by Jolivette Anderson
(c) August 18, 2014
If I had known in high school that learning Algebra was an attempt to use symbols to teach me how to handle life situations, I would not have flunked the class and had to go to summer school. It is sad that I found Algebra in my 30s but only an appreciation for what it could have done for me had it been explained a different way to my 'liberal arts' way of thinking and understanding the world, would help me find a way to strengthen communications in Black neighborhoods among the youth I worked with at Lanier High School in Jackson, Mississippi.
It was in my 30s, in Mississippi, while working for Bob Moses that i saw the connection to culture. Being in the presence of Dr. Moses' genius sparked the need for me to create something to assist young people in discovering and then deciphering themselves and their immediate world surroundings.
Black youth found benefit in a method I designed that put them and their life experiences at the center of every conversation, interaction, paragraph, essay or math problem. No matter the subject, find yourself in it. Study yourself as observer and participant of your own life.
The D. Ciphers Method (c), now a curriculum and pedagogy, uses algebraic symbols but assigns cultural meanings to those symbols.
The first symbol, positioned inside of a 360 degree line is x + y^5 = self. The letter 'x' is given the meaning of 'an unknown'. The letter 'y', raised to the fifth power, is given the meaning 'five questions asked about the unknown'.
The = sign is given the meaning 'balance, equality or understanding'. The word 'self' is given the meaning 'some thing or some one that needs definition but that definition must be developed by that entity itself or some aspect of that entity. In other words, x can = Jolivette. Therefore, Jolivette or an entity studying Jolivette can develop y^5, five questions about Jolivette to determine or discover her 'self', her personhood, her humanity, her soul, based on all that the researcher has experienced, seen or believes up to the moments of inquiry into who, what, where, when and why Jolivette exist as an entity to be discussed and deciphered.
On this day, my consciousness pushes me to decipher a killing. About a week ago, with my 8 year old daughter standing over my shoulder looking at the screen of my phone, a Black body lay inanimate in the street, in a picture on my Facebook page. At the time, I do not know this dead person's name or the situation that caused him to lie dead in broad daylight with people in the street, standing, staring and a trail of blood on the street that looks like it is coming from his head. This image alone made my brain respond, Black. Person. Dead. I enlarge the photo and can't believe what I see, but I make further ID.
Therefore x = black man dead. y^5 =
1. who is he?
2. what happened to him?
3. where are the police?
4. when did this happen?
5. why won't somebody help him?
Then, the situation becomes more painful when the answers arrive.
1. Michael Brown, age 18.
2. Shot by the police 10 times with his hands raised.
3. The police are not there
4. This happened because Michael is Black and male
5. There was nothing anyone could do to help Michael because Michael was already dead.
x = police killings, y^5 =
1. who trains the police to interact with the public?
2. what ideas and beliefs about humanity does an officer have to hold?
3. where do police get their training for approaching young Black males?
4. when do police officers deem young Black men as threats?
5. why do police officers use force against unarmed persons when the police carry guns?
These are questions that should be asked but these questions posed to the powers that be are just Black people being nice, trying to live by the rules put forth for civil behavior that all want to follow.The deeper, penetrating questions are buried in the untold histories of being Black in the United States. It is a history of inhumane treatment and economics.
It is the white man's conundrum that begs an answer to the question,'what do we do with the progeny of those we exploited, murdered and oppressed?' We cannot openly kill them as in days gone by and to serve and protect them is a lie. Every once in a while, just for sport, we can kill one of them then put something in place to get off for murder of those we consider to be jokes. Black youth, Black people, those who we believe have no right to complain about anything because they should just be glad they are here, in the good old U.S.A.
Our former status as property gave us more protection than we have now, being legally free. The real question for me is 'is being Black and breathing considered a threat to U.S. police?' If so, we all need to carry guns.
Peace!
