Frank discussions at youth forum

Stereotypes, safe sex and use of the ‘n-word’ get attention at NAACP event

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Rachael Golden⁄The Gazette During an NAACP Multicultural Youth Summit at John F. Kennedy High School in Silver Spring, (front row from left) Aleta Dunn, 12, Russell Murray, 14, and Sherlena Lucas, 13, listen to a seminar sponsored by Booz Allen Hamilton. Click here to enlarge this photo Rachael Golden⁄The Gazette Kevin Fitzgerald (background), a Washington, D.C., resident and the parent of a student attending Saturday’s NAACP forum, speaks about his experiences during a seminar sponsored by Booz Allen Hamilton.

This time, however, the subject was not math and the answers did not always add up equally. In fact, he was leading a discussion on the use of ‘‘the n-word.”

‘‘None of us live in a vacuum,” he told one group of about 20 youths. ‘‘We are not always conscious of our space and how we make people feel, how we use [the word], why we use it, and how people are affected by it.”

Allrich’s discussion was one of 12 workshops at Saturday’s annual Multicultural Youth Summit, which aimed to assist teenagers as they prepare to graduate high school and attend college. Sponsored by the NAACP’s Youth Council of Montgomery County and now in its 10th year, the event was held at John F. Kennedy High School in Silver Spring and drew more than 400 students from area schools between grades 7 and 12.

‘‘The purpose is to educate students on values and giving them things to prepare them for life after high school,” said Yvette Butler, chair of the NAACP Parents’ Council and the event’s organizer.

The workshops, which covered teenage issues like safe sex, race relations and college preparation, were administered by various organizations. The Latin American Youth Center, for example, asked youths to outline steps to achieve their career goals, and the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton explored the small number of blacks who attend college.

‘‘We broke through a lot of barriers today,” said Darlene Dyson, an associate at Booz Allen Hamilton who volunteered despite spending the night flying home from California. ‘‘The information being presented, I was not privy to when I was growing up.”

A workshop conducted by The Minority Reporter, a group that analyzes minorities in movies, consistently yielded a packed classroom.

‘‘Unfortunately in Hollywood, what has worked is stereotyping people,” one the directors, Frederick Gooding, told a room full of students.

He introduced the group to eight ‘‘archetypes” that exploit blacks in film. As an example of how minorities often play second fiddle and supporting roles to white protagonists, he cited two minority characters who were killed in last summer’s blockbuster ‘‘King Kong,” starring Jack Black.

‘‘You cut out their scenes and the movie would still go on,” he said.

Most students, however, said Allrich’s workshop was the most poignant. He opened with a slide show of definitions of the ‘‘n-word,” and then played a recent news segment of a white teacher from Kentucky who was suspended for allegedly using the word casually with a black student. Finally, he showed a clip from the popular cartoon, ‘‘The Boondocks,” in which the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. uses the word to express criticism with his race.

Students’ reactions yielded either laughter or argument. Cameron Cox, 14, said his mother washed his mouth out with soap when she found out he used the ‘‘n-word.”

‘‘‘Never use that word again,’ she told me,” Cox said. ‘‘Nowadays, you listen to a song and it’s in there, so how does it go from a bad comment to it being used all the time?”

Allrich, who altered the workshop for the younger students, acknowledged the subject might be taboo, but its controversial elements force discussion.

‘‘Kids use it all the time, but they don’t know what it means,” he said in between workshops. ‘‘They never stop to think about it or what it does. Kids don’t know what the word means.”

The summit also drew parents, many of whom participated. Larrie Bennett, whose 13-year-old son attends Shady Grove Middle School, said he ‘‘does not believe” in the ‘‘n-word,” but since others do, it warrants discussion.

‘‘This one is an unfortunate topic, so it gets at pulling at some truth and honesty,” Bennett said.

The event’s organizers had scheduled the Atlanta-based rapper, Q, to perform for the students during the afternoon session, but the show was cancelled at the last minute because his lyrics were inappropriate and ‘‘not clean enough,” according to Butler.

During lunch, students filled the school cafeteria for a panel of public officials that featured county executive candidate Steven A. Silverman (D-At large) of Silver Spring; Dr. LaVerne G. Kimball, a Montgomery County Public Schools from the Northwest, Poolesville, Quince Orchard and Seneca Valley clusters; and Democrats Herman L. Taylor Jr. (D-Dist. 14) of Ashton and Gareth E. Murray (D-Dist. 20) of Silver Spring, the county’s two black delegates in the General Assembly.

The officials emphasized the importance of voting and how such examples of civic service will improve them and their communities.

‘‘There is a gap all throughout our race ... and we must work together to fix that,” Taylor said.

Students spoke positively of the summit.

‘‘It helped me figure out how what I wanted to do, which is be an entrepreneur,” said Amitah Polite, 14, who attends Winston Churchill High School in Potomac.

Kendrick Dawkins, a junior at Richard Montgomery High School who plans to enlist in the Air Force when he graduates, said the summit introduced him to new information.

‘‘It helps you see the truth about certain things,” he said. ‘‘It gives kids the opportunities to see the bigger picture about their lives and careers.”