Try to stop labeling and dare to start caring
Aaron Howard
Something has been troubling me. Not for a long time, only for
about five days or so, but I don’t know what to do about it. I feel
as if I’m responsible, but I really know I’m not. Then again, maybe
I am …
It started when I called my sister’s friend Caprice on
Wednesday. Caprice was putting on an assembly at Manual Arts High
School about the great civil rights activist Paul Robeson and she
had asked me to speak.
Now, if you don’t know who Paul Robeson is, don’t feel bad. My
own girlfriend asked, "Is he black?" Even I didn’t have a vast bank
of knowledge about him, so I scurried off to the library and
checked out four books for some guidance and direction into the
persona of Paul Robeson.
Well, as it always ends up with procrastinators, it was about
11:30 p.m. Thursday and I still hadn’t read one of the books. My
only saving grace was that at the assembly, a UCLA professor was
going to give the bulk of the information on Paul Robeson. So since
I was so pressed for time, I decided I would just give a
motivational speech on how success is within everyone’s grasp if
only they have determination, faith in themselves and belief in a
higher power.
The problem started when I began to write my speech. I found
myself changing my style. Where ordinarily I would say something
like, "Through innovation and an intense desire to persevere, we
can transcend our boundaries of circumstance and oppression," I now
said, "By believing in yourself and pressing on, you can make
it."
Was it because Manual Arts is an inner-city school with a
primarily African-American and Latino population that I felt the
audience wouldn’t understand my more weighty words of motivation?
Why did I feel forced to break down my lengthy syntax and abstract
imagery into bite-size pieces of digestible information? Had I been
speaking at my alma mater, University High in West L.A., would I
have felt as gung-ho about making my words so understandable and
simplistic? Probably not.
I finished my speech on Friday morning. My sister’s friend drove
up to my house a few hours later. In the car was my girlfriend
Malinda, Caprice and our friend Tenisha. On the way to the high
school I found myself wondering, "What if there are gangbangers and
thugs there?"
No problem. I had added lines in my speech that said, "Some may
call us gangbangers or thugs or hoodlums, but we have to believe in
ourselves anyway!" I felt like such a fake, such a sell-out.
And it got even worse. When we pulled up to the school, it was
just as I had expected. Milling around the school were kids dressed
like they were bangin,’ so I said to everyone in the car, "Welcome
to thugdom." Of course, they all started cracking up.
But by not having more faith in those kids, I felt like I was
betraying my people. Here I was supposed to be giving a speech to
motivate and encourage and yet I myself was labeling these kids in
much the same way as does the media.
A group of about 300 Manual Arts students came in and sat down
in the auditorium. Throughout the earlier portion of the assembly,
they were extremely well-behaved and cordial. Had I expected them
to be rowdy and disruptive?
Caprice gave me a nice introduction and I walked up to the
podium. As I began speaking, I felt their eyes fasten upon me. I
told them I saw doctors, lawyers and scientists sitting amongst
them. These same kids who I was so quick to verbally attack were
now the same ones I was trying so desperately to encourage. The
same faces I had labeled as hoodlums I now labeled as future
success stories.
So here I now sit. Just wonderin’. And this time, I’m thinking
about Stevie Wonder’s song "You Will Know." Stevie tells me, "You
will know / Troubled heart you’ll know / Problems have solutions /
Trust and I will show." My heart is definitely troubled. I have
committed sins that an African American has no business committing.
And there’s no excuse.
I remember how my mom worked as a project coordinator for the I
HAVE A DREAM FOUNDATION from 1987 to 1993. This foundation took
sixth-graders from inner-city elementary schools in L.A. and
tracked them through junior high and high school with the promise
that when they graduated from high school they would receive a
four-year scholarship to a college of their choice.
My mother worked tirelessly to counsel, encourage and push these
kids to graduate and go to college. Along the way, some were
killed. And I had to see my mother’s pain. Along the way, many
became pregnant. And then I saw the sadness and disappointment in
my mother’s eyes.
Others turned up missing or just dropped out. But even in the
midst of all of this, my mother never labeled her kids as thugs or
hoodlums or hopeless cases. Even with the multi-million dollar
support behind them, only about 30 percent made it to college.
What does this tell me? It doesn’t tell me that these kids are
dumb or not as intelligent. It does tell me that they must endure
more in their teenage lives than some of us will in a lifetime.
And all they get for their pain and struggle is a knucklehead
like me labeling them the same way the biased and racist media do.
For some of these youngsters, each and every day is a battle to
survive. How much can you care about English or history class when
you’re just trying to make it to school and back home in one
piece?
Some of the brightest minds in Los Angeles may have been in the
Manual Arts High School audience I spoke to. But unless more of us
dare to care, those minds will probably go unexposed and
uncultivated. Unless people like me stop labeling and start caring,
those minds will wither into useless centers of criminal
activity.
And when I say care I mean caring through action. Like joining
groups at UCLA like the Prison Coalition, which goes into the
juvenile halls and prisons to educate or the African Education
Project, which tutors and educates youngsters throughout South Los
Angeles. Care by being a mentor to someone in need of guidance.
There are a lot of ways to show you believe in your people.
Unfortunately, I, Aaron Howard, the supposed vanguard for racial
justice and equality, have become a victim of this system, just
like the rest of this racist society that labels our future leaders
thugs and hoodlums. And that’s what troubles my heart.
So I publicly ask forgiveness from my people for the action I
took in such a Clarence Thomas-ish manner. I’m sorry. And I love
you all. Until next time, peace.
Howard is a third-year anthropology student. His column appears
on alternate Wednesdays.