I'd like to introduce (or re-introduce) you to Dr. Brenda M. Greene. She is a friend, mentor, and one of the most intelligent thinkers and certainly one of the hardest working individuals I know. In a relationship that has only existed for six years, I have come to admire her for her laser focus on using the literary arts as a means for self-discovery and community empowerment. In her work, she is fearless and uncommonly courageous. I have rarely met women of her generation who understand the essence and relevance of hip hop culture, let alone who work to incorporate it in the classroom. Beyond that, Dr. Greene is probably one of the country's most steadfast advocates for Black literature, primarily evidenced in the national black writers conferences and forums that she executive produces every year.
In a casual conversation last month, she and I were discussing the election and the upcoming Obama presidency. She mentioned that, years ago, when she taught at New York Univerisity, she has a young woman in her class named Maya Soetoro. Little did Dr. Greene know, Maya would later become "The First Sister," if you will.
After listening to her story, I went in for the pitch and convinced Dr. Greene to share ther encounter with a broader audience. She has graciously allowed Put On BLAST!™ to publish it here. We do so with great excitement.
To learn more about Dr. Greene, the Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College/CUNY, and the National Black Writers Conference, please click HERE.
Please read on. The story is wonderul insight into how were are all connected - sometimes in the most interesting ways.
ars.
April R. Silver
AKILA WORKSONGS, Inc.
Barack, Maya and Me: Coincidence or Synchronicity?
by Brenda M. Greene
She was the embodiment of intellectual curiosity, an enlightened spirit and voice in my course on Pluralistic Approaches to Cultural Literacy, a graduate seminar for pre-service and in-service teachers that I taught at NYU some years ago. Maya Soetoro-Ng, the sister of Barack Obama, is the person to whom I am referring. Her voice was that of the reflective practitioner, continually involved in critical inquiry, challenging the assumptions of the many people we were reading, and helping to broaden and deepen our discussion around issues of race, class, gender, and ethnicity.
My goal in this seminar was to provide students with a framework and pedagogy for examining and discussing issues related to multiculturalism in their classrooms, to set a stage for an examination of texts outside the traditional canon and to determine effective ways to incorporate these texts into the curriculum. This was on the brink of the cultural wars and I reasoned that before we discussed pedagogy, we needed to educate ourselves about the issues.
Maya was a catalyst for much of our class discussion. She had a definite presence. Initially I thought she was Latino. Her thick, long dark hair and lightly shaded skin tone revealed that she was mixed, and her low, husky voice had an accent I could not place. When I found out that she had grown up in Indonesia as well as Hawaii, I understood my inability to locate her accent and to place her origins. When she spoke, all stopped and listened. for her stories symbolized the “other”, among a group of students who were the “other” in their predominantly African American and Latino urban classrooms where they taught or were assigned to do student teaching . Most of the teachers and student teachers in that class had come from outside of New York City and were experiencing the challenges of teaching in low income urban schools for the first time in their lives.
Maya continually shared the ways in which her educational and life experiences had embodied aspects of the conflicts, policies and concerns we raised. She had witnessed at a young age, political repression, governmental raids and fear for her life and the life of her family. She knew what it was like to live in a “war zone” and to be surrounded by ethnic, religious and political conflict. As we read many texts and discussed how to use literary and nonfiction texts to teach the conflicts, how to get our students to uncover assumptions and discover what was not being said, and how to fill in the voids that had been left out of the textbooks and novels students were reading, I can still hear Maya’s deep resounding voice providing us with a perspective of someone who had an insider’s and outsider’s view of our educational system. Her years in Indonesia had made her astutely aware of the need to create safe places for people to resolve their conflicts.
What also stands out clearly for me is Maya’s continual reference to her brother. She was extremely proud of him and she felt that our work and world view were on the same plane and that we should connect in some way. She really wanted me to meet him and would talk about how her brother would be stimulated by the discussions and debates that we were having in our seminar and how his work embodied many of the issues that we were exploring. In her view, his vision and work were in sync with what we articulated was necessary to diversify and expand the curriculum. He would appreciate the need to rethink our curriculum and to make sure that under-represented voices were included. He would understand our need to establish a new canon of literary texts that was broader, richer and deepened by the inclusion of new voices, a canon that did not exclude but brought differing views into contact with each other. He, Barack Obama, was someone who would embrace the diverse ideas and viewpoints we raised in our class discussions.
As I now reflect on the power and value of that seminar, it is very apparent that our dialogue, debate, and talks symbolized many of the principles on which Obama has based his vision. We began our class with honest and in-depth discussions of what it meant to be an American, and how our understanding of what this meant was both shaped and limited by our experiences, our perceptions, our stereotypes, our prejudices and by the fact that racism was socially constructed and did exist. Some realized that their perceptions of what it meant to be an American were very narrow and that when they thought of an American they immediately thought of a white person. They relegated persons of color to the margins, for in their view these persons were in the minority and did not represent the “true American.”
Barack Obama’s ascendancy to President-elect has redefined for many what it means to be an American. No one can deny the historical significance and impact of his Presidential election to this nation and the world. His talk on race underscored the fact that this is still an issue which must be addressed; it has not gone away with his election to the Presidency. All of America has had to readjust their notions of the American presidency on a national as well as global level. He has highlighted the need for having conversations with those who have differing views, the need to be respectful to others, and the need to engage leaders of diverse ideologies, religions, politics and worldviews in policy and solution based discussions that will benefit the entire world.
When I met Maya, little did I know how the ideals and views that we discussed and raised would be actualized on such a grand political scale. While we were exploring ways to make our curriculum and pedagogy more pluralistic and our literary texts more diverse, Barack Obama was charting a course that would represent the manifestation of pluralism on the national and world stage from political, social and cultural perspectives. Our class discussions were a foreshadowing of what could occur if we made conscious efforts to have transparent discussions on race, ethnicity, and pluralism with those who were teaching our students. Maya’s contribution was indeed a catalyst for this.
So I ask, coincidence or synchronicity. Maya had told me his name but it did not register at that time; I knew that the man whom she spoke of was doing important work and I admired that he was engaged in raising issues of pluralism and diversity. When Barack Obama spoke at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, a former student of mine called and asked me if I had remembered Maya. “Of course.” I said. “I had always wondered what had happened to her for she had such a presence and had really helped to make the class a site of intellectual inquiry.” My student replied that Barack Obama was Maya’s brother. And I thought to myself, so he is the young man whom Maya always spoke of; he is the one whom she wanted me to meet.
Obama had first entered my life through Maya. His presence was a quiet force in the background and his vision reinforced the goals we wanted to achieve in Pluralistic Approaches to Cultural Literacy. I believe in synchronicity rather than coincidence. The divine plan was in order and although he and I never met, I was given an opportunity to meet this man vicariously. Barack’s spirit, through his sister, infused our class discussions with a highly intense energy level.
In addition to observing Obama’s inspirational ascendancy to the Presidency of one of the most powerful countries in the world, I have experienced the impact that Barack and his message have had through my sons, Jamal Kwame Greene, a professor in constitutional law, who has been so supportive of him that he went to Iowa, Philadelphia and Ohio to work on his campaigns and my son Talib Kweli Greene, a hip hop artist, who after being disillusioned by politicians and politics over the last eight years, was inspired to compose lyrics that would garner support for him. In an age that can predict the statistics of how many black men will end up in prison by looking at the income level and age of children in the third grade, the symbol that Barack Obama’s Presidency has provided to young men in our country is invaluable. Young black men such as Jamal and Talib, have not only been a witness to the fulfillment of a vision and dream by those black people and civil rights leaders who laid the path for this event to occur, their children and young black men now have the opportunity to realize their dreams through expanded life choices.
The spirit and vision of Barack Obama have thus touched my life on several levels. As we move along our journey through life, our memories converge to create a history of our life on this planet. I accept and truly value the history created by the memory of Barack, Maya and me.
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Brenda M. Greene, Ph.D. is Professor of English and Executive Director of the Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York.
The Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College, in partnership with AKILA WORKSONGS, Inc., will present a tribute to Nana Camille Yarbrough in recognition of the 30th Anniversary of her landmark book, Cornrows, a Coretta Scott King award-winning children's book.
