What’s Love Got to Do with It? Liberating Ourselves from the Ways of White Supremacy

I used to believe that if I cared deeply about racial justice and knew enough about racism, I would be one of the good white people who “got it,” a genuine, white, antiracist ally. This belief drove me to seek as much knowledge as I could about race, racism, and antiracist practices. I majored in Ethnic Studies as an undergraduate and became a classroom teacher with the intention of creating greater racial equity through my role within the educational system. I continued learning through workshops, study groups, conferences, and other professional development opportunities. I taught a curriculum with a social justice lens and worked hard to implement the best teaching practices I knew, all while doing my best to create caring, connected classroom communities. What was outside of my awareness back then was how, no matter how much I knew or cared, I continued to manifest white supremacist patterns in my internal and external ways of being.

One especially harmful pattern was my sense of self-righteousness. I was sharply critical and judgmental of other white people who I deemed to be unenlightened about race, distancing myself from many of them as a result. At the same time, I did not have authentic and close friendships with BIPOC colleagues or people in my personal life. I also had a habit of comparing myself to other educators regarding knowledge and action about race issues, which left me feeling either superior to them or wanting to put them on a pedestal. I felt anxious about conferences with parents of my BIPOC students and nervous about how those parents perceived me and my teaching. In staff meetings, I largely stayed silent about the ways I saw racism showing up in our school while, outside those meetings, I was consistently criticizing how racial inequities were not being addressed. Rather than being direct with school leaders, I mostly chose to share my criticisms in side conversations with colleagues I trusted would back me up. When I did speak in the collective environment, I spoke from a place of wanting to show what I “knew” rather than from the capacity to take ownership and join with others. The truth is, despite indicators that my students were engaged, academically successful, and emotionally connected, I was always afraid on some level that I would be called out for the race and class inequalities which on some level I knew still existed in my classroom. 

As I struggled, internally and externally, to be a “good white teacher” while trying to stay on top of everything else that “good teaching” involves, I regularly felt overwhelmed. I would arrive home for my “second shift” as a single mom to two sons wanting to be fully present, but mostly feeling drained and exhausted. I had very little time and space to genuinely reflect on my teaching. When I did, self-critical questions arose. “How could you know and care so much about racism and still perpetuate racial inequities in your own classroom? What is wrong with you? How can you still be so inadequate?” But in truth, I didn’t have the capacity, resilience, and inner strength to address these questions. So I mostly suppressed them, distracting myself with the many legitimately urgent tasks at hand; creating lesson plans, grading homework, and swearing at the photocopy machine, which had the cruel habit of jamming or breaking down precisely when I was the most pressed for time.

Then one day in 2012, a close colleague, and now beloved friend, told me about an organization called The UNtraining. She said they work with racial affinity groups: white people work with other white people focusing on race with the goal of healing social and personal oppressions. The “more-evolved-about-racism-than-other-white-people” part of me was skeptical. “After years and years of studying racism myself, what could other white people possibly teach me? I doubt they’ve done all the work I have or care as much as I do about this topic.” But something about the opportunity called to me. So I applied to be a part of a “Phase 1” group of 10 white people, who, with two white facilitators, would meet for five hours at a time over a period of six months. 

Finding a New Perspective

What I didn’t realize during the application process was that this was going to be a very different kind of learning experience. Although my previous experiences studying race and racism involved some personal reflection, this would be the first time I would engage in the kind of internal transformation that comes from an ongoing group work. It went well beyond conceptual understanding. 

The UNtraining holistic approach combines a focus on emotional and somatic (body-based) awareness, mindfulness-based tools and practices, and a deep exploration of how our racial conditioning as white people, our internalized white supremacy, manifests within us personally. This internal work informs participants’ understanding of how our actions and inactions create systemic and societal oppression. Doing this work enabled me to stop diverting the attention away from myself and blaming the other white people for systemic racism. What made the Untraining approach effective was the way my facilitators taught and modeled unconditional compassion, while simultaneously leading us in a difficult internal and external exploration. This process broke me open in a way that I had not experienced before. I underwent a shift in how I relate to myself and others around racism and began to find myself better able to align my actions with my deepest values and intentions regarding racial equity.

At first I resisted the notion that compassion should be extended to white people. I would think, “It’s people of color who have suffered because of racism. They’re the ones who need and deserve compassion; not us.” Although I wouldn’t say it out loud, I saw compassion for white people as the ineffective hippy nonsense that certain white people engage in primarily to get themselves off the racist hook. For a while, I continued judging and comparing myself to the other participants, convinced of my superiority. Over time, though, the compassion and connection I experienced began to permeate my sense of self. It drove me to continue to engage, despite my resistance. And then, little by little, a new awareness began to emerge. I started to realize how my outward criticism and judgment actually reflected an even harsher judgment and criticism I was constantly directing at myself, and how paralyzed I was because of it. I saw how it propelled me into guilt, shame, fear, denial, insecurity, and defensiveness when my own manifestations of whiteness came to my attention. I saw how all this prevented me from staying present with myself and others and kept me from doing the liberating work I thought I was so committed to. 

I began to reflect on the truth: how my critical, self-righteousness had actually been working against my antiracist goals by alienating me from others. I was shutting people down and isolating myself from those I could have been inviting into this journey of personal and social liberation. I began to see how painful early experiences had created deep insecurities, which worked together with my white supremacist training to produce an unconscious cocktail of toxic habits. My ways of relating and not relating, communicating and staying silent, along with countless other rigid and automatic patterns were intertwined with systems of oppression and misaligned with my deepest intentions. I realized that this way of being with myself and others is the heart of white supremacy — that the same patterns of harshness, othering, judgment, and cruelty are at the root of historical and ongoing oppression of all kinds.

Ten years later, I continue to benefit from the UNtraining, as a participant, and, for the last eight years, as a facilitator for Phase 1. As an ongoing member of this community, I experience the fruits of this transformational work more and more. What I’ve come to understand is that cultivating our compassion for ourselves and others, yes even and especially for other white people, is the work. I’m not referring to a superficial compassion that could be manipulated to avoid accountability for racial harm. I am referring to the open, courageous, and even broken-hearted aspects of our human experience that move us to take responsibility for the harm caused by our white supremacist conditioning. It is the understanding of myself as love that gives me the strength, the resiliency, and the courage to hold the seemingly contradictory truths of my essential goodness and the harm I cause due to my white conditioning. It enables me to feel what those truths involve so that I can stay with them, not tun away as I once did. It helps me find and clarify a path forward that is aligned with who I truly am and what I care most about. 

This way of relating to myself, to other white people, and to the BIPOC in my life has opened up new possibilities for connection, deeper friendships, and professional expansion. My journey on this path of internal development — with all the messiness and imperfection — has enabled me to show up in ways that I never would have been able to before. I will share some examples of the kinds of shifts I have experienced, while acknowledging that everyone’s path is unique. 

Holistic Antiracist Practices

I no longer feel driven to push myself in ways that compromise my well-being even while I remain committed to racial justice. As I sit with the inherent privilege embodied in so much of what engaging in self-care involves, I now prioritize multiple practices during the downtime that I do have — practices that center my holistic wellness, compassion, and ongoing development. Among these practices are meditation, mindfulness, emotional healing work, physical exercise, and journaling. They include prioritizing sleep and connecting with nature. They include listening to audiobooks and podcasts (mostly in my car) that contain wisdom that uplifts and inspires me, spending time with people who are nurturing, and participating in community with others who are committed to unlearning racism and other forms of oppression. They include noticing and appreciating beauty around me, and spontaneously singing and dancing (mostly in my living room or while I’m doing chores). I rarely watch TV or use screens during my downtime. These practices enable me to be more present and resourced in all I do, while being more connected to the version of myself that is aligned with what I care most about. And I no longer experience the depletion and exhaustion that were an ongoing part of my existence in the past. 

Prioritizing care and compassion for myself and my own ongoing growth, even as I grapple with the many demands of work and parenting, has become the fertile soil for all that has blossomed in my life, including my actions for greater racial equity. Through this process, I have found the courage to feel my fear, take more risks, and learn from my failures as well as my successes. 

This learning began when I engaged in action research about my own teaching practice focusing on racial equity. While still developing my confidence as a leader in this work, I imperfectly organized and facilitated an “Understanding Whiteness” group for faculty and staff at my school. It was a very small group at first, and steadily grew in numbers and scope of impact with time. Although I no longer work at that school, the group is still meeting. I am proud of a collaboration I enjoyed with a trusted BIPOC colleague, which resulted in the high school’s first “History of Whiteness” interdisciplinary History and Human Development course. I have also partnered with other white and BIPOC colleagues to create practices and institutional changes focused on hiring and retaining teachers of color and developing equitable practices centered in school culture and belonging for staff and students. I have led faculty/staff development about how whiteness manifests in our teaching practices, and how we can work together to break patterns of our white conditioning in all that we do. I have been able to stay present with and make amends for the racial harm I have caused in my personal and professional life. Best of all, I have been able to develop deep and authentic friendships with more white and BIPOC folks, which greatly enriches my life.

The inner transformation I have experienced has also led me to pursue a livelihood that is more in alignment with my gifts, skills, and strengths. Time and time again, through my teaching, coaching, and training now, I witness how the healing I have done within myself helps shift others' capacity to show up more powerfully in their work for equity. I engage with other white people who want to heal personal and social oppressions within themselves, their communities, and the world. 

I would not be where I am today without the unconditional love of those who have shown me where the journey of healing and loving can lead. The more powerfully I learn to connect to compassion for, and faith in, myself and others, the more I expand my capacity to feel the pain and heartbreak white supremacy creates in the world, and figure out ways to carry that healing forward, personally and collectively. Little by little, I am beginning to understand what it means to live according to the words of UNtraining cofounder Rita Shimmin: “Loving yourself is a political act. We are taught not to love ourselves, and from that place we are easily manipulated. Love yourself so much that this love changes the world.”

Mollie Crittenden has worked as an educator at the elementary and high school levels. More recently she has been working as an integral life coach, transformational instructional coach, and regularly facilitates white affinity groups supporting educators and people in a wide variety of professions to expand their capacity to act as racial justice allies. More at www.molliecrittenden.com.

Why I Am Tired of Talking about the Model Minority Myth

For Asian Americans, the myth of the “model minority” has created conditions where Asian American students are treated within the narrow confines of a racial stereotype. Because those confines encourage us to think of Asian American children as “whiz kids” or coming from determined and education-focused families — qualities we all think of as positive — it may be difficult to see how the myth can be harmful. Yet, decades of research has demonstrated that this myth continues to marginalize and harm Asian American youth. The research has also made it clear that belief in the myth is pervasive in schools — and that we need to excise it from our teaching and learning practices. 

Truth be told, I am so tired of doing workshops on the model minority myth. I know it’s important, and serves me right for engaging in published scholarship related to the topic, but it’s difficult for me to constantly revisit this problematic stereotype of Asian Americans that continues to perpetuate the notion that all Asian Americans are hard-working, overachieving, gifted, and driven individuals who achieve against all odds. Time and again, I am asked the question, “But, Liza, why is that stereotype bad? Don’t people want to be seen as all of those positive things?” To be honest, nearly every time I am asked this question, I am being asked by genuinely curious people. And sometimes I am even asked that question by other Asian Americans. 

So, real talk: Yes, of course people want to be known as hard-working, overachieving, gifted, and driven. Those qualities, by themselves, are not insults. I’ve been to award ceremonies that use those very words to describe incredible leaders. I have read — and probably written — college and job recommendations using similar words to describe former students and colleagues. I have read job descriptions that seek employees who meet these qualifications.

By themselves, these qualities are strong and validating. However, in the context of the historical treatment of Asian Americans, the fight for visibility in data, and cross-racial solidarity movements, the model minority myth takes on a very racialized meaning. And, as we all know, context matters. 

Asian America

First, it’s important to note when and why the term “Asian American” first emerged. it was first used in 1968 as a label of self-determination. “Asian American” was an umbrella term and identity chosen by the Asian American community, whereas the previous popular term, “Oriental,” was a Eurocentric one that reinforced a colonial and imperialist agenda. The new term provided both an organizing umbrella under which a critical mass of those of us with Asian roots could connect and a way to identify our collective political and social needs. It provided us with a unifying identity through which we could organize and advocate for our rights. 

Budiman and Ruiz (2021) report that there are approximately 22 million Asians in the United States. As of 2015, 24% of Asian Americans (4.9 million) were of Chinese origin, the largest single origin group. The next two largest groups are Indian-origin Asians, who accounted for 20% of the national Asian population (4.0 million), and Filipinos (19%, or 3.9 million).  Those with roots in Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan easily clear the 1 million mark as well. Overall, Asian Americans represent 50 ethnic subgroups and nearly 2,000 different languages and dialects. Because there are so many different groups and subgroups, it is easy to see how the umbrella term “Asian American” was politically and sociologically useful. 

Visibility Through Disaggregated Data 

Taken in the aggregate, Asian Americans appear to be doing very well in terms of educational and economic success. This is why the model minority myth thrives. In particular, the myth cherry picks data that shows many members of the top six Asian Americans groups thriving in this country and uses it to reinforce the narrative that all Asian Americans are successful. Indeed, many Asian Americans, especially those who were allowed to come to the United States through specialized visa programs (e.g., programs for medical doctors, nurses, and engineers), found both institutional and structural support for immigration and settling in this country. They came with built-in jobs, opportunities, access to education, and financial opportunity — and generally they have done well financially. However, aggregated data does not tell the complete story. We tend to downplay or ignore the experiences of other Asian American groups such as Laotian, Cambodian, Thai, Pakistani, Nepalese, Indonesian, Burmese, Malaysian, Mongolian, and Sri Lankan — all of whom have unique historical and current relationships to the United States. These latter groups did not immigrate under inviting or easy circumstances. If we take out the data related to the top six Asian American groups, the demographic story is far more mixed and complex. The model minority myth works to hide this complexity.

A Racial Wedge 

Because context matters, it’s important to explore the context in which the model minority concept was created as a racial wedge between Asian Americans and other minoritized groups, specifically African Americans. We can trace the first appearance of the term “model minority” to 1966 when William Petersen, a sociologist at the University of California, Berkeley, made comparisons between Japanese Americans and African Americans through his article "Success Story, Japanese-American Style.” It positioned Japanese Americans, in particular, as being rule-abiding, in sharp contrast to the picture Peterson, and much of the rest of the country, was painting about African Americans at that time. Though only a few decades earlier, Japanese Americans were incarcerated in detention camps by the U.S. government, they were now being used as a racial prop to shame African Americans and set the stage for ongoing anti-Blackness. This false social narrative that Asian Americans were better than African Americans, in time, evolved into the full-blown model minority myth, harming both Asian Americans and African Americans and driving a wedge between the two communities.

The Role of Identity Conscious Education 

In my new book, The Identity Conscious Educator: Building the Habits and Skills for a More Inclusive School, I argue that educators must examine their own socialization related to identity. Specifically related to Asian Americans and the model minority myth, I ask educators:

•  What were some of your first/earliest messages about Asian Americans?

• Where did these messages come from? Where did you learn them?

• Were these messages positive or negative? (I encourage you to abandon the “neutral” option here.)

• How do some of those early messages show up in your teaching, leading, and learning today? 

Academic and Social Services

If we perpetuate the myth that Asian Americans are high achieving, successful, and do not need any academic or social services, then we overlook the realities of many of our students. We dismiss the fact that many of the smaller ethnic Asian groups in this country have had vastly different experiences and access to education than most members of the larger Asian ethnic groups in this country. For example, the experiences of students who are the children of medical doctors who were provided special visas to enter and settle in the United States are different from the experiences of students who are children of refugees, survivors of war, and those who resettled with few belongings and support structures. If we treat all of our students as if they had access to the same political and structural support, then we erase what they need in order to achieve equity. 

In schools, when we believe that Asian Americans are all academically high achieving, we render their actual needs invisible and, thus, do not offer support services. Research has made this clear. The model minority stereotype contributes to educators overlooking the needs of Asian American students. Even when they are struggling, we tend to minimize their needs and fail to provide them with equitable services. In my own experience, though I was struggling in high school math, my teachers repeatedly just said to me, “Oh, you’ll get it. You’ll be fine,” as if I was going to magically and genetically understand what was going on. Teachers dismissed me from extra help sessions saying I didn’t need it (yet I continued to struggle with a C or C- in their classes) They always skipped over me when walking around the classroom to help students, and they even recommended me for advanced classes when I was struggling to stay afloat. The model minority narrative got in their way of seeing me as someone who needed support, assistance, and guidance. 

Mental, Emotional, and Psychological Health

Time and again, I’ve heard educators describe Asian American students as naturally self-motivated and determined, genetically programmed for academic success. But by buying into this myth, we erase the mental, emotional, and psychological support that Asian American students might — and often do — need. Some of our students are achieving despite great risk to their mental, emotional, and psychological health. Others are not. In fact, suicide was the eighth leading cause of death for Asian Americans, and Asian Americans college students were more likely than White American students to have had suicidal thoughts and to attempt suicide (Kisch, Leino, & Silverman, 2005). Because of the myth, however, we are less likely to recommend mental, emotional, and psychological support services to vulnerable Asian American students than we would for other vulnerable students. 

Opportunities to Organize

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Asian Americans have been the target of anti-Asian slurs, violence, and discrimination. This increased animosity comes, in part, from the early nickname of the virus as “the China virus” — a comment oft-repeated by the previous U.S. president. A report by Ruiz, Edwards, and Lopez (2021), via the Pew Research Center, found a majority (71%) of U.S. adults currently see a lot or some discrimination against Asian people. Yet, by holding onto the myth that Asian American students are quiet, obedient, and stay out of trouble, we even ignore or dismiss this deeply troubling racism. We also can’t see clearly that Asian American students, in fact, are outraged, angry, and frustrated by this wrongful behavior. In turn, we overlook opportunities for them to organize protests or otherwise speak out. We may also be misreading their worries and fears about their safety simply as them being quiet. If we believe the narrative that Asian American students are not politically or socially engaged, we miss opportunities to support them and meet their learning and social needs. 

Programs and Scholarships

Finally, because Asian Americans are often embedded in a narrative of success, they are often excluded from programs that provide support. For example, for programs and scholarships that seek to advance Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC), Asian Americans are often not included in the qualifications — and, thus, not able to apply. Too often, the exclusion of Asian Americans is built on the belief that Asian Americans are high achieving and already experiencing success. The model minority myth restricts access for Asian Americans who actually would benefit from support programs and financial scholarships. 

Action Items 

As educators and school leaders, what are the steps we can take to dismantle our relationship to the model minority myth and improve our policies, practices, programs, and procedures to be more inclusive of the wide spectrum of experiences and identities within the Asian American umbrella?

1.  Understand that term “Asian American” is still important.  The term “Asian American” was created and used to build political capacity. In this regard, it is still a relevant term. Educators should support practices that engage the “Asian American” umbrella term to build critical mass and visibility.

2. Push for disaggregated data. Even though the larger umbrella term helps to build critical mass, it is also important to push for disaggregated data. Knowing that data sets often make invisible the needs of Asian subgroups, push for disaggregated data in your school or district’s reporting. This also means providing spaces for Asian Americans to self-identify or to systematically include options for Asian American subgroup reporting. Resist data that only tells a single narrative of Asian ethnic groups. 

3. Examine how your policies may be creating inequity related to Asian Americans. Though you may have Asian Americans who are academically and economically successful, do not build entire policies and practices on this segment of the population. Examine how your policies and practices can be more inclusive of the diversity within the Asian American category and include groups for whom greater equity is still needed. 

4.  Create more windows and mirrors within the Asian American narrative in your curriculum. It is too easy to tell a single story about who Asian Americans are in this country. Build your library of narratives that include Asian Americans from ethnic groups not often represented. Include Asian American figures and characters who are based in America, and not just stories and tales that perpetuate Asian as foreign or external to American narratives. 

5. Be proactive in your support for Asian American students. While we may have institutionally ignored the needs of Asian Americans, you may also encounter Asian American students and families who are not used to engaging in social, emotional, and academic support. Understand that this is due, in part, to the fact that we have ignored these needs to date and have left Asian American students and families to navigate the system by themselves. Don’t wait for students and families to approach us. Include Asian American students and families in outreach programs from the start. 

6. Provide opportunities for them to speak up and speak out. Asian American students are often painted as quiet, obedient, and rule-following. Yet, many Asian American students are seeking opportunities to speak up and speak out about issues related to their community. Provide support for them to express their anger and frustration, their worries and fears, and their reasons for getting involved. 

As teachers and school leaders, we have to address our own early socialization about who Asian Americans are and the narratives we have been told about them and us. We need to develop the habits and skills of building our own knowledge about Asian Americans and providing resources for our schools and students; engage in reflection about our own messages and connection to Asian American issues; and move to action to create a more inclusive school community. The model minority myth is both pervasive and problematic. We need to discard it now — and to take action to create conditions that enable all of our students to thrive. 

Liza A. Talusan is an educator, facilitator, and strategic partner for schools and organizations. She works closely with teachers and school leaders as they build more identity-conscious practices for more inclusive school communities. Liza served as the Chair of the Research on the Education of Asian and Pacific Americans (2018-2020) and her dissertation “The Formation of Scholars: Critical Narratives of Asian Americans and Pacific Islander Doctoral Students in Higher Education,” was awarded the Dissertation of the Year Award by the AERA REAPA SIG (2017). Liza’s scholarship focuses on socialization, race and racism, and Asian Americans in education. She is a mother to three multiracial Asian/Latinx children and the author of The Identity-Conscious Educator: Building the habits and skills for more inclusive schools. More at http://www.lizatalusan.com.

 References

Budiman, A., and Ruiz, N. (April, 2021). Key facts about Asian Americans, a diverse and growing population. Pew Research Center. ​​https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/04/29/key-facts-about-asian-americans/.

Kisch, J., Leino, E. V., & Silverman, M. M. (2005). Aspects of suicidal behavior, depression and treatment in college students: Results from the spring 2000 National College Health Assessment Survey. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 35 , 3–13. 

Ruiz, N., Edwards, K., and Lopez, M. (2021). One-third of Asian Americans fear threats, physical attacks and most say violence against them is rising. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/04/21/one-third-of-asian-americans-fear-threats-physical-attacks-and-most-say-violence-against-them-is-rising/

We Must Keep Teaching Toward Equity

Among the oft-repeated lines from James Baldwin’s writing is one that has become a rallying cry for advocates of racial justice: “Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” 

Baldwin’s insight first appeared in his 1962 New York Times essay, “As Much of the Truth as One Can Bear,” a meditation on what our country’s canonical literature at the time revealed about mainstream America’s capacity to assess the actual social and political health of the nation. In the piece, Baldwin also observes,

“It is, alas, the truth, that to be an American writer today means mounting an unending attack on all that Americans believe themselves to hold sacred. It means fighting an astute and agile guerilla warfare with that American complacency which so inadequately masks the American panic.”

Half a century later, in an address on a phenomenon she identifies as post-traumatic slave syndrome, Dr. Joy DeGruy discusses the persistence of the panic Baldwin described when she asks why there is still so much cultural resistance to confronting the trauma of slavery. As DeGruy explains, peeling back layers of this trauma suffered directly by African Americans involves peeling back layers of trauma for all of us. But unless we look squarely at that trauma, she says, “none of us can heal.… This is a collective process.... It’s not just a pointing of fingers. All of us have been impacted by historical, multigenerational trauma.”

At present, however, longstanding and expanding educational efforts to confront that historical trauma are under a coordinated attack that has spread swiftly through panic-fueled rhetoric. In recent months, legislative attempts to restrict teaching about racism and bias have spread to 28 states. Educational practices grouped by their opponents under the term “critical race theory” include, among other things, teaching about the history of enslavement and its crucial role in this nation’s story, and analyzing the persistent impacts of structural racism in this country and elsewhere. 

Such educational practices are mandatory in public education curricula and instruction in some states, and they should be mandatory and supported in all states. If our multiracial nation is ever to achieve its potential as a truly democratic body, we must continue to face, and help young people face, the full history of our nation — including the parts that are hardest to confront — as well as the damaging reverberations of that history. Only in the context of an ongoing, rigorous analysis of our past and its impacts on our present can we direct the course of our shared future toward real equity and true freedom for all of us.

It’s important to pause here to examine the term “critical race theory” (CRT) — a phrase coined in the 1980s in the field of legal studies to describe ways in which structural racism can lead to differential legal outcomes that are inflected by racial identity. It’s also essential to consider the misleading way in which this term has recently been appropriated, especially in the last year, by those proposing to ban educational practices they say fall under the heading of CRT. 

St. Louis attorneys Mark and Patricia McCloskey offer a clear example of the current rhetorical use of the term “critical race theory” by many Trump loyalists and other far-right conservatives. The McCloskeys first became internationally notorious on June 28, 2020, when they brandished firearms at a group of racial justice protesters, some of them children, who were marching past the McCloskeys’ mansion en route to the nearby home of St. Louis mayor Lyda Krewson. In an article the next day, St. Louis American reporter Sophie Hurwitz, who witnessed the event, noted the bias revealed in the only incident report the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department filed on the day of the protest: “...[T]he victims advised the group that they were on a private street and trespassing and told them to leave,” the police report reads. “The group began yelling obscenities and threats of harm to both victims. When the victims observed multiple subjects who were armed, they then armed themselves and contacted police.”

That report contradicted the clear evidence of several videos taken at the scene, on the basis of which the McCloskeys were later charged with felonies (they pled guilty to reduced charges in June 2021 only to be pardoned by Mike Parson, Missouri’s Republican governor, six weeks later). Six months later, while their own criminal case was still pending, the McCloskeys filed a lawsuit against a group of teachers and administrators at Villa Duchesne, a Catholic school in an affluent St. Louis suburb, on behalf of a white student and her parents. Mark McCloskey — an alumnus of another nearby private school— said of the suit, “The goal is to stop the indoctrination of students with this critical race theory and to also make the community aware that even at Catholic parochial schools, this bizarre, racist, anti-racism is being force-fed down the throats of their children.” The McCloskeys’ preliminary statement in their St. Louis Circuit Court filing reads as follows:

“Villa Duchesne, an elite college preparatory girls Catholic high school, engages in overt and intentional racial discrimination against its Caucasian students including Daughter herein by encouraging and facilitating race-based aggression against her promulgated by African American fellow students and through the use of coercion, intimidation, and threats by faculty and administrators to attempt to force Daughter to adopt or espouse the political philosophies of Critical Race Theory, including but not limited to attempts to indoctrinate Daughter into the concept that all Caucasians are racists by virtue of being Caucasian and that African American students should be free from discipline regardless of their behavior.” 

The timing and rhetoric of the McCloskeys’ suit against one private school in St. Louis reveals much about the national story of far-right backlash against the global burgeoning of the racial justice movement during the summer of 2020, the season when the term “anti-racism” entered the mainstream lexicon as people around the world protested the blatant brutality of the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. The language of the McCloskeys’ suit against Villa Duchesne directly echoes the language in a memorandum that Russell Vought, head of then-president Trump’s Office of Management and Budget, had sent to the heads of federal agencies in early September. Vought wrote,

“The President has directed me to ensure that Federal agencies cease and desist from using taxpayer dollars to fund these divisive, un-American propaganda training sessions.... [A]ll agencies are directed to begin to identify all contracts or other agency spending related to any training on ‘critical race theory,’ ‘white privilege,’ or any other training or propaganda effort that teaches or suggests either (1) that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country or (2) that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil. In addition, all agencies should begin to identify all available avenues within the law to cancel any such contracts and/or to divert Federal dollars away from these unAmerican propaganda training sessions.”

This memo laid the groundwork for a much more elaborate statement by President Trump on September 22, 2020 in Executive Order 13950, “Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping.” Part of the section of E.O. 13950 that defines “divisive concepts” is of particular interest:

“‘Divisive concepts’ means the concepts that (1) one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex; (2) the United States is fundamentally racist or sexist; (3) an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously; (4) an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of his or her race or sex; (5) members of one race or sex cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race or sex; (6) an individual’s moral character is necessarily determined by his or her race or sex; (7) an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex; (8) any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex; or (9) meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist, or were created by a particular race to oppress another race.” [Emphasis mine.]

The word “inherent” signals a key way in which those currently opposing equity education misrepresent those who are working toward equity and justice both in education and other institutions. Equity educators and activists understand race and racism to be constructs, and thus not inherent or essential qualities of any individual person. It is the very constructedness of race and racist structures that indicates the possibility of positive change — and the capacity for intentional change is the opposite of determinism. Led by those who have worked for equity and justice through generations, those who strive toward equity and justice now understand this simple fact: because systems that oppress were built, systems that liberate can be built in their place.

To that end, on Jan. 20, 2021, just a few hours after his inauguration, President Joe Biden overturned Executive Order 13950 with Executive Order 13985, “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved,” which offers this key definition: “For the purposes of this order... the term ‘equity’ means the consistent and systemic fair, just, and impartial treatment of all individuals, including individuals who belong to underserved communities that have been denied such treatment, such as Black, Latino, and Indigenous and Native American Persons, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and other persons of color; members of religious minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) persons, persons with disabilities; persons who live in rural areas; and persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality.”

So on day one, President Biden blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to shut down diversity and equity training and teaching, and reauthorized programs designed to advance systemic equity. Since then, the conservative alarm cries over CRT have grown louder. Russell Vought, author of the memo quoted above, has gone on to found The Center for Renewing America, the website of which asserts that

“The widespread manifestation of Critical Race Theory into K-12 curricula and ‘diversity training’ around the country has become an increasing flashpoint as outraged parents, families, citizens, and communities aim to push back against this corrosive worldview. The imposition of state sanctioned racism by progressive ideologues is intended to corrupt children and future generations into both self-loathing and hatred toward their fellow countrymen. Proponents of Critical Race Theory use our university campuses to radicalize our own children.... They use their control of HR departments and boardrooms of corporate America to impose this radicalism in all private workplaces. Their organized mobs terrorize private citizens with a “cancel culture” that seeks to erase the people and ideas who refuse to adopt their totalitarian mindset.”

Terms like “corrosive,” “state-sanctioned racism,” “self-loathing,” “radicalism,” “mobs,” and “totalitarian” tell the tale of the barely masked “American panic” Baldwin described in the passage quoted at the top of this essay, a panic that is tonally comparable to the Red Scare and McCarthyism in the 1950s.

And we who teach are rendered vulnerable to that panic and the politicians wielding legislative expressions of it like so many firearms. In a June 2021 episode of the podcast Undistracted, host Brittany Packnett Cunningham discussed the furor over so-called critical race theory with famed legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, who helped coin the term back in the 1980s. As Crenshaw explained, CRT began as a legal framework for “looking at law’s role in creating both race and racism.” Crenshaw continued,      

“We believe that race is not essential. We believe that race is a fiction, but law has helped turn that fiction into reality. It has helped turn what it means to be white and what it means to be Black into concrete realities that stretch all the way back to 1619 and all the way to this present moment.” 

Critical race theory is about telling a more complete story of how the laws that can protect some can oppress others. “The whole story,” Crenshaw said, is that “law has enslaved us; law has sometimes been a tool to help us fight against the contemporary consequences of that past; but law can also turn on a dime and justify all sorts of practices that we clearly see as... contemporary echoes of a white supremacist past.” As Crenshaw clarified, while classical critical race theory has been taught in law schools and other level graduate programs, it has not generally been taught in K-12 education. But what is part of K-12 education, Crenshaw said, “is critical thinking about race and racism… [that] racism is not inherent, but racism is real, and it has created real consequences, both historically and now. That’s important work that needs to be done.” 

Crenshaw noted that the timing of this swiftly spreading panic over CRT is predictable: it is one more iteration of a much-repeated pattern in our country’s history, that of retrenchment in reaction to reform. What those attacking diversity- and equity-informed training and education are trying to do, Crenshaw said, “is create a mythical story about our past that whitewashes so many of the truths about how we’ve come about — about the fact that the wealth of this country has been built on stealing labor and stealing land, and rationalizing that theft by characterizing the people whose land and labor has been stolen as less than white people.” That mythical story is built on insecurity and grievance in the face of power-sharing in a multiracial democracy, “And we have to build a coalition that calls that out,” Crenshaw said.

Such grievance and insecurity was thinly veiled beneath the bravado of Mark McCloskey’s comment on the final outcome of his and his wife’s own criminal trial in June 2021, when both pled guilty to charges for their gun-brandishing that had been reduced from felonies to misdemeanors. “This is a good day for the McCloskeys,” Mark McCloskey said after the verdict was announced. “The prosecutor dropped every charge except for alleging that I purposely placed other people in imminent risk of physical injury, right, and I sure as heck did.... I’d do it again any time the mob approaches me.… I stood out on the porch with my rifle and made them back up…. If that’s a crime in Missouri, by God I did it, and I’d do it again.” The landing page of the website for McCloskey’s campaign for U.S. Senate features a photo of him and his wife with their AR-15 rifle and semi-automatic pistol on the day of the 2020 protest.

Meanwhile, early this summer, a local school board in Tennessee fired a tenured teacher for teaching a Ta-Nehisi Coates essay published in The Atlantic, as well as, on a separate occasion, showing the same high school class, called Contemporary Issues, a video of a spoken word poem called “White Privilege.” 

I graduated from Metro Nashville public schools in Tennessee, but I don’t teach in my home state. I teach in a progressive independent school in Missouri, a state where anti-CRT legislation has been proposed but has not yet passed. In my twelfth-grade English class, I teach James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time and Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon; I cannot teach either of those works without contextualizing them within the history of structural racism in this country. In my seventh-grade English class, I teach Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun and Jaqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming, and again, I cannot teach those books without also teaching the real histories they rise out of and represent. If I worked in a Tennessee public school, my actions in both classes could get me fired.

The pressure created by the conservative-led agenda to silence educators who teach the truth about American history and racial trauma is driving a clear need for the sort of coalition building Crenshaw advises. In the introduction to her podcast conversation with Crenshaw, Brittany Packnett Cunningham, a former elementary school teacher, said, “We have to question what is preserved by teaching children a lie in the first place. If you are afraid of teaching the history, it’s because you know what’s in it. Spoiler: it’s white supremacy…. That’s why teaching is the frontline of the revolution. Because people who understand how oppression functions can set themselves and everybody else free.”

I’m with Packnett Cunningham. I’m with Kimberlé Crenshaw, too. I’m with James Baldwin. I’m with students and their right to an uncensored examination of history. I'm with all at my school who for the last quarter century have worked toward greater equity and inclusion — a network of committed visionaries that reaches from board members, to the diversity director and the office of DEI, to administrators, to fellow teachers and staff members, to parents, to students. I’m with all who believe in the potentially transformative power of listening to the full stories of those who have been underserved by this nation’s structures and policies. 

I’m with those who believe that we can make positive change for all in our multiracial society when we cultivate empathy and power-sharing, rather than fear and power-hoarding, as our operative communal values. I’m with everyone who believes that critical reflection on the origins and dynamics of the racialized structures that still bind us is a key part of loosening, then shedding, those binds. I’m with the students — including white students — whose growth into fully functional adults and citizens is served by compassionate honesty and obstructed by avoidance and deception.

I know that many educators in both public and private schools are also aligned in the desire to transform our curricula from those that obscure the truth to those that tell it — for the sake of our students and the future of the country. What is clear, however, is that we’ll need to step up our efforts this year, form coalitions and work together to counter the American panic that is being fueled by lies about equity education and is manifesting in the manipulation of our legislative and judicial systems. In an August community conversation about the CRT controversy sponsored by NYU’s Steinhardt Metro Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation Schools, Executive Director David E. Kirkland said, “We won't shrink from this moment; we will rise. We believe that the best way to predict the future is to invent it. We are inventors.”

We can be that brave. We must be brave enough to work together to invent an educationally fair and functional future. By supporting our students as they learn to think critically — and bravely, too — we open the path toward real healing and freedom for everyone. I’m with all of you who believe this, too, and teach accordingly.

Ellie DesPrez, Ph.D., a graduate of Metro Davidson County Public Schools (Tennessee), Vanderbilt University, and Washington University, has worked in public and independent schools for over three decades. Since 1998, she has taught English at John Burroughs School in St. Louis, where she also serves on the Faculty and Staff Steering Committee for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

Breaking the Cycle of Systemic Oppression through Transformative Love

As an educator and mother, I believe the transformative power of love is part of the antidote for systemic racism. Only through love, manifested as empathy and forgiveness (and ultimately channeled into action), can we escape the hazards of hate and the pitfalls of dehumanization that we have inhabited for centuries and with which we of privilege continue to reside. 

A few months ago, one of my six-year-old twins, Bethany, was participating in a racial literacy study with Embrace Race, a community created to “raise and guide children who are inclusive, informed, and brave when it comes to race.” We were asked to read several picture books featuring Children of Color. While reading one particular book, Ron’s Big Mission by Rose Blue and Corinne J. Naden, Bethany experienced a reaction that shook me to the core. 

In the story, nine-year-old Ron, a Black child, is attempting to check out a public library book during the heyday of Jim Crow. It is based on the true story of South Carolinian Ron McNair, who would later become a scientist and astronaut. The book is meant to highlight a child’s resistance to desegregation and demonstrate their potential as positive agents of change in the world. On one page, the white librarian very “nicely” tells Ron that Black children are not allowed to check out library books; that it’s against the rules. My daughter, horrified and shocked by the abhorrence of Ron’s circumstances, turned to me in despair and began hitting herself repeatedly on her head. She screamed, “I hate my white skin! I don’t want to be white!” I held her hands and calmly reminded her that she didn’t make these hateful rules; that she would find ways to support Ron and be an ally. In the tearful moments that followed, we talked through what she might do if faced with a similar injustice now, in the present. I have learned that part of this awareness process is the naming of helpers, those who were advocates or allies during social justice movements. We continued reading, explicitly finding the white helpers, to soothe her soul and to empower her to disconnect from the white agents of oppression.

Within about thirty minutes, she was able to calm her traumatized mind and body and drift off to sleep. The angst and shame that had filled her little being so quickly and forcefully might have remained had she not been presented with an opportunity to work through those feelings and release that guilt. As a mother, I can painfully imagine what guilt of that magnitude might do to the developing spirit of a young child, moreover to the psyche of an adult.

In her willingness to be vulnerable and open, Bethany was able to move past the pain of the truth and into a space of healing. In fact, I believe that by vicariously experiencing Ron’s story and then reflecting upon his encounter with adversity, Bethany has been better prepared to identify and speak up against injustice. Through this type of story, my white child was able to gain insight and to better understand the perspectives of People of Color. Tragically, the war being waged on equity, under the guise of “anti-CRT” curricula, is attempting to prevent these types of learning opportunities from occurring in our classrooms. Organizations like The Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism are scheming to use the language of anti-racism against itself. They are calling out St. Louis educators who are working to teach critical thinking and cultivate empathy through stories and historical perspectives largely silenced up to this point. Contrary to what is being portrayed, anti-bias and anti-racist educators and parents are trying to call people into the conversation and use transformative love to better understand one another and design communities that are truly fair and just for all.

That evening, during our usual bedtime storybook reading together, Bethany had provided me with a new lens with which to see another situation. As it happened, I was feeling traumatized by having only weeks before been summarily dismissed by my employer for my advocacy in racial justice.

Before I explain how Bethany’s insight helped me, I will provide some background about these circumstances. After five years of teaching at what is likely the most affluent private elementary school in St. Louis, I had been told that I no longer belong. I had been perceived as a threat to some conservative donors and my “questioning of administration” about our diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice work had been seen as an unwelcome disruption. In fact, my presence was deemed as such a danger to the existing culture that the administration would not allow me to return after spring break to say goodbye to the students or my colleagues.

Believing it faced unknown risks in a period of political turmoil, the school leadership chose to continue with the status quo. Rather than uphold their public anti-racism pledge to the constituents and the children of the school, the administrators chose complacency and complicity, allowing fear and finances to eclipse their stated ethical positions. They were unwilling to support the teachers invested in this work. Instead, they embraced their 1914 founding principles equating diversity with respecting different opinions. Ultimately, they chose neutrality in the face of racism. There are not two sides when it comes to injustice. Racism is a public health crisis and one that educational institutions have a moral obligation to dismantle. It is not a political issue but one of human rights.

I experienced so many emotions through that ordeal. I was ostracized from my community and my character was attacked. Rumors spread about my integrity. At first, I felt shame. And then my rage set in. I presented a case to the school board and prepared to write long and hard about what I saw as a racist institution. I was ready to use my new knowledge about white supremacy culture as a weapon against the school leaders. But Bethany’s raw reaction to the story of a Black boy experiencing injustice opened my eyes and my heart.

I had always seen myself on the outside looking into a racist system, but I became aware of my presence within the system. I realized that attacking the school would make me complicit in the culture of white supremacy. I needed to change my core from fear and shame and rage. I needed to find a way to use transformative love and lean into forgiveness and empathy. Only that vulnerability would break the cycle in which I was trapped. 

I was struck by the power of Bethany’s response as a six-year-old. I started to imagine all of the white people at that school as young children. I saw them miss the opportunity to hear about the stories of trauma and resistance of People of Color. I thought about them missing the opportunity as children to learn the full history of our country; about them not having the chance to constructively process with a parent or teacher or peer about their inevitable guilt or fear. Then I thought about them growing up and becoming adults, only later to be blindsided by the legitimate claims of racial bias and discrimination from community members of color. I imagined them confronted by the history of redlining, lynchings, and all the overtly and implicitly racist atrocities of our past. Then I thought about them being exposed to the fact that People of Color continue to experience the perpetual trauma of racial inequity in all the systems and structures which make up our country. What a detrimental shock to the spirit. What an agonizing awakening. I finally understood.

I realized that the people at my former school — the faculty, parents, administrators — who had been standing still or actively working against equitable change were provoked and shocked by their own shame and guilt and were emanating fear. They likely didn’t have a chance to work through these unbearably hard truths when they were young. The anguish of reality stunted them and consciously, subconsciously, or otherwise, they are in shock. They cannot accept the reality of white supremacy culture, transform, and move forward until they work through those harmful feelings.

In My Grandmother’s Hands, Resmaa Menakem explains that, “What the body most cares about are safety and survival. When something happens to the body that is too much, too fast, or too soon, it overwhelms the body and can create trauma.” Humans are designed to survive and avoid suffering. Many of my white colleagues were facing, likely for the first time, the grievous nature of the history of our country. Their minds, perceiving a danger to their way of being, obstructed the truth. Were they not so invested in their sense of “normalcy,” they, like Bethany, might respond by hitting themselves upon the head and turning inward with self-hate. In the face of such pain and trauma, what could survival look like? The choice to maintain neutrality, to be complacent within their comfort, and to remove disruptors like me was merely an act of self-preservation. That aspect of their humanity allowed me to begin to forgive and move outside of the cycle of oppression.

As poet Maya Angelou said, “Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet.” I hope that I will continue to find the courage to unabashedly work toward a more equitable and just community — in myself, my family, my new school, my neighborhood, and my city. I believe that only through the transformative power of love will I have the strength and endurance to unapologetically act while continuing to be vulnerable to the experiences of those around me, all of those around me. 

Nicole Elizabeth Post is a white sixth grade teacher in St. Louis, Missouri. She believes that cultivating critical thinking and empathy in students begins by having courageous and vulnerable conversations in the classroom, within a culture of belonging. She incorporates that practice into her curricula, as well as into her work in building community partnerships. Nicole approaches learning as a transformative — rather than transactional — process. Thus, by exploring the confluence of identity, community, and agency, Nicole seeks to empower students to advocate for themselves as they also strive to lead for change in their world.

Keep That Same Energy Going

Last spring, I read Hugh Vasquez’s essay, “What if We… Don’t Return to School as Usual.” His call is for all of us to return to school, but to do so as determined disrupters to the ongoing practice of educating for inequity. This directive strikes me now as such a prescient reflection of where we find ourselves today as we head deeper into the 2021-22 school year. As white teachers and leaders, we clearly need to focus on re-doubling our efforts to create the kind of antiracist teaching/learning environments that our students and colleagues deserve. Given the intense rounds of political and social challenges to racial equity — in a long history of such challenges — we have to recommit to disrupting education’s stubborn status quo, which has resisted the call to serve all children and that will continue on its inequitable path relentlessly unless we transform our practice.

But how do we make sure we transform our practice? As educators, how do we show up differently this year? What new behaviors do we bring to each day?

As an educator, I’m a big fan of goal setting via an inquiry process. But we need to make sure we’re setting goals that we can effectively reach. Early in my career, I used to create a laundry list of aspirational statements, usually five to seven, that I sent to my supervisor and that we would discuss for all of 10 minutes. Then, I would put the list away until the following summer when I would dust them off, revise a few, move some up or down the list, maybe eliminate one and add other — with the net result being that not much changed. Unfortunately, most teachers I talk with have had a similar experience with “goal setting” activities. 

It turns out it’s really hard to make substantive change when you have five, six or seven major goals. But if you can prioritize two or three goals focused on being an antiracist educator — and sustain your commitment to meeting them throughout the year — you can channel your time and energy and make real progress on those priorities. 

I’ve been practicing this process in recent years, starting by asking myself a set of core questions that will help guide me in my work.  In particular, I focus on goals that will support excellent teaching and antiracism — or, what Gloria Ladson Billings calls “just good teaching!”  This year, my focus is going to be on listening and responding to feedback in a way that will interrupt racist patterns that often emerge in school communities.  

Here are my questions:

1.  How will my students and colleagues observe shifts in my ability to listen and receive feedback? 

2. What old patterns do I want to break? What new behaviors do I want to try on?

3.  How will I know that my shifts in practice have been effective?

For example, I’m going to keep track of how long I talk during my classes and meetings. I want to make sure I’m listening more than I’m talking, and I want to be strategic when I do respond to ensure that I have something valuable to add. I’m also going to share these goals so people are aware of what I’m working on. By making my intentions explicit, I’ll have a much better chance of changing my behavior. 

I’m going to change up the way I get feedback so it’s more frequent and also commit to sharing the feedback and talking about shifts I might make based on it: “Here’s what I heard. Did I get that right? Here’s what I’m thinking. How does that sound? Am I missing anything?”  

In my coaching practice, I’m working with a group of white teachers who have set the following questions as their guides for the year:

1. What price do we pay as white teachers if we replicate the myths and half-truths of our own schooling? What does that mean for our relationships with our students? With each other? 

2. How can we ensure that all our students know who they are, their histories, and their role in building a community of empowered learners?

My fear for this school year is that we will succumb to business as usual. We can’t do that. In many ways, the stakes are now higher for white leaders and teachers than they’ve ever been. In the summer of 2020, as the nation faced calls for racial justice, those of us who are white educators were offered a grace period due to the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic. But now we know. We can’t pretend we aren’t aware or didn’t realize how racism had been impacting our schools. We can’t pretend that school as usual is OK. To create a climate of trust we have to show up differently in response to all we know and have learned over the past 18 months. We can’t repeat those patterns of the past that have sustained inequity and got us where we are. If we do, racism wins. 

Last summer, many teachers were outraged, impassioned, motivated to adopt new strategies, and ready to make change. Now that we are we are actually back in schools with our students, we have to renew this energy and be ready to commit to our antiracist work in new ways. One way to do this is to create and share new goals and stay committed to them throughout the year. By doing so, we can build a sense of accomplishment, purpose, and resiliency that will enable us to keep fighting racism. If we stay the course, we change the system.

Elizabeth Denevi is the co-founder of Teaching While White.

Brand New Pandemic, Same Old White Supremacy

Every August, it’s the same: I wake up in the middle of the night, heart beating wildly, convinced that my nightmare is reality. For almost a decade, the nightmare has been some version of me showing up to the first day of school without shoes. Silly, but petrifying for someone who prides herself on preparedness and organization. As a teacher for fifteen years, I am accustomed to these back-to-school nightmares and related jitters, and I always comfort myself with reminders of “you’ve been here before,” and “you’ve got this.” Up until recently, I have been able to wake up from the nightmares and reality has been soothing.

Since the COVID pandemic closed schools in my area beginning in March 2020, however, the reality has been anything but soothing. The difference for me this August is that I will not be returning to teaching full time. I have decided to leave the only professional career I have known, and I am not sure I will ever return. 

When people ask me if I left teaching because of the way schools have changed during COVID, I make sure to explain that schools actually have not changed. The country has not changed. I have deliberately chosen to stop teaching in a system that refuses to change. Schools, after all, are institutions. Like the United States, they currently exist under systems of patriarchy and white supremacy. While schools had to make significant adjustments in order to continue to educate students who were at home and socially distanced, the systems under which they operate has not changed at all.

During the pandemic, all of us who teach have had to stretch ourselves in ways we could not previously imagine. We hastily went through technology trainings to learn new platforms that would forever change the way we engage with students. Many of us did this training over the summer of 2020 without pay because we wanted to be prepared for our students. When distance learning started up in the fall of 2020, we tried our best not to be discouraged by all the shortcomings and problems. The protective plexiglass that we had the luxury of putting on each desk meant that there was always going to be a glare on Zoom, and we would never really be able to see all of our students at once. Our cameras malfunctioned and zoomed in on plants instead of speakers, and our speakers were never perfect. In so many classes, we spent a great deal of time yelling, “Can you repeat that?” Still, we persevered.

For me, the main problem this past school year was not the technological challenges. It was that, as we worked tirelessly to serve students and schools, we got further and further away from actually serving students in an equitable and just way. As the pandemic raged on, I continued to be reminded that I was serving the white community of parents and students more than any other. At my school — and others, I’m sure — when teachers were told they had to return to in-person teaching, they were told it was the best thing for all students. Of course, we were not consulted on what was best for students. We kept hearing from administrators that schools were feeling pressure to return to in-person learning, but where was the pressure coming from? Not from communities of color.

Because the private school where I taught offered teachers an option to opt-out of in-person teaching for a few months, I opted out. By then I had been teaching on Zoom for months and felt I could still serve my students best that way. Most importantly, I knew that I was still going to have at least four students who would remain as distance learners. When teachers were told they had to go back in-person unless they wanted to risk losing their jobs or face a pay cut, I returned, but not all of my students did. Three of the four students who didn’t return were boys of color. They stayed home for a variety of reasons that are similar to the ones many families of color have cited for keeping their children at home: their own health risks, immunocompromised family members who live with them, parents who had high-risk jobs, and long commutes that did not make sense anymore if they could learn from home. 

As a Vietnamese-American teacher, I was particularly attuned to the challenges my Asian and Asian-American students faced. In a country whose President called the pandemic the “China virus,” and that turned Asian hate into escalating numbers of cases of violence against Asians, I was not surprised that one of my Asian students would choose to never return in person. And I was completely unsurprised by articles like this and this that cited the relief felt by students and families of color when students no longer had to suffer the daily microaggressions inside their schools. 

Still my school, and most others, pushed on for in-person learning with little to no concern for students and families of color.

Here’s the heart of the problem. At the same time that schools told teachers to innovate, white supremacy also reconstituted itself. White supremacy realized that the more nervous families felt about children “falling behind” academically, the easier it was to push through policies without consulting marginalized communities. Because of the pandemic, it was also easier to create sweeping policies and brand new schedules without asking who benefitted. Whenever I raised concerns about the inequities and challenges of hybrid teaching, I was told to take my students outdoors — as if fresh air was the only thing I needed to offer. I was told that everything would improve if we could all be on campus together. Meanwhile, school leaders ignored my students who could not return to school. We were never all together. 

Even in the face of a global pandemic, white supremacy has been relentless. The chaos of schools regrouping so quickly was used as a reason to cut budgets so that professional development was completely frozen. That professional development was often the only way to offer and hold teachers accountable for doing social justice work. And when many of us asked what will happen this coming year to reengage with this essential work, our questions were met with silence.

And now the country and its schools are caught in the debate about critical race theory. In so many states, legislatures have proposed bills or passed laws that now ban teaching about the ways racism has shaped American public policy and, thus, the society. Critical race theory isn’t new, of course. But white supremacists have been actively misrepresenting it and using this misrepresentation to strengthen their grip on society and control what is taught in schools. It has come clear to me that this tactic is a symbol of how white supremacy, like the Delta variant, can mutate to be more effective. 

I have taught English Literature and Social Studies my entire career to date — and have always included critical race theory as an essential lens through which to understand literature and society. How could I teach any book written in the United States without discussing racism? How could I be asked to teach books written mostly by dead white men without honestly and openly criticizing the curriculum? 

The key argument against teaching critical race theory in schools, especially in the primary and secondary schools, is that students are not developmentally ready for a discussion of racism or that the discussion itself is divisive. The question that needs to be answered, however, is who is not developmentally ready? My students and families of color have lived with racism their entire lives. When people talk about critical race theory being developmentally inappropriate, what they are really saying is that white supremacy uses white fragility to keep us from making the institutional changes that will lead to racial justice. It is not a coincidence that we are talking about critical race theory now when the country is exhausted from the pandemic and reeling from police brutality and attacks on Black and Asian lives. The pandemic has isolated all of us, so that marginalized communities have even less power, and white supremacy has found a way to capitalize on this. 

When I woke up at 3 a.m. from my last school nightmare, I realized that it was not the usually trivial one about being shoeless. This one was more realistic. In the dream, my white male head of school approached me with concerns from white parents that I was teaching too much about current events. The truth was too heavy a burden for kids to handle, he said. But if there is anything I have learned in fifteen years of teaching, kids are not the ones who cannot handle the truth. I have watched kids be the most resilient during the pandemic while adults have tried to catch up, or worse, actively work against change. 

I woke up from my nightmare wondering, are we going to learn anything from this pandemic? Who pays the cost of keeping things the way they are? Students and families of color certainly pay a huge toll. But in our unjust system, we all pay a cost. As teachers head into another unprecedented year, full of uncertainties caused by the Delta variant, are we going to change everything from health protocols to technology and classroom setups, but leave white supremacy in place? Are these the kind of schools we want to support?

Thu Anh Nguyen (she/her) is an educator and writer whose work centers around equity and justice. She has taught English, Creative Writing, and History for fifteen years, most recently at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC. Thu Anh has led workshops and writes essays about cultural competence and literacy. She is also a poet. Her writing has been published in Literacy Today,  Southern Humanities Review, Cider Press Review, and Crab Orchard Review.  Thu can be reached through her website, www.thuanhnguyen.com .

For our next podcast, Elizabeth Denevi will be in conversation with Thu Anh Nguyen about what white teachers, leaders, and parents can be doing to break this cycle and ensure we don’t return to school like we always have. Be sure to subscribe here.

Charting the Uncharted Path

What happened when a group of white educators met weekly during a pandemic year to talk about whiteness

A Quick Review: Why We Need White Antiracist Learning Spaces

White antiracist learning spaces can be, as my 12-year-old might say, triggering and cringey. For many white people, the process can feel like going backward. People often protest, “But we’ve worked so hard to create inclusive communities, to get away from segregation!” Others ask, “Doesn’t putting white people together like this signal some kind of white power message? Shouldn’t we be talking with people of color?” These reactions are visceral. And I get it. We want to believe that we live in a world that’s inclusive and equal. Many of us were taught that talking about race only divides us further. We were taught that talking about race is, well, racist.  

Not only do white people need to engage in conversations about race, but we also need some of this antiracist work to happen without people of color. When it comes to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice work, white people have leaned too heavily on people of color. Not only have we routinely asked people of color to be our guides and teachers, but we’ve also harmed them through our own process of learning. For white folks, increasing our racial awareness is a bumpy and often clumsy process. As we learn how whiteness works, we often have aha moments that come out in all kinds of messy ways. And when people of color are asked to bear witness to these moments, it can amount to a kind of piling on for them. Living in a racialized world and working in schools built on the foundations of white supremacy is already a tremendous burden for our colleagues of color. Taking time to build our racial literacy in white antiracist learning groups is one way we can lessen the burden our colleagues are so often asked to carry. 

Certainly, we need to do our own racial identity work so that we can be better colleagues, but perhaps most importantly, we must do it for our students. As white educators, our lack of racial fluency has a powerful, albeit often silent, impact on the children we teach. Through regular modeling, we teach our students that it is not okay to talk about race and that they should, in fact, run from any such conversation. While most students of color, out of a necessity, have conversations about race at home to learn about the world they live in, white parents rarely talk to their children about race. As a sixth-grade teacher, I often heard white students denounce peers as racist for something as insignificant as asking for the black marker. They’d already learned that the best defense is a good offense, that deflecting any real dialogue about race is the only option. Before I did my own racial identity work, not only did I let students get away with these kinds of comments, I also didn’t have the confidence or skills to care for my students of color who were being asked to navigate a school steeped in white culture and norms. It was only after I became comfortable talking about race myself, primarily through my participation in antiracist learning spaces for white educators, that I had the fortitude and skills I needed to disrupt racialized moments in my classroom. It was only after I’d begun to see how talking about my own whiteness was in fact a positive experience that I was able to engage my students in productive and healthy conversations about race. 

Finally, antiracist learning spaces are helpful because white folks are usually more willing to talk honestly about race with fellow whites. Not only do these groups protect people of color from our clumsy process, but they also allow us to be authentic about what we’re coming to understand. Robin DiAngelo dedicates an entire chapter in her book, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, to the concept of the good/bad binary. This is the idea that white people, in conversations about race, are often out to prove that we’re on the right side of justice. We really want people, especially people of color, to know that we’re not racist. But when we spend our energy defending our character, we are not doing the work of antiracism. Furthermore, it shouldn’t be upon people of color to call us on our performative behaviors. 

Essentially, the majority of white folks today need to get together to unlearn whiteness in ways that don’t harm people of color and that don’t allow us to stand to the side pretending we’ve got it all figured out. 

Traveling an Uncharted Path: What Happened in Those Weekly Meetings 

For years, I’ve led and participated in groups for white people in pursuit of antiracist work. While these groups have been engaging and certainly worthwhile, they’ve mostly been one-offs or infrequent. I was curious about what would happen when white people met regularly over time to talk about whiteness and antiracism. As we know, 2020 was a year like no other. Just before the nation came to a grinding halt, I had begun coaching a young, white woman who had joined our school to teach kindergarten. Immediately, we’d connected over our shared desire to focus on the impact of whiteness in our school. I’d been wanting to re-engage a group for white educators that had met years before and she was just the right person to partner with me. But just as we were ready to launch, COVID was upon us and the school closed its doors. Despite the unknowns, we decided to press on. We’d shift our meetings to Zoom and see who showed up. 

At the first few meetings, attendance hovered around ten people. We used Anneliese Singh’s book, The Racial Healing Handbook, as a guide and began doing the work of unpacking our whiteness step by step. And then, on May 25th, George Floyd was murdered. At the next meeting, a week after Mr. Floyd’s killing, 35 people showed up, almost the entire white faculty and staff at our school. As it turned out, attendance at that meeting mirrored what was happening across the country. White people wanted to talk about racism. There was an urgency, an energy that propelled a lot of white folks to engage in conversations they’d previously put off or avoided altogether. But then the school year ended. 

In September, we were back to averaging around ten people. It was discouraging to see the drop-off in participants. But we pressed on, committed to those who continued to show up. Each week, a variation of a core group of people popped into our Zoom screens. There were the regulars. There were some who came half the time. Occasionally a person would show who we hadn’t seen in months. Yet there was enough consistency that we began to feel a camaraderie, a shared purpose. The more people talked, the more open people became. My co-facilitator and I did our best to model vulnerability with our own whiteness. We did our best to bring in voices, topics, theories, and questions we thought would advance our conversations. Sometimes things fell flat. Sometimes we rambled. Sometimes people cried. Sometimes it just felt awkward. But people kept coming and that was invigorating in a way I hadn’t expected.

The week after the Capitol riots, we began the meeting with an open check-in, and it became clear to me that our exploration of whiteness was making us consider things in new ways. The questions were deeper: What did it mean that the people who stormed the Capitol were predominantly white? Was it okay for us to distance ourselves from them completely? Could we just write them off as extremists who had nothing to do with us? A few months earlier, I believe many of us would have said we had nothing in common with the rioters. We would have othered these people with ease and enacted some version of the good/bad binary. But now, instead, we sought to understand how we connected to this story. We wondered how to think about our own whiteness in relation to those we saw inside the Capitol carrying Confederate flags and wearing Camp Auschwitz T-shirts. We weren’t them, but we were white and, thus, a part of a racist history and system that had made thousands of people act out in such heinous ways. It felt complicated to wrestle with these new kinds of questions, but mostly in a way that felt like progress for our group.

In February, a music teacher who came regularly burst out in the middle of a conversation about Black History Month and the many pitfalls of teaching students of color in mostly white classrooms, “How can I ever be a good person and also be white?” She threw her hands up in frustration. None of us stepped in to reassure her. Instead, her words washed over us, and I believe we all felt them in our bodies. She was naming a shared feeling. At that moment, with that one sentence, we realized that this journey was, if anything, getting harder. And although I’d been learning about my racial identity for some time, I shared the group’s feeling of heaviness because I know that once we shrug off the defensive tactics, the braced body, the performative actions, we’re forced to really sit with how whiteness operates. But I also know that this is when the real work begins. A major component of white identity is denial of one’s impact, one’s complicity in a system of oppression. It’s only once we decide to reject this complicity, that we can begin to disrupt the system. 

After each meeting, my co-facilitator and I would debrief and talk about where to go next. We tried to balance the personal with the systemic, the somatic with the intellectual. There was a circular aspect to our conversations, but perhaps this was inevitable. After all, we’d spent most of our lives becoming racialized as white. A direct path to undoing this seemed far-fetched. Yet for the most part, people remained engaged. We noticed, with pride, how they became increasingly comfortable talking about their feelings, their biases, their whiteness, no longer distancing themselves from the topics as many had done in the first meetings. 

Then, in mid-April, just about a year after our inaugural meeting, a restlessness arrived. It came on the heels of the increased comfortability. It wasn’t everyone and it wasn’t even an obvious shift. But I felt it. At the end of a meeting, a regular attendee noted with dismay that she wasn’t uncomfortable coming to meetings anymore. Wasn’t this group supposed to bring her discomfort each week? Another regular commented that she felt she’d reached a plateau. I listened, but I was churning inside. I felt a defensiveness creep into my chest. It wasn’t my job to make participants uncomfortable, was it? What were they doing on the other six days of the week to challenge themselves? 

In the remaining sessions, my co-facilitator and I addressed the restlessness head-on. We asked for even more feedback. We asked the group to think about what an expectation of discomfort from the meetings meant in the context of whiteness. Was it achievement-oriented? Individualistic? Were people relying on the group to check a to-do box? “Look at us, we go to an antiracist group for white people and get vulnerable for an hour a week!” Afterall, the good/bad binary is a powerful pitfall. As facilitators, we asked these questions with genuine curiosity because we too were in uncharted territory. We had to check our own egos. We reminded ourselves, and the group, that whiteness wasn’t something to conquer or to accomplish. We weren’t the captains of a ship we could bring to port at the end of a long journey. That urgency for this group to reach a destination was whiteness itself making noise. For me, the ongoing nature of this group only solidified my belief that antiracist work with white folks must be messy. There is no end. There is no resolution. There is no port. In some ways, that’s the hardest part. 

Summer Reflections and Why I’ll Keep Going

At times during the year, it was hard to tell what was shifting. As a facilitator, my inner critic often drowned out the moments of growth. But now, with the slower days of summer and time to read participant feedback and reflect on this fifteen-month journey, I’m able to see the positive impacts more clearly. 

Teachers who participated in the group began to interrupt moments when students made jokes about race or racism. They questioned curriculum and resources they’d taught, sometimes for years, without any previous concern. A development staff participant began thinking deeply about hiring practices, asking what ways whiteness is embedded in the school’s process. After all, we know that there’s a long history of implicit bias in hiring practices in all sectors. Why would schools be any different? A senior administrator told an audience of white parents that while their children might feel uncomfortable learning about race, the answer isn’t to stop teaching about race. Rather, the answer is to facilitate them thoughtfully through the learning. The music teacher talked openly with her fifth-grade students about what happened when her teenage son found a gun in the woods and called the police for help. She told her students about the conversation she’d had with her son about how his whiteness had allowed him to feel safe seeking help from the police without a second thought, and then she made space for the class to share reactions and questions. These are the pathways that an antiracist, white learning space can open.

This coming academic year, new people will join the group and they will each be at their own place in their racial identity development. I’ll also have a new co-facilitator as the kindergarten teacher has moved away. I know that the conversations will be different, but also the same. I know we’ll have moments that feel performative. Sometimes I’ll ramble and sometimes plans will fall flat. But I also know that I’ll show up every week ready to try again. I’ll do this because, ultimately, I find it hopeful — because in the messiness, there is growth. In the messiness, we make changes. When we choose to gather in these spaces, to explore how whiteness functions, we work against white supremacy culture; we reject the complicity it asks of us. As with so many aspects of whiteness, it’s a choice to confront our racial identity. But when we do, if we stick with it, we begin to see that dismantling the impacts of whiteness is a surprisingly hopeful and invigorating endeavor.

Liza Gleason is an instructional coach for teachers focused on equity literacy and a graduate student at Mills College. 

Author’s Note: For further reading on white, antiracist learning spaces, Ali Michael and Mary Conger offer an excellent synopsis as well as helpful tips for running a white, antiracist group.

Calling Out and Calling In

History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, but if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.

— Maya Angelou (from “On the Pulse of Morning”)

The whole point of racial-justice work is to effect positive societal change. Those involved in the work are not out to make the nation more equitable and more just, but to make it actually equitable and actually just. Yet while the United States has had its moments of collective action, it has not come close to achieving this goal. Not post-Civil War. Not post-Brown v. Board of Education. Not post-1960’s Civil Rights, Voting Rights, and Housing Rights acts. Not post-Obama’s election as the first Black U.S. President. And certainly not during the Trump presidency. 

Two decades into the 21st century, with the Black Lives Matter movement and related efforts, the broad scale push for real and lasting change is once again finding the spotlight and creating momentum. Yet once again, the push for “a more perfect union” is also stirring up resistance from people who (a) continue to profit by racial inequity, (b) fear that achieving racial equity in the nation will somehow hurt their lives, (c) have convinced themselves that racism is a thing of the past and any problems BIPOC have in America are of their own making, or (d) want to think about other things.

Between the time I started thinking about writing this piece a few weeks ago and now, in fact, I’ve read a number of editorials and blog commentaries that have loudly proclaimed that racism is over in America — and that anyone who states otherwise is cynically trying to divide and damage the nation for their own (liberal-leaning) political gain. I’ve read others that have been condescendingly dismissive of the work of diversity experts, even blaming them for the “problem” of our racial divide.

It’s maddening. Truly. 

And most days it makes me want to scream. It makes me want to once again lay out the long litany of facts about American racism past and present — both the institutional matters and personal displays. Yet, at the same time, I’m aware that simply outlining the facts today tends to land on deaf ears among those who simply see such efforts as the manipulative work of the political left. I’m also aware of the futility of descending into a political shouting match that doesn’t actually change minds or practices or laws. 

I certainly believe there are powerful people who need to be called out about their racist behavior, their push for racist policies and practices for their political gain, and their mischaracterization of those who fight for justice. I find myself even wanting to scream at some otherwise respected editorial writers who use their podium to misrepresent the work of social justice advocates, ignore the research, and basically do little or nothing to help solve racial injustice. The worst of the writing feels like the work of those seeking profit or power. But even some well-intended editorials feel like hollow noise.

So, yes, I want to call people out. And I think that calling out, as a practice, matters. Think where we’d be without the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or Rosa Parks or James Baldwin or the Black Lives Matter movement — and so many others engaged in frontline work. We need people to step up, identify and clarify the problem, create movement, speak out, drive change. 

But today we also need to be aware of the problem of getting stuck in the calling-out mindset. The documentary film The Social Dilemma makes it clear that AI-driven social media today is creating a social and political gulf like we’ve never seen. It’s nice to be able to connect with family and friends through social media, but the central point of social media, currently, is to generate revenue for the media companies and those who know how to manipulate the system for profit. As a result, we live with an online world in which AI steadily feeds us what it knows will keep us engaged. Too often this means that the social-media algorithms feed outrage. 

We must speak up. We need to challenge folks who deny the existence of systemic racial inequity. We need to contest governors who want to limit or control the conversation on race in schools. We need to resist state legislatures that want to suppress voters. On the other hand, I’m very aware that spending one’s time calling out people for their racism or their cynicism or their political manipulation doesn’t get us where we need to go. Or at least I don’t think it does. It feels like an incomplete act — one small step in a larger process that requires deeper cultural engagement and transformation. 

I’m not trying to discourage people from reading social media and responding with their truth. But a steady diet of this kind of reading and responding is not likely to have the impact that so many of us wish for. Rather, it seems to devolve into a kind of loud stalemate. I’m also not saying stay away from all social media, but I think we are better, more effective, when we make this action only part of our strategy for personal  and institutional growth and for leading change. 

When it comes to our own learning, I encourage reading outside the realm of social media — especially well-researched books and long-form journalism, as well as targeted, peer-reviewed academic work. To read, for instance, The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee or the updated edition of Beverly Daniel Tatum’s Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? or Eddie S. Glaude Jr.’s Begin Again or Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist or Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic’s Critical Race Theory: An Introduction or the old-school Poverty and Race Journal from the Poverty and Race Research Action Council can strengthen our knowledge of race — and all related politics, public policy, sociology, and psychology — in ways reading a yearful of postings on Medium or inhaling a steady diet of Twitter commentary cannot.

But the goal, of course, is not just reading. In order to  create strategies for lasting change, we need to continue to build our interpersonal antiracist and leadership skills. We need to develop the ability to engage in respectful, productive dialogue with colleagues, friends, and neighbors. We need to connect with local, state, and national representatives. The goal is to use our knowledge and skills to help shape the nation’s path to a better future. In a recent New Yorker article, staff writer Kathryn Schultz wrote about the world of animal “way-finding” — the remarkable ability of animals to know where they are and figure out where they are going at all times. In the end, Schultz shifts focus in a way that caught my attention: “But the chief insight to be gleaned from how other animals make their way around the world is not about their behavior but about our own: the way-finding we must learn to do now is not geographic but moral.”

We need to think of the social justice work we do as a kind of collective moral way-finding. 

I suppose the strategy I’m asking for is one in which we tell the truth as best and as respectfully as we can. We call out those who make public stands against racial equity. We denounce the manipulative practices and lies coming from political leaders who want to divide whites and BIPOC for their own political gain. We speak out for change to our institutions, our places of work. But we also balance this out with the practice of calling people in, engaging in dialogue with colleagues, friends, and neighbors in a positive spirit. In schools, this means we have our point of view, our speaking points, but we also listen, ask questions, try hard to understand other perspectives, build a pathway forward.

I honestly don’t know where the line between calling out and calling in lies. It’s clearly necessary to call out acts of police brutality against people of color. It’s clearly necessary to call out politicians who respond to peaceful protests for racial justice by calling these citizens rioters and looters. It’s clearly necessary to call out all acts to suppress voters of color as a way to maintain white power and privilege.

In the field of education, it’s clearly necessary to call out the longstanding system that designates more resources and funding  — $23 billion, or more than $2,200 per student per year — toward predominantly white public schools. It necessary to call out schools that treat students inequitably based on their race — so that many students of color feel traumatized, pushed aside, tracked to low-level courses, or otherwise ill-served by their schools. But if we are to transform our schools and communities, we need to find a way to call people in, too. This is not a sign of weakness. It’s not about being “soft.” It’s born of desire to actually get where we need to go. It’s part of our way-finding.

While thinking about the tension between calling out and calling in, I happened to pick up a book of 20th-century essays curated by Joyce Carol Oates. The book, The Best American Essays of the Century, was given to me as a gift in 2000, and I’m embarrassed to say that I put it on my shelf and never got around to opening it. For some reason — probably because it feels dangerous to get stuck in a cycle of reading daily news and commentary — I opened it recently to see what the 20th century had to say about our lives now. 

The first essay I read was Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” The essay, as one would expect, is full of remarkable observations. For me, the most telling is this: “We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation.”

While the letter is clearly a call to action, King thought long and hard on how best to respond to the racial injustice he saw all around — and he found fertile ground between complacency and advocating violence. He was not above calling out. “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” in fact, is one long calling out of Christian leaders “who have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained glass windows.” He says the Christian church is “so often an arch-supporter of the status quo.” Echoing the challenges of our times, he also calls out church leaders for praising the Birmingham police for keeping “order” when, in fact, they were brutalizing a population of people legally and peacefully protesting injustice.

But King also ends by directly encouraging these very same clergy to meet with him, to engage in conversation about the role of the church in matters of social justice. He calls them in.

It’s this latter action that I think we need to keep in mind today — King’s focus on strategy, leveraging nonviolent protest with core Christian, moral tenets to make the case for change. 

I keep coming back to another fact in my mind (from McGhee’s The Sum or Us): “By age three or four, white children and children of color have absorbed the message that white is better.” Education is essential for the individual and society. But if we are not focusing on antiracist education, we are only supporting a broken society. So maybe the “calling in” I’m talking about is one focused on collective change within schools — with a complete examination of every aspect of school life. 

One school I read about recently responded to the painful evidence of its racism — that the school had not lived up to its mission to support and educate all students equally well across race. It didn’t just acknowledge its shortcomings. It didn’t just offer a vague apology. It did the essential work of examining its history and interviewing alumni, students, teachers, parents, and others. Then it created a strategic plan designed to ensure a racially just future. 

The result is heartening. The school has created an Antiracism and Social Justice Course, required for all high school students, focused on four main goals: deeper understanding of the historical roots of racism; deeper understanding of the current racial landscape; development of an antiracist mindset; and application of practical antiracist skills. Simultaneously, every social studies class will begin the year with a focus on issues related to Black Lives Matter, and every American history course will strengthen the presence of the African-American experience. The school is also undertaking a full curriculum audit to assess the current presence of diversity in the program and determine any necessary adjustments. 

Simultaneously, the entire faculty will engage in developing their antiracist teaching practices — not through a one-time event, but continually, year to year. The school is also examining the intersection of race and school policy; race and hiring, onboarding, and retention; race and matters of accountability and discipline; and more.

The goal is clear: the school aims to be a truly antiracist community on all fronts — and it plans to achieve this through a system of transparency, clear accountability, constant attention to the racial composition of the community, explicit professional and cultural expectations, and a commitment to an antiracist curriculum and teaching practices. Time will tell how well the school does, but the thoroughness of this response is impressive.

One more example. A few years back, a group of 176 national experts, with the support of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, created the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) process to “bring about transformational and sustainable change, and to address the historic and contemporary effects of racism.” The key is to understand how the belief in racial hierarchies undermines institutional and societal progress in myriad ways. This TRHT process is now being embraced by numerous communities nationwide, as well as by colleges and universities.

Of course, there are other examples out there of schools and educators and other related organizations taking on this transformative work. Maybe I’m simply asking all educators and schools to join them. Call out as you need to, as you feel is right. But remember to call in, too — work to create strategies for lasting transformation. In the end, our aim should be for racial enlightenment, not entrenchment. We want to change hearts and minds, and help more people understand why it’s in the best interest of everyone to build a truly just society.

Michael Brosnan is the senior editor at Teaching While White.

Unpacking “I’m Afraid”: Confronting Colleagues Who Avoid Teaching & Talking About Race

How many times has a white colleague confessed that they’re “afraid” to teach texts like Toni Morrison’s Beloved or Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis? I don’t mean just admitting their fear, but rather, invoking it as the legitimate reason for inaction. In the past few years, I’ve come to recognize such admissions as an excuse — one that, for too long, has allowed our colleagues to remain in place, teaching the texts with which they’re comfortable.  

In DEI workshops, we’re taught that questions are powerful. Asking the open-ended and nonjudgmental “what do you mean by that?” or “why is that funny?” can successfully interrupt biased comments by helping the speaker identify the racist or other assumptions underlying their words. Similarly, I suggest that we start responding to the fear defense with the question, “afraid of what?” By doing so, we’re calling the other person to examine the beliefs at the root of their justification and the privilege inherent in their defense. 

 In what follows, I offer some of the answers you might receive, along with my thoughts and responses. 

“I’m afraid that the material is just too heavy for my students.”

In any given year we discuss texts and show films that include sexual assault, drug abuse, racism, and murder. No one worried about whether our freshmen were traumatized by Sunny the prostitute when we read The Catcher in the Rye. We currently teach Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, and no one has objected on the basis that Jimmy Cross’s pseudo-rape fantasy is too controversial. I like to point out that if we avoid “heavy” subjects, our much-beloved Shakespeare won’t make the cut! 

“I’m afraid I won’t do the material justice because it’s not my experience.”

Well, I’m not part of the landed gentry in Regency England, but I successfully taught Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. At the core of this answer is often a colleague’s fear that they’ll unintentionally offend a student through their own ignorance. It’s a valid concern and a reality that even conscientious DEI practitioners can’t always avoid. For that reason, I offer students opportunities for anonymous feedback so that I can improve. Other teachers may implement the strategy in which any student may say “ouch!” to signal that a comment offended them. In any case, the solution to potential mistakes isn’t avoidance; it’s setting up classroom practices for voicing, acknowledging, and processing the impact of our words. 

“I’m afraid that it’ll make my white students uncomfortable.” 

Without a doubt, our students’ emotional welfare is an important part of our job, but I’m only halfway joking when I ask, what happened to the growth mindset?! Weren’t “grit” and “resilience” all the rage just a few years ago? As Lucas Jacob notes in an earlier Teaching While White post, “feeling uncomfortable is not the same as feeling unsafe.”

Furthermore, this particular excuse reveals an underlying misconception: that the purpose of a book like Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me is to condemn white America. On the contrary, like many works of art, it’s Coates’ attempt to make sense of the world in which he lives. And in so doing, he exposes conflicts, inequities, and personal truths that resonate in different ways for readers. More importantly though, it’s worth asking whether we express as much concern for the comfort of our students of color. How often have we worried about their feelings when reading Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, reciting Rudyard Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden,” or watching 12 Years a Slave? 

“I’m afraid it’ll get political.”

When I ask for clarification on “political,” what often emerges is “potential for disagreement.” Digging deeper, it’s the issue of disagreement rooted in students’ lived experiences. In other words, it’s going to get personal. 

Let’s back up for a moment: it’s not our job to tell students what to think. We examine complicated topics to help students develop their critical thinking and communication skills — asking questions, testing assumptions, engaging multiple viewpoints. But it is our responsibility to keep discussion from becoming a referendum on the value of any individual or group of students. In my classroom that means several small discussion circles of three to five students rather than the whole class. I also embed debriefing exercises and constantly remind students that our goal is not to declare a “winner.” The bottom line: student passion isn’t a problem to solve, it’s an opportunity to engage. 

Moving Beyond “I’m Afraid”

Ultimately, if the statement “I’m afraid” isn’t followed by “but I’m going to do it anyway,” it isn’t honesty: it’s an excuse to do nothing. And that’s unacceptable because inaction reinforces whiteness as the norm, sending the message that people of color — our stories, our perspectives — don’t have value. To be clear, simply including a book with a nonwhite protagonist isn’t enough. We should implement norms for respectful discussion and productive disagreement. We must include practices that enable students to process their discomfort. And we have to consider how our racialized experiences impact our teaching — from feedback and grading to discussion prompts and assignment design. None of this is “extra”; it’s part of culturally competent instruction. 

In the discipline of English, we talk about “windows and mirrors.” Windows are texts that allow a student to view the world through someone else’s cultural perspective while mirrors are texts that reflect a student’s own perspective. Imperfect as it may be, when I open those windows — which are mirrors for some students who’ve never seen themselves in the literature curriculum — what I see are curious students eager for honest discussion. It’s time to call out our colleagues on the windows they’ve been too afraid to open. 

Don’t accept the excuse, and stop wasting energy on trying to convince. Instead, expose the willful misconceptions and the culturally conditioned thinking. Asking “afraid of what?” is how we start dismantling fear as a shield of privilege. In “Mississippi Goddam,” Nina Simone famously lists the broken promises made to Black Americans, punctuated by the familiar admonition that, when it comes to racial equality, we have to “GO SLOW.” She brilliantly arranges the song so that the lie exposes itself. 

I used to think that if I just explained it well enough, if I found the right combination of fact, persuasion, and encouragement, my colleagues would rise to the challenge. I’m done with that. Let’s be like Nina. Ask your colleagues “afraid of what?” and let their own words undermine their defense. Or, it might just set them free. 

Reanna Ursin is a diversity practitioner and high school English instructor at the Westminster Schools in Atlanta, Georgia. A version of this essay was first delivered as a PechaKucha presentation at the 2021 NAIS Annual Conference.

Where We Go from Here: Lessons from Derek Chauvin’s Trial

As Judge Peter Cahill read the verdict in Derek Chauvin’s trial for the murder of George Floyd, the camera zoomed in on Chauvin’s face, and I suddenly found myself wondering about all of those educators who taught Chauvin in school. How did they feel in this moment, hearing the jury’s verdict convicting him of murder on three counts?

I’m relieved that Chauvin is being held accountable for the murder of a black man. I’m grateful that a white police officer is finally being convicted for heartless and illegal brutality. But I’m not celebrating. For one, I can’t help but think about George Floyd’s family, especially his daughter, Gianna, who, at the delicate age of six, has been robbed of one of the most precious gifts, the embrace of her father. I’m thinking about the pain that Ma’Khia Bryant’s family is currently enduring. I also know that one just verdict does not translate into racial justice in America or into the kind of police and social reform we so desperately need. We still have a long way to go on both fronts — and there remain many forces of resistance working to undermine such efforts.

I don’t feel sorry for Chauvin and yet, in the most humane version of myself, I am struck by the way in which he, too, has been caught up in America’s long-raging racist storm. I’m struck by the way our government and community practices can infuse a young man with lies about human value — and how these lies, over time, can ignite the flames of one man’s racism and lead to such brutal results. I’m struck by the way our nation has enabled Chauvin to believe that because he is white he could kneel on a black man’s neck, that as a police officer he could kill a defenseless man and lie about it afterward. I’m struck by the way he could do all this without a shred of concern for George Floyd’s humanity or life. Without a shred of remorse. And now Chauvin and his family will pay the price. 

We are all responsible for our behavior, of course, but sociological theory makes it clear there are numerous ways in which we are all influenced and shaped by our families and friends, by our schools, by the institutions in which we work, by national politicians, by movements in the broader culture and how those movements are expressed in and elevated through social media. We act in and are acted upon by our society.  

This is why it’s Chauvin’s teachers that I keep coming back to in my mind. I want to be clear: all those educators who taught Derek Chauvin over the years are not responsible for his violent actions. Yet I can’t help but wonder how they feel, knowing that they are part of this broader social system that failed in this case. A core premise of schools is to help all American children develop into caring, contributing citizens. So I wonder how his teachers felt during the trial. Were they devastated? Did they wish they had done more to teach Chauvin about justice, help him develop a deep understanding of the historical roots of racism and the need for and importance of racial equity? It may be unfair to say that his teachers failed him, maybe not. But I do know that, for all of us who work in schools, we must ask ourselves if we have done everything we can to develop our students into caring citizens — into people with an ingrained respect, love of humanity, and a dedication to justice. We cannot be responsible for the actions of each individual we teach, but we are 100% responsible for what we teach them. As educators, our call to action, then, is to remember always that our children will embody what we teach them and what we don’t teach them. 

In an ideal world, this trial would be a moment of collective pause. One in which we as a nation stop and ask ourselves not only how we let things get this bad, but also what we are going to do next. I hope we all understand that, while justice was served in this one case, our nation continues to fail black and brown bodies. I hope that we all mourn the loss of George Floyd and empathize with his family and community. I hope we all feel sorrow for the deep loss that Gianna Floyd no doubt feels — one she’ll carry with her for life. I also hope we appreciate the tireless and persistent activism we’re seeing now on behalf of racial justice. While we condemn the rising racism in America over the past four years, we should find a way to be optimistic that, with this verdict, our nation has taken a significant, even monumental, step toward justice. There have been transformative moments in our history that have forced us to face ourselves as individuals and as a society. I hope we’ll see this trial and verdict as one such moment — as a tipping point for transformative change. 

Because I work in the field of education, I particularly want all of our schools to refocus with deeper conviction on matters of social and racial justice within our school communities and curricula. Along with anything else we do in school, we all need to teach racial literacy. We need to teach our kids that Black lives truly matter. And we also need to commit to facing the parts of ourselves that require the most growth, in order to do our best in helping to create a just society. More than anything, on a heavy day, in a complicated year, we need to remain committed to love. 

Jadihel Taveras is head of school at Esperanza Academy.