Culturally Responsive VS Anti-Racist: A Bonfire Rant

In a rare opportunity to be social in the era of COVID, my good friend came over for a back yard visit this past Friday. Over red wine and an extra crackly bonfire, we discussed, from a distance, all we had missed in each other's lives during the pandemic. 

As we are both educators- albeit in very different ways, with very different types of kids, our conversation quickly turned toward work.  She told an *incredibly funny* story involving a public art project, a middle schooler, and Cardi B's latest, highly controversial, song. I ranted about debate, as I tend to do. 

But eventually...

Given everything single thing right now...

Given the fact that Jhamal Gonsalvez is in a coma at Rhode Island Hospital due to state violence, given the brutality local police departments displayed last week in the streets of our city, given the fact that one of my not-so-former youth was among the arrested- a 19 year old girl, taken down by 6 officers, charged with "resisting arrest"...

Given the fact that my friend and I are both white women working with black and brown kids in 2020, a week before an election/potential fascist coup by white supremacists, if we HADN'T started talking about race, it would have been a problem. 

And this conversation led to the obvious and painful and essential truth that the vast majority of Rhode Island's schools are unwilling and unable to rise to this moment in order to meet the needs of their young people. 

In "How One Elementary School Sparked a Citywide Movement to Make Black Students' Lives Matter." we read how John Muir Elementary School, through multiple-years of intentional professional development, was able to lead their entire district in a series of actions in defense of Black lives.  While certainly inspirational, my biggest takeaway from this reading was a sense of frustration.   Locally, we are so, so far from this. 

And even though she hasn't read the article, this same frustration was expressed by my friend over our bonfire.  

Where she works, a large amount of professional development time is dedicated to "diversity and culturally responsive classrooms." And this would be a pretty cool thing, if she hadn't observed the following patterns: 

• The facilitators of these trainings are almost always white
• The issues addressed in these trainings are vague and often not relevant to the community
• The trainings are facilitated in a lecture style with little opportunity for processing or reflection
• The trainings provide no pathways to application or practice. 
• The trainings provide no historical context 

An older white woman, talking about her own European heritage without addressing intersections, and promoting the use of antiquated strategies such as "multi-cultural" nights and French clubs, is NOT what this moment demands. 

 

When my friend pushed back on these trainings by suggesting alternatives facilitated by BIPOC youth, or anti-racist educators and artists, her [white] administration has not been responsive, implying they are too busy or overwhelmed.  But I suspect that they are not comfortable with her ideas. I suspect that they are making an active choice to tick a box using the least intellectually/socially/politically threatening option available to them. 

I think most schools in Rhode Island are doing exactly the same, if they are doing anything at all, which is outrageous if not exactly surprising. 

Being culturally responsive isn't the same as being anti-racist. I didn't see French Club listed in the 13 Guiding Principles of Black Lives Matter in school (unless French Club includes conversations about french language, colonization and the African diaspora which seems unlikely). 

It is long past time for our educators to engage in serious reflection of the personal and the systemic.  If you're not actively anti-racist, what are you? If you aren't using education as a tool of liberation, what are you using it for?