caw caw. caw. yes. we know what it's like to be the underdog. bmore really, really came out for the ravens! superbowl champs!!!
i grew up during a thriving time in bmore. plenty of rec centers, basketball/baseball/football, dance, theater, music, art...everywhere for everybody...some of these partnerships and collaborations happened spontaneously or with a phone call or visit. we didn't have a lot but as young kids we did everything: sing, dance, act, draw, produce shows...my mother, newly divorced and a teacher's assistant, didn't have the funds to put her 4 and 5 year old daughters in classes for all the things they knew how to do. she found a program, the urban services cultural arts program (later the eubie blake cultural arts), we took ballet (miss hope later leaving to join new york ballet) and my mother joined a group, the john taylor dancers (a group of dancing models whose children were in the program). this program was $2 a week. no joke. it was on the campus of dunbar senior high school, a school both my parents, some of my family and many of their friends, they still have today, attended.
throughout the years, we were able to take dance, theater, music and art with phenomenal baltimore legends: stephanie powell, hugh carey, phadelma ashley, sylvia hardison...not to mention the countless students who came to work with us from morgan, like troy burton, lea gilmore, joseph wormely (poochie), maryland institute (my daddy still calls it the institute from when he went in the 60s, he refuses to say MICA lol), and even from places in other states, like fisk univ. in the summer when we were teens, the blue chip in program didn't just give summer employment to youth in offices and cleaning streets, we actually got paid to learn and perform musicals. the school for the arts students could come and produce their work too...this is a long story but the moral is that there is such a rich history of arts and community involvement in bmore...it didn't have the red tape it has today. now we have to jump hoops in something that happened so naturally in the 80s...anybody of any race can give time, energy, love to black children but it cannot truly be successful without the help and assistance of black folk. period. we have to show people who we are. this is our culture to teach. these children struggling are us. support all efforts to help our and any children. make sure you also support those organizations whose culture match the communities you serve.
so just like bmore can come out for our team, we can come out for our youth. when you don't invest in programs for youth, you crush them under your feet. give time, money, resources, consult/partner with organizations whose ethnicity matches the youth you work with, stop competing and find more collaboration. there are all boys schools in bmore without gym and schools with no art. come on, folk. why ask permission?
WE ARE THEM. IF WE DON'T DO IT NOW, WE DENY AND ERADICATE OUR FUTURE. THE ULTIMATE GENOCIDE.
