(soft music) (energetic music) - Hello everyone, and welcome to Black Nouveau.

I'm Earl Arms, and this is our May edition.

May of course is Mental Health Awareness Month, and we're gonna spend some time in this program looking at one of the most common problems among children and teenagers, bullying.

Alexandria Mack shows us the Dear Chloe Project, which gives young women of color an opportunity to share their experiences with bullying.

I'll talk with LaKetta Caldwell, who runs the project, and then James Causey and clinical psychologist Dr. Kweku Ramel Smith offer tips to parents about this important issue.

But first, May is also Teacher Appreciation Month, as we celebrate those individuals who help prepare our young people to lead us into the future.

Everett Marshburn looks at MPS' efforts to recruit and retain more black male teachers.

- We know overall there's a teacher shortage.

Nationally schools are hurting, specifically with teachers of color.

And when we talk about males in the profession, it's even more, a greater need.

- [Everett] Milwaukee Public Schools has a majority minority pupil population.

Black students alone make up half of the enrollment, and out of the 4,400 teachers this year, less than 20% are African American, and Black male teachers are just under 5%, but that's twice the national average.

- Currently in Milwaukee Public Schools, because we're an urban school district, we actually look good on paper, but we're not where we want to be because we know that we serve a population of students that need folks that reflect who they are.

- [Everett] DeVon Preyer was a professional basketball player and a coach who changed career paths.

He's currently finishing his fifth year as a teacher.

At Riverside High, he teaches special education, assists in science and coaches the basketball team.

He says he's found his calling.

- There's a sense of duty that I wasn't getting in the arena that I was in before.

I felt like I had more to give, more to offer, and I'd always been immersed in basketball and I was always connected to youth in that manner, so it just kind of seemed natural for me to go that way.

- [Everett] How did MPS help you realize the dream of being a teacher?

- Supportive.

They helped me with every step of me becoming a teacher.

They helped me in every way that I could think of.

If I needed an extra resource, if I needed to speak with someone about moving in a different direction, people were always talking to me about different opportunities.

Every question that I might have had, they found answers for.

I mean, they were just very supportive about getting me this opportunity.

Teaching isn't just teaching.

There's more to give for a student, especially in an urban setting, than just teaching them one plus one is two or how to spell, how to read, how to write.

There is a whole bunch that goes into emotional development, social development.

There's a lot of things that go on behind the scenes that especially in an urban setting, African American males are very important for.

Having a person that looks like you, that understands where you come from, understands what you're going through.

They can talk you through that process, that can help you take the next step.

It's very important.

There's just a lot more to give.

If there's more of those out there, y'all need to check with Coach Lloyd and see what else he has, 'cause there may be an opportunity for y'all to get some free money going to college.

I know the foundation is looking to give out money to athletes, student athletes, and other high performing students.

So check with Coach Lloyd, fill those out.

I know there's other scholarships not foundation-related that are just out there floating around, whether they want an essay or something like that.

That'll give you $2,000 or $500 or whatever towards the tuition once you get registered.

For an essay, seriously.

- [Everett] What do you think we need to do to encourage more Black males to come into teaching?

- Make it easier.

I mean, it's very difficult to get into this.

Now, what I do understand after going through the process is that there are a lot of steps, a lot of processes that you need to learn, a lot of curriculum information, a lot of how to teach, but there's got to be a way that we can encourage more Black males to come into teaching, into education, especially in an urban setting.

- [Everett] One of the places Harris is looking for more Black teachers is at historically Black colleges and universities.

- We know that we have a lot of employees that have gone to many HBCUs, and so what we've done in the office of human resources is tapped into those employees that are currently with us and asked them, let's go and visit your HBCU.

Let's reconnect and see if we can pull some of those students who are looking for opportunities to come to Milwaukee.

And so we've been to multiple schools this year, just really trying to do more outreach to those HBCUs to ensure that these folks understand that look, someone from your community was in your shoes once, right?

And now they're here and they've been with us for 20 plus years.

We've been to Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Tennessee State, Alcorn, Jackson State.

So we are really trying to make sure that we're tapping into our local resources, which is our human capital.

Our employees come from various places.

Tapping into that so that we can go out and outreach with those communities.

(energetic music) - So do I do it just like a normal, are we ready?

Okay.

Dear Chloe, the girls at school are beyond mean.

They make fun of the way I talk and my hair.

The only friend I have is a girl who also gets made fun of.

There are days I wonder why I made it this way.

I cry a lot.

Sincerely, Broken.

Dear Chloe, it took me a long time to realize that I was being bullied as an adult.

Dear Chloe, my whole life I've been bullied.

I went to a predominantly white school and I was fat.

When they would make fun of me, I would go home and cry myself to sleep.

I felt so depressed.

Sincerely, Still Broken.

My name is LaKetta Caldwell.

I'm a youth development professional, so very passionate about using art as a platform for youth, as well as adults.

The Dear Chloe Project came about, I had a student who was in the seventh grade and she ended up coming to my office and she was crying.

She had just got into a fight.

So the assistant principal sent her to me and come to find out she was crying because the students in her classroom were calling her monkey because she had skin that was beautifully kissed by the sun and she felt like she wasn't beautiful because people always made fun of her because she was dark skinned.

And so this little girl fought all the time.

Unfortunately, she ended up getting expelled because she didn't know what to do with her rage and her anger and how to really navigate the bullying.

When I hear things that upset me, it becomes an artistic piece, and so I was like, I want letters.

I want people to write me letters, especially young girls and women of the impact of bullying.

And we started writing our letters about the impact bullying has either had on your life or the life of somebody that you know.

Where are you at with your letter, Ari?

- Want me to read it?

Okay, so I didn't get to finish this, so after I'm done with this part, I'm just gonna say stuff from the top of my head.

I said, Dear Chloe, I was bullied in sixth grade because I was a new student and I was so shy and didn't wanna talk.

- Every day I would come to school looking happy, and then it's like, when somebody said something to me, I'll like, shut down.

I'll start to cry or I'll get emotional because it's like, I was sensitive at the time.

Well, I was in sixth grade, so I was really very sensitive.

I didn't have nobody really on my side at that school 'cause I didn't have no friends, no cousins or nothing that went there.

So I was just basically by myself.

So I kind of felt sad and lonely at the time.

- [LaKetta] I was studying drama therapy when I was at NYU, and one of my professors said that your body remembers what your mind forgets.

Sometimes it's hard to verbally articulate pain.

- This is kind of hard to write.

I'm gonna be stalling.

This is kind of hard to write 'cause I really don't like bringing this up, but it's like, I feel like I had to do it this way.

- I have a question for you.

When was the last time you cried?

Are you afraid to let it out?

- I'm Brooklyn Rogers.

I'm 14.

My first experience with bullying was in third grade.

My experience with that, 'cause I was really young.

I didn't really know what was going on.

It was like when it first happened, it was just like a regular day.

I was on recess.

I was just sitting on the swing, just enjoying my time, and I just hear a bunch of kids laughing and talking about me.

I didn't really think much of it.

I just moved away and went on my day.

But it got worse over time.

As much as I tried to ignore it, I couldn't, and it went from them talking about me, from them talking about me to them making up stuff about me, like tripping me on purpose, shoving me.

It got so bad to the point where a kid poured water on me.

It got bad to the point where he wanted me to pay attention to it and I wouldn't, so then he did what I never thought that what happened ever.

He punched me in my stomach to get my attention.

And I just ran.

From that experience on, it took a really big toll on me, because that happened from third grade all the way into my sixth grade year.

It didn't stop until I was in seventh grade, and even in seventh grade I still kind of got bullied and picked on, so I have a lot of trauma from all them years from it.

- [LaKetta] Did you tell anyone when this was happening?

- No.

- [LaKetta] Why didn't you tell anyone?

- To be honest with you, I don't even know.

- [LaKetta] For a lot of our students, therapy is not an option.

Mental health is like, in the African American community, in the brown community, it means that you're crazy.

A common theme is trust, that they can trust that they're going to be safe enough to share their story.

I think another common theme is that they have to fight.

That's the only way that they know how to deal with it.

As far as mental health, a lot of them, they don't acknowledge it a lot of the times.

(soft music) - It's just.

I don't know what I did to you for you to feel like you had to do this to me.

I don't know what I did or said to make you hate me so much.

I don't know.

It's like you look at me, you see this horrible person that shouldn't be here.

- Brooklyn.

It's okay to cry.

It is.

Hang on a second.

Can we stop for a second?

I truly believe what you go through is not for you.

It is for somebody else who may not be strong enough at that time to get it out, and it makes me have empathy for people because I pull in the workshops I do a lot.

I pull a lot, but I understand because I have to be stretched.

- LaKetta, she knows about a lot of the stuff that I've been through, and even when I really don't want to talk about it, she's always like, I'm here.

You can talk about it to me.

I'm not gonna judge you.

- She helped me a lot, 'cause it's like, when I talk to her about things, she don't judge me about it.

She'll sit up.

She'll listen to me and then after I tell my story, she'll give me feedback on what I should do next time or if it ever happens again.

- Healing is a process.

It's not easy.

It's not for the faint of heart, but you're strong enough.

God wouldn't give you something that He wouldn't get you through.

What I've seen from the workshops with the students that I've done, especially the young girls, I've seen some of them gain confidence.

I've seen some of them advocate for what they want, which I think is amazing.

If you don't find a space to really let that stuff go, it'll eat you up.

You'll either run, it'll kill you.

Your blood pressure will go up.

You deserve to heal.

You do.

You're better off than you think you are.

So I challenge you.

What sincerely, if sincerely, what would you call yours?

- Sincerely.

Sincerely, A Work In Progress.

- And after that piece, we are now joined by LaKetta Caldwell.

Welcome to Black Nouveau.

Thank you so much for joining us.

First off, talk about the Dear Chloe Project.

How did this program come about?

- Well, the Dear Chloe Project came about when one of my students came and spoke to me.

She was in tears because her classroom was making fun of her because of the color of her skin.

She had really dark skin and they called her monkey.

And so after speaking with her, she was getting into fights.

That's why she was sent to me.

But after speaking with her, I was really upset.

And so one of my good friends, Sherry Williams Pinnell, I started to talk to her about it and I started writing poetry.

I deal with the world through art, so I started to write this poem and it turned into a children's book, but Sherry is a director for the Black Theater Festival, and she was like Keets, she calls me Keets, she was like Keets, would you be willing to turn this piece into a children's play?

And so the Chloe's Beautiful Blues book is an affirmation to affirm all girls, no matter what your skin color or body type is, that you're beautiful, but the children's play gives you, you get to go through the emotional turmoil that this character is going through.

You see a teacher who doesn't help her with the bullying, but then you see a teacher who hears her singing in the hallway and teaches her the blues.

So the blues is how she's able to process all of the things that she's got going on in her life.

- And in the piece I heard, one of the young ladies talked about how they weren't able to express themselves or share exactly what they're going through.

What are you able to do with these young ladies that enables them to feel comfortable sharing their story?

- My background is in the arts.

I use the arts as a platform, poetry.

We do some of the theater through social change, Augusto Boal's work and Michael Rose's work, of just getting them to be able to bring to life, because sometimes your body remembers what your mind forgets and allowing them to put it in their body, but then to get it outside of their body, to write poetry, to write letters.

One of the things I share with students before we even start the process, I talk about my journey when my brother died by suicide.

I wrote in journals from when I got the call to a few months after the funeral, and that turned into a TED Talk.

So I share my TED Talk with them and show them the power of what happens when we're able to take our writings and then to put it back in our body.

So just giving them those types of opportunity.

And we're not, when they do write in their journals or when they're writing their poetry, I'm not grading them if a comma's not in the right space.

It's just a space where they can release.

I talk to them about other ways that they can do it, through running, through walking.

But if they can't run or walk or go outside, they can pull out a notebook and just write.

- And this program seems so inspirational for these young ladies, and I'm sure others out there might want to know exactly more about the program.

So if people do want to know, how can they find out more about this project?

- Well, if they want to learn more about the project, they can go to my webpage, which is www.keytalife, K-E-Y-T-A-L-I-F-E.org, and there's a lot of information about Chloe's Blues and other projects that give them an opportunity to find their voice and how they can reach me directly.

- LaKetta Caldwell with the Dear Chloe Project.

Thank you so much for joining us here on Black Nouveau.

- Thank you for having me.

(energetic music) - According to BlackDoctor.org, one out of every four youth will be bullied in school this year.

Bullying comes in a variety of different forms, and sometimes a person being bullied can even become the person doing the bullying.

Here to talk about the different aspects of bullying is Dr. Kweku Ramel Smith.

Thanks for joining us.

- Thanks for having me, James.

- So how do you know if your kid's being bullied?

- So four things.

First thing is your child is telling you.

When they tell you, you have to believe them.

The second thing is you see the physical or the emotional scars of the bullying, and then you have to then probe and query.

Third thing is your child is accused of bullying, because as you said in the intro, sometimes those who are bullied become bulliers, and if that's not their behavior, you have to see.

And the fourth one is the X factor.

You don't know because you don't see any signs or you don't see any physical signs or they don't tell you anything, so you have to keep probing them on a regular basis.

- My father taught me the best way to stand up to a bully is to fight back.

- Yeah.

- Is that a good tactic, or no?

- Yes, but I think we have to define what fight is, because most of the time we think it's with these fists and everything like that.

With the bullying, what we say is we want to tell a trusted adult, but first what we want to do is to get the child some type of a domain themselves, to be able to try to handle it themselves, if that can happen.

Then you try to bring in an adult.

And even though people don't want to hear this, sometimes you do have to stand up in the physical fashion.

That's not what we want, because we know what that can lead to.

But if you can stand up to a bully, usually that makes them calm down in itself.

- So when should parents get involved?

- You know, see that's the best question, because they should be involved from the get go.

You want to tell them before you want to be proactive, what to look for in bullying, how not to become a bully yourself.

But on the fourth Wednesday of every September, every school is supposed to have a bully awareness day, so as a parent, I'm telling the schools, you need to make sure that you're getting on the front end of this and then what can we do as a school community to solve this problem, because we know it's prevalent in every school.

- So when you think about bullying, you think about the nerd getting bullied in school, the one with the big glasses and things like that.

Is there a face of a person that's being bullied?

- Yeah, it's every face that you can imagine, because as you said, it's not just now the big jock or the big person beating on a little person.

Specifically with the advent of social media, you have invisible bullying, and so you have so many things that can go on.

You have mean girl syndrome.

You have groups or anybody who's been otherized or marginalized in a community can be bullied.

And the thing about it is this.

When you're being bullied, there's always somebody below you, so that pain you have now is displaced.

So when we say where's the face, the face can be any and everybody.

So when a parent says not my child, yes, even your child.

- So there's some people who say I was bullied and I turned out okay.

What kind of mentality does that send?

Is bullying ever okay?

- One, bullying is never okay.

Most of the time the people who say I'm okay, they're really not okay, and you can see it through the manifestations in some of the things in their lives.

We live in a bullying culture, so not only do we have to talk about this in school, but you have bullying in the workplace.

We see it even within our police force.

So it's a problem and an issue that we have to deal with.

If you don't address or stand up to a bully, you'll continue to be bullied.

- What are the signs?

- Well like we said, sometimes there's those physical signs.

Hey, you know what?

I've been beaten up.

I got a black eye, I got scratches.

I got things of this nature.

But then sometimes the person changes in their character.

It's the isolation.

I don't want to go to school.

I don't want to do this anymore.

It's low self confidence, low self-esteem, and you say this is not my child who I sent before.

There's some differences.

- Now we have this new aspect of cyber bullying, which went up during the pandemic.

Do the same rules apply to cyber bullying as regular bullying?

- No, you know, with cyber bullying it's different because it's invisible.

Before when you talk about that visible bully that you could see, you could stand up to them, you could do something.

So oftentimes with cyber bullying, it's invisible, and when you have an invisible enemy, it's hard to fight.

That's why it takes a community within the family, a community within the school and the community within the community to make sure there's support for individuals, because we see the manifestation of those who are being bullied, that they either become a bully or then they express that harm either outwardly, exert, or inadvertently, inwardly towards themselves in a form of self harm or suicide.

- Where does that come from?

Where does bullying come from?

Is it from the parents?

Is it from the home life?

Is it what kids see on TV?

Where does it come from?

- All of the above.

It's social learning.

We said we live in a bullying culture.

We had a president not too long ago who used his bully ball pit as a traditional bully.

So when we see that, what do the children see?

They see bullying everywhere.

So whether it's the mother to the father, the father to the son, the son to the little brother, the little brother to the dog, the dog to the cat, it goes on.

So you say, how is it taught?

Through the value of social learning.

- So like I said in the intro, sometimes a person being bullied becomes the person doing the bullying.

How does that take place?

- Well, very easy, just like we said, with the displacement, and you said one in every four.

I would suggest to you that that's even higher because that's a self report, and sometimes people are being bullied and don't even recognize it.

They just say you know, I'll take that and it's internalized, but you know what?

It builds up and builds up until it's unleashed.

- Adults, let's talk about adults real quick.

Do adults do bullying?

Is it the same way as when young people do it, or what's the different aspects of adults being bullied?

- Well, it can be the same way, but it can also be more sophisticated.

When you start to think about those things, we have bullies in every aspect of our society, and people can look up to it, and that's why in workplaces, they talk about a psychological safety.

Do I feel not just physically safe here, but do I feel psychologically safe because people are disrespecting me, people are talking down to me, and we see it, like we said, in any marginalized community.

So whether it's a person who's a subordinate, whether it's a person who's a woman, feels like she's being disrespected and not heard.

Bullying doesn't have to come in a form of physical, but it can come into terms of verbal lashing, and the verbal lashings oftentimes are more hurtful and more harmful than the physical effects.

- If you were speaking to a kid right now who's being bullied, I know with adults, they could go to HR at work and talk to the HR department.

What would you tell a person or young person being bullied today?

What should they initially do if they feel that they're being bullied and they feel like they have no place to go?

- You know, that's a hard one because what you want to do is just say do you have a trusted adult?

Because in the school, maybe you don't have that one teacher that you say I can go to every teacher, but I have a favorite teacher.

I have a trusted teacher.

I say go to an adult who you trust, who you believe, who you can help.

If you don't have that person, if you have an older sibling, somebody who can help you navigate through that.

If you don't have that older sibling, maybe a trusted person in the school where they can go and have the courage and tell another teacher or another adult to get you the support and the help that you need.

- So this doesn't have to be a right of passage of growing up.

It could be stopped.

- Bullying is gonna go on, but what we do want to do is to be able to have people, how can we treat it so we can limit it so it doesn't have those long lasting effects that'll go on even into adulthood.

- Well, thanks a lot.

Appreciate it.

- Thanks for having me.

- All right, that's our program for this month.

Next month, we'll bring you a special edition of Black Nouveau as we cover Milwaukee's 51st Annual Juneteenth Festival.

Now if you're planning to attend the festival, make sure you come say hi to us.

You can't miss our production truck.

Our special edition will air Thursday, June 23rd at 7:30 p.m. on Channel 10.

For Black Nouveau, I'm Earl Arms.

Have a good evening.

(energetic music)