OSU sits in the ancestral territory of the Wichita people (Links to an external site.) and the Osage Nation (Links to an external site.). This land was promised by the US government to the Muscogee (Creek) Nation (Links to an external site.) in exchange for their ancestral homelands during the 1830’s removal period.  Originating in the Great Lakes area and migrating south and west, the (Links to an external site.) Iowa (Links to an external site.) were placed by an 1883 Executive Order in the area just south of present-day Stillwater, which  was established illegally by “boomers” in 1884.  Just prior to the April 22, 1889 land run, the first of seven official land runs, President Harrison proclaimed the lands “unassigned” and open for settlement.

Black Studies Classroom

THE CLASSROOM

This is a Black Studies course, and that means that it is a space in which Black thought, and the fullness of Black humanity, are the knowledge center of our work. The structure of the course, and my pedagogy, both flow from this essential premise [grounded in Black Indigeneity]. I encourage you to engage in robust, joyful, committed, and deeply respectful thought-work. In its best form, the Black Studies classroom is a cooperative learning environment that fosters responsible inquiry and an orientation toward justice. I will actively interrupt and redirect any conduct that does not serve these ends.

OSU’s Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

OSU’s COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION:

At Oklahoma State University, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) matter. Providing a wide range of ways to understand and engage with the world, identifying opportunities and creating solutions are core to our mission as a land-grant university. We fulfill our mission and enrich our campus community by maintaining a welcoming and inclusive environment that appreciates, values and fosters a sense of belonging for all.

The definitions of these three key words are important as our campus embraces DEI. Diversity means a variety of different and unique identities, characteristics, experiences and perspectives. Equity is defined as making available to everyone what they need to succeed by increasing access, resources and opportunities for all — especially for those who are underrepresented and have been historically disadvantaged. Inclusion is what we do with them. Inclusion creates a welcoming culture where differences are celebrated and everyone is valued, respected and able to reach their full potential.

We also humbly recognize there are events in the university’s 130-year history that at times have not upheld these values; however, we are continually working toward a future that instills pride for all in our community.

Incidents of social injustice — both historical and recent — unfortunately exist within our society but are not welcome on the OSU campus. While the First Amendment allows considerable latitude with respect to free speech, we denounce acts, behavior, language or symbols representing or reflecting intolerance or discrimination towards any subpopulation affiliated with our University. OSU pledges to support and reinforce diversity, equity and inclusion efforts as they are significant to our campus culture and mission, and improve the quality of life for all.

Appropriate Terms for African/African Americans/People of Color

For understanding purposes, I have conveyed these full terms so we are clear about appropriate terminology use.

Appropriate Terms for African/African Americans that are usually used:

Please Note: Individuals have preferences for which term they prefer. It is always good to honor how individuals/people define themselves. I also want to note that even these terms below are still being discussed and debated. Also, these terms are also bound by geographical location, especially as it pertains to the United States/Turtle Island and the particular histories of racialization and racism. In this fashion, it is important to honor what people want to be called and how they identify across geographical boundaries.

“We must recognize that one of the fundamental human rights of individuals and of groups includes the right to self-identification and self-definition”

                                                                     Jack D. Forbes (Powhatan-Renapé and Delaware-Lenápe)

Terms

African descent (I like to use ascent)

African American

Please note: “African American is not an umbrella term for people of African ancestry worldwide because it obscures other ethnicities or national origins, such as Nigerian, Kenyan, Jamaican, or Bahamian.” (American Psychological Association)

Black

People of Color

Salvador Vidal-Ortiz, from the Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity and Society:

“People of color explicitly suggests a social relationship among racial and ethnic minority groups. … [It is] is a term most often used outside of traditional academic circles, often infused by activist frameworks, but it is slowly replacing terms such as racial and ethnic minorities. … In the United States in particular, there is a trajectory to the term — from more derogatory terms such as negroes, to colored, to people of color. … People of color is, however it is viewed, a political term, but it is also a term that allows for a more complex set of identity for the individual — a relational one that is in constant flux.”

Language Use Guidelines

Language use: At times we will read or discuss materials that include words that target people’s race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class, ability/health, religion, or citizenship status. We will not permit these words to disrupt our learning. We exercise care for each other by not giving these words life in our classroom. We are also nimble enough thinkers to be able to discuss a writer’s language choices without repeating those choices. Should you encounter derogatory language when reading aloud in class and writing online and in assignments, you should say/ write the first letter of the word and then keep it moving. Please follow this guideline for your essays as well.

Friendly Reminder: The Meaning of Our Group Names

Warm Greetings, Beloved Community!

Our discussions will be central to our learning journey. You are placed into groups based on the seven principles of Kawanzaa.

What is Kawanzaa?

A celebration of family, community, and culture created by DR. MAULANA KARENGA.  Dr. Maulana Karenga is professor and chair of the department of Africana Studies at California State University, Long Beach. 

As an African American and Pan-African holiday celebrated by millions throughout the world African community, Kwanzaa brings a cultural message which speaks to the best of what it means to be African and human in the fullest sense. The conception and practice of Kwanzaa is rooted in both ancient African harvest celebrations and the Black Freedom Movement and thus it calls for and urges an active and ongoing commitment to African and human good and the well-being of the world.

You can read this document for further information: Annual Founder’s Kwanzaa Message “KWANZAA AND THE WELL-BEING OF THE WORLD: LIVING AND UPLIFTING THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES”  

You have been placed in one of the following groups (one of the seven principles of Kwanzaa), which you will see when you go to Discussions on our course menu. You will need to know the meaning of your group to answer the questions. Make sure you read about each group closely:

The First Principle, Umoja (Unity), begins with ourselves, but expands outward to include others and the world. It reaffirms Anna Julia Cooper’s assertion that “We take our stand on the solidarity of humanity, the oneness of life, and the unnaturalness of all special favoritism whether of race, sex, country or condition.” Umoja urges a moral sensitivity and caring kinship with each other, other human beings, all living beings, and with the world itself. For as our ancestors taught, we are not only human beings (watu), but also world beings (walimwengu). And thus, they taught in the sacred text, Odu Ifa, that we must “take responsibility for the world and do good for the world.”

The Second Principle, Kujichagulia (Self-Determination), teaches us we must think and act for ourselves and define ourselves by the good we choose and do in the world. It speaks to our right and responsibility to be ourselves and free ourselves and make our own unique contribution to the radical reimagining and remaking of our societies and the world. And Kujichagulia stresses our moral obligation to reaffirm and support this right for others, especially those oppressed and struggling for freedom, those wronged and injured and struggling for justice, and those disempowered and struggling for power over their destiny and daily lives.

The Third Principle, Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility), speaks to the ethical obligation and transformative practice of building together the good world we all want and deserve to live in and leave as a rightful legacy for future generations. It teaches us to recognize and respect the common good in and of the world, to cultivate and harvest it together and practice an ethics of sharing this and other goods of the world.

The Fourth Principle, Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics), lifts up and promotes the values of shared work and shared wealth; the right of all people to a decent and dignity affirming life, and thus the right of all people to a just and equitable share of the common goods of the world. Indeed, as Wangari Maathai taught, “We must now rethink our relationship with the living world, (and) the way we manage resources.” And we must resolutely and continuously resist mindless consumerism and the plunder, pollution and depletion of the world by corporations and countries who ride roughshod over the earth and the vulnerable peoples in it.

The Fifth Principle, Nia (Purpose), teaches us the collective vocation of constantly building and developing the capacity of our people to be ourselves and free ourselves to pursue an expansive good and come into the fullness of ourselves. And it reaffirms the interrelatedness of the pursuit of African and human good and the well-being of the world. For it remembers and reaffirms the sacred teachings of our ancestors in the Husia, that the good we do for others and the world we are also doing for ourselves. For we are building the moral community and good world we all want and deserve to live in.

The Sixth Principle, Kuumba (Creativity), uplifts and promotes the practice of the ancient African ethical principle of serudj ta, the moral obligation to repair, renew and remake the world, making it more beneficial and beautiful than we inherited it. And it interprets this as both a social and environmental practice. For oppression is damaging and destructive to us and others as well as to the world. And as a moral and social vanguard, we must see ourselves in our ultimate agency, as injured physicians, who will heal, repair, renew and remake ourselves in the process and practice of repairing, renewing, and remaking the world. For as Mary McLeod Bethune taught “Our task is to remake the world. It is nothing less than this.”

The Seventh Principle, Imani (Faith), teaches us to believe in the good and our capacity to achieve it, share it, and leave it as a worthy legacy for those who come afterward. Let us have faith, then, in the sacred teachings of our ancestors which say to us across millennia: “Let’s do things with joy for surely humans have been divinely chosen to bring good in the world” and this is the fundamental mission and meaning of human life. Thus, chosen by history and heaven to constantly strive to bring good in the world, we must audaciously and ceaselessly dare to do so. So, let’s continue the struggle. Keep the faith. Hold the line. Love and respect our people and each other. Seek and speak truth. Do and demand justice. Be constantly concerned with the wellbeing of the world and all in it. And dare help rebuild the overarching movement that prefigures and makes possible the good world we all want and deserve to live in and leave as a legacy worthy of the name and history African.▲

Assigned Readings-2

Happy Reading, Beloved Community!

Friendly Reminder: All material for our course is also reserved at the OSU-Edmond Library where you can check the material out for 2-3 hrs. Our text book is also online at the OSU-Edmond Library. I hope this is helpful.

Please Note: All readings that have Canvas means that I will post them in each Sankofa that they are assigned. LNTUA is our main textbook. I have included both readings in Sankofa Two.

 

Zora Neale Hurston, “How it feels to be colored me” (Canvas 472-74)

and

Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” (LNTUA 84-88- please note page numbers are different in the digital book) I also included this article in Canvas.

 

Please also review the other items in Sankofa One that can give us a better understanding of the material such as Sankofa, History of Race, The Myth of Race Debunked, Social Constructions, etc.

Discussion Board Rubric-Sankofa-Revised

Examples: MLA and APA In-text Citations for Discussions

Examples: MLA and APA In-text Citations

I encourage you to go to the links and review these styles further for in-text citations for other material.

Example of MLA style in-text citations:

Please Note: For more details on in-text citation go directly to the following link: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_formatting_and_style_guide/mla_in_text_citations_the_basics.htmlLinks to an external site.

MLA format follows the author-page method of in-text citation. This means that the author’s last name and the page number(s) from which the quotation or paraphrase is taken must appear in the text, and a complete reference should appear on your Works Cited page. The author’s name may appear either in the sentence itself or in parentheses following the quotation or paraphrase, but the page number(s) should always appear in the parentheses, not in the text of your sentence. For example:

Wordsworth stated that Romantic poetry was marked by a “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (263).

Romantic poetry is characterized by the “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (Wordsworth 263).

Wordsworth extensively explored the role of emotion in the creative process (263).

Both citations in the examples above, (263) and (Wordsworth 263), tell readers that the information in the sentence can be located on page 263 of a work by an author named Wordsworth.

Example of APA style in-text citations:

Please Note: For more details on in-text citation go directly to the following link: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/in_text_citations_the_basics.htmlLinks to an external site.

Short quotations

If you are directly quoting from a work, you will need to include the author, year of publication, and page number for the reference (preceded by “p.” for a single page and “pp.” for a span of multiple pages, with the page numbers separated by an en dash).

You can introduce the quotation with a signal phrase that includes the author’s last name followed by the date of publication in parentheses.

According to Jones (1998), “students often had difficulty using APA style, especially when it was their first time” (p. 199).

Jones (1998) found “students often had difficulty using APA style” (p. 199); what implications does this have for teachers?

If you do not include the author’s name in the text of the sentence, place the author’s last name, the year of publication, and the page number in parentheses after the quotation.

She stated, “Students often had difficulty using APA style” (Jones, 1998, p. 199), but she did not offer an explanation as to why.

Social Construct: Important to understand race as socially constructed with real material impact and implications

NOUN

• A concept or perception of something based on the collective views developed and maintained within a society or social group; a social phenomenon or convention originating within and cultivated by society or a particular social group, as opposed to existing inherently or naturally.

Origin

Early 20th century; earliest use found in Journal of Philosophical, Psychological and Scientific Methods. From social + construct.

Brief History of Race Powerpoint (Revised 2)