Fifth avenue

***IF YOU CAN, PLEASE READ AS AN ATTACHMENT, THANKS <3***

Alliyah Allen
Prof Jody Cohen

Race-ing Education

October 7, 2016

Calling the Theoretical to Practice: Owning My Story and Finally Dancing at the Party

“Representations are flimsy because they always require upkeep, updating, and upping the ante. While not easy to destroy, representations are contested even after they have been established. While they aspire to the status of incontrovertible truth, more often images manipulate our ability to reason, going around, rather than through it.” (Leonardo 117)

Our class discussion in ed, and also in english left me stuck and overloaded. So I turned to our paper assignment for english. When prompted how I read literary texts and what discipline I could rely on to unpack it, I thought to my major religion and furthermore, womanism. As I started thinking about how I wanted to write the paper and tie womanism to Beloved, I noticed that a lot of what I was reading applied to how I feel about our discussions in our ed class, and also exhibiting africa. so here's goes my approach to intersectionality and refiguring language/frameworks/mindset/conceptions of self, our true selves, our racial selves, etc.: 

I am originally from Boston, but just spent thi spast summer living in New York City alone and felt like myself for the first time. In both spaces I have a level of anonymity, privacy, security, and joy to exist. My existence is simple. I am one of many on a train car, cafe, museum, sidewalk. I cherish the small and mutual interactions I have with people. I know there are other things happenin garound me that trouble me and leave me feeling exhausted after a day, but nothing compares to the exhaustion I feel in college. 

This is going to be a short post, I feel as though my energy has been totally spent recently and trying to articulate myself amidst all this just seems so far from what I want to ask of myself.

Being a white, upper-middle class student at Bryn Mawr is an interesting experience. Though interesting isn’t quite the right word… When I read about the histories of BMC I am horrified at its not-so-distant past of racism and classism, all the while staying aware that even if I were to attend this school 75 years ago I would be welcomed into the community. I would be affirmed by M. Carey Thomas for my whiteness. I am literally the kind of person who this school is made for. Knowing this, and learning about Bryn Mawr’s history through Black at Bryn Mawr is jarring for me. I learn of oppression at the hands of Bryn Mawr and know that BMC’s history of aggressive exclusion is still echoed today.

As I sit here writing this post, Im sitting with all my roomates, who are black students, in the BCC. The BCC stands for the Black Cultural Center, which is basically a house dedicated to Professor Ira Reid, Haverford's first black professor. Of all the spaces I've lived in, including boarding school dorms, this has been the most comforting to me. It honestly feels like home. 

We have been analyzing the impact of our high school experiences a lot in class and it has only affirmed my pride and hesitation towards discussing charter school education.  While I acknowledge not all charter schools allocate their money in a way that is beneficial to students I would push everyone