RaVaana Griggs

Ms. Hertz

Art 2

May 24, 2018

Abdulomar Tucker, RaVaana Griggs, Philamena Seals

Ms.Aziz

Human Anatomy

May 22, 2018

Write - Up

Our video was about Water Sanitation. In our video, we basically informed our viewers what water sanitation was and how it was a big issue that was receiving little attention. We also gave a quick tip to our views on how we could as a collective sustain healthy water. We chose this topic because it was something that wasn’t given much life so our PSA would give the topic a stage .In my group, I helped lay the structure for our video and put in lots of work for our checkpoints. I think we could have had better time management besides that everything was fine. The most meaningful part of this project is the knowledge gained from going through with it. I have learned about how important the issue is and it has made me want to brainstorm some solutions.

For our benchmark we decided to do a PSA on water sanitation. In our video we included a conversation amongst the group members talking about what water sanitation is, how it’s sanitized and why it’s important. In my opinion water sanitation is the most important topic because of how necessary water is to all species. For the project, I got us in contact with a PWD worker and came up with questions to interview him. I then interviewed him and got information on how philadelphia's sanitizes water. Me and my group worked well together and turned everything on time. We could have started recording for our PSA earlier, but we didn’t.  The most meaningful part to this PSA was learning how much work goes into something as simple as clean water.

Abstract

This interview is on Mrs. Carolyn Griggs. In this interview she talks about her childhood and her school life. Growing up was pretty fun for her, it wasn’t until her adulthood actually she started to receive a bit of segregation/racism. More details will be explained during the transcript of interview. Get Ready to Listen :)

Research

History tells us who we are. It is the collective story of what it means to be a Philadelphian. To live here. To work here. The African American history collection online seeks to give visitors a snapshot of the complex history of African Americans in Philadelphia. The Museum is proud to present its first online exhibition, a compilation of 200 diverse objects spanning five centuries that illustrate the broad experience of African Americans in Philadelphia, at work and at play, dealing with struggles and celebrating successes.

Resources

http://www.philadelphiahistory.org/african_american

Interview Below

RaVaana Griggs: Hello my name is RaVaana Griggs and I am conducting an interview with Carolyn Griggs.

RaVaana Griggs: My first question is, Where were you born? What was it like in the city you grew up in?

Carolyn Griggs: I was born in Philadelphia,Pa in the year of 1966. Uhhh Philadelphia to me has always been a friendly place, a lot of different ethnicities and just a good time growing up just having a great time with my youth is what I can remember. Lots of fun with my family and friends.

RaVaana Griggs: Ok, have you ever experienced discrimination?

Carolyn Griggs: Well, I’ve experienced various discrimination most recently in my 48th year of life and while I was conducting a um track championship in Bloomington Indiana. I was the only female of African American descent who was part of the management staff and I had a crew of 8 individuals working um on my team and most of them were, I would say there were 7 white males and 1 caucasian uhh female. I introduced myself to the group unn there was really no response from the group and kind of uhh, I felt that I wasn’t, I wasn’t to be part of their management or to be a leader for that particular group. Umm Uhh as I spoke to them in a group setting and gave them instruction uhm I over heard one of the individuals say, “ I don’t take instructions from a black women uhh this is our stadium and I’ve always worked here, I’ve always been the head uh for this type of event I don’t know why they brought someone like this here”. Umm but part of what I do is manage uhm races for youth athletes of various ethnicities and backgrounds, gender both male and female and, we have a management team a diverse group and I just happened to be in charge of the other starters who start the races the that group. Umm that comment it was very disturbing, at first I wasn’t gonna say anything because, I am from Philadelphia and I’m in a strange town not knowing um a lot of the individuals there but I know that is the home of the Klu Klux Klan and that is one of the uhh very uhh predominantly umm white areas, where everyone in town basically looks the same. There is not a lot of diversity in that little small town where we were conducting this championship and they just happened to win the bid and had the resources to such a, an event. I did bring it to the head of my management staff and umm they spoke to the individual about the comments that were made and umm the person was basically escorted from the venue and was not allowed to participate for this umm seven day event.  Umm later in the evening the person came to me and asked if they could speak to me, yes I ablibged to speak with them and they wanted to appologize they said “ they had not umm had anyone of my ethncity come and be a head or manager over them and they felt uncomfortable with that” but I said “ It’s 2014 and I know you see and watch TV you read you, your, and,and you’re twice my age I know you’ve seen African Americans before and our commander and chief is one so I don’t know uhh why you would make that comment and, and not think that you could, think that you could get away with it and did not be addressed. I am unfortunatly sorry that you feel the way you do but uhh as you live on in life and as I do so myself um don’t dissrespect other just accept them for who they are um and just move on with you life and I’ll do the same and it was an experience that I’ll never forget but it didn’t change how I felt about people, some people are ignorant and in there ways and set in there ways, there’s nothing you can really do but just educate them about one how to conduct themselves in, infront a group setting of,of various ethnicities we have so many different umm ethnictities and we all get along very well together so that was my, my experience with discrimination.

RaVaana Griggs: Okay, Growing up how did you feel about caucasian people?

Carolyn Griggs: Uh,um growing up most of my teachers were caucasian I had a few African American teachers and we were taught at home um just to respect others as a as you were to respect yourself, to treat everybody with kindness and care and we really didn’t look at color to much yes, we read about it in books, saw it on television as I said growing up in 1960-1970’sit was a pretty interesting time in our culture and just our years but again not feeling the brunt of that but just seeing uh changes were we had more opportunities as African Americans to, to attend um  you know schools of higher learning and, and to be offered better employment and housing and so on and so forth it really didn’t have an impact on me in my young life I just saw that changes in  just were amazed at the you know contributions that African Americans made to society as a whole.

RaVaana Griggs: Okay so, How to you white people thought of you as an individual?

Carolyn Griggs: Well, I.. am very confident and know for a fact that I was very well thought of and so was that of my family and basically the circle of friends that I had, because we were about our work and about moving forward and doing great things and helping in the community and church and our neighborhoods and always my parents were apart of the um we had the, what was it?, home and school association. My mother was there when she could, to contribute to any events that we had at school and supporting um our community so um we were always regarded, treated with him regard and that from what I can regard

RaVaana Griggs: Okay, did you got to a school that was mixed or predominantly on race?

Carolyn Griggs: My elementary school was predominately African American was Commodore John Barry Elementary School located and 59th & Race Sts in West Philadelphia.

RaVaana Griggs: What were you experiences in school?

Carolyn Griggs: My experiences in school were excellent umm I always loved to read,and worked really hard uhh and I would help with uhhh my teachers, as I would be first to finish tests and they would let me mark test and just umm feed my creativity and thirst for knowledge so I always had a wonderful experience in school.

RaVaana Griggs: Okay, do you your mother or father experiencing, experiencing discrimination?

Carolyn Griggs: I remember my mother more so than my dad, because my dad worked weekends and, and night shifts a lot so but umm every Saturday, mostly every Saturday my mother would take us for long walks either to the zoo uhh to the park or to uhh a shopping area and it was uhh 69th in Market streets. It was a store there called Kresge’s and most people uhh would remember uhh it was like a branch of Woolworth, my mother would give us five dollars to go in and get us whatever we wanted um this one particular Saturday I had some puzzle books and um I wanted to buy uh I believe it was a necklace for my mother but I didn’t have enough money. And, so I, instead of leaving it on the counter I took it to show my older sister and the one lady uhh who was a sales clerk she was a caucasian lady she thought I was stealing it but I wasn’t I didn’t think and im like why would I steal I have money in my hand, but she umm my mother um saw her uhh chasing me and, and, and stopped me and my mother came over to me and she asked her, “to take her children out of the store, because they were stealing”. And I said no I wasn’t stealing I wanted to get this for you but I didn’t have enough money do I wanted to find my older sister to give me two more dollars so that I could buy umm so that was to me um very discriminatory, because um there was a little boy next to me who actually did take something and I saw him stick it in his pocket and I told the lady well that boy right there he took something  he put that brooch in his pocket you didn’t say anything he stole right there you didn’t say anything to him but you were looking at me probably, because I’m black. Umm so that was on incident I can remember of my mother experiencing discrimination more so, because of the color of her children and the color of her so.

Humans of SLA@Beeber: Alisa Foster

1.If you could go anywhere in the world where would it be? why?

I would like to go to Dubai it's so pretty and the water is clear as day.

2.What is the most import thing you've learned?why?

I've learned to treat people how you would want to be treated because I have to think about treating people how I would like

3.What s the most exciting thing you've done?

   Humans of SLA@Beeber Epfanio Rios

1.What is your earliest memory?

Epi’s earliest memory is really obscure because the only thing he remembers is waking up in a really big room and wondering why he was there.

2.Whatʼs the most exciting thing youʼve done?

creating a speech and resighting it in front of his whole school, he was really scared but it was also fun

3.What do you think your life will be like when you get older?

He thinks his life can be anything he doesn’t really see his life as anything just one of those floater guys living out of his car but hopefully it would be fun.

4.Tell me a story about your name.

His parents had his named planned out for him since before he was born, they were just wait for a child be named Epi.

5.If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be? Why?

Epi would like to travel to Germany he always found it to be really cool to be apart of it and learn the language and cultures of it.

6.Who has been the biggest influence on your life?

Between his father or his English teach Mr.Link, “ Mr.link has just been one of the teachers that he would talk to about problems rather emotional or personal and they well understood each other, he also helped him to be the person he is today, to do what ever feels right to him and to himself no matter what also he’s also the person who got him into writing and gave him the nickname which will forever live (hipi).

7.What are the most important lessons youʼve learned in life?

the most important lessons he has learned is your not going to have someone be there for you all the time sometimes you have to do things for yourself.