Smitherman, Grace, and Louis articles. and Bauman/Briggs.

Currently, all classes are pointing towards multiculturalism lately, not only for this semester but my others as well, as did all my classes last semester as well. It seems to be at the forefront of every academic conversation, and I wondered if constantly discussing the need to be culturally responsive would actually backfire, all the attention being drawn to cultural differences making them more obvious and detaching. Or maybe it's just overload, as Men at Work would say. My multicultural experiences were somewhat sparse growing up in a small Midwestern town, but significantly richer upon moving to Austin and teaching for a few years. Aside from working in a very racially-charged school and city, we are in a time of increased national attention and legislation concerning immigration and diversity. I see it continuing to be an issue of major importance for everyone, not only in the education field. Framing multiculturalism in communication/conversation study is perhaps the most direct and helpful way to understand each other, and that's really what we have to do if we're gonna make this all work.

Grace's article reminded me of the month I spend teaching summer school in Gardner-Betts, 9th grade boys' English. I uncertainly designed a poetry unit, not knowing how these boys, locked up, all African American or Mexican, would react. To say they took it and ran would be an understatement--they continued reading and writing poetry after we had moved into the next unit, some of them passionately. Many chose to write about their experience of getting arrested, how they felt about it, what they wanted to do, and what they felt about their families. One boy, severely dyslexic, chose to freestyle rap his poetry, which he made up on the spot. Like Ajuah's poem, this "showcases oral-based literacy skills that are often left unexplored, uninvited, and undervalued in literacy instruction."

"Griot - African storyteller, cultural historian, and educator. Although griots were known for the entertaining way in which they told stories, their intention was to assist their people in maintaining self-awareness...What the griot gave to African society in oral history, cultural information, and ancestral wisdom and knowledge is the key with which all people of African descent can progress and maintain a high level of understanding of their true heritage." I've always been interested in the urban legends, fables, mythology kind of literature and stories, and the purposes they serve for the culture in which they originate. I had an African-American lit class at UT Arlington several years ago and discussed to connections to music, religion, etc. I definitely want to read Raw Head, Bloody Bones: African-American Tales of the Supernatural.

What Ms. T did in her inner-city classroom is exactly what I wrote in the margin of my Lit Acquisition article--"How do we make school more like home?" All children are more voluntarily verbal before they enter school, playing with their language, learning, asking, etc. In school they must sit and be quiet, answer briefly when called upon, and that's it. When children have reading problems, this is usually when they surface. Ms. T make her classroom like a home, comfortable, informal, caring. I was impressed also with how Ms. T used personal narratives to connect with her students, and incorporated media that was relevant and interesting to the students. I think too many times we dismiss music, movies, and shows as being without educational purpose, when with a little creativity there is much to be learned from these societal and communicative tools of our shared cultures.

For some reason I thought the Smitherman article was written by a white author, so as I read the first few pages I became increasingly offended at the usage of black nomenclature. Then I figured it out and felt silly. Then I wondered why I felt that way, and realized that the nonexistent white author did not own the language he was using. When I figured out Smitherman was black, then it was ok. I should have known that a white author would never try to describe a traditional African world view.

As I read about the African culture's reliance on the spoken word, I thought about how blacks were not allowed to learn how to read or write during slavery and for a while afterwards, and how that must have shaped opinions and perspectives of literacy. To read and write was a highly sought prize, yet as Smitherman writes "blacks are quick to ridicule 'educated fools.'" I wonder if and how things would have progressed if they had been allowed literacy, if they could have literally found their escape through reading and writing, communicating with others and coming together. I loved the following quote: "only those blacks who can perform stunning feats of oral gymnastics become culture heroes and leaders in the community. Such feats are the basic requirement of the trade among preachers, politicians, dis jockey's, hustlers, and lovers." If you haven't already, I suggest reading "Jazz" by Toni Morrison as it's written as speech, impromptu like a jazz riff. When the woman, her name is Violet, went to the funeral to see the girl and to cut her dead face they threw her to the floor and out of the church. She ran, then, through all that snow, and when she got back to her apartment she took the birds from their cages and set them out the windows to freeze or fly, including the parrot that said, "I love you." More?


I like this quote too: "My dear kin' miss, has you any objectives to me drawing my cher to yer side, and revolvin' de wheel of my conversation around de axle of your understandin'?" The part of the Smitherman article about black men's raps was also interesting, particularly the romantic raps, the sly talk designed to snag the object of affection. Smitherman says that female agressiveness in this context is also becoming more accepted, which I see in progress when teaching middle school. Undoubtedly, being an oppressed culture led to a stronger reliance on religion, as Smitherman says, "throughout Africa, there is no dichotomy between sacred and secular life, and there are no 'irreligious people'...for to be without religion amounts to a self-excommunication from the entire life of society." Excommunication is the term that really got me, and got me thinking about religious community and communication in general...

Notes:
Units of expression
exaggerated language (unusual words, high talk)
mimicry
proverbial statements and aphoristic phrasing
punning and plays on words
spontaneity and improvisation
image-making and metaphor
braggadocio
indirection (circumlocution, suggestiveness)
tonal semantics

*****
Bauman/Briggs
Timing is a funny thing. My boyfriend is currently writing a paper for his mass comm class about the myth of the liberal media, and discusses the role of persons and "news" shows such as Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, etc. Performance. Context-sensitive meanings. Poetics vs. functionalism. "We attempt to provide a framework that will displace reified, object-centered notions of performativity, text, and context--notions that presuppose the encompassment of each performance by a single, bounded social interaction" (Bauman/Briggs). One could extrapolate the importance of clear communication and the difficulty of obtaining it as the central issue of our species' problem. "Decentering and recontextualization have powerful implications for the conduct of social life." As much as multiculturalism seems to be at both the top and the center of the human agenda, politics is the first bullet point underneath multiculturalism. In Bomer's Teaching Lit course last semester, I thought writing for social action sounded like a very fulfilling and promising field. J. L. Austin's book sounds equally fantastic. Thanks to whoever took those notes.

The article included so many great examples of research studies I found it a little overwhelming, so I skimmed through some of that part. But the various theories and ideas presented from studies of all cultures and perspectives brought up a general idea for me, the idea of ritual's role in culture and identity. The first place I think of when I hear ritual is church. Church is one of many arenas in which a culture or subculture's communication is stylized for a specific purpose and effect. The concept and institution of the church, however, has been around much longer than coffeehouses, internet chatrooms, formal education settings, grocery stores, talk shows, etc. It's been a factor in human culture for at least as long as the bar scene has. Smitherman's article also focuses on the necessity of organized religion and its communicative call-and-response style in African American churches. In essence, church is shared communication with a Higher Being--how unique a situation! I very randomly attend an Episcopalian church, primarily because the reading from the prayer books, together, of a like tone and inflection, ancient-seeming words, combined with kneeling and a choir singing changes me. I feel different afterwards, peaceful, humble. I have my own beefs with organized religion, but I can't deny the power of performatives. I've always sort of held this theory that saying something over and over can either increase or decrease the power of the words spoken, so maybe if I went all the time like I had to as a kid it'd be different, who knows.