I just finished reading We Want to do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom by Bettina L. Love. This was such a powerful book that really helped me understand my own emotions as I have started to gain more of an awareness about antiracism and how it functions, especially in education. I've been doing a lot of reading this summer, and this book helped me realize that reading is necessary in order to help fuel the action I will need to take as we head back for another school year. In Dr. Love's words, “Theory does not solve issues - only action and solidarity can do that - but theory gives you language to fight, knowledge to stand on, and a humbling reality of what intersectional social justice is up against. Theory lets us size up our opponent, systemic injustice” (132). In reading and reflecting on this work, I have realized two important points: 1. for too long, I simply accepted the latest "gimmick" or "initiative" that was brought forward in education; and 2. part of why I have resisted work around anti-oppression is not only fear of White rage, but also the feelings of guilt that have come from going against Whiteness.
I have been an educator for close to 20 years now. I spent much of that time blindly accepting new initiatives that were brought forward and assumed that they were in the best interest of students. One such "gimmick" was the concept of grit that was introduced years ago. We were not only asked to read about it, but we had professional learning sessions where we were told that students needed to "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" and "work a little harder", and that all this struggle would help them in the end. This was introduced to me at a time when I was striving to be a "model minority", and questioning anything brought forward by the education system was not something I was encouraged to do. After all, that wouldn't make people feel good and wouldn't help get me ahead. Dr. Love's book helped me see that “Measuring dark students’ grit while removing no institutional barriers is education’s version of The Hunger Games. It is adults overseeing which dark children can beat the odds, odds put in place and maintained by an oppressive system” (73). In fact, “Dark students being gritty, full of excitement and energy, reciting self-improvement statements, and displaying social and emotional intelligence does not stop them from being killed in the streets or spirit-murdered in the classroom; these are their odds” (73). This was not something that was brought up in the training. In the past few years, as I have been learning more about systems of oppression, I have realized that sometimes, especially for students in marginalized communities, the grit it takes for them to get to school each day is often more than many privileged students go through in an entire day. This is where I had to do some of my own learning.
In reading and learning more about theory, I have realized that “Teachers need to be taught how to question Whiteness and White supremacy, how to check and deal with their White emotions of guilt and anger, and how these all impact their classrooms. Only after unpacking and interrogating Whiteness, White teachers - and, really, all teachers - must unpack how Whiteness functions in their lives; then they can stand in solidarity with their students’ communities for social change” (75). I have seen some of the barriers that have been systemically put in place to keep Black and Indigenous people down in society. Dr. Love also helped me understand that “It is not that dark children do not have grit and zest, but they need educators and their communities to protect it, not measure it” (86). Our job as educators should be to remove some of the systemic barriers that are in place for students, especially in systems of education. We have to "move beyond feel-good language and gimmicks" (13) that many educators are told are important and really focus in on helping students.
Something like character education, for example, is another initiative that I blindly accepted, and only now, after reading Dr. Love's work, do I see the problems with that: “At face value, character education seems harmless, and I am sure we can all agree that children need good qualities to be successful in life, regardless of how you define success, but character education is anti-Black and it has replaced civics education in our schools... [but] Our students are now taught with the world crumbling around them to pay their taxes, vote, volunteer, and have good character, which is code for comply, comply, comply. Dark children are told that their good character is dependent on how they must obey” (70). When students do not "obey" in schools, they often find themselves in trouble: “For too many, suspension is a birthright of being young and Black...Black girls are branded ‘disruptive’ or ‘defiant’ by their teachers, then expelled or suspended because of such subjective labels...Black girls never get to be girls, a phenomenon [Monique W. Morris] describes as ‘age compression,’ in which Black girls are seen as Black women, with all the stereotypes that go along with Black womanhood (e.g., hypersexual, loud, rude, and aggressive)” (5). I see this far too often with students who are sent to the office for minor infractions; I see this with students who are targeted by staff in the halls of schools. It has been said that Black students are both invisible and hyper-visible in schools at the same time. When I reflected on this, I realized that Black students are often invisible in their classrooms and pushed out into the halls by teachers where they all of a sudden become hyper-visible and are thought to be up to no good.
They are being loud, so they are not being "respectful".
They are out of class, so they are not being "responsible".
They do not answer questions about where they should be, so they are not being "honest".
They are "wandering the halls", so they are not being "cooperative".
The list of so-called "character" violations goes on and on. Ultimately, there are many issues with character education in general, and it is not something I will continue to blindly accept. Again, as Dr. Love states, “At face value, character education seems harmless" but it is often too closely linked to concepts of Whiteness and, thus, anti-Blackness.
The second important point that Dr. Love's work helped me understand is the concept of White rage. I was not familiar with this term before, but now that I am, I not only see why work around anti-Black racism incites so much anger within many White people, but I also see why I resisted this work for so long. In the past, I did not really want to upset anyone, so I tended to steer away from conversations around racism. Now that I have moved away from being a "model minority", I am more comfortable having these conversations, but I still feel myself tremble a little inside when I face White rage. I recently had a conversation with a neighbour about how I felt much of the disrespect he showed me was rooted in racism. His rage and defensiveness was immediate and powerful. So powerful, in fact, that I began to feel guilty about bringing it up. Dr. Love writes, “Whiteness cannot enter spaces focused on abolitionist teaching. Whiteness is addicted to centering itself, addicted to attention, and making everyone feel guilty for working toward its elimination” (159). Because I challenged Whiteness in this case, and felt the White rage, I began to think that perhaps this was my fault and I should feel guilty. This is how powerful Whiteness is - you feel guilty for speaking up for yourself!
This is a small example from my own life, and when I think about how this compares to what people in Black communities face each day, I am reminded of when Dr. Love writes, “Carol Anderson...argues… ‘The trigger of White rage, inevitably, is Black advancement. It is not the mere presence of Black people that is the problem; rather it is Blackness with ambition, with drive, with purpose, with aspirations, and with demands for full and equal citizenship’” (23). This is when I remember how much work we still have left to do in education. This work, however, is contingent on people accepting the issues in education: “As educators, we must accept that schools are spaces of Whiteness, White rage, and disempowerment. We cannot fall into narratives of racial progress that romanticize ‘how far we’ve come’ or suggest that success comes from darks being more like Whites” (40). This work is also contingent on people moving beyond ally-ship as “Ally-ship is performative or self-glorifying...A coconspirator functions as a verb, not a noun” (117).
There is work to be done in education. There is action to be taken in education. We must resist blindly accepting new initiatives that are rooted in anti-Blackness. We must resist White rage and the guilty feelings that may come from that resistance. We must resist becoming complacent in our work around equity. We must resist thinking that because we are going back to school during a pandemic, this work must be put on hold. We must move toward being an abolitionist teacher/educator. We must move toward accepting that “Being an abolitionist means you are ready to lose something, you are ready to let go of your privilege, you are ready to be in solidarity with dark people by recognizing your Whiteness in dark spaces...and you understand that your White privilege [or any privilege for that matter] allows you to take risks that dark people cannot take in the fight for educational justice” (159).