| It's increasingly hard work envisioning the role the next generations of African American youth will play in achieving a democratic state in the U.S. Our children have been re-trained to think about instant gratification, and if some land in college, they are set on the fast track to personal gain and fame. Despite the dismal education many of our young receive in our public schools, most of us would agree that there's a need for our African American youths to be in a position to raise questions that would propel this country toward a democratic society. We have a tradition of advocacy. Think of Sojouner Truth, Fredrick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, Fannie Lou Hammer, Martin Luther King, and countless others who struggled against a debilitating social order. It is one thing to be an empowered observer of society from the margins and another to have a place in the margins, alienated from human connections and worse -- alienated from self. The latter sanctions the establishment of a vulnerable location from which the "unrecognized" are only recognized as carcasses to be carted away to prisons or graves. To live in the margins as an alienated being is to live as an artifact of someone else's creation. We have a tradition of creating life despite death licking at our heels. We have been traditionally advocates for democracy. So it becomes imperative to educate our children on how to love themselves, to see in themselves the past of the horrendous ordeal of slavery, to see the survival strategies that allowed our ancestors to thrive. When the present looks bleak, they need to see those kidnapped, enslaved, and tortured -- who survived, nonetheless. They need to see the newly enslaved Black woman who jumps ship with her child in her arms; Sojourner rising from the darkened woods after losing her children; Black men who walked miles looking for their children after Emancipation. They need to see Black bodies burning; the disenfranchised nearly run in the ground while others capitalized in employment and housing; King as fiercely serious about the urgency of Black humanity as Malcolm X was a teacher of the way to freedom. They need to see and understand how they act out the creative invention of a localized violence for others. They need to see how our buried ancestors turn their heads in shame. They need to see this image and understand it! Get angry and, through anger, arrive at their role as an advocate. They need to see the joy in their role as advocates for a democratic society. Many miles from this country is a young woman, Yehualshate Marsha, an advocate of poor women, in a country "a millionaire and a person with no food to eat live in the same neighborhood." When I first met Yehuali, she was one of three women in my graduate African Caribbean Women Writers course at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. Yehuali completed her Master's degree in Literature in 2003 and immediately set out to search for ways in which to improve conditions of women in rural areas of Ethiopia, for improving the conditions of women directly impacts the family and eventually the social conditions for all. Her work focuses on "mitigating the population growth rate through family planning and holistic sexual and reproductive health programs," and it includes curbing the rate of HIV/AIDS. As an advocate, Yehuali works "to influence people at different decision-making levels," encouraging them "to support the causes of family planning, protection of sexual and reproductive health and rights of people." She advocates for the government to "take population issues seriously." Yet, the government's policy on population has yet ' to implement "programs or budgets" toward activating the programs that would truly lead to a democratic Ethiopian state. Yehuali uses writing as one way to advocate on behalf of those she serves. She publishes articles in the organization's newsletter. Despite governmental opposition, Yehuali strives to conduct "community dialogues." It was not always this way, Yehuali writes. At first, she explains, teaching meant imposing "solutions on the people." "The community conversations we use now work better." These conversations include training to facilitate further "community conversations in a way that allows the participants to identify and prioritize their programs." The residents are asked "why is land scarce these days?" or "why does our land produce little than before?" Then the facilitator asks questions related to population size and asks the residents, "What could be the solutions?" Individuals come to understand how their personal decisions impact the community. While the community works together, Yehuali's project helps the community establish a "creativity fund" which members may choose to use as credit or as savings accounts. "The fund allows residents to deposit allocated monies toward the purchase of contraceptive supplies when there is a shortage." And so Yehuali has found her role and her source of hope as an advocate for democracy. |
| Voices/ Dr. Jean Daniels Advocating for democracy |
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