#SmallBites

Another Black man is dead. His name is Daunte Wright. Daunte had the audacity to have an expired plate and a warrant. My guess is, a 20 year old father was juggling finances and didn't have it all together. I know I didn't at that age. We don't learn much about credit and finances in school. He probably didn't have rich parents or a support system who could help him navigate the real expense of auto ownership or parenthood. I don't know his story, but I know the media is going to probably hang him out to dry and tell every bad thing about him they can find. 

My question is, should he have had to die because he 'was no saint'? Should he be dead because he ran? And can you say with certainty that he would be alive if he had not run? 

He did not fire on an officer or draw a weapon. He ran AWAY, not aggressively toward the police. If you have students, think about how you frame this when it comes up in your classroom. Prioritize loss of life, not looting. Prioritize the pain of his family and of the community. Comply or Die is not a thing.

You can teach them that our democracy should work better or you can teach them that extrajudicial killings are ok if a citizen does not comply with a police order. If you teach them the latter, if you believe the latter, we are all in grave danger. 

My momma used to say that there are only two motivations, love and fear. And when reduced to those two motivations, you find arguments and counter arguments for everything. Fear is, without a doubt, the more powerful motivating force of the two. Where hope burns like the warm, steady heat of a good smoker fire, fear rages out of control like toxic chemical fires that can scarcely be contained. Hope keeps you warm, feeds your soul; fear, eventually consumes and destroys. 

This weekend's White Lives Matter rallies have been using fear as the cornerstone for their speeches. Those who have rallied are confronted with their very real fears. They fear loss of jobs, money, influence; they fear 'replacement'. How do we advocate for human rights and unity in the face of all consuming fear? How do we bring arguments of logic and facts when fear, fight and flight put up every defence? 

How do you put out a toxic chemical fire? That's what I am trying to find out. Because I know if we cannot overcome fear with hope, we, as a country, are in trouble. 

Hope may not be as big as fear, it's value sized. But hope is and always will be the real game changer. 

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I am Black. I am a Black woman. I am a Black mother. I am a Black mother of a 17 year old. I am a Black mother of a Black man just shy of manhood. This. Trial. Is. Exhausting. 

If you teach Black students or work with Black coworkers, realize, it's traumatizing for many of us, watching this latest in a long string of deaths that happen too quickly and often go unpunished. The sons and daughters of the Black community seem to always live closer to death at the hands of authorities called to serve and protect. This leaves me sad, angry and afraid for people I love. 

However, when I stand in my classroom, those are MY feelings. I will check my tears and turmoil at the schoolhouse door.

What we know is:

If students ask what happened, those are the facts. If they ask why it happened or how that could happen? Let them know that's what the trial is for. Beyond that ask them what they know. Ask students what they heard. Ask students how they feel. Let students guide the conversation and share their thoughts. 

And if they ask how you feel, hopefully, you can say with sincerity that you are sad, like I am.

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How are Black Educators accepted? Are they accepted because they are assimilated, a kind of 'Black lite'? Are they given privilege and access when their speech mimics the comforting tone of a midwestern newscaster; or judged when their voices carry a 'southern twang' or an 'urban lilt'--whatever that is? Is it different when there is a John or Anna in the space than it is when there is a Daquan or Nylah? In the back of your mind, do you question the quality of a degree earned at an HBCU? Do you feel most comfortable when Black educators--or any educator from a culture other than your own--is not too unlike you?

People from the non-dominant culture who are viewed as 'assimilated' often face less bias and have more access and privilege. But at what cost? This candid talk with Charles WIlliams from The Counter Narrative Podcast provides insight into the darker side of 'assimilation' and acceptance.

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About the guest:

Charles Williams has been an educator for 15 years serving as a teacher, a mentor/lead teacher, an assistant principal, and a principal for urban students in grades K-12.  He also serves as an equity advocate through his work with Great Expectations Mentoring, Chicago Public School's Office of Equity, and The City of Chicago's Equity Office.  

Charles is the host of The Counter Narrative Podcast, a show designed to challenge the dominant narrative that often negatively portrays our disenfranchised populations. He is also the co-host of Inside the Principal's Office, a bi-monthly show featuring educational leaders from around the world.  After presenting at numerous events including nationwide conferences, educational workshops, and fundraising events, Charles decided to launch CW Consulting - an organization committed to delivering personalized keynotes, workshops, and consulting services focused on helping institutions to unlock their potential and delivering results. 

If the religion and the whole Christian thing ain't yours, feel free to skip this episode, cause I'm 'bout to talk about Easter and the resurrection. If, however, you trust my voice, whether you espouse the Judeo-Christian traditions or not, there are nuggets of wisdom for all. Two things:

"Greater love has no man than he lay down his life for a friend" and "Be a doer of the law and not a judge." 

Pulled from the Bible, these two verses should guide our teaching. Our interactions. Our lives. If you can look forward to celebrating the resurrection Sunday but spend Saturday writing disparaging remarks on Facebook, are you really embodying the spirit of the resurrection? Is the old famous WWJD, now of meme fame, reflected in who you are at work? Or would students, faculty and staff call you the example of why they DON'T want to be a Christian?

REsurrection=REset. If you've made some choices that you are not proud of, this is a great opportunity to do better, to BE better. This is your chance to reshape your interpersonal interactions and lead with love. 

Here's to a new start.

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 How many roads must a man walk down...ok, those are Dylan's words, but let me borrow them and give an answer: as many as he needs to. 

Sometimes our journeys go straight from A to B in a timely, orderly fashion; sometimes we don't even know there is a road and; well, sometimes we traverse in every imaginable way between. The fact is that learning about implicit bias, working on your own perspective, accepting some ugly truths about life experienced through the lens of others and translating that knowledge into educational practices that impact students is a lot. It's a long sentence and even a longer journey--a path that is as unique as each of us. Just because a plate of knowledge has been set out in the kitchen doesn't mean that everyone knows it's there.  There could be walls, closed doors, distractions and any number of reasons why people don't go after the knowledge. There really are learning gaps, but shaming does not open kitchen doors or minds. Shaming people for what they don't know is counter productive. If people don't have a safe space to learn and fail forward, how will they access and utilize the knowledge they need to become better practitioners? 

If you really want better for your students, if you really want your own being "woke" to impact student achievement, don't woke shame their teachers.

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Often diverse people of color feel like our identities are being smushed into one big vat of BIPOC, or 'Blacks and Browns'. Sometimes, it's important to refer to us in as much specificity as possible. Sometimes, however, like when we are dealing with a system of racism that can affect us all, the terms help us to unite in solidarity. We experience the hyphen American syndrome, the ___American, the person with a color or cultural descriptor forever before our names. It's good to know that we can support each other, and I hope we can remember that we are better together.

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I wonder if we weren't reading "massage parlors" would the outcry be bigger? I wonder if 8 girls from Harvard had been gunned down, if the headlines would evoke more empathy? I wonder, if it was 8 senators, if the flags would be lowered? Since when do we rate the value of lives lost? Since forever, and that's the problem. Middle passage? Not worthy of remembering. Trail of tears? What's that? Half a million lives lost in a pandemic? Not gonna lower a flag for that. Young women shot? Let's blame them for working in a massage parlor. Think it's not happening? Go back and read the news reports. They have names and families. But what do we read first? "Massage parlor shootings".

Violence against women. Violence against Asians. The same systems that did not protect them are the same systems that make Black mommas like me fear for their sons' lives. They are the same systems that cause learning gaps. They are the same systems that allow countless BIPOC women to go missing, ending up in the unsolved cases files of our justice system.

While I see my Black American, Kenyan, Vietnamese, Mexican, Guatemalan, El Salvadoran, Haitian, Chinese, Ghanan, students as more than BIPOC students, we all share the same fight. The same systems that started out disenfranchising non-males and non-whites at the founding of this country are the same systems that create inequities in our country today. Black, Indigenous, People of Color are diverse cultures and individuals who should be recognized and celebrated as such. However, we stand in solidarity against hate and against the systems that consistently do not value us. Because as Fannie Lou Hamer says, until everybody's free, nobody's free. #StopAsianHate

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Boy, what a title, eh? What could "bunch of blondes" and "Black chick" have to do with education? Well, I bet if you look at your class or campus full of students, you see people who remind you of yourself--the parts you like, yourself--the parts you don't like, or people you either have an affinity for or dislike of. Some educators may not make the connections to how they feel, they may stuff their preferences down, or at least they may think they do. It's a bad plan. Students know. And truth will out. So listen to my own reckoning and do some of your own. Find some connection and see how you can adjust for that experience to make doubly sure that no connection to a past experience is keeping you from being the most welcoming teacher that you can be. You'll be better for it and so will your students. 

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No, I do not have a litany of cool resources you need to check out. No, I am not presenting some revelation that will allow you to up your CRT game. Well, maybe I am: Chill. Lock your school computer away and take some needed time off. If you think you can use Spring Break to catch up on school tasks and household tasks and personal project chores AND be rejuvenated for the last 3 months or so of school you are mistaken. And if you think that what you do to and for yourself does not directly impact what you are able to do in classrooms and on campuses, you are going to soon find yourself spinning your wheels.

If, however, your students and staff are important to you, take a step back; not to reevaluate, contemplate, reflect or do any deep soul searching, just to be. Do what feeds your soul outside of who you are as an educator. 

The best way to power up right now is to power down. Happy Spring Break!

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