Week 7 - Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Friere ---

Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Friere –

Podcast lecture on the Publisher’s Foreword and Introduction:

=====================================================================

Hello… I am giving a lecture today, commenting on the Publisher’s foreword and Introduction of Paulo Friere’s ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed.’  This book has sold 750,000 copies worldwide as the front cover says.  It was first published in 1970, with the first English publication in 1993.   The copy that I have is the 30^th Anniversary Edition with a Publisher’s Foreword  and Introduction to the Anniversary Edition by Donaldo Macedo, followed by a Foreword by Richard Shaull and Preface.  The book contains four chapters, each introducing a concept, idea as put forth by Paulo Friere in how to be with people who are oppressed, how not to contribute as an oppressor, but how to help those who are oppressed become free.

Today’s lecture will focus on what has been discussed in the Publisher’s foreword and the Introduction to the Anniversary Edition.  In the Publisher’s Foreword, several terms are used in describing what the book is about.  We read that people who are oppressed can also be those who were colonized, so that is one word:  what does it mean to be colonized?  We also read that those people who oppress can also be those who were colonizers?  Who are the colonizers?

As the introduction refers to colonizers were the Portuguese, the Dutch, the British, people who took over large geographical territories of people, subverting them to slavery, inhuman treatment, in exchange for land, wealth produced from the land, goods, their women.  The colonized were people who were not used to the ways and wiles of the colonizers, given over as chattel or stolen from their roots, ways of living.  Once the colonized began to awaken and fight back, regain their lands, their independence, they are left destitute, poor and in place of perhaps a rule that was more favorable for those people, the rule of the colonizer becomes the government of choice.  Those in control oppress the people; those not in control are oppressed. 

What does it mean to be oppressed?  According to Mirriam-Webster, to be oppressed is to be wronged, subjugated, harassed, overcome, tortured, tormented.  Oppression always comes from an oppositional force, from the outside of one’s self.  History points to the oppression suffered by Africans brought over to this country in the early days of the formation of the United States of America, brought over as slaves to work and build the land.  They were oppressed in that they were forced to work, cultivate the land, against their will.  None of the slaves brought over in ships, stored and chained as if they were inhuman asked to be brought over, do you think?  The Atlantic slave trade is an example of oppression used to get people to produce for the good of others.  If the Africans tried to escape this treatment, if they ran away, they were tortured, beaten, maimed and sometimes killed.  Many times they were sold to other more oppressive masters.

As Professor Macedo mentions in the Foreword, this text is well known in third world countries, where oppression is most obvious even in 21^st century, where oppressive governments continue to beat down the poor, even kill them if they are not in accordance with the oppressive laws of that country.  But what about here in the United States?  Does oppression still exist here? 

Paulo Frieire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed became especially known here in the United States during the Civil Rights era, during the era when Dr. Martin Luther King was espousing the doctrine of peaceful co-existence between the races, especially the blacks and whites of this country, mirroring what Muhatmi Ghandi was teaching the poor, oppressed people to do in India.  Dr. King believed in Ghandi’s approach to oppression; he modeled how that through dialogue and peaceful demonstrations, not physically retaliating, but encouraging the masses to turn out in numbers and peacefully resist the oppression that had been placed upon blacks in this country. 

As Professor Macedo speaks of in the foreword, much of Pedagogy of the Oppressed has been reduced to teachers modeling dialoging as a means to allow all people to have a voice.  However, true implementation of this type pedagogy is much more than that.  That implementing this type of pedagogy involves joining the fight for social justice in any cause…to join the fight to give all humanity an opportunity to be respected as humans, to be allowed to speak, grow, develop and exercise freedoms that promote the realization of human dreams, otherwise, we risk being an oppressor, stagnating others’ dreams, as in Langston Hughes’ poem “A Dream Deferred”. 

Langston Hughes was a black poet during the Harlem Renaissance period. 

WIKIPEDIA NOTES Offer that:  The Harlem Renaissance was a time of outstanding creative activity. It was a flowering of African American art, literature, music and culture in the United States led primarily by the African American community based in Harlem, New York City, after World War I. The ‘spiritual coming of age’ best described the Harlem Renaissance because African Americans could now express their heritage and stand up for what they believed.

This African American movement is also known as The New Negro Movement do to the fact that it was centered around the ghetto areas of New York. This movement developed the culture of African Americans and broadened African American expression. African Americans were now encouraged to celebrate their heritage.

Literary historians and academics have yet to reach a consensus as to when the period known as the Harlem Renaissance began and ended. It is unofficially recognized to have begun in 1919 and ended during the early or mid 1930s, however its ideas lived on much longer. Most of the participants in this African American literary movement were descendants from a generation whose parents or grandparents had witnessed the injustices of slavery and the gains and losses that would come with Reconstruction after the American Civil War as the nation moved forward into the gradual entrenchment of Jim Crow in the Southern states and in its non-codified forms in many other parts of the country. Many of these people were part of the Great Migration out of the South and other racially stratified communities who sought relief from the worst of prejudices against them for a better standard of living in the North and Midwest regions of the United States. Others were Africans and people of African descent from the Caribbean who had come to the United States hoping for a better life. Uniting most of them was their convergence in Harlem, New York. They would make Harlem the most famous center of African American life in the United States at that time and one that would have far reaching influence on people of Africa and people of African descent across the world as well as American culture in general.

Characterizing the Harlem Renaissance was an overt racial pride that came to be represented in the idea of the New Negro who through intellect, the production of literature, art, and music could challenge the pervading racism and stereotypes from the larger white community of that era to promote progressive or socialist politics and racial integration and social integration. The creation of art and literature would serve to “uplift” the race. This became known as racial political propaganda. There would be no set style or uniting form singularly characterizing the various forms of art coming out of the Harlem Renaissance. Rather, there would be a mix of celebrating a Pan-Africanist perspective, “high-culture” and the “low-culture or low-life,” the traditional form of music to the blues and jazz, traditional and new experimental forms in literature like modernism and in poetry, for example, the new form of jazz poetry. This duality would eventually result in a number of African American artists of the Harlem Renaissance coming into conflict with conservatives in the black intelligentsia who would take issue with certain depictions of black life in whatever medium of the arts.

So Langston Hughes was one of the most important writers and thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance and I will read you one of his poems mentioned in the Introduction of Pedagogy of the Oppressed entitled  A Dream Deferred.

 =========================================================================
This lecture will be posted in the assigned week for the Introduction and Foreword discussion.  You should now also post your annotation on the Publisher’s Foreword and Introduction, along with a website link for an article or reading related to this discussion and your position from the article. 

The Introduction in the book makes reference to 'deferred dreams' and how that the book gives words to describe and understand how oppressed people deal with 'deferred dreams.'  Langston Hughes, noted Harlem Renaissance poet wrote a poem entitled "A Dream Deferred".  Can you answer one of the following questions in his poem that relates to how to deal with oppression in the classroom?  Are there oppressed students in this country?

What happens to a dream deferred?  Does it dry up like a raisiin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- and then run?  Does it stink like rotten meat?  Or crust and sugar over--like a syrupy sweet?  Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.  Or does it explode?     Langston Hughes