Given the recorded and broadcast murders of Ahmad Aubrey in Georgia, and George Floyd in Minneapolis (and Briana Taylor in Kentucky though not recorded), by the police or those closely aligned with the institution, it is vital to note that this is nothing new. White supremacy dominates every institution in the western world and has since the 1500’s, thus the recent exhibitions of authoritarianism by white Power onto Black Americans we’ve all witnessed over the past few weeks is nothing new, but is a fact of American life. Surely authors, thinkers, artists, and writers far more articulate and impactful than I could ever be have expressed the aforementioned for, literally, centuries. And in that, I have nothing new to add to the topic aside from the fact that as a Black father and family man, I am just as angered as the bulk of Us who aren’t named Candace Owens or Larry Elder. Whether it’s an unarmed Black woman shot and killed while naked in her bed by police, a Black twenty-something jogger shot and killed by ex-police , or a forty-six year old Black man whose neck was kneeled on for nine minutes until his final breaths left his body we all bore witness that white supremacy still reigns in the land where it was decreed “all men are created equal.” And as prosecutors in EVERY instance have dragged their feet in pursuing justice, the bulk of Black America is reminded, to white supremist institutions, we are disposable and our lives are scarcely worth the expense of a trial.
Do such enduring and violent reminders yield emotions of pain, anger, and revenge among most Black people? Absolutely. Is it justified? Absolutely. The idea that the police and injustice systems, as institutions, are racist should surprise no one. The modern police were initially birthed as slave patrols, and our Land of the Free, Home of the Brave locks up more people than anywhere on Earth – with most of its inhabitants looking like me. And while the racism is (and should be) painfully obvious in policing and the legal system to the extent where most (willing) Americans can recognize it, the first white supremist institution that is encountered by people of color generally, and Black people specifically, is that of our education system. Each day, millions of children who look like my own daughter are socialized and sorted according to white conceptions of normalcy, control, malleability, and white safety. As Ogbu identified, the colored students who comply quickest and exhibit the most docility, thrive in schools. They are labeled the “good” ones. They are the ones whom teachers deem, “care about their education”, “want to learn”, and thus, worthy to be taught. They aren’t the students whose parents receive phone calls from exasperated teachers for cursing or beating on the desks, nor are they sent to the office or suspended, and certainly not the ones who face expulsion.
For too long, the inter-classroom justice system where classroom teachers both judge and jury often goes unnoticed and thus uncritiqued. In too many schools and classrooms, control is the goal of the institution with forced compliance of the powerless as the mechanism to achieve it. Undoubtedly, some students resist but may not clearly articulate oppression as their initial trigger. Students, much like adults, exhibit reactions to external stimuli when experiencing degradation, insult, and being made to feel inadequate. Far too many of our Black and Latino children are made to feel like this as a corollary to instilling of white supremacy in schools. From the way students’ dress, their expressions, tone of voice, hair styles, and less visible machinations like school assignments, our children are reminded time and time again that they are inferior. And worse, that in order advance academically and stay out of the schools’ disciplinary crosshairs, to stay in the good graces of those wielding absolute power over them is to yield, without rebuttal, to the imposition of white supremacy while accepting their second-class status. Those who resist or exhibit defiance, are swiftly punished until they either relent, or are pushed out. To be a Black child in America’s schools is to constantly guard your sense of value and worth in the midst of people working, tacitly or overtly, within a system designed to destroy both.
And while calls rightfully grow to make the teaching profession more diverse as it still an overwhelmingly white-dominated profession, adding more Black teachers is not a sufficient solution any more than adding more Black police officers on police forces solves the systemic racism problem in policing. The expansive nature of a systems problem doesn’t disappear simply because the physical characteristics of its functionaries change. Fact: In my time teaching I’ve known some wonderfully committed and dope white teachers who adore their Black and Latino students and would go to the ends of the Earth for their students’ benefit; and I’ve known some horrible Black teachers who exhibited very little regard for their Black students reinforcing the worst ideals of white supremacy unto them. Conversely, I’ve known some horrible white teachers who in practice, not lip service, were racists; and I’ve come across some amazing Black teachers who truly exhibit care and nurturing while teaching – and still, the racism inherent in our education system stays the same.
For all the rhetoric that a good education is tasked with yielding tomorrow’s informed democracy of critical thinkers, one has to wonder where are teachers in this? Where is the concerted effort to call out and confront white supremacy that has been ingrained in us educators, that we in turn wield upon our students? If we can agree that American public schooling is shaped in the image of whiteness at the expense of non-white cultures, what are we doing to actively push back against that which is oppressing all non-white students every day? Few white or Black teachers will overtly express their support for racism and white dominance, but why would they need to when their actions toward Black and Latino students bears their truth? How we speak to children displays where we stand on white supremacy in the classroom. How and why we discipline children displays our stance on white supremacy in our classroom. What we teach conveys our stance on white supremacy in our classroom. In this, fighting against white supremacy or sustaining it, for teachers, there is no middle ground or walking the fine line of both-sides-ism. Either we’re for it, or we’ll fight against it.
As we ponder the best and safest ways to return school the Fall post COVID19, we should expect our students to have a chip on their shoulders for the cumulative ways they’ve been shown that they must submit to norms of white supremacy in school, or suffer reprisal if they don’t. So while the horrors of ex-officer Derek Chauvin choking the life out of a Black man and the resulting riots captivate most of America right now, we need to be mindful that without our purposeful and persistent resistance to the norms of white supremacy and all its machinations, our Black and Latino students are being subject to similar moments of oppression in the very spaces tasked with developing the best versions of themselves. Today justified rioting is taking place in cities like Atlanta, Ft. Wayne, and Los Angeles which followed the justified rioting in Minneapolis where MPD’s 3rd Precinct was burned to the ground. And with that, considering racialized marginalization and alienation our children confront in school each day, these current and still unfolding events should serve as a notice to all concerned about education, especially those involved in it of what lies around the bend should we insist on imposing white supremacy in our institutions. In all honesty now, it kind of surprises me that like MPD’s 3rd Precinct, some of our schools haven’t gone up in flames already.
“God gave Noah the rainbow sign, No more water, the Fire Next Time. -James Baldwin
