“… when someone with the authority of a teacher, say, describes the world and you are not in it, there is a moment of psychic disequilibrium, as if you looked into a mirror and saw nothing.” – Adrienne Rich
“And yet it was impossible for me not to notice that the overwhelming majority of activist educators who gathered for this conference in Chicago were white; it was impossible not to notice that the folks with microphones who made explicit calls for anti-racist activism, culturally responsive pedagogy, and the development of educators’ cultural competence were people of color …” – Chris Thinnes
“Be wary of those whose identity is rooted in opposition, those who would literally be lost without someone to hate.” – DeRay McKesson
When Anthony Cody invited me to the Network for Public Education Conference to talk about teacher authors, I was a bit nervous. Within the last year, far too much crap had happened for me to not call people out. With so many of the lessons we as educators doled out for free to our colleagues in these activist circles, one has to wonder why we even have to put up with this if our unions are reluctant to speak to social justice without carefully manufactured press releases and tawdry statements (more on this tomorrow). How much closer to home do these issues have to hit before people engage as they must? And, if people bristled at my suggestions above, why invite me when they know I won’t keep my mouth shut?
Fuck it. I’ma go anyways.
Admittedly, I felt less like I was walking into a welcoming clubhouse, but a bat cave, if you will. Even the warm reception from friends and allies from across the country didn’t quell the awkwardness I felt listening to some of the off-the-cuff commentary underlying the workshops across the schedule. Prominent Chicago activist Jitu Brown and Newark Union Student president Tanaisa Brown spoke of education activism from the eyes of the voiceless and most affected by current edu-deform. The idea that people of color had a voice that chose to uproot centuries of inequity didn’t faze the general tone of the conference. Whereas the tone towards testing, Common Core, and privatization ranged from sadness to rage, the idea that NPE could pivot towards the happenings in Ferguson, Baltimore, or even a few miles away from the Drake Hotel in its centrality didn’t spread farther than the spaces where people of color presented post-plenaries.
Disappointment reigns, but not too much. Because it means I would have expected a larger-than-life transformation from leaders who generally must placate their members, many of whom aren’t ready to hear that they, too, are complicit in systemic edu-racism.
In my questions, my prodding, and my jokes, I hoped to get attendees to challenge their own activism by expanding their own world views. I spoke to education leaders directly and indirectly about social justice education and creating new leaders that might address these issues with more nuance, but to no avail. While teachers booed and hissed American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten and National Education Association president Lily Eskelsen-Garcia about their views on Common Core, Gates funding, and teacher evaluation, I sat decreasingly enthusiastic as Rekia Boyd’s name hadn’t been dropped once. Every person in attendance was a real person, but the whole affair from the questions to the answers and the reactions felt scripted, even the erasure of these issues happening right in our classrooms. Our classrooms full of Rekia Boyds, Freddie Grays, and Blake Brockingtons couldn’t get our white educators to cede the mic to those of us who might push them towards empathy.
People wanted me to challenge Randi on her endorsement of Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul because that’s exactly the issue I give a fuck about. Because if I asked people to challenge themselves on their endorsement of the overt and covert racists within our ranks, that’s a non-issue. No, thank you.
But all is not lost. Theresa Collins (along with Chris Thinnes) will lead the Progressive Education Network to take on these issues with a strong strategy for inclusion. Melissa Katz will teach students different from her with equal parts humility, cultural competence, and empowerment. Jesse Hagopian will speak to the convergence of the #BlackLivesMatter movement and the #OptOut movement in radical overtures as he promotes More Than A Score. Valencia Clay will continue to embrace her angry Black kids from the classroom in Baltimore, MD. Jennifer Berkshire might get yelled at for interviewing TFA leader Brittney Packnett, but the fans who understand will continue to embrace her for her growth as writer and, yes, as ally. Cynthia Liu will expose the misdeeds of Los Angeles Unified School District while helping us build the #educolor movement. The opportunity to convene with these folks and the dozens of folks who appreciate this new vision for dialogue was worth every mile I traveled over there.
Xian Barrett asked us to heed Chicago parent activist Rousemary Vega’s words, “Leaders don’t build followers; they build leaders.” To that end, Xian is that leader, complicating the routines of adults across the nation by pushing forth students and fellow activists. His guidance, along with a handful of folks in my life, make sure this lion can roar. Every chance that people get to expose my brother from another mother, you give it to him, because he works in complicated situations and snatches justice from the jagged teeth of oppression.
Speaking of which, the last event with Karen Lewis felt odd. We were asked not to touch the now-legendary union leader who, because of her treatments, couldn’t be too close to the rest of us. This probably added to the legend, but I digress. She didn’t have to say much to get us cheering. Xian, Valencia, and I sat down next to each other listening while watching her and Diane dialog, and her deflecting responsibility for the 2012 Chicago strike to the grassroots organizers who made it possible. She called out friend Michelle Gunderson from the crowd to rousing applause. She then called out Xian Barrett for his efforts. Then, she just said, “Jose Luis,” without my last name, the way my mom might reach out to me, not before she reaches for a belt, but reaches out to acknowledge me as a part of her life.
Which is odd because, when I asked her back in the fall why she was running for mayor, she said, “If you don’t see someone actually doing something, then you gotta step up, don’t you?” So I guess it’s on us now.
Did we go to the same conference? Yes, the attendees were heavily white, but I don’t see how that’s NPE’s fault. But three of the four keynotes featured speakers of color. Every breakout session had multiple choices presented by people of color, several of which were explicitly about race issues.
Among the white people, I personally heard Fred Klonsky, Deb Meier and Carol Burris actively call for social justice education. And while I didn’t hear Rekia Boyd’s name specifically, I heard dozens of references to Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice and others. I think you’re being rather disingenuous – and unfair – when you imply that the conference was oblivious to issues of race and racism.
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Dienne,
If you disagree, that’s fine, but please know that my well-informed opinion didn’t just come out of thin air. Please read the post again because nowhere did I say NPE was oblivious because, indeed, I did sit next to the NPE President during Jesse Hagopian’s BlackLivesMatter / OptOut session. Rather, I said these issues came *secondary*, if they did, to the larger push about testing, Common Core, and accountability. Furthermore, the fact that you chose to highlight the white folk who spoke about race comes across as running for cover, even if that’s not what you meant. I don’t want to belabor this further as I did say all is not lost. Notice the multicultural set of people who I highlighted, but these thoughts and more should (and hopefully will) drive NPE and other edu-activists circles in which I’ve been involved to ask themselves why these organizations don’t attract more people of color period. By the way, my link to Chris Thinnes, a white person, came out of the gate before I even started typing. Perhaps we all need to reflect on these spaces towards more inclusion.
Running for cover? How so? You’re the one who included a quote that said “…it was impossible not to notice that the folks with microphones who made explicit calls for anti-racist activism, culturally responsive pedagogy, and the development of educators’ cultural competence were people of color”. I pointed out that that simply wasn’t true – several white speakers *did* explicitly call for such things. Perhaps you didn’t hear them – obviously no one can go to every break-out session.
And, I guess you can be upset about racial issues being “secondary”, but race wasn’t the issue of the conference – public education was. Yes, race is a huge component of public education and deserves a great deal of attention. But race isn’t the only or the main issue. All kids in public schools are effected by the Common Core, the tests, the corporate influence, etc. If you want a conference where race is the main focus, why don’t you organize one?
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Already am. Thanks!
Respectully, Dienne, I’m taken aback by “Race is a huge component of public education and deserves a great deal of attention. But race isn’t the only or the main issue.” Neither is teacher voice. Neither is publishing. Neither is blogging. Neither is testing. Neither are unions. Neither is teacher evaluation. None of these are “the only or the main issue” in public education, but these were all front and center in the programming. But Jose should organize a separate conference about race because it ought to be front and center?
I’m with Xian. Your flameouts in his blog space aren’t inappropriate and offensive; neither is running to Diane’s blog to call in the troops. Please feel free to follow me at @ChrisThinnes if you’d like to DM each other’s email addresses or phone numbers to help us understand each other better in some other space than here. I’d like to.
Jose is upset that race was “secondary” at the NPE conference (his view, not mine). What I said was that if he wants a conference in which race is the main central issue, he should organize his own. He can’t have not known what the NPE conference would be like if he reads Diane’s blog even occasionally. Diane addresses a lot of issues related to race and she cares deeply for children and families of color dealing with the fallout of education rephorm. But as anyone who reads her blog knows, race is just one of several issues she deals with. Common Core, testing, corporate influence and similar topics make up the bulk of her posts.
And you guys keep talking about “safe spaces”, but then you use words like “flameouts” to describe my posts here. I have not been disrespectful (although I know Jose begs to differ). My first post was simply pointing out that it is false to say that only people of color called for social justice education. I gave three specific examples of white people who also did. Since I couldn’t attend every session, there may very well have been others who did as well. I’m not trying to tell anyone what their experience was, but I will say what the facts were. Also, the voices of people of color were very well represented, including three of the four keynotes. For my efforts, I got a very angry response from Jose and a note from Xian telling me to take my disagreement elsewhere. Sorry, but that doesn’t feel very safe for me. And I’m not going to presume to speak for Denisha, but if I were her, I wouldn’t feel very safe after Jose’s response either.
I regret using the word ‘flameout’ to describe your reaction when *I* was in the midst of one; that’s on me and I’m sorry to the extent it may have obscured any reasoning or diminished a sense of safety for you or for anyone else..
At the same time, I hear you saying “I’m not trying to tell anyone what their experience was,” but I see you insisting repeatedly that, in effect, Jose’s account of his experience is false. Less importantly, I hear you saying “I will say what the facts were,” but I see you appealing to a number of exceptions. Finally, I hear you saying that you don’t feel ‘safe’ asserting *your* personal experience of inclusion or opinions about the centrality of race in education activism — presumably but not by your self-identification as a white person — but I see you from the outset openly and explictly repudiating a person of color’s. All of this is hard for me to reconcile.
I guess the bottom-line question for me, then, is if someone as deeply invested in social justice *and* education activism as Jose did *not* have the experience *you* insist he should have walked away with, then what can *we* do — and what can NPE do — in the future to ensure that we position ourselves as better allies, that the movement doesn’t alienate yet another critical voice of an educator of color, that we problematize the racialized dynamics of our resistance as much as we complain about the racist underpinning of reform, and that organized activism for democratic education is authentically as inclusive as it consistently claims to be?
Peace.
Okay, I’ll rethink this a little: “I have not been disrespectful”. I did use the term “disingenuous”, and I regret that and retract it. That would imply intent to deceive, and I don’t think that of Jose. Apologies. But I do stand by “unfair” as I do think it is unfair to imply that race was in any way minimized or sidelined at the NPE conference or that only speakers of color talked about racial issues.
Often real, lived experienced will seem disingenuous to those who have not lived the same experiences and do not make others feel welcome sharing their experiences.
By all means, share your ideas, but please don’t try to come into safe spaces and make people less likely to share our experiences.
Jose I wish you would have came to the social justice panel I was on with Aixa Rodriguez and Kristin Vogel. We discussed many of the edu-racist points I think you wanted to hear addressed. I spoke about my upcoming work on getting teachers to move from colorblind to culturally competent by abandoning colorblind beliefs, learning social justice education, embracing and affirming diversity, and using culturally relevant pedagogy. Aixa spoke about how reform policies like co-location and small schools contribute to the school to prison pipeline and her work as an ELL teacher empowering her students to make their voices heard. And Krisrin spoke about being an advocate for her parents of special needs children and confronting her privilege daily by calling out her colleagues who are ignorant of the role race plays in education. We stayed 20 minutes after the session ended to continue talking with people who want to do more but don’t know where to begin. It was only one session but it did not adress race through other issues it made race and social justice the issue. We have a lot of work to do but we will only get there if we work with those who are trying to use their privilege in ways that dismantle the system. Hopefully we can continue to grow NPE so that these issues are front and center but I appreciate the space they give us to keep this work going.
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Denisha, if I didn’t push like this as I have been for almost the last decade, you couldn’t do that as a BAT. Facts are facts. We were thwarted at every race conversation and, in fact, BAT members were so openly racist, we *had* to call people out because calling people in wasn’t winning. The previous BAT leadership (and even some of the folks that work there now) weren’t hearing us out. You think BATs POC was just legerdemain? No. It happened because the folks you like and the folks you don’t like in EduColor stopped seeing themselves in SOS / NEA / AFT / BATs / NPE. You as one of the new faces of the BATs wouldn’t have gone down if we didn’t push them buttons. NPE knew I would speak on this publicly because that’s what I do. And yes, it’s because I’m black. Same with you.
Jose I am not new to BATs. I have been there from the second week and I know all about the history of BATs being called out and called in. We made mistakes along the way which we acknowledge and we have changed a lot. Some of our members might still be not be where we want them to be but the people in the BAT cave who are the admins and managers are committed to addressing issues of social justice as the basis for fighting back against school reform. We have learned that you can’t only focus on charters and testng and CCSS with out dealing with how white supremacy continues to be behind all of the reform movements. The people in Educolor who don’t like BATs or people of color like myself who stay in BATs are not my concern. We all have a role to play in this fight. My point in my earlier comment was to point out that the conversations you wanted to hear at NPE were taking place but you were not there so you didn’t hear. If the fact that it was a BATs social justice workshop kept you from attending then there is nothing I can do about that. BATs is not perfect but they are trying to do better and I will not leave them until they stop trying.
Author
Denisha, neither am I. As I’ve said, it’s not about attending any one specific session. Jesse Hagopian’s #BlackLivesMatter meeting spoke to these issues as well. So did a few others that I either attended or didn’t attend. That wasn’t the point of the post, though. If we look carefully, I’m asking why the centrality of the conversation didn’t feel like NPE had taken these race issues seriously enough, and that’s what I’m getting at. Please do remember that, for those of us who were in BATs when there were only 50 or less, we (and I do mean we) only saw you come to the picture shortly after there was a rising voice that suggested BATs needed to work on cultural competence. Same goes for Aixa, who I’ve been familiar with for a while now, and others. It’s one thing to be part of an org and another to get pointed at whenever someone needs to say “We’re not all white.” I’ve been there before; trust me.
In my heart, I do support those who truly believe they’re pushing conversations around intersectional race, class, and gender to the fore in the most difficult spaces. If you see yourself as *that*, then I’m happy for you. Please do prosper. Maybe a small part of me going there felt like I could at least support those doing similar work within the Network for Public Education. Yet, we can’t go anywhere if, every time someone brings up race, people start throwing up shields and checkboxes instead of saying, “We got work to do because there is a large segment of folks who still see this as an issue.” We can, in equal parts, recognize when people make strides (and recognize the people who do the pushing), and STILL not settle for “Well, we had a slot here and there.”
If we can’t agree on that, then why even go to these things?
Jose,
I was reading one of your prior posts referenced at the top of this post and came across this:
“Saying such things at a large anti-testing conference this year, for example, earned me an epic finger-wag from an audience member who thought it best to lecture me on why the Tea Party wasn’t inhuman (even though that’s not what I said)”
Can you please fill us in on the details of that “anti-testing conference”?
As it is, I spoke with you at last year’s NPE conference after you spoke on stage about some of your comments and I’m trying to figure out if that is to what you are referring.
Thanks,
Duane
I understand what you are saying Jose and I agree that we should not settle for being invited to participate but only as an add on or in the peripheral. I did not get that feeling at NPE but I respect that you might have felt that. As for BATs the reason my voice might not have been heard early on is because after the first few months of spending 10-12 hours a day moderating I took a break so I could focus on my teaching and resesrch. But I never left and I was vocal with admins and managers about being inclusive of diverse issues and they agreed with me. I know some people feel as though I am the token black racism expert only for show and not only do I find that insulting to my abilities it’s just not true. But whether it be in BATs or NPE or through Educolor I hope we all find success in the important work that we are doing.
This post was hurtful hermano really. I started BATs DREAM as a subgroup as a big push to see the intersections of Diversity Race Equity Acceptance and Mobilization in education. The big picture.
My Black students, Hispanic students, Middle Eastern students and Asian students are caught in the crossfire of identity, immigration, language and race. They are also caught in the crossfire of religious expectations, sexual identity , homelessness and disabilities. They are impacted by economics and discrimination in subtle and overt ways. Their understandings of these things vary and they don’t see things the way I do being born here. So I listen. I listen to their big picture and all its facets.
I reported on that on the panel. I reported on what I do in my classroom and what is happening in NYC. I gave shoutouts to NYCLetEmPlay. I talked a bit about my exploratory learning class and training my girls in social media skills for activism. I wish you had come.
I take heat at work for being vocal about being careful and conscious about policing the bodies of students of color and picking on them. Antecedents that lead to exaggerated disciplinary issues. I have been a big mouth all my life and haven’t stopped and won’t. I only did my Latin Am Studies major in the Lalsi institute under Mark Naison’s Dept. Yes some bigmouthedness rubbed off. Now I am blessed to be inspired by Dr. Denisha Jones, and mentored by Dr. Yohuru Williams. Dr. Williams took a morning and came to the Bronx to talk to my entire school about finding one’s voice and passion for social justice. This Latina BAT is proud to have two BAT mentors who are Black.
I wish you had come to our panel. It sucks that you didnt. It sucks that you couldnt attend a panel that purposely had a special educator, an ESL teacher and a teacher educator to address three distinct areas that impact children of color.
There is a subtext in this post that makes me so uncomfortable. I feel as if I have been called a token. I’m nauseous writing this. Are those bold enough to show up to NPE just discounted by you Jose? I read tweets about the lack of parents and student activists at NPE when NSU was sitting behind me and I just hugged and took pictures with Shoneice, Rousemary and Asean.
I feel as if I have been slapped. I am trying to do real things and walk the walk for justice with my students in my practice and in my classroom. I worked hard to overcome my fear to even be in that panel. I patched together funding sources and got there. NPE reached out and had my back just in case. They offered scholarships to make sure a wide variety of people could even afford to go.
You were highlighted and focused on. Why didn’t you pull a panel together for Educolor and submit one?
Response to Chris Thinnes’ last response above, since the margins are getting a bit tight. I’ve never said what Jose’s experience should or shouldn’t have been. But I am stating facts. Three of the four keynotes featured speakers of color – do you dispute that? Every single breakout session had several options led by speakers of color, several of which explicitly addressed racial issues – do you dispute that? Several white speakers did, in fact, address racial issues and called for social justice education (at least three that I personally heard, perhaps others that I did not) – do you dispute that?
I’ve been thinking about a friend of sorts in fourth grade. She aspired to be part of the popular clique, so as part of achieving that goal, she had the most spectacular blowout birthday bash any of us had ever experienced. At least 100 kids, roller rink exclusively rented for five hours, unlimited pizza, snackies and soft drinks, buckets of tokens for the video and pinball games, the biggest most awesome birthday cake in history (or so we thought), gift table piled so high it took multiple cars to bring it all to her house. As far as we could all tell, the event worked out beautifully for her. She got to couples skate with the two cutest boys, she spent a great deal of the party hanging out with the popular kids.
But at the conclusion of the event, she was bummed out because she felt that the most popular of the popular girls had snubbed her (even though we’d all seen the two of them hanging out a fair amount). For her the party was ruined. Now, am I going to tell her what her experience was? Am I going to tell her that she wasn’t snubbed? Am I going to tell her how she should feel, or that she should ignore how she feels? No to all of that – she has a right to her experience and her reaction to that. But I am going to point out facts like that she spent a lot of time hanging out with the cool kids and that she got to couples skate with the cute boys. And I’m going to point out what she’s overlooking when she insists on focusing exclusively on the perceived slight from one girl and acting like the whole party was a bust.
One way not to trivialize Jose’s experience (or mine, or anyone else’s) would be to resist comparing the lived experience of racialized dynamics in education activism to the disappointment of a vulnerable child at a 4th grade birthday party. Another way would be to resist implying that one ought both to feel better — and, more importantly to think differently — about race, identity, experience, or power because they “spent a lot of time hanging out with the cool kids.” Nobody said, at any point, that the ‘party’ was a bust. But we came with more than the hope — and question more important dynamics — than the opportunity to “couples skate with the cute boys.”
Sorry the point went over your head. Point being, you’re entitled to feel however you feel. But you have to overlook an awful lot of really positive things that really did happen in order to focus on the few lapses that made you feel that way.
Author
Yes to Chris. Also, I was one of the speakers at the lunch. If this was a party, I was definitely one of the popular kids. My calls to ask if NPE can do better might make some of you uncomfortable, but, if my critiques can continue to push the dialogue forward, then I apologize for nothing.
I know I’m probably way past your last nerve, but I just can’t let it go. It’s not your “calls to ask if NPE can do bettter” which made me “uncomfortable”. There’s always room to do better and always room to ask if we’re doing enough. It’s more that you didn’t ask. You said that NPE isn’t doing enough. You implied that only the speakers of color cared about racial justice and that race as an issue was “secondary”. It felt like a very unfair accusation when it seems evident to me that NPE has made, as Diane said and you agreed with, a great effort to be inclusive and achieve diversity.
Look, after this whole exchange it’s pretty clear that you and I are never going to be best friends. But I am, whether you believe me or not, an ally. I’m married to a black man and doing my damnedest to raise two black girls in a hostile world. Diane and the vast majority of NPE are also allies. Sure, we can all get upset about each others’ inevitable shortfalls and missteps. But let’s try not to take our anger out on each other.
Why do I get the unnerving suspicion that this article is more about bruised ego than activism? It takes a specially inflated sense of self importance to state that events did not occur because we did not attend them.
Author
I don’t know, Maria. Please understand that I’m not someone who cares if I’m the one onstage. That’s what the whole last third of this essay was about: I hadn’t lost hope in the idea that there could be meaningful change. It’s not about my particular ego because I’m about the people. Yet, if we listen closely and a good set of folks think we can do better, then maybe it’s worth paying attention to before dismissing.
I agree with your criticisms of the NPE conference Jose. That Randi Weingarten was allowed to get away with saying “civil rights leaders” want testing because it “makes African-American children visible” says it all. That is the line of Arne Duncan and corporate education as a whole. Standardized testing makes low income communities “visible” for school closings and “turnarounds” from public schools to charters. It is a deliberate attempt to exploit the historic inequity in public schools which has been deliberate and use it as an even more aggressive way to exploit low income communities.
Well, fairly recently nearly 20 civil rights groups sent a letter regarding the ESEA reauthorization demanding standardized testing remain part of the package: http://dianeravitch.net/2015/01/12/why-did-civil-rights-groups-demand-standardized-testing/ There was a great deal of speculation as to who these civil rights groups are and where their funding comes from. But this is where we white folk get ourselves into trouble – who is part of the “real” civil rights group and who gets to speak for civil rights? Who’s legit and who’s not and who gets to decide that? Certainly not someone like Randi.
And, while admitting I’m an outsider, it seems to me that there is genuine debate among people of color regarding standardized testing, and many do in fact defend it. Brian Jones had an article about this issue published in MORE THAN A SCORE and available here: http://www.alternet.org/books/people-who-have-experienced-racism-schools-standardized-testing-can-seem-solution-its-not
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Oh right: and in this book called This Is Not A Test. Based on the conversation we’ve had and how you’ve ranged from infantilized my points to trying to incite the president of NPE and the endorser of the aforementioned book, perhaps it’s not your place to tell civil rights groups what to do. Denisha already published a critique and if you should agree, then back her. Otherwise, regardless of who your spouse is, I’m not doing this.
I can see you’re determined to be angry at me. Enjoy your heart attack.
Author
Nope. I’m actually kinda happy. Beautiful day outside.
Thinking about this: “…trying to incite the president of NPE and the endorser of the aforementioned book….”
How was I trying to “incite” Diane? By sending her over here to see what you wrote? Do you stand by what you wrote or not? Assuming so, why shouldn’t Diane see it? In fact, why didn’t you bring her here yourself, or, better yet, discuss your concerns with her directly and privately first? When you have your own conference that you’re organizing, if one of your presenters has concerns about how things went, do you want him/her to run to his/her blog and air such grievances publicly? Or would you rather s/he give you a shout out to discuss it personally?
Frankly, while I don’t like to speak for other people, I think Diane might be rather baffled by this and possibly a bit hurt that you seem to think that race isn’t important to NPE after the efforts she and others have made to reach out.
I was very clear. Splaining to someone that their experience didn’t happen and is wrong is ignorant. Calling someone disingenuous for sharing that experience is an attempt to silence them.
At no point did I say people should leave the space for disagreeing. This is not my space to make that decision and Jose regularly engages dissent here.
It’s simply a hurtful thing to wander into a space and imply that people’s experience is false or made up. That oppression created the problem, and then that problem was exacerbated by person who committed that indiscretion trying to run off and invoke a higher power. If you wanted dialogue, reflect and dialogue.
As for the BATs or NPE or EduColor, like all organizations, we have flaws and weaknesses. The people who critique our organizations–whether civilly or uncivilly–carry some piece of reality if their critique is genuine. That critique could hurt sometimes and we should try to make it not. But to shut it down makes us weaker.
Once we evaluate an organization, people will decide whether they will seek to strengthen it from the inside or the outside. That’s their agency and wisdom of their own struggle.
Many of us experience vicious, race-based attacks early on during BATs. We chose to leave or at least to just monitor at the margins. Others chose to fight within the organization. Both are reasonable choices that could be made in the context of our shared struggle. We may not agree on what the best reaction was. The reality is that it probably differs from person to person.
In my limited perspective, what has stoked movement infighting is NEVER the identification and acknowledgement of our mistakes in the movement, it is the angry denial of them. Attempts to whitewash (word choice intentional) past events and double down on oppression leads us to fight each other. Critique is not divisive, it is unifying toward a stronger movement.
Our movement exists in a racist/classist/sexist/ableist/heteronormative society. OF COURSE our spaces are not exempt from that. We must confront that to win. The other side CANNOT confront it because they’re core principles are greed, antipathy and white supremacy. Ours can and that is why we will win.
I’m proud that within NPE we are having the tough discussions on these issues. I feel that having them respectfully has led to growth and strengthened our movement.
I thank Jose for always pushing us to address them.
Not sure how much more clearly I can explain this (or why I keep bothering, since clearly you’re not listening). I’m not trying to tell anyone what their experience was or wasn’t. Everyone has their own perceptions and reactions to such perceptions. All perfectly valid. But what isn’t valid is false information. The implication that no white speakers addressed race or social justice is simply false. I’m sorry if you and Jose weren’t in the room when such things happened, but they did. And I’m sorry if you felt that race and social justice weren’t adequately addressed, but, factually, they were addressed quite a bit. Again, three of four keynotes featured speakers of color. Every breakout session had options that featured speakers of color. These are simple facts. Could more have been done? Probably. That’s probably always the case. But to imply that white folks at NPE don’t care about race is not only factually wrong, it’s insulting and alienating of potential allies.
For the record, I do agree with Jose’s viewpoint that race was secondary in this conference. Having said that, we don’t move forward together if we don’t hear each other out. And that’s what I see all over this thread- attempts to discredit rather than to listen.
I don’t think what Jose is saying is meant to be taken personally- if we’re to get real about education change, we need to see it for what it is- systemically racist and classist, and we have to get to the roots of what make our education system the flawed, bureaucratic, hot mess it is now- racism and classism over hundreds of years. Savior complexes abound through all kinds of ed reform crap, like in teacher evals, TFA, charter schools, testing. We think we can save kids through measurement, gauging the problem, when we don’t look the problem in the face, when we don’t try to solve the problem. We just measure all the time. I’m tired of that. Race is central to the conversation, and to me that’s it.
When you’re doing the same thing about this conference, that you see it for what it was rather than what it could be, then we don’t move. We don’t grow.
And I don’t think NPE has gotten to where it needs to be on race. Not to say that it won’t, as it just had its 2nd conference and as this was my first NPE. But in order to get us there, we have to call out what’s real. One thing was that, for an ed conference in Chicago, we didn’t centralize Chicago as a location of ed deform, that we didn’t bring in students and parent activists from Chicago as well as we could have, we didn’t bring together what we were about.
And to come back to tokenism- I would never say anyone is a pawn in anyone’s game. I believe y’all to be intelligent, open-minded, people who fight for what they think is socially just every day. But having people of color put to the fore and prizing their speech DOES NOT MEAN that the messages they spout are going to be the central parts. Some are talking now about Baltimore- why is the crap happening in Baltimore now happening when 3 prominent leaders are black? Hell, why isn’t our country different now that Obama is in power? Because they are trying to be/lead in a place that’s still openly wounded and wounding itself from racist systemic hurts. It’s not enough to get people of color as your representers. It’s about getting the culture of the whole place set on tackling racism and classism, too. And all the -isms.
Annie Tan
Lots of nonsensical “dialogue” and game playing by Jose here. Elusive for the sake of appearance
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I came to this blog and searched for “DeRay Mckesson” because he’s both a BLM activist and TFA supporter who is running for Mayor of Baltimore, and I wanted to see if Jose had any takes on him. I’m a supporter of BLM and public schools, and I don’t always know how to fit those two positions together.
Very interesting to find DeRay’s quote, Jose’s post about the conference, and the dialogue in the comments. Somehow it all seems relevant to DeRay and his politics, even though he was not the explicit topic of discussion.
Jose, have you seen the letter below? Do you have a take on that, or more generally on DeRay’s views on education?
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/10/black-lives-matter-teach-for-america/
Author
I read that piece a long while ago, and … yeah. It gets close to touching on the complexity of this thing we call activism. I’ve changed my thinking lots since even then, but I have no opinion on DeRay running for mayor because the people on the ground probably have a better opinion on these things.