With Martin Luther King Day coming up this Monday and Black History Month coming up in February, I decided this is a good time to join an educator group that has the intriguing title “Building Anti-Racist White (history) Educators.” The group is sponsored by the UC Berkeley History-Social Science Project. UCBHSSP director, Rachel B. Reinhard, Ph.D., is hosting monthly meetings on the UCB campus to discuss what it means to be an anti-racist educator, in the particular context of history classrooms.
Most educators claim they are not racist. Being anti-racist takes it a step further. Anti-racism cannot be passive. The mission of this group is to be actively involved in the fight against racism. This involvement begins with education. The first session began with a discussion about how most white educators do not even realize how racist our society is and has been for the past 400 years. From slavery to white privilege, racism is deeply engrained in our society, so much so that much racism has become invisible to many white people. Educators need to understand racism before they can teach about racism.
We also discussed how easy it is for white educators to fall into the trap of believing they know what is best for students of color and of how easy it is to focus on “helping” students of color rather than focusing on the manifestations of white racism. The focus must be on the white students and adults who need to be made aware of how white privilege affects people of color every day of their lives. Influencing the minds of whites creates a path that will lead to the end racism. How do we go about this? How do white educators learn to become productive allies in the work toward achieving racial justice in education and society? These are the questions this group will be addressing during the next several months.
When it comes to practicing anti-racism, I have come to realize that I have a long way to go. One thing I now know is the focus needs to be on white people and how so many knowingly and unknowingly perpetuate racism every day. I have witnessed racism since early childhood. I understand where it is coming from. Since I am white, I find many white people are open to me about their racism. Being white gives me enough credibility with white racists that they actually listen to me, at least for a while. Changing their minds is not so easy. It’s going to take a lot of white voices speaking out for anti-racism to make real progress. My greatest hope lies in our students who seen to really get it. Racism is not cool.
Further reading and listening:
Watson, Angela. “10 Things Every White Teacher Should Know When Talking about Race.” The Cornerstone For Teachers, Watson, Angela. “10 Things Every White Teacher Should Know When Talking about Race.” The Cornerstone For Teachers, thecornerstoneforteachers.com/truth-for-teachers-podcast/10-things-every-white-teacher-know-talking-race/.
Dillard, Coshandra. “Black Lives Matter Week of Action.” Teaching Tolerance, www.tolerance.org/magazine/black-lives-matter-week-of-action.
Fugate, Katherine. “White People Are Broken.” Medium, Medium, 1 Sept. 2018, medium.com/@katstory/white-people-are-broken-ab0fe873e5d3.
Diangelo, Robin. White Fragility Why It’s so Hard for White People to Talk about Racism. Allen Lane, 2019. Amazon
Thanks Mitch for your blog … I've been thinking about these issues too – and wrote a blog I posted today. I personally think I need to spend more time adjusting my teaching so that students of color in my classroom feel seen/understood/empowered …
Mitch, this is such a salient issue for our teachers, especially since Black educators are so underrepresented by the racial make up of our faculty. I'm hoping for the next Social Studies department meeting we could have a roundtable discussion on white privilege. For myself as a white male, I most likely have a naive and poorly informed viewpoint when I address issues around race in my classroom, and in my life outside of Carondelet.
Hey Mitch… thanks for sharing. this is a topic for me. i went to see Ibram Kendi speak recently in San Francisco. He is the author of How to be an Anti-Racist… The one thing that I think he would very much disagree with here is the idea that we are not racist… Anti-Racism to him is not going beyond racism… it is acknowledging that we are ALL racist… and knowing this, we will make true intentional efforts to move towards anti-racism.