Teaching and Learning Lessons on Blackness in Ghana: A Critical Autoethnography

• In Event: Before We Were Whole: (Re)Membering Our Lives in Ghana, West Africa

Abstract

Institutions in which youth of color are being schooled, trained, and mentored lack the cultural and pedagogical underpinnings that make them useful in the ways that young people of color need them to be. In fact, these institutions tend to be places rooted in anti-Blackness and anti-darkness, places that routinely and consistently strip dark youth of voice, power and choice and often reduce them to standardized tests scores, GPAs, discipline records and evaluation data (Dumas, 2016; Love, 2019; Morris, 2016). Conversely, young people of color need liberatory, culturally affirming spaces where their identities are celebrated, their voices are promoted and heard, and they are empowered.

As an educator who routinely works with youth of color , I consider connections between exploring Blackness and creating spaces needed to combat the cultural stripping that takes place in many youth-serving institutions. I also autoethnographically examine the impact that exploring Ghana has on my teaching and learning philosophies and praxis.

Author

• Torie L. Weiston, Claremont Graduate University