Thread by @soutomanning

🚨Long thread alert!🚨

I have not been on social media much lately. I have been engaging in the work of cultivating, sustaining, and being part of healing communities alongside teachers who identify as #BIPOC. I have been disappointed in professional organizations... (1/13)

The professional organizations of which I am a member (and/or sections of such organizations) have, despite my urging (and I am sure others' as well), remained silent regarding the conditions being imposed onto #BIPOC teachers amidst a pandemic. This silence is violence. (2/13)

#BIPOC teachers--many of whom entered teaching to author a counterstory to the education they experienced--have been disproportionately affected. They have experienced ongoing gaslighting. Many live in the communities where they teach (not the rule for White teachers). (3/13)

#BIPOC teachers see day in and day out the injustices being enacted, how COVID-19 has disproportionately affected BIPOC communities, and how white folx continue to profit from their labor. These "white folx" include teacher educators; 70%+ of teacher educators are white. (4/13)

The pandemic has disproportionately affected the well-being, mental health & quality of life of #BIPOC teachers working in #BIPOC communities. Their work conditions have deteriorated. Stressors have mounted. #BIPOC public school teachers feel depleted, dehumanized. (5/13)

#BIPOC teacher educators are affected too. Some effects of the pandemic on my professional life? I had ONE peer-reviewed piece out in 2020; thanks @chrisemdin @UrbanEdJournal for the support! I can't ignore what's going on around me. My community matters more than any pub. (6/13)

I haven't been engaging with folx on social media as much. On a daily, I am trusted with the experiences of educators experiencing or witnessing their students' (alongside families + communities) unemployment, lead poisoning, sexual assault, domestic violence, unemployment.(7/13)

#BIPOC teachers deal(t) with workplace harassment and other forms of violence and harm. Yet, few teacher educator voices and actions address such issues with the needed seriousness. Instead, many teacher educators joined in the "social justice Coachella" (@CharlesMBlow). (8/13)

I know I am privileged. I also know the responsibility and commitment I have to #BIPOC teachers. Yet, this work is not visible; I'd posit it's deliberately silenced and marginalized. It's hard to address the harm and trauma inflicted by whiteness in US schooling + society. (9/13)

Teacher educators cannot continue to pledge allegiance to white supremacy through their ideologies, practices, and notions of "good," "rigorous," and "evidence-based" practices. Doing so is inflicting violence and harm, (re)inscribing injustices. (10/13)

As teacher educators, if we're committed to justice, we must resist the appeal of being part of "the social justice of Coachella" @CharlesMBlow; the real work needed is way deeper. It demands excavating ourselves, interrogating our work, learning from #BIPOC communities. (11/13)

As teacher educators, as education researchers, we must reorient our moral compass and transform our work. And we must demand that professional organizations of which we're members speak up, take on the role of "co-conspirators" @BLoveSoulPower for + with #BIPOC teachers. (12/13)

And those working with #BIPOC teacher educators doing this work, do NOT continue to harm us by asking about our professional practices and commitments as if there was no pandemic. We are grieving. We are experiencing trauma. Do not dehumanize us and our communities. (13/13)