody know
32:19an author by the name of Billy Carson? Guys, Billy Carson is the same age as I am. He started
32:29off in New York and moved to Florida. Look this man up. He's got a book. He's got several
32:35books. One's called Toast and the Emerald Tablets and the other one's called Woke. Doesn't
32:42mean broke. We are focused on the wrong things because we've given the wrong things to focus
32:52on. Originally. And thirdly, we've been thoroughly given the wrong things to focus on. We have
33:01to go back and create our own narrative. We've got to go back and create our own history
33:08because you know something? History. Look at the word. His story. What's our story? You
33:19don't really know? And we're going back a lot further than you might think. Billy Carson,
33:25look this man up. Get his books because guys, we've been miseducated, misinformed, and misled
33:37for 5,000 years. I've been to Africa. I've been to Saudi Arabia. I've been to Europe. We're
33:49there. We've been there. They erased it. They took it and they re-faced it. Understand? Re-face
33:58it. Yeah, thank you for bringing that. We're all about telling our own story, sharing our
34:06own history. You know, we got to keep doing that for sure. Thank you. I really appreciate
34:13what you guys doing. And I hope you guys can hear me. I had a question about education.
34:20I think one of the biggest things within education is there's a difference between education and
34:24optimization, right? So I was kind of curious to, with your students and your curriculum,
34:30how are you training your students to be critical thinkers, to think about your thinking, so that
34:34way they can analyze not only the world, but even ideas that they have and what they can
34:38seem to be true and analyze the kind of assumptions they have about the world so that they can be
34:42visionaries in the sense of not only being in this stage or in this world and the problems
34:47that there is now, but thinking beyond that in that sense. So I'm just kind of curious about
34:50how do you make the students become critical thinkers in that sense?
34:56Multiple ways. One way, I think, introducing young folks to black radical thought and then
35:02having conversations, you know? Like, what do you think about this? What are you seeing in
35:07your community? First two questions we ask folks is what do they love about the community and
35:12what do they want to change about their community? And then after that, we start making art. And that
35:17process, you know, that creative problem-solving process allows folks to engage in that critical
35:23thinking without even, like, you know, being too caught up on the idea that this is critical thinking
35:29because they look at a problem they see every day and then they use their creativity to create a
35:37solution, you know? So the whole thing is process-based, experiential learning, and at the core of it
35:44is critical thinking. It's teaching black radical history for the purpose of action, right? For
35:51taking a blueprint for action from it versus teaching for teaching sake, right? Holding knowledge
35:57for knowledge sake. Okay, we hold it. We've read all the books. Now what do we do with it, right? So we start from that
36:02mind state and that kind of builds critical thinking into it on a fundamental level.
36:06Thank y'all both. Last question. I'm saving the best question for last. I mentioned it a few times. What is radical black thought? What is that? So just so everyone here knows what you mean when you say it, how do you define it?
36:22Um, for me it's about independence. You know, it's about getting with your people, looking at what our needs are, what our shared values are, and then creating our own nation, our own society based on those values and those goals.
36:42And I think it looks different for different people. But like, I think for us, the starting point is black radicalism.
36:50And that's like going, going to the root of our issues and then coming up with solutions for us.
36:58Yeah. Black radical thought is studying the thought of black people who've been working towards our solutions. Like Joseph said, radical needs to get to the root and for what cause or solution, right?
37:08So not just to talk about it. Not just to fuss about it. What are we going to do about it? That's what I'm interested in studying in our history. And that's what I'm interested in teaching to our communities.
37:17Well, give thanks. We appreciate you so much. Thank you for doing this work. I love both of y'all. I've been supporting y'all from the gift. But I just want to ask everyone to give these two a round of applause. Give it up for the black school.
37:31All right. When do they find you so they're going to stay in contact with the black school? What do they find?
37:36On Instagram, it's the black school. At the black school. And you can follow us and all the things we're doing through our link tree, through what we're posting on Instagram. And the website is theblack.school.
37:50And through both of those platforms, you'll be able to get in touch and contact us. And they have dope ass merch. Their merch is serious, right? So give thanks. Give thanks for y'all for being here.
38:03And we have one more panel today at 2.05 where we're ending the series of conversation, the six-part series, with what is black utopia? And we're going to imagine that together. We're going to end with that. And we'll wrap this up. Thank you all. I'm Rasu Jelani. We have Joseph, Shani. Thank you.
38:21Thank y'all for having us. I appreciate y'all engaging as well.
38:24Thank you so much.
38:25Thank you so much.
38:26Thank you so much.
38:27Thank you so much.
38:28Thank you so much.
38:29Thank you so much.
38:30Thank you so much.
38:31Thank you so much.
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