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From the Dark Tower Countee Cullen. We shall not always plant while others reap The golden increment of bursting fruit, Not always countenance abject and mute That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap; Not everlastingly while others sleep
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From the Dark TowerCountee Cullen • We shall not always plant while others reap • The golden increment of bursting fruit, • Not always countenance abject and mute • That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap; • Not everlastingly while others sleep • Shall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute, • Not always bend to some more subtle brute; • We were not made eternally to weep. • The night whose sable breast relieves the stark • White stars is no less lovely being dark. • And there are buds that do not bloom at all • In light, but crumple piteous and fall. • In the dark, we hide the heart that bleeds • And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds.
“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” Plato (427 AD – 347 AD)
Frantz Fanon on Choices • “I find myself suddenly in the world and I recognize that I have one right alone: That of demanding human behavior from the other. • One duty alone: That of not renouncing my freedom through my choices.” • Black Skin, White Masks (1967)
PLAAY -Preventing Long-term Anger and Aggression in Youth • CPR- Cultural Pride Reinforcement • Anti-Violence Cultural Socialization Curriculum • MAAR- Martial Arts Anger Reduction • TEAM - Basketball • Teaching Empowerment through Athletic Movement • Intervening with Emotion during Play • COPE -Community Outreach through Parent Empowerment • ROPE- Rites of Passage Empowerment
CPR-Cultural Pride Reinforcement • Hour-long weekly sessions • Cultural Socialization focus • Teaching • Acting • Talking • Teaching culturally relevant critical consciousness through • music, video, hip-hop, role-play, current events • Violence alternative, cultural socialization curriculum • Culturally relevant atmosphere • Black barbershop passion and argument/debate
Stevenson, Jr., H. C. (2003). Playing with anger: Teaching coping skills to African American boys through athletics and culture. Westport, CT.: Greenwood Publishing, Praeger.
PLAAY Collaborations • Focus on 300 rejected Black male students • Discipline school can be both rejecting and safe context • Serious assault or weapons violation for admission • Some teachers and staff also struggle with rejection histories • Racial Socialization, Rejection Sensitivity, Depression, Aggression, School attendance; • Collaboration with multiple constituencies • Black Penn Undergraduates as staff • School cultures • Neighborhood cultures (West Phila) • Based on psychological benefits of racial socialization research • Stevenson, H. C. (2004). Boys in men’s clothing: Racial socialization and neighborhood safety as buffers to hypervulnerability in African American adolescent males (pp 59-77). In Niobe Way & Judy Chu, (Eds.) Adolescent boys in context. New York University Press: New York.
PLAAY Successes at Collaboration • Increased “safe” teachers and staff within the PLAAY model • Kids could access these safe people when PLAAY was out of building • Integrated into 2nd & 3rd periods of curriculum • Served as crisis intervention team at school during Philadelphia’s largest murder spree-Lex Street Murders
Conditions • 90 Students were randomly assigned to Control and PLAAY conditions • Control students received standard programming provided to all students within the discipline school curriculum including remedial academic and counseling services • The PLAAY condition included cultural socialization and movement intervention components
Angry Psychological Reactions: PLAAY vs Control Group Time*PLAAY Wilks lambda=.934 F (1,72) = 5.05* Control n =41 PLAAY n =43
Results, continued • PLAAY students increased attendance, homework completion rates, and school engagement; Reduced in-school assault rates and referrals to office • PLAAY students showed significantly lower retaliation cognitions and psychological reactions than Control group at Time 2 • No differences were found for rejection sensitive angry or anxious feelings. • PLAAY students rated by teachers as having poorer behavioral adjustment showed greater improvement than Control students rated similarly by teachers
HyperVulnerability • Can’t trust best friends or family, only self • Means living an exaggerated existence in a market-driven image management world • Interferes with living and surviving in other worlds (e.g. mainstream) • Based on psychology of insecure masculinity • Experiencing post-traumatic stress symptoms
Hypermasculinity • Violence can be necessary & functional • Protecting manhood at all costs is key • Fighting is one way to do that • This is American, not Black urban • How do you challenge, bond, or intervene with a value that is so endemic to manhood? • ”Last Man Standing”
Hopelessness • Exaggeration/Devaluation of self • Reduced fear of calamity • Internalize dehumanized racial identity • Lack of RS skills to protect from & combat dehumanization • Alertness to Discrimination • Coping with Antagonism, • Cultural Pride Reinforcement (CPR) • Cultural Legacy Appreciation, • Mainstream Fit
Elements of Culturally Relevant Intervention Affection, Correction, and Protection • Challenge society’s pathology hype of Black males • Understand functionality of violence within male-dominated context & society; • Build trust daily over and over again in the small moments; Isomorphic attribution • Expect them to embrace their humanity, not society’s view of criminality
Elements of culturally relevant intervention, pt 2 • Provide alternative rationales, vistas, maps for managing insecure masculinity • Teach counter-socialization explicitly • cultural socialization strategies, not social skills • Survival and creativity/transcendence • Engage Black movement, culture, & style • Intervene during rough moments of boys’ life • Touch the boys to reduce emotional & physical distance
Elements of culturally relevant intervention, pt 3 • Reframe distorted beliefs; cognitions about others’ hostility, definition of self, & societal access • Identify and distract potential conflict • Use own personal and cultural style to influence others • Physically mediate conflicts • Coach basketball skills for social competence
Cultural Attunement in Relationship and Socialization Approach (CARS)Zamel & Stevenson (2005)Relationship, style, & socialization • A culturally affirming relationship is central to engaging Black youth • A youth’s cultural style, expressions and values should drive intervention process • Cultural socialization should be explicit • Alertness to discrimination; Coping with antagonism; • Cultural Pride Reinforcement; Cultural legacy appreciation • Mainstream fit endorsement
PLAAY-On-the-spot intervention • As conflict emerges, PLAAY is applied by staff • Pro-social pro-cultural behavior & frustration tolerance taught within “play” atmosphere • Success during spontaneous limitation testing increases competence and decreases noncompliance • Not only does anger and aggression occur during competitive and frustrating play, but can be influenced before, during, and after the conflict