2-sided Oppression

 I got into If I Could Rewind That Morning by Xavier Pierce on the Rethinking Schools site.   I wanted more details than "I wanted to save her....I don't know what was said...I failed her." Especially, since the rest of the passages communicates how for the narrator the school he returned to work at  "created spaces where wonder and self-identity are married with rigor and high expectations for learning. I remember coming home in 1st grade to talk to my family about the meaning of metacognition as a result of a well-facilitated discussion about the importance of artist statements. The overall atmosphere of this school brought me back as an adult. I recognized the impact that the school had on me and the ideas I carried throughout my life and I wanted to be a part of that." 

What the narrator sees as bullying is vague, and not thoroughly illustrated and gave me the sense that since he was okay and returned to the school to work knowing he's one of "two specks of color in the field of white"  that Aaliyah would be alright too.

I browsed for two hours during the span of three days but returned to the - Teaching for Black Lives in a Rebellion recorded Zoom from 2021. I hadn’t immediately gone to it because the book discussed, Teaching for Black Lives, is on my to-read list. Given the events and movements that birthed the book, I speculate on much of its content. But, I want to get into the book without others’ ideas.  "Affirm our Black students"- Jesse Hagopian, is the strongest message of the panel's discussion. As an ELA teacher,at a large urban school populated by 82% Latinos and 14% African-American, the time is always right for that. Changing the "African-American" term to represent Black people in this country is also long overdue.

The image conveys what Peirce referenced in his article - the "Normal" schooling. This immage, presented on the Zoom during this chat, resonated with me because it took me to reflect on my positionality, how early in my academics I was a student bestowed a scholarship to attend a choice school out of my neighborhood to one where lawns were mowed and houses spread long not high; and I looked into different shades of green and blue eyes looking back at me while they touch my hair I did not ask if I could touch their hair fluffed with the breeze. We talked about us, our foods, and why I didn't have a pet dog. I learned that not everybody had arroz con pollo for dinner. The time I attended that school expanded my worldview during childhood. It wasn't all fair; but I'm grateful for that time and those other curious kids I met who taught me to think differently and otherly; they learned from me too - which hopefully still lingers.

As Dyan Watson stated during the Zoom, "What a privilege it is to learn alongside our students." Honest reflection teaches us to take note of what is as ugly as the acts of policing Black bodies, even while on Zoom meetings, as the pandemic presented, which the Teaching for Black Lives Rebellion Zoom panel discussed brought me to think about. "Black bodies are under attack...and it is incumbent upon educators to see what the national picture looks like in terms of violence against our Black students," was another great point brought up by Hagopian in his description of the event of an eleven-year-old girl being thrown against a wall by a White SAO for a milk carton it turned out she never even took, led me into a rabbit hole.  First, I remembered the many videos of violent adult-on-children incidents like these I watched on Instagram while in quarantine. Then, scrolling through X, there are numerous posts of students fighting against one another (which is not new). But, now I recognize the side effects of brutality being normalized and how it conditions young people to react with physical action to express emotional upsets, as well as the rolling out of restorative justice practices without appropriate consequences.  Covertly, this to me was another great point brought about in the panel discussion. It feels to me that there is no adequate appropriation of consequences because of the lack of community building between races back during the integration of schools. The lack of conversations, organization, and humane conditioning (of how to trust how to share, and how to love one another) was all bottlenecked and is still fizing as we see in these horrific accounts.

Because I work with a large population of colored students, I feel as a mother hen, always coming from the offensive in my positionality in relation to my White staff.  We do all get along, yet there is a guard I carry because I often hear an off-hand remark to which I have to respond in defense of my students, to check the teacher. I look forward to the day I don't feel the need or desire to wear these shirts.

The Rethinking Schools website is now bookmarked on my account and I subscribed to its magazine. I also scrolled through the book titles and read some synopsis to jot another two titles on my to-read list. I am glad to have Rethinking Schools as a resource for my work as Equity Leader and to spark conversations about racial Justice.

References:

Teaching for Black Lives During the Rebellion (youtube.com)