Freeing Ourselves from Centering White Comfort
Somehow we have bought into the idea that racial equity should only be pursued to the degree that white people don’t have to feel discomfort. When the white administrator stormed out of the room of a local high school where I was invited to work with a student of color alliance, I thought it was all a joke. On the heels of my saying, “we impose school dress codes that criminalize sagging pants and durags while many crimes are carried out by people wearing suits and ties every day,” the administrator, in his charcoal two-piece suit, leapt out of the room with urgency...
Your Pedagogy Might be More Aligned with Colonialism than You Realize
My 19-year old self sat on a panel for a room full of High School Seniors who eagerly sought insight about their transition to college, when a woman in the room cut me off mid-sentence to exclaim that I was SO articulate. In the awkward silence that followed for a few seconds too long my mind raced with confusion and a resounding discomfort…Thank you?...
If You Think You’re Giving Students of Color a Voice, Get Over Yourself
The walls on Rikers Island are the same as the walls in my high school. In a facility six security check-points deep, where it takes myself and my team of social justice educators over 1.5 hours to get from the first screening to the classroom where we run a workshop with a small group of incarcerated adolescent boys, the walls are the same style of brick as every inner-city school I have ever attended or visited...