“This race discussion doesn’t apply to me.”
Whenever we say that racism isn’t just discrimination of one set of people towards another, but a systemic set of power structures that benefits one (white) group over another. This goes double for principals and assistant principals because, when your standing already endows you with more power than others in the building, your responsibility towards being cultural competent is doubled as well.
We have racist administrators in our schools, some overtly and some covertly. Our school system has yet to assess for racism because education reform assumes that “high expectations” shows up in the form of raising test scores, a bullshit shortcut instead of addressing some of the racist attitudes espoused by some of the highest-ranking adults running our school buildings across the country. It’s easier, mind you, to get rid of a principal for racist tweets or calling staff members gorillas, but implicit bias shows up in ways that aren’t so obvious.
Like, what if an administrator always finds a way to write up and suspend the children of color in their building? What if they talk down to Spanish-speaking parents and treat them as bothersome ignoramuses? What if the administrator looks at the white teachers in the building as the only way the school will reform and points at the veteran teachers, typically of color, as part of the problem? What if they tout their degrees to the kids not as a source of inspiration, but as a way of saying “You’ll never get there and you don’t deserve to be in my midst?” What if they look at the students and assume the father isn’t present or the mother doesn’t care? What if, when visitors come, the administrator only visits classrooms where the students speak the King’s English and puts all the kids who speak only Chinese in the basement? What if they refuse to say the students’ names right, make fun of them for not being called “Jim” or “Sarah,” and yell at them when the students when they’re using their own language amongst their friends? What if they only sit next to other white administrators and assume the Latino administrator probably got the job at a struggling school and because she has connections with the superintendent?
What if your administrator is racist?
And that’s only one level. What if the administrator sees a staff member doing something racist and says nothing about it? Are they complicit and, if so, doesn’t that almost make them racist by association? If they see a student suddenly dip in grades in only one specific class and that child just happens to be the only student of color there, shouldn’t that pique an administrators’ curiosity? What if the teacher has the highest test scores in the building, but genuinely treats the students as “those” and “these” constantly?
Is racism in schools just a manifestation of unfounded anger or does it happen when we stand by and let folks do it, too?
From my purview, white administrators’ guilt, on the surface, suggests that they hold low expectations for the students in front of them. They use the dialogue about poverty and outside influences on student achievement as a crutch for why students can’t learn rather than an understanding that they must try hardest because, in spite, and even so. On a deeper level, though, white administrators’ guilt is the idea that the people of color in front of you are less than human, unworthy of their pristine, yet unalienable education. That idea manifests in bigger issues like high suspension rates and zero tolerance policies and more subtle ideas like teaching students how to clean up their accents and only acknowledging American holidays.
But please: don’t point to Martin Luther King Jr. posters hanging in their offices and think that’s enough to get a pass. Plenty of young men and women of color hang in various ways in these schools, often at the principal’s behest.
Our ability to fool ourselves, to fail to hold ourselves accountable because we “have the right attitudes” seems bottomless. As ever, Jose, you are the one to grab us by the lapels and shake.
Author
Thanks, Dan!
Dear Jose,
I read your headline this morning and I thought, Jose sounds pissed. I wonder what happened. As I read your post I thought, there is something real happening but he can’t talk about it. I wish you could. I think everything you said is totally right on when it comes to considering power, culture, and authority.
I clicked though on your first link and the story sounded strange to me. I know that a teacher who becomes a teacher of the year in a predominantly African-American school division in Virginia is not likely to be easily qualified as a racist. So I googled and clicked and found two things out about this situation. I will include the links below but here is the thing. What is our responsibility, as commenters on the state of education, in light of additional information? When are we accountable for our humor? For example, I heard D.L. Hughley on the radio talking about the supreme court case in which a white reporter was fired for using the N-word in non-malicious context. He said, “He can’t use that word in a non-malicious context. His use of that word makes it malicious.” I agree.
I will probably use your blog post in my class on Ethics, Issues, and Policy so I would love to hear your perspective.
Insensitive: Yes.
Good natured: No
Racist or talking about race? I don’t know. If she is making fun of her own ex-husband’s fear? If she is expressing her acknowledgment of society’s discomfort with race? If this “humor” was directed publicly at her daughter?
By the way, there should definitely have been an investigation and the student walkout was totally justified.
http://wavy.com/2014/11/21/former-students-defend-school-administrator-re-tweet/
Then there is this from the HuffPost
Strickland said that both of her daughters attended prom with African-American students, and that the retweet was an attempt at “good natured humor concerning mixed race couples attending a high school prom.”
“Because I have two daughters who in fact did attend proms with African American dates, I casually forwarded the ‘tweet’ last June to one of those daughters. The ‘retweet’ from last June has now resurfaced and become the object of intense media criticism and calls for my dismissal from Booker T. Washington on grounds of racism,” she said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/21/amy-strickland-retweet_n_6200126.html
Author
Hey John,
Thanks for the comment. I *do* think that most folks should be able to use the n-word in academic analyses and within certain contexts, but, as with everything, one must be super-careful about the way they do this. That’s why I asked a bunch of questions, ones that would hopefully get folks thinking about these questions within schools. Even when it’s meant innocently, we have to be careful about social media and the ways we talk about these delicate situations over Twitter. For instance, if you’re not someone who has a reputation for sarcasm, why use it for such a sensitive issue?
Acknowledging society’s discomfort with race can seem innocuous, but if you don’t execute well, it can be disastrous (see: Justine Sacco).
Totally agree. You bring up a bunch of great points. I worry about perception, as a white educator in an urban African American environment. I have built more bridges with humor than analysis. I would never post that pic on twitter either because I am careful. Probably too careful. Sarcasm is dangerous. I wonder what Mark Twain would post on twitter.
I am not sure what could be construed as “good-natured” by saying that dating a Black man is a white father’s worst nightmare? I don’t think that my black sons are anyone’s nightmare. They are smart, funny, caring, and interesting individuals. I get that you may have a preference for who you’d like your child to date, but I to inherently refer to interracial dating as nightmarish cannot be equated as “good-natured” just because you thought it was funny.
Also this, an excellent analysis.
http://hamptonroads.com/2014/11/lots-us-could-learn-lesson-assistant-principals-twitter-gaffe
Jose,
One of the most cogent expressions I’ve read of a pernicious reality inside many of our schools.
Implicit bias has that huge terrible effect of lower expectations (so powerful) but doubles down with stereotype threat based on the students sharing these cultural biases. What supports can we build in to deal with these demonstrated effects? Treating all students equally will not achieve equity, and we can’t even get to treating all students equally.
I don’t like calling those laboring with implicit biases racists, however, as we all carry those biases around. Racist loses its force, then, when applied to those showing explicit bias. It also de-emphasizes the institutional nature of racism.
Author
Yet and still, there are racists within our midst. The school-to-prison pipeline wasn’t built on its own.
Equity suggests, I think, that not all students are equal, but that everyone has an equal chance at whatever goal we’re setting. Thus, those folks who need more should get more, and those who need less get enough. The institutional elements of racism play out in part through the lack of reflection that shows in people’s actions, or lack thereof.
I think you hit on the major point, “The institutional elements of racism play out in part through the lack of reflection that shows in people’s actions, or lack thereof.” I think this is what the school system in the Strickland case was guilty of.
You make so many valuable points that are pertinent not only to schools in the USA but in NZ as well. Test scores here are also bandied about as providing evidence of ‘high teacher expectations’. This is facile, especially when those ‘high expectations’ come from teachers and/or administrators who use default terms like ‘us’ – read: white, educated, professional) and ‘them’ – covering a whole host of assumptions about Maori and Pasifika students: everything from ‘parents who don’t care’, to ‘culturally alienated’ – and there’s another whole story about white teachers and academics acting as self-appointed guardians of someone else’s culture and pre-defining the bounds of how it should be expressed. We have a lot of ‘professional development’ about how to raise ‘the tail’ of Maori and Pasifika achievement (another ridiculous term), and there is always a great deal of hand-wringing, during which those same old teachers talk about their own’high expectations’ in the classroom: none of that urban ‘gangsta’ culture in ‘our’ classes, thank you very much – we’ll decide what ‘your’ culture is or should be. It’s almost impossible to make an alternative stand, as somehow the accepted views have become seen as evidence of cultural sensitivity and non-racist pedagogy. It’s almost funny, if it didn’t have such dire effects – exactly as you point out: zero tolerance for a particular constellation of misdemeanors, increased disciplinary proceedings against students of colour, and all too often the exclusion of such students from education (often without due process).
What if your administrator is black, excuse me, African-American, and these things still happen? Don’t mind me, just thinking out loud.
Author
That’s something I’ve discussed at length here: https://thejosevilson.mystagingwebsite.com/resume/administrators-of-color-selling-out-or-buying-in-from-the-vault/
But I find it interesting that you’re the third person who’s mentioned this caveat. I’ll have to address that. Thanks!
I actually believe in rebirth, and train in having compassion for every sentient being. Bad rebirths come from your own actions, as do good rebirths. Everyone deserves a good rebirth, but karma’s harsh reality is we answer to our own past actions. Hardest thing about actually believing in karma is that every discomfort and pain I experience is something I inflicted on others. Think deeply about that for a minute: every act of hate, every harsh word, every cutting word used in an argument, every pang of disease, or headache I experience I believe is from my own past actions. And in my heart I view your pain the same way. There is a huge component of personal responsibility if you believe in karma. No one ‘gave’ me suffering. I brought it upon myself through poor decisions.
I believe I have been less than human in previous lives, and so has everyone else. I believe we have been born higher than human in previous lives.
We’ve all been bugs; terrible and abusive authority figures, Ghandhi, Mother Theresa, etc. Those who reject karma and rebirth, I am not saying people of different races than me are low like bugs. I am saying I view bugs happiness as more important than my own. Because if I don’t when I am a bug someone will kill me just because my appearance terrifies them.
When conversation turns to ‘people who look like me’ I think about human beings, not demographic divisions within the human race. Happiness when you believe in karma means taking responsibility for your own actions because it all comes back in your own lap. So caring for a jerk doesn’t mean I wish them success in their hateful actions. It means I wish they would stop their hateful actions so they can experience happiness.
Now if you as an individual are mean, do hurtful things, or refuse to take personal responsibility while blaming others, I am much more likely to judge you. But don’t confuse that with racism because of your world view.
Both my parents taught in the DC Public school system from the 60’s through the 80’s. From our nightly dinner conversations you could apply your descriptions to many of their colleagues, their Black colleagues specifically. This is why I contend that racism’s roots are ignorance, fear, and evil, all of which do not discriminate whom they infect.
Jose,
I’m a student at the University of South Alabama. I am currently seeking a degree in elementary education and I am just sickened by the type of behavior you discuss going on in the school systems. I agree with you that if someone is seeing racist behavior happening in front of them and does nothing about it, they are just as guilty. After looking over your links, thats were just shocking to me, I did a little more research on this major problem in school systems. Of course I knew how big an issue racism is in the world, but I had no idea the problem in schools concerning adults anyways. Teachers and principles should be the ones to rise above this behavior and focus on children’s education and well being. I mean isn’t that the point of going into education for a profession? I found an article that talked about a white teacher asking a colored girl if she was a monkey in front of the entire class, just because the child was talking with a friend while the morning announcements were being made. I cannot imagine the humility this little girl felt. I’m glad you made a post about this sickening issue. It helped open my eyes to what is really going on in some schools. Thanks for sharing.
-Erika owen
Author
And thank you, Erika. Appreciated!
This post calls to mind Paul Freire’s standard of solidarity. I read Pedagogy of the Oppressed immediately after This is Not a Test and was both intimidated and inspired.
Freire addresses the challenges that arise when members of the historically dominant population he calls the “oppressors” seek to become one with the historically exploited population he calls the “oppressed”.
“…as [the oppressors] cease to be exploiters or indifferent spectators or simply heirs of exploitation and move to the side of the exploited, they almost always bring with them the marks of their origin: their prejudices and their deformations, which include a lack of confidence in the people’s ability to think, to want, and to know…The generosity of the oppressors is nourished by an unjust order, which must be maintained in order to justify that generosity…They talk about the people but they do not trust them; and trusting them is the indispensable precondition for revolutionary change.”
The challenges Freire describe above extend to educators beyond the overt and covert racists; one can both not be a racist and work to improve their brand of service as one of solidarity rather than generosity.
I sensed from This is Not a Test, that you accepted Freire’s standards. If this is the case, what kind of practical scaffolding do you propose for educators that are not racists but bear the marks of their origins? Do you believe that the more they work and become one with the communities they serve the more progress they can make? Or, perhaps, do you believe that educators who bear the “marks of their origin” unacceptably perpetuate exploitation and, as such, should not teach in “oppressed” communities?
Author
I believe that any educator can teach anywhere, if that’s what you’re getting at. I also believe that teachers who do come from outside communities need to a) do a *lot* of self-reflection about the similarities and differences between the community they grew up in and the community they’re entering in, noting the privileges and / or conflicts that occur in being an initial outsider and b) stay in a community for a few years and actually get a feel for the community outside of the 8-4 assignment they have. Freire kinda lays that out in a few ways, which were appropriate there.
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Good read. I’ve known of colleagues that I don’t feel are racist, but instead feel as if they are doing their civic duty by working within schools like this, but often allow students to act or perform in a substandard way because they feel that they can’t do any better or they expect nothing more of them. This attitude only perpetuates the problem.