Since its conception, Instagram has evolved from a photo-based platform to a place where users can freely express themselves in a variety of ways.
South Asian poet ena ganguly (who prefers her name to be lowercased) is forming a strong social media following as she explores race, class and religion through real and poignant Instagram-based poetry.
A University of Texas senior, ena spoke with the Austin Urban Post on how her experiences and multifaceted cultural upbringing have influenced her explorative writings.
ganguly’s poem “Double Standards” can be viewed on her Instagram @enaganguly
She created the poetry-based platform as a means to connect with others on a personal level. I started writing poems on Instagram near the end of my freshman year in college because it was a way for me to feel less alone. I wanted to… recreate this sort of intimacy with people that day-to-day interactions don’t permit. I think poetry — and all art really — has this beautiful way of doing that. There’s this access point that allows many different people with different backgrounds to relate to one another. That’s the real reason why I started making my poems more public, but I’ve been writing since high school.
Her poetry originates from experience. For a long time my poetry has been about my ancestors and the experiences they had. By ancestors I mean my living relatives and also those who have passed — those who I haven’t had physical interactions with but whose memories are still very much alive. It’s like I have this sense of what to write about and [when I do] it feels like I’m speaking from those memories. Poetry to me is about empathizing with other people; making sure it’s a form of healing and not one that rehashes trauma.
At six years old, she moved from Northeast India to Sugarland, Texas. I grew up in a predominantly black community and I think that really helped me understand what solidarity and community memory look like… [But] I also grew up in India.
I feel like most people of color, especially black folks in America, experience this certain thing where we have to code-switch, so to speak, in order to move into another space appropriately. I’ve had to do that growing up.
In India there is a lot of poverty — very in-your-face, on-the-street poverty. I grew up in an upper middle class household there, which was a place of privilege in India. When I came here [America], I was in a more sort of marginalized space with working class folks.
Having these multiple lenses of experience has shaped my work because complicating the South Asian identity is what a lot of my writing is about; opening up dialogue that lots of people don’t want to have. Talking about class, religion and anti-blackness in South Asian communities, these are all things I want to address with my poetry in one way or another. There’s lots of multiplicity to it.
ganguly’s poem’s can be viewed on Instagram @enaganguly.
An East Austin native, Elizabeth has seen her neighborhood transform over time due to what she refers to as “neocolonialism.” Somehow, though, she continues to maintain the essence of the black and brown people who once populated the area.
Elizabeth spoke with the Austin Urban Post on her love for the original East Austin and why she attributes her art to the black existence.
She contributes her art to her existence as a black woman.
My art is a tribute to black life, to the black existence. For me, it’s a way of reimagining what blackness is; reimagining… what we are fed about blackness and our
Elizabeth’s “Divine Protection.”
capabilities; reimagining the richness of blackness and our power, and kind of looking at those things and undoing what we have been taught.
She’s a witness to the changes happening in East Austin.
There have been a lot of changes in East Austin, ones that have not been equitable for everyone. Instead of “change,” I think a better word would be “neocolonialism.”
Black folks have been shifted around Austin for decades. The difference now is that we are being pushed out of the city.
With my art I try to capture the essence of the black lives still here, many of whom risk losing their homes. Homes not in term of materials, but in terms of community. All of that is being taken away. So, I take photographs of buildings that have been here since my youth.
She continues to capture the essence of her neighborhood.
I go to Givens Park to take photographs of our community – barbeques, people driving around in the nice cars, those slabs with the popped trunks and lights, [or whatever it may be]. In this way, I try to take pictures of all that East Austin has been for me. I try to capture all of that now so that we can hold on to it and use it as a way to tell the history of a culture that is still here and holding strong.
She incorporates her existence as a black LGBTQ woman into her work.
I think art is very necessary for black and queer folks to survive and thrive. We experience the most exploitation, marginalization, abuse and trauma, especially sexually.
I create my art out of desire to create a new reality for myself and other black women. I think it’s important that we see ourselves as powerful. Even to be able to see ourselves, period. That is not something that happens often. When black women are seen, it’s in very particular ways. It’s as the world wants us to be. It’s never as we truly are.
There are lots of characters who are black women. It seems like we are always the comedic relief. Always the joke, and the means of telling the joke. I think it’s critical that art challenges that and forces us to see black women in different ways.
I strive to demonstrate our essence by creating these worlds where black women are goddesses; in terms of raising women beyond the level, above the level, of being human. But also using that as a metaphor to describe our true power and beauty and humanism. Because most of the time, people don’t want to see us as humans, equals, or as having all of the nuances so-said people have. We are always supposed to be able to take anything that is thrown to us. But the real question is, why is it being thrown to us in the first place?
Her work “Goddesses in Hue” glorifies the black woman’s existence.
It came about as an extension of the original series [Goddesses] that I did digitally a few years ago. That was inspired by my desire to place black women in a light where we truly exist. For years I had been wanting to bring that digital collage to life in order to do more effective things with it. This new series was inspired by that desire.
I used a lot of photographs of a church on the corner of 12th Street and Airport Boulevard that I grew up around. The church is an anchor for me to have in this series. As a young black woman in East Austin, being around those areas and types of spaces was very integral to my upbringing.
I grew up Baptist. That is where my relationship with the divine came from; my first understanding of what the all-powerful is. That gave me direction in creating this reality of divinity when it comes to black women.
That also proved an inspiration for bringing the series together. I used the scripture to tell the story of each goddess in the series and their role in society, the universe and my personal life. I also used flowers to connect the different pieces, because flowers remind of me of birth, beauty and life, and that’s what all of these goddesses represent to me.
Terrant Payne, a black student with special needs, was arrested for the first time at his high school in the Round Rock school district after being caught in a fight that an administrator was forced to break up.
Sent to an alternative school, Payne was then arrested a second time for sleeping in class, behavior deemed “disruptive conduct.”
Three credits away from graduating, the 18-year-old has now been in jail for over a month.
Terrant is one of thousands of minority students who are disproportionately disciplined in schools across the nation.
Data from the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights shows that black students in grades K-12 are 3.8 times more likely to receive one or more out-of-school suspensions than their white peers; preschoolers are 3.6 more likely.
Again compared to white students, blacks are 1.9 times more likely to be expelled and 2.3 times more likely to be referred to law enforcement.
New truancy laws in Texas shifted the pressure to schools and parents. Effective Sept. 1, 2015, the policy change added a new requirement that all public schools implement truancy prevention programs.
As school districts adjust accordingly, two local nonprofits are continuing the fight to end school-to-prison pipeline patterns.
Through the system
One of those organizations is the Excellence and Advancement Foundation. Founded by Huston-Tillotson education professor Dr. Courtney Robinson, the group aims to combat the direct and indirect push out of young people from the school system to the juvenile justice and criminal justice system through prevention, intervention and education programs.
“We understand that the school-to-prison pipeline has no bounds when it comes to children of color… [minority students] are disproportionately disciplined in our schools… the data shows that over and over and over again,” Robinson told the Austin Urban Post.
Dr. Courtney Robinson, founder of the Excellence and Advancement Foundation, works with youth and young adults affected by the criminal justice system.
82,231 black students were suspended from Texas K-12 public schools in the 2011-2012 academic year, according to a study conducted by the Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education at the University of Pennsylvania. At the time, blacks accounted for 13 percent of students in school districts across the state, 23 percent of expulsions and 31 percent of suspensions.
In recent years, out-of-school suspension rates overall have decreased by 20 percent, according to the 2013-2014 Civil Rights Data Collection. But still, discriminatory patterns continue to plague the system.
“I think the biggest problem is that children of color are under too much surveillance. They are watched more than other kids, so it fits that they are perceived as the ones acting out,” Robinson said.
She has been working with the Payne family.
At the time of Terrant’s first arrest, they were amid the process of scheduling a hearing to evaluate his special education needs; trying to put some things in place that would make him more successful at school.
Robinson visits Terrant in jail. “He’s not out yet because his family can’t afford to get him out. I’ve just been telling him he’s not going to be there forever, and that he will graduate from high school and have a life; trying to keep him focused and positive,” she said.
His mother Charmetha Payne said that it’s been awful since her son has been gone, but getting updates from Robinson on his well-being has helped put her at ease.
“They keep me in the loop of what’s going on,” she said. “They let me know how he looks, how he’s doing, things like that. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t otherwise know because I don’t have funds to send to him so that we can make contact over the phone.”
Robinson described the ordeal as a distinctive school-to-prison case, but envisions a success story for Terrant as they work to figure out the best schooling situation for him.
Outside the box
Since 2014, the U.S. Department of Education and Justice has sent guidelines to school districts designed to avert “zero tolerance” discipline policies. Aimed at potentially harmful behavior, these policies have disproportionately impacted minority students.
Many schools across the nation have implemented a model of “restorative discipline,” which consists of holding constructive conversations to facilitate relationships and reconciliation.
Locally, too, foundations are working outside of the system, using “purpose-driven” leadership models to help students think beyond the scope of a classroom.
AMP360 is working to connect communities and create young leaders through social entrepreneurship.
“We want to teach skills. We want to create opportunities for kids from marginalized communities. But we also want to uplift the whole community through whatever it is they are learning,” said co-founder Claire Morel.
Morel said the idea for the organization was conceptualized after noticing that the real issues in Texas exist at the intersection of education and justice. AMP360 openly recognizes that black and brown students are punished at higher rates than their peers.
“A lot of kids fall through the cracks because they are not being stimulated,” said Morel. “In many ways, they are being taught by educators who don’t understand them, their culture or their reality.”
Morel and co-founder Freddy Womack work with middle and high school students on cultivating community-based projects.
“Kids who know they are engaged in something important; who know they matter; who know that what they’re going through matters; who feel like they have an active role in changing the world they live in,” said Morel. “Those are not kids who want to be on the block hanging out doing whatever.”
The Excellence and Advancement Foundation is set to open its newest location at Huston Tillotson’s Community Health and Wellness Center January 2017
Similar to Morel’s concept, The Excellence and Advancement Foundation’s Black Leadership Academy, designed for third through 12th-graders, seeks to provide a broader and more inclusive understanding of our country’s history.
The goals of the academy are to improve racial identity, academic engagement, college readiness and community engagement, according to their website.
“[We give]… students a space where they feel safe and comforted, because often times there are microaggressions happening in schools that black students have to deal with every single day,” said Robinson.
Chalisa Warren decided to put her fourth grade daughter in Robinson’s program because she wanted to reinforce and emphasize how African history played such an important role in American history.
“I think, as kids get older, they want to become more inquisitive…” said Warren. “If you give them a sense of pride early on, I think they will be more accepting of themselves and others as they [build] their life.”
Warren’s daughter, who is the only minority in her class at the academy, is now is able to think outside of what she reads in school curriculum.
“She can put that into a better perspective because she now has a little bit more of a foundation to know that, at some point, we can insert ourselves here because we were leaders and kings in Africa as well,” Warren said.
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