For those of us who teach about systemic racism, white privilege, and white supremacy as culture, policy, and foundational to social institutions, the bulk of our time spent supporting each other and discussing pedagogy focuses on difficult moments, attacks on our teaching, and all kinds of ugly stuff that can occur (and has). It gets to …
Anyone who was willing to click on this post is likely aware of recent and not so recent public policy attacks on critical race theory. A former President of the U.S. tried to order critical race theory into silence. State legislative actions continue to work toward banning discussion of white privilege, racism, and systemic white …
Anti-Racist Pedagogy Part 5: Why is anti-racist pedagogy so threatening? Read More »
Full disclosure. I am white. When I get my blood drawn, I usually joke with the nurse that I am translucent. So pretty white. And yet, I am doing my best to offer up a list of some of the essential core elements of an anti-racist pedagogy. Make no mistake, I am missing a lot …
Anti-Racist Pedagogy Part 4: Core Elements of ARP (according to this white girl) Read More »
What harm are we doing? Because my life allows for wonderful things, I recently read bell hooks’ Teaching to Transgress for the third time. Although published in 1994, the wisdom in her work still rings true. Her timeless observations about liberatory critical pedagogies highlighted that little has shifted. As I was reading, one passage inspired …
Anti-Racist Pedagogy Part 3: Teaching Silence and Culture vs. Critiquing Systems Read More »
We all want to be “inclusive. Nothing wrong with that. You may have picked up on the trend that diversity focuses on recruitment and maybe representation, but that we need to move deeper for inclusion. Same goes for inclusion being a wonderful shift in education, but we need a more critical approach to power and …
Anti-Racist Pedagogy Part 2: Inclusive does not equal anti-racist Read More »
As I mentioned in previous posts and my recent workshops, academic use of the phrase “anti-racist pedagogy” (ARP) has sky rocketed since George Floyd’s death. Summer 2020 brought a wave of white academics calling for curricular transformation, many in response to student demands, to infuse anti-racism. And yet, if I asked 50 people what they …
Anti-Racist Pedagogy Part 1: Do we even know what anti-racist pedagogy means? Read More »
My last newsletter was sent over 3 months ago. Not gonna lie, I have been super annoyed that I could not send any newsletters for such a long stretch. You know it is bad when one of your newsletter subscribers emails you to ask if you are okay because you have been missing in action! …
Slowing down without feeling like a failure (is it possible?) Read More »
Anyone else noticed the trend of shaming allies and potential allies as the cool thing to do? In our unfortunate culture of social media performance, we seem to have lost ourselves. This trend is not confined to shaming allies from privileged groups, although that may be the most popular version. In addition, I have witnessed …
3 years ago this month…my world collapsed. Y’all. Not gonna lie. November 2017 was arguably the devastating month of my professional career. That month ranks in the top 3 worst times of my entire life across professional, personal, and all other contexts. Things got hopeless real quick. I had chosen to make myself vulnerable to rejection. Let’s just say the …
Vulnerability: not optional for social justice leadership Read More »
Before my Twitter account got hacked yesterday, I had posted this: “It’s not our students. It’s us. WE are the ones who desperately need critical reflection, intersectional race inquiry, and transformational social justice awakening. Us.” For decades I have watched colleges and universities trip over themselves to offer more diversity course initiatives, inclusive efforts, new …
Students are not the problem. We are: Anti-racism questions for your institution. Read More »
