I absolutely love my little grandson Carson. He is eighteen months old and a tremendous joy in my life. I think it is true when people say that you enjoy time with
your grand children more than you do your children. Some people say it’s
because you can hand them back to their parents, but for me, I think it’s
because I now realize how quickly time passes, and my grandchild will not be a baby much longer, so I tend to savor every moment. As I watch him grow I look at him with such amazement, and wonder what life
will hold for him. As he develops, everything around him
will influence his identity and how he sees himself. I have so many hopes and dreams for him but I cannot help but think that
my grandson will struggle with his identity as an African Nova Scotian.
Marc, Carson’s father, is from Bamenda a smaller city approximately 3 to 4 hours from Yaounde, which is the capitol of Cameroon. He is the first born son and a beacon of hope for his
family. His parents are so proud their son is a
Canadian citizen and attending school in Canada. It is Marc’s hope to someday become a Lawyer and practice international
law. He has lived on his own in Canada for the past 7 years, is very
politically minded and loves this country very much; but, he is also very proud
to be African.
Shortly after Marc moved to Cape Breton, we were talking about Bamenda,
his family and his culture. I love listening to the stories he
shares about his country and his family. I began to think about how he must feel being with a new family whose
customs, beliefs and looks were nothing like his. It must have felt so strange for him to be amongst all white people who
had no idea of his struggles, the foods he liked or what made him feel
comfortable. I remember encouraging Marc to reach
out to the African Nova Scotian community so he could make connections and
develop a network of contacts and friends because he had no friends in this area or in Halifax where he was going to
attend school. However, to my surprise he found
it difficult to make connections within the African Nova Scotian community. He
stated that he felt more of a connection with many of the white people he met
than he did with the African Nova Scotian Community. I felt sad for him because he was feeling a sense of rejection, but it
was not from the group that I had expected.
In our last class, our group discussed Resistance or Protest Pedagogy,
and how this strives to impose the teachers own ideas of social justice to gain
recognition of his or her own identity. This can be a good thing if the student can identify with the “social
injustice”. Our class guest (for the purpose of this paper I'll call him Steve)
shared with us how he truly enjoys his afrocentric study group because he feels
that he can identify with all members of the group. Bracher stated that reinforcement of one identity component can have a
disempowering effect because it leads the student to invest their identity
almost exclusively in the subaltern category. As well, this “can support socially destructive forms of identity politics
that pit different groups against each other in a competition for recognition
as the greatest victim.” (Bracher 2006) Steve stated in our discussion that he
understood what Bracher was saying, but overall he felt that belonging to the afrocentric study group was a very
powerful experience for him as an African Nova Scotian because it reaffirmed
his identity.
As I listened to Steve in class I couldn’t help but think about my son
in law Marc. I wondered if Marc would eventually be
accepted into this community of practice. Then professor Plumb said something that made me realize that it was
wrong of me to thrust Marc into this community and expect that he be accepted
with open arms. Professor Plumb stated that he felt
honored to be a part of this group because historically, as a white
male, he would be considered an oppressor. That is a pretty powerful admission,
but true. I have to understand, as a white person, I truly know very
little about African Nova Scotians. I was upset for my
son in law because he was feeling rejected; however, it was my
mistake in thinking that simply because he was black that somehow he would
fit into this community. After listening to Steve and Professor Plumb I
realize this community is much more complex than simply being black.
This brings me to my concerns about my grandson. I wonder at what age he will discover that he does not look like his
mom, nana, papa or aunts and uncles. Will he begin to
think of himself as being different than us and thus not identify with us. Will
he be rejected by the African Nova Scotian community, because the majority of
the people in his family are white, and his father is not really considered
“African Nova Scotian.” These concerns will surface in time, and I can only try
to support my grandson the best way I know how and that is to love him to
pieces. I think it is good thing that one can identify with a group, but I also
think that if you do become too entrenched in any one group there is a tendency
to become less tolerant of others.
References
Bracher, M (2006). Radical
Pedagogy: Identity, Generativity, and Social Transformation. New York, NY:
Palgrave MacMillan
