Speaker 1: Arizona's rich tapestry of African American history is as long
Speaker 1: as varied as its landscape, but it seems like this
Speaker 1: history often gets overlooked. From Mary Green, the first recorded
Speaker 1: black resident in Phoenix back in eighteen sixty eight, to
Speaker 1: today's vibrant black community of over three hundred and eighteen thousand,
Speaker 1: you think there'd be a concern or a concerted effort
Speaker 1: to celebrate and teach these stories. Yet many argue that
Speaker 1: Arizona's Black history is either sidelined or missing from the classroom.
Speaker 1: We will delve into why, despite the significant contributions and
Speaker 1: presence of Black Arizonians, their stories are frequently relegated to
Speaker 1: the background. We'll examine the reasons behind this historical neglect
Speaker 1: and question what it means for the broader narrative of
Speaker 1: Arizona's past. The Stories from Arizona Republic by Kaylee Mohan
Speaker 1: Amanda Liberto on July nine, twenty twenty four. So I'm
Speaker 1: coming to you, mister Dickey, all right. You know one
Speaker 1: of the things that I know that we discussed in
Speaker 1: the background before we even got talked about. It's like
Speaker 1: the nuances in the layers that happens to be part
Speaker 1: of the story. Can you kind of just go over
Speaker 1: like some of your thoughts when you first came across
Speaker 1: it and read it, and what some of those layers are.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, first of all, I'm sure that this
Speaker 2: is a story that's common not just to Arizona, but
Speaker 2: nationwide and probably you know, many places in the world.
Speaker 2: And so whenever I see a story like this, I
Speaker 2: always my first thoughts are always, Okay, how am I
Speaker 2: contributing to this problem? And what can I do personally
Speaker 2: to make changes? And so one of the first things
Speaker 2: that struck me, and this was a podcast episode that
Speaker 2: we were listening to, and it was just there was
Speaker 2: just tons of material in there, and it was it
Speaker 2: was a fascinating discussion between these community leaders, and I
Speaker 2: just thought it was really interesting, and so I picked
Speaker 2: out a few quotes and and so I think, moving
Speaker 2: into the problem, it's it's important to recognize what exactly
Speaker 2: is happening here, so we we can look at what's
Speaker 2: happening and then we can look at why it's happening,
Speaker 2: and then we can look at what can we do
Speaker 2: to improvement. And so this was just a couple of
Speaker 2: quotes off the beginning of the of the discussion. The
Speaker 2: first one was from Jessica Salo and she's the assistant
Speaker 2: archivist of Black Collections at Arizona State University. She said,
Speaker 2: zero to two percent of known archival collections of institutional records,
Speaker 2: and she's talking about at ASU at NAU and at
Speaker 2: the University of Arizona, zero to two percent of known
Speaker 2: archival collections and institutional records represent myes and that includes Black,
Speaker 2: Latin X, Pacific Islanders, LGBTQ plus and so on. Those
Speaker 2: groups represent forty two percent of the population, yet zero
Speaker 2: to two percent of their archival collections of you know,
Speaker 2: various things that they you know, documents and literature and
Speaker 2: whatnot that they collect at the at the libraries there.
Speaker 2: It seems quite a bit unbalanced. Forty two percent of
Speaker 2: the population is representing in represented in the people, but
Speaker 2: when it comes to representing these communities in their history records, Okay,
Speaker 2: so we rely on None of us have perfect memory,
Speaker 2: and none of us have memories that can extend beyond
Speaker 2: our lifetime, and so we rely on documents and history
Speaker 2: to learn to I mean, it's important that we know
Speaker 2: about our history and not just our own personal history,
Speaker 2: but you know, all all people that are in America
Speaker 2: and in the world and so on. So first, the
Speaker 2: first thing that jumped out to me was that, yeah,
Speaker 2: you mentioned this was from twenty twenty four, and this
Speaker 2: kind of thing is still happening. It would be it
Speaker 2: would be hilarious if it wasn't so tragic, and so, uh,
Speaker 2: it should be unexpected. But really it's you know, we
Speaker 2: we've come to expect this kind of thing, this kind
Speaker 2: of marginalization and this kind of setting people aside. But
Speaker 2: this second quote is one that really stung me when
Speaker 2: I heard it, and as a public school teacher i
Speaker 2: teach at a state college, it's it really it really
Speaker 2: hit home. And this one was from Pastor Warren Stewart,
Speaker 2: and he said, you may not be a white supremacist,
Speaker 2: but you're a white standardist. And so what he's saying
Speaker 2: is that there's, yeah, of course we're you know, we're
Speaker 2: all familiar with white supremacy and and obviously that's uh,
Speaker 2: you know, something to be fought against and so on.
Speaker 2: But the idea of a white standardist using the white
Speaker 2: life experience as the standard and and you know, like
Speaker 2: I said, as a teacher, that's something that's uh that
Speaker 2: hit me hard and and again, I my first thoughts
Speaker 2: were like, Okay, how am I doing this? And what
Speaker 2: can I do to change it? And so it's it's
Speaker 2: frustrating because it's it's something that we've been dealing with
Speaker 2: a long time. You think we would be able to
Speaker 2: work this out, you know, you think we would be
Speaker 2: able to treat different communities fairly. You think we'd be
Speaker 2: able to recognize the rich diversity in our collective history.
Speaker 2: It's frustrating and it's sad, and you know, I'm hoping
Speaker 2: that it will continue to improve, but it's hard to
Speaker 2: be optimistic about that too.
Speaker 1: I hear what you're saying.
Speaker 3: Eli.
Speaker 1: I'm coming to you because you know, you're remarked on
Speaker 1: how you love when we do shows together. And I
Speaker 1: have a tendency to pick stories that you have no
Speaker 1: frame of reference.
Speaker 4: Whoever, this is not one of those.
Speaker 1: But I'm curious to know, like, you know, what, what
Speaker 1: are your thoughts and about the story, and also you
Speaker 1: know what, what did what did this story actually inspire
Speaker 1: you to do to learn more about the history in
Speaker 1: your own area.
Speaker 3: So I was at first guilty of the thing that
Speaker 3: I used to not realize I was guilty of that.
Speaker 3: I think probably all people do is I looked at
Speaker 3: this through my own lens, and I was like, I mean,
Speaker 3: I don't really know anything about the history of anybody
Speaker 3: in my state. Like there was Lewis and clar I'm
Speaker 3: from Missouri, there was Lewis and Clark, but they're like
Speaker 3: not from here. They just started here, like the majority
Speaker 3: of their thing took place outside of here, so that
Speaker 3: doesn't even count. And then it was when that statement
Speaker 3: was made about white standardism that Scott mentioned, and I
Speaker 3: thought that was such a powerful distinction to make between
Speaker 3: like that standardism and that supremacy, because people who are
Speaker 3: not eager to recognize the types of behaviors that might
Speaker 3: be harmful or not quite the most beneficial, they're less
Speaker 3: likely to take a look at those behaviors if they
Speaker 3: feel like they're being called something like a white supremacist,
Speaker 3: which most of the time isn't truly the case. They
Speaker 3: just don't realize that they are expecting everybody else to
Speaker 3: accept their lens. And I realized that if I wanted
Speaker 3: to go learn about the history of my state, I could,
Speaker 3: and most, if not all, of the characters would be
Speaker 3: people just like me, straight white men, and I don't
Speaker 3: have the problem that if I want to learn about
Speaker 3: my history, I have to go to these great unfair
Speaker 3: I mean unfair iss the word I'm looking for, but
Speaker 3: these links that other people don't have to go to
Speaker 3: in order to learn that history.
Speaker 4: And that's the important takeaway for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I kind of wanted to address a little bit
Speaker 1: about that. The difference between white supremacy and white standard
Speaker 1: and white supremacy more so deals with the systems that
Speaker 1: we happen to be in, because the systems in the
Speaker 1: United States favor white people and they don't favor people
Speaker 1: who happen to come from marginalized groups. Remember, if we
Speaker 1: can go back into our history, Scott should know this
Speaker 1: being a teacher at all, that before we even had
Speaker 1: the invention of race, what was considered a civilized person
Speaker 1: is if you were an English Christian man. So, now
Speaker 1: that we have moved forward to invent race and how
Speaker 1: people fit in those particular racial nomenclatures, then that particular
Speaker 1: standard of what is considered as civilized versus what is
Speaker 1: uncivilized or savage. Remember, like you know, especially like in
Speaker 1: the in the colonial period, the word savage was used
Speaker 1: as like you know, insane, insane, you know. So we
Speaker 1: basically have like hierarchy of a system on where people
Speaker 1: would fit in and how they are treated by law.
Speaker 1: That's white supremacy. But then we have the standard that
Speaker 1: all of us basically are measured by, including what we
Speaker 1: are taught about our nation. We're taught about ourselves, and
Speaker 1: we're taught about how and what is considered important. As
Speaker 1: far as lessons learned, I can't even think for myself
Speaker 1: as an anecdote that even though that I being an
Speaker 1: African American, I went mostly to African American predominant schools,
Speaker 1: and until well, no and all of them my parents
Speaker 1: paid for. I did not know a lot of Black
Speaker 1: history until I became an adult. And it was because
Speaker 1: I took the time to seek out that history, because
Speaker 1: I felt it was important to learn this history so
Speaker 1: I can learn more about myself, because I'm part of
Speaker 1: this group and I want to know what the contributions
Speaker 1: of my group was to what we call the United States.
Speaker 1: But the standard of what was taught in schools, what
Speaker 1: was presented as lessons, were not of that ilk. Even
Speaker 1: though I had some teachers who went out of their
Speaker 1: way to teach Black history. But it was very much
Speaker 1: so on the tertiary level. It was not necessarily in
Speaker 1: in a way that could be as rich and diverse
Speaker 1: as Black American history is, and especially thinking of it
Speaker 1: as not just Black history or African American history, but
Speaker 1: American history. But Jonathan, I'm coming to you before I,
Speaker 1: you know, start doing my sermon and then you know,
Speaker 1: doing the collection afterwards, I will be asking for tides
Speaker 1: on all for an agrical I'm going to hold you
Speaker 1: to that, but I but you know, but there was
Speaker 1: certain things that you mentioned that actually stood out see
Speaker 1: you the most when you was, you know, being exposed
Speaker 1: to story. Can you can you expand on that a bit?
Speaker 5: Yeah? One of the things that bothered me was that
Speaker 5: the lack of representation. There's two things actually, and I'll
Speaker 5: be brief, Yeah that's going to happen, But there are
Speaker 5: two things. One is that the representation of minority groups
Speaker 5: is isn't there in like the libraries that do these
Speaker 5: archiving There are only three black librarians at ASU, and
Speaker 5: two are near retirement, and there's no plans to replace
Speaker 5: them with people of that community. And that leads to
Speaker 5: the main point I want to make is that black
Speaker 5: students have to fight not only black students, but brown students,
Speaker 5: rainbow students. They all have to fight for equity and
Speaker 5: inclusion and are taught by white teachers and administrators and
Speaker 5: the majority of people who aren't even in their community,
Speaker 5: So their community stories, their community history is ignored. How
Speaker 5: are they supposed to feel included? How are they supposed
Speaker 5: to feel part of something when they don't see themselves
Speaker 5: in those positions and you know, or people like them,
Speaker 5: And that has to have a great effect on their
Speaker 5: ability to learn, on their ability to grow as human beings,
Speaker 5: and their ability to participate in a society that is
Speaker 5: basically make them fight for inclusion in everything. And that's just,
Speaker 5: you know, the conditions that we're in. But we can
Speaker 5: go a long way by recruiting administrators and teachers and
Speaker 5: librarians and people who are in the community so they
Speaker 5: can represent their community at the table where the decisions
Speaker 5: are made. And we have to think about not just
Speaker 5: doing it because they're of that community, but doing it
Speaker 5: in such a way that their inclusion is natural and
Speaker 5: actually something that we expect to have happening. And I'm
Speaker 5: not in that community I'm in one of those communities,
Speaker 5: but I'm not in the community that is most visibly effected,
Speaker 5: and that means that I may not have the right
Speaker 5: perspective here, but I do have an irritating an irritation
Speaker 5: that the representation is deliberately not there, possibly not necessarily intentionally,
Speaker 5: but considered because the culture has evolved to that position,
Speaker 5: the culture of the colonial culture has evolved to that position.
Speaker 5: And it's upsetting because I went to high school in
Speaker 5: a multicultural high school, but I wasn't aware at that
Speaker 5: time that all but one of my instructors was cis
Speaker 5: white male. There were a couple of females sis white
Speaker 5: females in there. We had one black instructor and I
Speaker 5: had one half it was half Island I think he
Speaker 5: was it was Tomorrow, But anyway, all that said, that
Speaker 5: was it. And we had about a quarter of the
Speaker 5: high school population where Islanders there were Polynesians, about a
Speaker 5: third were black. There were probably another fifteen percent who
Speaker 5: were Latinos or Latinas, and then there was the white
Speaker 5: guys about ten ten fifteen percent. It was very rich culturally,
Speaker 5: but we didn't experience that in the education. So that's
Speaker 5: the point I wanted to make.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I hear that, and I kind of wanted
Speaker 1: to come back to that particular point about like, despite
Speaker 1: being in setting where we are around a multi faceted people,
Speaker 1: genders and cultures and experiences, but still are not really
Speaker 1: able to learn about those things. And I kind of
Speaker 1: want to borrow a little bit, God, if you don't mind,
Speaker 1: from your notes. Specifically from one of the panelists that
Speaker 1: was featured a belief her name of Chanelle Poe, who
Speaker 1: was an expert in education and advocacy and who also
Speaker 1: emphasizes the systematic issues of erasure of black history from
Speaker 1: the school curricula. And one of the things that she said,
Speaker 1: and I'm taking from you is when I think about institutions,
Speaker 1: as a former school board member, I'm looking at our beautiful,
Speaker 1: richly diverse student body that was sixty five percent Latino,
Speaker 1: twenty five percent African American, six percent Quite, and six
Speaker 1: percent Native American. As the mother of a black son
Speaker 1: who was frustrated, angered, and felt alone when my child
Speaker 1: entered the education system, who immediately started getting suspended from school,
Speaker 1: I had to take a step back and ask ourselves,
Speaker 1: why isn't there individuals serving on this board, the demographic
Speaker 1: of this district. I have another question, why aren't there
Speaker 1: educators that reflect the demographic of this district because there's
Speaker 1: going to be a huge disconnect. Now, I believe that
Speaker 1: most of us are parents on this on this panel,
Speaker 1: and have a question to ask all the parents. Say
Speaker 1: to Jonathan, but I you know, but I I would,
Speaker 1: but I'm pretty sure that you've been around kids and
Speaker 1: you were one over sixty years. Well I'm going to well,
Speaker 1: I'll come to Scott and then to Eli. You know,
Speaker 1: as a parent, and and especially you know that cares
Speaker 1: about your your kids education. And you hear what Chanelle
Speaker 1: Poe has said what strikes you the most? And and
Speaker 1: what and and how would you say that you're able
Speaker 1: to empathize with what she was saying Scott And then.
Speaker 2: Well that's quite a question there. Well as far as
Speaker 2: my own kids education, both my wife and I from
Speaker 2: from the get go, we knew we wanted to prioritize
Speaker 2: exposing our kids to diverse experiences. And so when the
Speaker 2: kids were born, we lived in Saint Paul's City and
Speaker 2: uh so they went to a city school and a
Speaker 2: public school. And when we moved out, we moved out.
Speaker 2: We needed a bigger house. For some reason, the kids
Speaker 2: kept getting bigger. Go figure, Yeah, so we needed a
Speaker 2: bigger house. We wanted a bigger yard, and so we
Speaker 2: moved out to the suburbs. But we we deliberately kept
Speaker 2: our kids in the city schools and so in which
Speaker 2: we were allowed to do as long as we provided transportation.
Speaker 2: But we did that because we wanted our children to
Speaker 2: experience those those diverse life experiences, and they what we
Speaker 2: wanted them to see that there are other people. And
Speaker 2: I'm sure it's not surprising that the particular suburb that
Speaker 2: we lived in, the you know, the schools out here
Speaker 2: are largely white students, you know, wealthy white students. And
Speaker 2: so we didn't want we didn't want that. And so
Speaker 2: I mentioned before that one that my perspective on stories
Speaker 2: like this is to first think about what am I
Speaker 2: doing to contribute to the problem, and what can I
Speaker 2: do to help the problem. And then I'm going to
Speaker 2: add this third thing, Now, what can I do to
Speaker 2: help my children be better? Be more sympathetic, be more empathetic,
Speaker 2: be more able, and more willing, and to not only
Speaker 2: embrace diversity, but to enact change, to insist on that
Speaker 2: kind of thing. And so I that was just a
Speaker 2: baby step that we took at the beginning, you know,
Speaker 2: it was just a decision that we made. And so
Speaker 2: and as my children growing up, my youngest is seventeen now,
Speaker 2: my oldest is twenty one, and you know, we're happy
Speaker 2: with the bright carrying people that they've turned into. I
Speaker 2: think beyond that, you know, talking about it is something
Speaker 2: that we can do, taking opportunities to support measures, not
Speaker 2: just short stop gap measures either. But this is a
Speaker 2: systemic issue. I think if all the research shows nothing
Speaker 2: else other than the fact that this is a systemic issue,
Speaker 2: and it will take a systemic problem and systemic problem
Speaker 2: or sorry, systemic solution. And so systemic solutions often need
Speaker 2: to come from the ground up, from the grassroots up.
Speaker 2: And so by maintaining that kind of attitude, by maintaining
Speaker 2: that kind of of approach, I think that we feel
Speaker 2: like we're taking steps in the right direction. But obviously
Speaker 2: it's just a drop in the bucket. And so I
Speaker 2: think vigilance, I think discipline, I think consistency, I think perseverance.
Speaker 2: I think all of those are going to contribute to
Speaker 2: things that I can do and that I can pass
Speaker 2: on to my kids as far as at least taking
Speaker 2: the tiniest little chip out of this massive, you know
Speaker 2: problem that we have here in the United States. Mean yeah, So.
Speaker 3: I when I think about, especially like in education, my
Speaker 3: son is biracial, his mom is black, and I think
Speaker 3: about because I don't know what perspective he's going to
Speaker 3: have about that. Because I live in a rural town.
Speaker 4: They're there.
Speaker 3: I mean it's not I wouldn't say it's not you know, whitewashed,
Speaker 3: so to speak.
Speaker 5: It.
Speaker 4: I don't know if that's appropriate to say or not.
Speaker 3: But like there there there are non white, there are
Speaker 3: people of color that live around here. But I don't
Speaker 3: think he has very many friends in school that are
Speaker 3: not white, and I'm curious about what his perspective is
Speaker 3: going to be. And when I hear about things like
Speaker 3: you know, having school boards that don't represent the demographics
Speaker 3: accurately and then having you know, not having access to
Speaker 3: this education about like black history, well that's my son's
Speaker 3: history too. It may not you know, necessarily like I,
Speaker 3: I might not have as close of a relationship to
Speaker 3: it as he does, but that doesn't mean it's not important.
Speaker 3: And I wouldn't know the first place to start, you know,
Speaker 3: to teach him that.
Speaker 4: So I I, yeah, it does alarm me, and I
Speaker 4: prefer to see a change.
Speaker 1: And Jonathan, I'm going to give you my last question
Speaker 1: before we wrap up, even though I understand you're not
Speaker 1: a parent, but you know, last time I checked your
Speaker 1: human being, and as a human being, how do you
Speaker 1: see your role in advancing the call?
Speaker 5: I think that there's not. As part of the LGBTQ community,
Speaker 5: I can represent that, and in my personal relationships, of course,
Speaker 5: you know, I'm in a very, very white community. There
Speaker 5: are one or two out of the some odd fifty
Speaker 5: thousand people here who are of color that I've seen,
Speaker 5: and actually both of them are my friends. So but
Speaker 5: they don't see any representation here on any of the
Speaker 5: school boards or things like that. And when you consider
Speaker 5: that this is one of the centers for white nationalism,
Speaker 5: we have many, many terrorist groups in this state who
Speaker 5: have made national news. So the attitude here against people
Speaker 5: of color is devastatingly bad. But I speak up when
Speaker 5: I see it. If I'm out in public and I
Speaker 5: see somebody being a jerk, I will tell them their
Speaker 5: jerk and people using bad language. I literally came close
Speaker 5: to jacking a guy up, which would have put me
Speaker 5: in jail who was in my gym and using the
Speaker 5: N word a lot, and I just started yelling at him.
Speaker 5: And I realized that was probably not the appropriate thing
Speaker 5: to do, but it made me feel better appropriate. What
Speaker 5: do I stand up? You know.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons why I wanted to go over
Speaker 1: the story because even though it doesn't necessarily talk so
Speaker 1: much about secularism atheism, we're like some horrible pastor doing
Speaker 1: something horrible, like we co said just another Wednesday, is
Speaker 1: because one of the things that is happening because of
Speaker 1: the rise of Christian nationalism is an attack on education.
Speaker 1: And the places that we're seeing at the most is
Speaker 1: the book ban and book bands are coming married, but
Speaker 1: so after stories that contain the LGBTQI plus experience and
Speaker 1: the black and we're seeing more and more of these
Speaker 1: books that are coming off the shows. And we're also
Speaker 1: seeing either a dumbing down or a complete erasure of
Speaker 1: African American studies curricula, you know, in the public school
Speaker 1: areas all across the United States. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that I want to make our audience aware of.
Speaker 1: You know that even though that it may not necessarily
Speaker 1: be a secular issue. It is a humanist issue, and
Speaker 1: all of us should be very much so alarmed and
Speaker 1: aware of these things. And we also have to understand,
Speaker 1: and I'm just going to say it, that the United
Speaker 1: States would not be the United States if it was
Speaker 1: not for black people. You remember that whole thing called slavery. Yeah,