The essential question: how can we reflect the changes we want to see in the world?
Because I don’t have students in front of me during the summer, I have time to ask myself existential questions that offer space for self-congratulations and self-flagellation. In Dominican culture, we laugh with friends and relatives about the accuracy of household weaponry like belts and sandals. It also taught me to be overly suspicious of where kudos come from and what vulnerability looks like. The crack and the slap call to ancestors in percussion and oppression, and my genes remember and remind, curdling my blood yet fortify my bones.
No more was this truer than two days ago at the NYC Panel for Education Policy meeting on July 31st, where dozens of attendees came to either support the Department of Education’s definition for culturally responsive / sustaining education or denounce Chancellor Richard Carranza’s very existence. Many of the supporters included an amalgam of citizens led by the Coalition for Educational Justice who proposed the definition as a first step towards interrogating our education system through the lens of our most marginalized and ignored citizens in our city.
While I won’t speak negatively about the detractors here, I felt it critical for me to be there. I sat with supporters in front of me, and with detractors filling up the rows behind me. As they began their “Fire Carranza” chants, I turned towards them and said, “We want textbooks in Cantonese, too! We want books in Mandarin, too! Don’t you think we should have characters that look like your children in the books you’re learning from?” A few sat to rethink their participation in this event, but others laughed in my face, and not for lack of understanding. When some parents and educators began to chant “Si se puede!” another white agitator led the chants to depose Carranza again. The eruptions made children and adults cry for various reasons. None of us who supported this policy knew this would be an easy policy to pass.
One man in particular took it upon himself to sit front and center to abruptly voice his concern with Carranza. As I moved up a few rows to quell his assumed power over the proceedings, I asked myself “Why me?” Baked into this question brought a self-consciousness I couldn’t escape. While it’s true that my activism was critical as a graduate of the very district we were holding this meeting in, as a teacher in NYC public schools, and as a parent of a public school second grader, my enthusiasm has also been a source of antagonism, envy, and hate. Could I use my voice in this moment as a means of support and love or, in my zeal, would I open up the doors to more hate mail, Trumpisms in my social media, and images of bodies of color in my notifications? Can I both be problematic and privileged while vocalizing the needs of students and citizens who grew up in a similar lot?
What’s liberation look like to me? To me, to me, to me, to me? Am I a fully realized human being to everyone around me or a canvas upon which we can project our worst insecurities? Am I patient enough? Am I enough? Am I supposed to be sure forever or just sure at this moment?
My name and number were called up to the mic. I barely remembered what I said. I asked to speak from the moral imperative this policy would instill, and the ripple effects of the largest and most segregated school district in the country to set us on a different path. I never sought to be captain of this ship, but I’m honored to have served. I simply asked, against the backdrop of confusion and consternation that we ask ourselves where we’d be positioned in moments. I said, “If you’ve ever wondered where you would be during slavery, during Reconstruction, during the Civil Rights movement, this vote would be evidence to this,” and sincerely hoped they’d join me.
Testimony after enthralling testimony came through the speakers, but I was relieved and shook. The chancellor implored the panel to not make this movement about him as a person, but about the merits of our collective. I couldn’t have imagined that the full panel would vote unanimously for this beautiful work to move forward. After a few celebratory embraces and daps late into the night, my mind was in Los Angeles, where I’d catch the first flight out the next morning to tell my part of our story about the work NYC is doing to move us into true inclusion for all of our children. This isn’t just a win; it’s the first of hopefully many.
Future generations would never have to ask where our hearts were when the moment came to move our system forward. A policy written by fully realized human beings.
What’s more, my skin, my body, my being too often allow for the systems and spirits to claim unearned space. I had to relearn how to step into my power shortly after my wife gave birth to my son. Some might have more caution stepping into danger after becoming a father, but I find myself stepping two feet into it. I’ve learned that I don’t have large institutions backing me financially nor spiritually. I don’t have a large family on which I can rely. I don’t demand loyalty of my friends and associates and learned never to have that expectation from anyone except those who live in my house. I don’t have a prestigious title I can boomerang at my critics and I’ve moved away from the lack of nuance that would disconnect me from the parents and students I interact with. I’m too impeninent about justice to receive mainstream recognition, too righteous to dilute my speech.
My spiritual advisor told me to work on my greatness. Ashé. She’s among my favorite critics. My paths have already been ordered and, at points, I didn’t even know I was walking. I’m going to walk.