As a follow-up to my post about the NEA’s new business item on institutional racism, here’s an excerpt from Fred Klonsky’s post:
We white teachers in the AFT and the NEA are not inoculated from the racism that exists in the broader American society.
I went back and reread the institutional racism New Business Item in light of the rest of the meeting that followed its adoption.
I couldn’t help but be struck by the fact that the NBI talked about all the institutions in our society except one.
Ours.
Only when we as educators can look into the mirror and realize our complicity in the school-to-prison pipeline can we truly be liberated. Yes, I recognize we’re often hamstrung by mandates from deceptive overlords and wayward mandates from folks who’ve never been in the classroom. Yet, many of my friends have witnessed institutional racism firsthand, and how the institutions we work in and, sometimes, pay dues to, can be a deterrent from breaking the chains.
This work is complicated. If we’re not willing to have that conversation, then why work with students? Face the institution in front of you. Start with the one in the mirror. It helps.
Well said Jose. It is timely to talk of racial injustice, the way children of color are criminalized differently than white offenders, etc. yet the struggle I have as a teacher of color, is that I’m ready to go deep, ready to really talk about issues that affect the P2P pipeline, only to have my fervor met with lukewarm “it’s the right thing to do” half hearted reception.
it’s difficult to have those conversations as a white person, too, especially south of the Mason-Dixon line in these past few weeks, especially. Which, is actually a time when it should be pretty obvious to my fellow South Carolinians that we need to talk about race…common roadblocks-“Slavery/Jim Crow/etc. was ___ years ago. “They” need to “get over it/move on.” “I’m not ‘privileged.’ I’ve worked for everything I’ve got.” “Black people are just as racist.” There is a huge part of our population (and this is not just a “Southern” thing) that is very invested in the status quo-mainly out of a fear that shifting the equality bar “up” in one group’s favor means shifting it “down” in their own. The comments in the press in these past few weeks surrounding issues of race (don’t even get me started on marriage equality) have been positively shameful in their willful ignorance, and it astounds me how many of the very same people questioning the NAACP and Black History Month are the ones saying, “I’m not racist.” In the conversations I keep trying to have with folks, I am trying to focus on two things-1. Privilege is NOT privileged-and clearly defining it and providing examples until I finally find the one that the person I am speaking with has the shift in the look on their face that lets me know they finally recognize the time they experienced it; and, 2. Defining the differences between racism and prejudice and the power differential involved, as well as why certain advocacy efforts were put in place to overcome institutional racism (this is more complicated so far, but it may be that I’m not as good at this piece yet.) There is a long way to go in just getting people to accept and acknowledge that institutional racism exists (though some of us are working on it). I do know that the younger generation (my daughters are 18 an 22) are much further ahead in this work, so I do have hope, but we have so much more to do to really make changes.
Hmmm….
The same folks who also blame other factors we cannot control (poverty) for our children’s academic woes cannot also recognize their possible complicity in our children’s academic challenges.
When the Boeing 787 had its well-publicized battery issues Boeing did not blame the issues soley on the subcontractor; it’s a Boeing airplane, so they had to accept the challenge and fix it. When large teacher entities refuse to accept responsibility for what happens in their very profession they lose much credibility with the very people they seek to serve.
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