Ella Baker Women's Center - Community Youth Groups

I am working with Dr. Patricia Parker and the Ella Baker Women’s Center. We are working in the local low-income housing community of Trinity Court with youth there. We will we hosting a series of workshops and holding weekly gathering with the intention of building community and connecting residents with resources. The majority of the residents are African-American, fairly poor, and struggling. My impressions of this group is somewhat mixed as I have lived in this area for over 8 years and have also worked with other groups in their efforts to reach local youth, in fact with the same youth Dr. Parker has been working with. So, its hard to say what I think of these people: they are different from me, their culture is different, they no doubt enjoy different music and different food. But really, that is a mainstream essentialization of blacks in America: they are different.

The problem I think does not merely lie in the separation between groups according to their respective differences, but in effect the real problem is in how such differences are valued. Blacks have historically been related to savages, to the jungle, to people and spaces that need civilizing…wholly unequal and in need of domestication. The fact that Trinity Court and South Estes Housing Projects are fairly secluded and unknown to the public (did yall even know there WERE low-income housing in Chapel Hill?) makes clear that such groups continue to be oppressed and underserved, pushed to the side: out of sight, out of mind, and out of control right?