When we say, "We got work to do," it's important to define the "we", and perhaps shift away from talking and toward actions that will produce results. Shout out to all educators and allies doing the work of making sure students (who will grow up to be voters) #DisruptTexts
Lately, I've been talking with @nenagerman and others about the role of the anti- racist educator in spaces serving predominantly white children vs. spaces with children of color.
Some thoughts: systems and structures predominantly serving children of color are often environments that perpetuate narratives of subordination and white suburban supremacy.
Within them are people who make choices every day to empower or disempower. Too many insist on compliance and strict adherence to systems that will result in learners who are dependent on (mostly white) teachers for knowledge and grades (academic currency).
The removal of art programs and libraries, obsession with testing, and, "bars for achievement", as well as the persistent over-policing of bodies and behaviors ensures too many children of color internalize the notion that school and academics are not for them.
On the other, gentrified side, of town where folks are hoarding resources and isolating themselves, children develop ideas of themselves as better and more deserving, knowing the are neighborhoods "with bad reputations" and assuming the are kids and teachers "over there"...
...but not really having any first-hand knowledge of the other, parallel, lived reality.
They recieve the presumption of innocence, schooling by educators who look like them, many of whom teach state mandated curriculum centering and confirming notions of white supremacy they've internalized (on what some say is a biological/ cellular level) since before birth.
So what is an anti-racist educator in each respective environment to do? First of all, find out what that means...historically, and at present. This work did not start, nor will it end, with you.
Once one has an understanding of what both intellectual and "feet in the street" activism looks like, it might be good to check in with students. How are they responding to what and how they are being taught? After all, true service has to involve listening and decentering self.
When we look at statistics like these: (a little old, but unchanging) 
And these...
It forces us to face the fact that too many children of color are still being forced out of the academic world. This is a trend that will continue until we DO something about it.
Something like sharing resources
Something like mentoring young teachers of color (shouts to @TheJLV and @MisterMinor )
Something like ensuring students of color see themselves represented in literature (shouts to #ProjectLITCommunity)
Something like sharing power w/students
Something like mentoring young teachers of color (shouts to @TheJLV and @MisterMinor )
Something like ensuring students of color see themselves represented in literature (shouts to #ProjectLITCommunity)
Something like sharing power w/students
Mister Minor once told me, "The revolution ain't for everybody." I am learning that he's right...but...everybody can be for the revolution.
Find out where your level of interest and activism lies... (I'll always come back to this because it is valid and important) credit #HHEC2018
Ask yourself: Do you know who local activists (putting in physical work) and educators (doing the intellectual work) are? Do you know how to connect your students with organizations or people that will empower them to make change?
No matter what the faces of students in front of us look like, we are getting it wrong if the educational experience becomes predominantly about the exchange of information and indoctrination into schools of thought, systems, and acceptance of structures from the past.
And...(I'm almost getting off my soapbox) a disempowered and MISeducated student indeed is one who must passively sit and absorb messages about either their supremacy OR subordinancy without an opportunity to ponder and take the conversation further by adding their voice.
Rather than falling a method of schooling that rewards compliance, How are you sharing power with students, helping THEM to enact change, critique and disrupt oppressive educational practices?
This is much longer than I intended, and I'll unroll for folks who don't like to read threads, but my point is this: let us stop critiquing (and being disturbed by) the tendency to perform anti-racism and actually be that instead. The only way forward is together. We got this.
@threadreaderapp Unroll porfa
