{"id":6482,"date":"2024-12-03T07:54:51","date_gmt":"2024-12-03T07:54:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=6482"},"modified":"2024-12-09T07:59:45","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T07:59:45","slug":"santa-barbara-nonprofit-builds-community-bonds-to-combat-racist-bullying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=6482","title":{"rendered":"Santa Barbara Nonprofit Builds Community Bonds to Combat Racist Bullying"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By<\/span>Teresa Moore<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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This is the third in a three-part series about anti-Black bullying in Santa Barbara schools. Read\u00a0Pt. 1 here<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Pt. 2 here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. \u2013 Unlike some of the younger activists and advocates she works with, Connie Alexander, the president of the Santa Barbara NAACP, won\u2019t say \u201callyship,\u201d their preferred term.\u00a0 Instead, she uses the word \u201ccommunity.\u201d A lot.<\/p>\n

As Santa Barbara grapples with a history of anti-Black racist bullying in its public schools, Alexander is a leader among those working to strengthen the bonds of community in a city where they are under strain.<\/p>\n

The word \u201ccommunity\u201d came up over and over in talking with her and Audrey Gamble, co-founders of the non-profit Gateway Educational Services, which nurtures academic success for Santa Barbara students and their families.<\/p>\n

How to sustain and grow Black \u201ccommunity\u201d as people are scattered by untenable housing costs. How \u201ccommunity transforms conversations.\u201d How the \u201ccommunity\u201d of families hurt by racist bullying in Santa Barbara public schools need mechanisms for enduring transparency and accountability from the school district.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s the community of families and children receiving social and academic support through Gateway\u2019s programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really looking at supporting foundational needs for reading, for math college readiness that focuses on first generation, underrepresented students,\u201d explained Alexander, who has lived in Santa Barbara for decades. \u201cWe have everybody in the world at Gateway in the afternoon,\u201d she continued. \u201cWe have Black students, we have Latino students, we have white students. Anybody in need comes in that door and that\u2019s what we look like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gateway is a haven and a hive \u2013 a place where kids feel seen and heard and loved, and where students of color learn academic skills and pride from people who look like them.<\/p>\n

In addition to after school and summer programs, Gamble and Alexander established Obsidian Scholars to bring together Black fourth through seventh graders from throughout Santa Barbara County so they can experience something they can\u2019t get at school: being in community with other Black learners.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have specifically started programs to support the needs of Black students because we\u2019ve seen that they have needed more support academically and in the social emotional realm,\u201d Alexander said.<\/p>\n

In August, Gateway held a Black Youth Summit, which Alexander described as \u201cjust a day of joy\u201d for kids from Santa Barbara, and nearby Lompoc and Santa Maria, towns with marginally larger Black populations. In October, Gateway sponsored a youth dialogue to bring together Black, Latino and white kids from grades 6 through 8.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are working with the Community Conflict and Resolution Unit from the California Department of Justice,\u201d Alexander said. \u201cThey\u2019re an amazing little group \u2026 that will come into communities and help you with establishing dialogues, help you with some of those big pieces of, how do we have these conversations?\u201d<\/p>\n

While she sees steps forward in the reforms the school district has launched, including the creation in November of a permanent committee specifically focused on the issue of anti-Black racism, Alexander recognizes that students have roles to play, too.<\/p>\n

Because so many of the racism incident reports at SBUSD have been from the junior highs, the event included students already in junior high as well as those about to enter.<\/p>\n

Students are constantly told how to behave and what to say in public, said Alexander. \u201cWe need to create spaces where they develop their leadership by talking to each other\u2026 to be in relationship with each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Santa Barbara\u2019s Black students, those conversations might begin with the frequent use of the N-word on school campuses, and the challenges they experience over their racial identity in a city where they are in the extreme minority \u2013 less than 1% in the school district.<\/p>\n

Bianca Duran\u2019s two older children, ages 14 and 12, have often felt conflicted about being part Black while being recognized as only Black and bullied for it by other students. Duran credited Gateway and \u201cMiss Connie and Miss Audrey\u201d for giving her children something she couldn\u2019t give them by herself: Black love and pride.<\/p>\n

On a warm Thursday afternoon in July in a Santa Barbara ice cream shop, Duran, who is Mexican American, gazed lovingly up at the son and daughter who are already taller than she is. \u201cWe came up together. I was already a mom at 20 and 21.\u201d<\/p>\n

Duran\u2019s youngest child, her \u201cmini me,\u201d turned two in August. As Duran talked to a reporter, her two older children entertained themselves and\u00a0 their little brother.<\/p>\n

Duran, who works as a caregiver and a caterer, had just picked her 12-year-old from the last day of Gateway\u2019s STEAM camp for girls. Smiling, she said Gateway has been her own \u201cgateway\u201d to giving her children something she realized she needed as much as they did.<\/p>\n

\u201cGateway gave me the Black community I needed,\u201d she said. \u201cI felt alone because I\u2019m raising two Black children, and I had no one to connect to as a mother.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the end of the school year, Duran\u2019s family attended an event celebrating Black graduates. A Black mom whose daughter is the same age as Duran\u2019s, offered to take the girls together to get their hair braided.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you know what that means\u2026 braids is hours and has a friend for that time now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over a Zoom conversation in April, Duran was almost in tears talking about what it has meant for her family to be welcomed by Black families. To hear her tell it, what Gateway has given them is a\u00a0beloving\u00a0<\/em>community.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you find a Black community, and you are in it, people love you and embrace you,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd sometimes, well, there\u2019s always going to be haters. But for the most part, I have had an experience where, come as you are, we\u2019re going to help you.\u201d<\/p>\n

At Gateway, her older children get to work with kind, cool and smart Black tutors and role models. \u201cAnd my children, they\u2019re starting to open up and realize, you know what? I do have a community. I do have a family. I do have these people that I can rely on and talk to when I need that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having Black mothers to talk to about raising Black children has been a solace for Duran, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have so many differences where we can all feel alone and isolated. But if we can get just a little community, or even one person on campus that looks like you and get you know, some Black time, then that\u2019s what you need. And that\u2019s what we all need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peter Schurmann contributed reporting to this story.<\/em><\/p>\n

This resource is supported in whole or in part by funding provided by the State of California, administered by the\u00a0<\/em>California State Library<\/em><\/a>\u00a0in partnership with the\u00a0<\/em>California Department of Social Services<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0<\/em>California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs<\/em><\/a>\u00a0as part of the\u00a0<\/em>Stop the Hate<\/em><\/a>\u00a0program. To report a hate incident or hate crime and get support, go to\u00a0<\/em>CA vs Hate<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Source: Published without changes from Ethnic Media Services<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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