Middle
Passage Narrative
In a follow up to
his highly acclaimed program "Middle School/Middle
Passage (The Journey)", TWW Inc. (Talks with Wolves)
takes us back inside special classrooms in Brownsville,
Brooklyn – a tough, urban neighborhood in the heart of
one of the country's most diverse cities. Outside the
school walls, the community fights to overcome its
legacy of marginalization, which manifests in violence,
drug addiction, and other forms of social deviance.
Inside the classroom, middle school students struggle
against a lack of resources, low expectations and a
failing educational system in order to gain the skills
and aptitude necessary for a successful and productive
life.
In the midst of
these challenges, the young people at PS/IS 298 & PS
150 are introduced to an innovative arts and literacy
program. Using an innovative arts-based curriculum,
teaching artists take these students on a journey into
the history of African American and Native American
peoples. Through theater, visual arts and dance, these
children explore their shared heritage, bringing up
questions about their own marginality, identity and
resilience.
This year, the
curriculum focuses on the legacy of Black Indians, a
little-known ethnic community made up of Americans with
both African and Native heritage. The term Black Indians
is unfamiliar to many, and their stories are excluded
from most historical narratives of both African-American
and Native American cultures, yet the history of Black
Indians provides students with a unique model of
inclusion, collaboration and resistance.
Along with the
students, the viewer delves into the interesting and
unique history of the Black Indians. Although the U.S.
government attempted to restrict and punish alliances
between African slaves and Native Americans, keeping
them segregated in order to further disempower them,
these communities often joined together to fight against
their common oppressors. In other forms, the government
invented "The 5 civilized
tribes-Cherokee/Choctaw/Chickasaw-Creek-Seminole" to
copy the ways of America, buying African Slaves. Some
Native American communities worked to free African
slaves, while some freed slaves provided assistance and
support to displaced Indians. Some used or appropriated
a "mixed" identity, in order to escape laws that would
seize their land or bind them into slavery. As time
passed, many Indians lived in urban centers, outside of
reservations, and formed close bonds with
African-Americans – while some African-Americans fled to
reservations in search of freedom -- others20were taken
from plantation by the native Maroon society. In other
ways, while natives were being forced or their lands
"Trail of Tears", the African Slaves were never
returned. They stayed with the New families and build
new bonds between each other. In Military, such as the
Buffalo soldiers that were recruited to hunt natives,
many AWOL and joined the nations, other military such as
1st Kansas colored that had both cultures. Even from
sailing jobs, many "jumped ship" and joined the nations
in Haiti. Schools that had African/native students,
outlaws with both blood, famous people such has Langston
Hughes with African/Native ancestry. So many more
circumstances. With a fact that 85% of African Americans
from the US and the Caribbeans have African/Native
ancestry.
With the help of
dedicated teaching artists, the children at PS/IS 298 &
PS 150 explore this history through a range of arts
projects. The arts encourage learning as a process of
discovery – from practicing Native American dance, to
crafting masks and other traditional arts, to writing
and performing original narratives, these young people
connect deeply to the material, and as they do so, begin
to draw connections between the history of this
exploited minority and their own histories.
As they contemplate
the reality of exclusion suffered by Black Indians –
exclusion from the dominant society, due to their
minority status, as well as from their own cultures, due
to their mixed identities – these young people come face
to face with their own exclusion, which keeps them
ghettoized in the city's worst schools, often without
the resources or support to make it out. The viewer is
confronted with the inequalities these children battle
against. After all the emphasis on saving the city's f
ailing schools, the gap between white and minority
student educational achievement remains largely
unchanged. Only 14% of African-American eighth graders
achieve at a "proficient" level in Math, and only 12%
are rated proficient in English. Issues like these
extend far beyond the classroom, grossly limiting what
these young people can do and become. What is the
fundamental in equality that is keeping these young
people from succeeding, and what can be done to reverse
this devastating pattern?
Drawing striking
parallels between these marginalized communities, Middle
School/Middle Passage (Black Indians) makes a strong a
statement – not only about the importance of arts
programs for children's development and learning, but
also about the oppression of black children in the
nation's failing schools, and the need to learn from
history in order to reverse the trend of illiteracy and
lack of opportunity for this community.
Though the program
takes place primarily in small classrooms, these rooms
become alive with a historical narrative that excites
the imagination of students and viewers alike. Footage
of the students' learning process is complemented by one
on one interviews with teaching artists, school
administrators, and leading scholars in the fields
African American and Native American histories. Captured
with an intimate shooting style that weaves together
verité scenes with revealing and intimate interviews,
the film chronicles the students' progress over time as
they are transformed through reconnecting to their
ancestry, coming to terms with the injustice and
violence in their collective history, as well as the
beauty and resilience embodied in their people.
In
the end, even while confronting the viewer with the
harsh realities of oppression, Middle School/Middle
Passage (Black Indians) paints a beautiful portrait of
resistance, of marginalized communities coming together
to fight oppression, of the power of culture and rituals
sustained through the ages, and most importantly, of the
hope of creating a better future, by owning,
understanding, and celebrating our pasts
