“Now or Never” was the theme of the fifth annual TEDxCrenshaw event, held in Leimert Park last week. High school student Kawika Smith drove home the point, urging the audience to harness the power of local youth organizers.
“The time is now when we are to speak and be heard,” Smith said. “Youth will inherit today’s world, so we ought to be at the table of decision making.”
Smith’s voice was recently heard as far away as Sacramento, after he confronted school administrators.
Smith is his school’s Black Student Union president and is actively involved as a youth leader at Community Coalition. He has been civically engaged since he was 8 years old, when he marched in the SEIU picket lines with his mother and he is compelled to ensure the youth empowerment is never licensed or dimmed.
“’Afros are not to be worn over an inch’ that was once my school’s policy,” Smith said to the audience. “Why should a school located in Watts, with a third of its students being Black, prohibit their students from growing their hair out over an inch?”
After administrators explained that the policy took into account the school’s work-study program —where every student is assigned to a company as an intern and must look “professional”—he wasn’t satisfied.
“Students were being offered four years of corporate work-study at school, at the cost of them not showing up as their whole selves,” Smith said. “Since adults did nothing to challenge or to remove the discriminatory, exclusive policies, I decided to do so.”
He even had one school administrator who believed afros were detrimental to student’s education and “weighing down” on their brains.
“Where is the justice when I’m sent home and charged $175 a day until I cut my hair,” Smith asked the audience.
After sending his principal an email in February of last year, Smith had an opportunity to meet with Sen. Holly J. Mitchell regarding the issue. She agreed that students should not be sent home because of the natural characteristics of their hair. She had also recently met with some adult employees who were battling the same issues in their offices.
Mitchell, who wears locs, believed that the policies at schools and workplaces reflected the historic racism issues in American society. On January 30th this year, she introduced SB 188, the CROWN (Creating Respectful Open Workplace for Natural hair) Act, permitting protected and natural hair styles in schools and workplaces.
With Governor Gavin Newsome’s signature, California became the first state to ban natural hair discrimination.
“The goal of the CROWN Act is to guarantee that Black women and men can choose how to wear their hair without fear of bias or discrimination,” Mitchell said. “Black women should not be denied economical advancement because of the way they choose to wear their hair.”
Smith forked out his afro before leaving the stage and advised those audience members who are looking for that elusive seat at the table.
“Stand on top of the table, rather than bringing in a chair,” Smith concluded.
Marc Maye, another TEDxCrenshaw speaker, co-founded 4wrd Progress. Maye grew up in Compton and avoided the gang and street life through sports.
4wrd Progress is a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowerment and growth of youth worldwide, using play to naturally develop emotional skills.
Maye is assistant principal and athletic director at St. Lawrence of Brindisi School in Watts. He believes adults have to change how they view sports.
In 2017, former NBA star and coach Kurt Rambis attended the debut of 4wrd Progress summer camp and spoke to the youth about leadership. Rambis later sponsored the 2018 basketball camp.
“Young people were actually having fun, while also learning great values,” Maye said. The event birthed the I Play, I Lead Basketball Camp. “Which focuses on building character through sports in a unique way.”
Maye believes that sport games are really learning opportunities that adults must take advantage of, for the sake of the children. Often adults put too much emphasis on winning.
One recent warm-up session turned into a lesson on respect, Maye said.
“It was a great teaching moment,“ he said. “Those lifelong lessons being learned through sports transfer into their own lives.”
Other TEDxCrenshaw speakers included Dr. Portia Jackson-Preston, an assistant professor of Public Health at CSU Fullerton, who spoke on the missing ingredient in self care. Jackson-Preston is an assistant professor of Pubic Health at CSU Fullerton and formerly worked with the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.
Tianning Chen, an Industrial Engineer and UX Designer, spoke on the gentrification similarities between Chinese cities and South Los Angeles.
During his TEDxCrenshaw talk, Maceo Paisley, a multi-disciplinary artist, suggested a way for busy people to “make time.” After serving in the U.S. Army and climbing the ladder of corporate America, Paisley made his way into the world of the arts. For the past decade he has danced professionally and is the executive director of the non-profit platform Citizens of Culture.
TED, a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, began as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged. Today TED talks cover a wide rage of topics in the form of short, powerful addresses, usually 18 minutes or less. Close to 50,0000 talks have been given at 10,000 events since the program launched in 2009.
TEDxCrenshaw is an independently organized TED event which has as its mission “…to energize members of the South Los Angeles community by creating a space to spread ideas, spark conversation and activate ideas to address the ongoing evolution of our South Los Angeles community.”
TED is owned by a nonprofit, nonpartisan foundation. Independently run TEDx events are licensed by TED, almost like franchises. Talks lack any commercial, religious or political agenda and they are not a platform for professional speakers.
For more information, visit www.tedxcrenshaw.com.
