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Understanding how school discipline policies can contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline is essential for educators and families. Harsh punishments, automatic out-of-class time and police involvement for discipline can push young people out of classrooms and into the criminal legal system. But educators, parents and caregivers can help to change this harmful system by advocating for and implementing practices that prioritize mental health and well-being.

We offer this new resource page that highlights LFJ articles and content to open dialogue, shift practices and foster change to benefit all young people.

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Learning for Justice | Education Resources

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Learning for Justice provides free resources to educators-teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioners-who work with children from kindergarten through high school. Educators use our materials to supplement the curriculum, to inform their practices, and to create civil and inclusive school communities where children are respected, valued and welcome participants.

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September 28- October 2
Power for the People
justenergysummit.org

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Build "Power for the People" at the 2020 Just Energy Summit, Sep. 28-Oct. 2

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Bookmarks: Celebrating Black Voices NEW Series Trailer | Netflix Jr

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* IMPORTANT NOTE: All Zoom information and pre-workshop emails will be sent out from the Roots ConnectED email account (admin@rootsconnected.org). If you do not see the login information on the day of the Workshop, please be sure to check your spam folder in your email.

In the last few months, as the home/school wall has disappeared, we have been able to offer our services to families, and are humbled to have you join us as part of our larger work. There is no one way to do this, as humans are varied so are the experiences and conversations we have with our children. But we are committed to the on-going work. For that reason we have set up a series of workshops. Some are part of our Family Workshop Series, where the Talking about Race and Racism Webinar is a prerequisite for signing up for the workshops that follow, and then there are a few stand-alone workshops. Besides the webinar, which is a foundational session (Tier 1) for many of the workshops that follow (Tier 2), most of our workshops will be in an interactive format, with smaller numbers and more space for interaction around the topic. We offer all of our parent/caregiver workshops on a donation basis as we want to try and make it accessible to as many folks as possible. However, if you are able to give more, we appreciate it, as it allows us to continue to be of service in this capacity.

Workshop will be offered on the following days:

Stories have a phenomenal power to change our world view and empower us to have a strong sense of identity and pride. Stories can also be used as a way to reconcile and heal from trauma and understand our past to re-imagine our future. There is power in sharing your personal stories - the power to build connection, the power to inspire and even the power to get your kids to listen. In this session, our presenters will support families in utilizing the tool of storytelling as a way to give power back to the untold stories and the stories we want to tell to define our families. Through personal reflection, small and whole group conversation, participants will consider the power of their family stories and utilize them as a way to build family and cultural identity and pride. This workshop is for anyone who loves to listen to or tell stories, everyone who wants to make a meaningful impact with their words, and everyone who says they don't have anything interesting to share.
Facilitators: Devan Sandiford, Jason Fulford

Workshop will be offered on the following days:

The history of our Country is one of horrific terror, trauma, and pain. However, it is also one of resistance, resilience, and hope. For years, people throughout history and in current times have worked together to dismantle institutionalized and interpersonal racism. One of the most powerful things we can do is create space for our children to process what is happening in the world and to feel, imagine, and take action in a way that allows them to learn from the resistance as a way to create paths of action for the future.

Facilitators: Brandi Forté, Sophie Rutstein﻿

* Talking About Race and Racism with Your Child is the Prerequisite for this Workshop
Workshop will be offered on the following days:

In addition to having planned conversations with your child, moments that provide an opportunity to discuss race and racism arise when we aren't expecting it, and we must say something. This workshop will focus on speaking up in the moment when racist and biased incidents occur. Through the use of scenarios, participants will have a chance to think through their responses and learn a number of sentence starters as options for support in speaking up in the moment. Thinking through and practicing what we might say in these moments can help build our confidence for when these opportunities do arise.
Facilitators: Michelle Harris, Natalie Ginsburg

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IMPORTANT NOTE: All Zoom information and pre-workshop emails will be sent out from the Roots ConnectED email account (admin@rootsconnected.org). If you do not see the login information on the day of the Workshop, please be sure to check your spam folder in your email.

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What's CODE SWITCH? It's the fearless conversations about race that you've been waiting for. Hosted by journalists of color, our podcast tackles the subject of race with empathy and humor. We explore how race affects every part of society - from politics and pop culture to history, food and everything in between.

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Introducing: Nice White Parents (Published 2020)

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A new five-part series about building a better school system, and what gets in the way. New episodes of “Nice White Parents” are available here, brought to you by Serial Productions and The New York Times.

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There is no justice in an unjust system. Black parents across the country are struggling to find the words to talk to our kids today after hearing the news: more than five months after her death, the officers who shot Breonna Taylor will not be held accountable for her death by a grand jury. Two officers involved in the shooting were found to be "justified in their use of force," Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said at a news conference. The third officer, Brett Hankison, who was fired after the shooting (Louisville's interim police chief Robert Schroeder said Hankison "displayed an extreme indifference to the value of human life"), will also not be charged in Breonna's death. Instead, he faces wanton endangerment charges as a result of firing into her neighbor's apartment. He will pay a $15,000 bond and be free - free to live with his loved ones, free to breathe, free to have a future - everything of which Breonna has been robbed. If Black parents have no choice but to talk to our children about this, it is the responsibility of white parents to ensure their kids are educated about the injustices of the system and do not grow up to be the next perpetrator of police brutality or the next complicit attorney, police chief, judge, or juror.

Breonna was an essential worker, a daughter, a friend. Five months ago she was asleep in her bed, and today, she is a name we will never forget, another Black woman fallen victim to the dangers of police. White parents have a responsibility to tell their children this. Some may find it hard, given her brutal, nightmarish death. Some may shy away from such a tough topic. Some may not have the language to address this with their kids. You don't have all the answers and that's OK. Not sure where to start? Start here:

Tell the story of Breonna's life. Talk to your kids about dreaming for the future. Breonna wanted to have a baby. She had just bought a new car. She had plans for her life. Talk to your kids about her family, robbed of so much. Breonna did not receive medical attention for more than 20 minutes after she was shot, even though she dedicated her time as an EMT to saving others. Talk to them about basic humanity. Talk to them about helping others when others are hurt. Please note that society often looks for "perfect victims": Breonna's achievements have been held up to the light over and over again, but they don't make her any less deserving of death than someone running away from the police, or a person suspected of a crime.

'It's hard to breathe without her,' Tamika said. You, a parent, understand this.

Talk about Breonna's mother, Tamika Palmer - her bravery and her commitment to never stop fighting for justice for her daughter. "It's hard to breathe without her," Tamika said. You, a parent, understand this.Relate this to your love for your child and your commitment to give them a just life. Tell them about the enduring, never-ending nature of love and of grief.

Don't shy away from the facts of the story. If your kids watch action shows and movies, they understand that guns can kill. They understand the impact of shooting someone. They understand that people shoot at other people when they are trying to harm or kill. Don't hide the truth from them. Studies show that kids are ready to talk about race and racism long before their parents address it with them. We all need to understand that police violence is a very real part of racism in society.

"My brothers' lives matter." Children attend a protest to demand justice for the death of Breonna Taylor in front of Churchill Downs on Kentucky Derby weekend in Louisville, Kentucky. Photo: JEFF DEAN/AFP via Getty Images

Talk about defunding the police. Breonna was killed by police. It is essential to be honest with kids about how dangerous police are to Black and brown people, and if you are avoiding that conversation, you're using your privilege to shield them from a reality that many people face. Black parents are forced to tell our kids that police will not protect us. If we're forced to have these conversations with our kids, white parents need to step up and do the same. If you're disturbed or shying away from calls to defund the police, understand that impacted communities have been calling for this for a long time, so true allyship means learning more and joining that call. If you need to educate yourself about what it means to defund the police, the Movement For Black Lives has ample resources.

Model the type of conversation you want your kid to have with others. The conversations you have with your child, the home you create, directly impacts the type of person your child is in the world. Please raise children who are unafraid to stand up for what is right, to stand against racism, and to speak up in the face of injustice. Model having brave conversations with them. Model having difficult conversations with them. Model leaning into discomfort and staying in that discomfort to tackle the truth.

What does it mean that there is a price tag on a Black life? That there is an amount they will pay to appease us before they pursue justice with us?

Talk about how this country views Black lives. Breonna's family received a $12 million settlement from the city of Louisville but that same city couldn't hold the officers who actually took her life accountable for their actions. What does it mean that the system would rather pay millions of dollars than hold itself accountable? What does it mean that there is a price tag on a Black life? That there is an amount they will pay to appease us before they pursue justice with us? Talk to your kids about the way Black lives are valued. Talk to them about the way this shows up in how school administrations may treat Black kids, who are disproportionately punished in relation to white kids. Nationally, Black students are suspended three times as often as their white peers. Talk to your kids about what it means to use their voices to stop this when they see it.

Your kids have a responsibility to dismantle racism in school, with friends, and wherever they see it. You may think your kid is too young to use their voice and privilege but as long as they are living in white bodies, they are reaping the benefits of white supremacy and therefore have a responsibility to use that privilege to dismantle it.

There is no justice. Photo: Montinique Monroe/Getty Images

Tonight, Breonna's mother is probably experiencing another wave of grief, as she struggles with the hard truth that there is no justice for Black and brown people in a police state. Her daughter is gone and the people responsible will not be held accountable. They will go on living, while her incredible daughter's life is over. There is no justice in an unjust system. We must work to dismantle the system, and that starts at home, with you.

#OneAction To Take Today:

We're doing three this week because all are necessary.

FOR PARENTS:
Donate to the Black Lives Matter Louisville's Bail Fund. Learn about the Invest Divest Strategy led by impacted people in Louisville.
WITH KIDS:

Speak to your child about Breonna Taylor today. Speak to them about the injustice of the lack of an indictment for her death today. EmbraceRace has a few tips for talking to your kids about race. Use this framework to find a way to broach this subject with your kids. Think through ways that together you can unite against racism in your lives, particularly with friends and with family. After you talk, commit to action and get yourself educated on this issue. Attend The ABCs of Racism, hosted by the Brooklyn Public Library. #SayHerName
Raising Anti-Racist Kids Previously: The Myth Of The Perfect Time To Discuss Race With Your Child How Can Learning Pods Be Equitable? They Can't. is a bi-weekly column written by Tabitha St. Bernard-Jacobs focused on education and actionable steps for parents who are committed to raising anti-racist children and cultivating homes rooted in liberation for Black people. To reach Tabitha, email hello@romper.com or follow her on .

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Please Talk To Your White Children About Breonna Taylor

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There is no justice in an unjust system. Black parents across the country are struggling to find the words to talk to our kids today after hearing the news: more than five months after her death, the officers who shot Breonna Taylor will not be held...

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Resources

We are making these resources available for all. If you take the SEE 101 course, it will unlock your access to the full curriculum and many other valuable resources.

Educator Resources

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Video Resources

Please visit our YouTube channel to view these videos and those from SEE Learning educators from around the world.

PR/Marketing Resources

Research

We are excited to begin the development of our primary research program in SEE Learning. The curriculum, educator trainings, and framework are all informed by state-of-the-art research on trauma and resilience, compassion science, the science of systems learning, and development studies in social and emotional learning. For our program to continue evolving as an evidence-based program, we aim to focus our research goals around the following areas:

Program Evaluation

Monitoring program delivery is an essential part of program evaluation. We are working with partners to develop strategies for assessing the quality of educator training, and for monitoring the delivery-fidelity of the learning experiences to students at designated sites. We are also interested in evaluating the effectiveness of the learning experiences in improving student outcomes. Finally, we are developing strategies to respond to the outcomes of program monitoring and evaluation for future editions of the educator trainings and the curriculum.

Global Research Partnerships

We are interested in partnering with schools, regions, and educational communities to study the effectiveness of diverse implementation strategies. There is no single "right" way to bring SEE Learning to your community. We are interested in partnering with you to learn what works best foryou while maintaining effectiveness.

Concept Development Projects

We continue to deepen our conceptual understanding of compassion within the context of education, human development, and cultural variation at the personal, interpersonal, and systems levels of experiences. We have ongoing conceptual development projects around topics include social justice, equity, ethical intelligence, resilience, and many more.

If you have any questions or are interested in partnering with us please contact us at email: seelearning@emory.edu

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We are making these resources available for all. If you take the SEE 101 course, it will unlock your access to the full curriculum and many other valuable resources. English German Please visit our YouTube channel to view these videos and those from SEE Learning educators from around the world.

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We are sisters-and the great-great-granddaughters of Caroline and Allen, who were born enslaved in the state of Alabama. As African Americans and moms to Black sons, we are heartbroken and sick about the level of anti-Blackness that permeates every aspect of American life. We feel the urgency of the moment and want to help convert this moment into a movement for meaningful change. We believe our voices matter and that we have something to share with the world as a way to offer healing to this crisis.

Between us, we have careers in law and education, and a background in African-American Studies, nonviolent communication, meditation, right speech, and conflict resolution. With those skills, we launched the AntiRacist Table on June 20, 2020. Metaphorically and physically speaking, at the table you learn, celebrate, grieve, fight, and live in community.

We offer a 30-Day Challenge that has been intentionally curated to help you be educated; face and get past shame, anger, and blame; and develop empathy-all key elements of creating an anti-racist America. Each day participants receive a daily lesson consisting of reading, videos, podcasts, journal/reflection prompts, and mindfulness practices. Each week participants work through a subset of our core principles, which we feel are essential aspects of bringing mindful anti-racist practice into daily life.

We provide the tools to help tackle emotionality-shame, guilt, and anger-and translate the seminal works of Dr. Ibram X. Kendi and Dr. Robin DiAngelo, among other academic experts, into 10 core principles: education, intention, courage, individuality, humanity, anti-racist work, equality, empathy, allies, and love. These are the focus of the AntiRacist Table's 30-Day Challenge -an invitation to do the hard work to be anti-racist.

1. Education

Kendi, a leading scholar on anti-racism, argues that the heart of racism is denial. You cannot acknowledge or change that which you deny or choose not to see. Thus, the first step toward dismantling racism is breaking through that denial, by educating oneself about the history of African Americans and the Black experience.

Seeing systemic racism is foundational work. Historical context provides an understanding of the original dehumanization of African Americans that is the foundation upon which American racism is built. It reveals the laws and policies implemented to support white supremacy, and the cultural rules and norms that created anti-Blackness.

Learning about the unconscious and automatic ways racism presents itself will help one recognize it and take steps to stop it. Challenge participants credit "learning lesser-known facts" as helping them not only see and understand, but launch them into action to fight against racism and anti-Blackness.

2. Intention

Anti-racism is a way of life. Like starting any new habit, anti-racism requires a conscious decision to pursue it as a goal and way of being. Intention brings mindful presence and awareness to what we say and what we do.

Setting the intention to have an open heart and open mind in order to be anti-racist affects how one shows up. Present-moment awareness links with our intention to pull us out of autopilot and into conscious pursuit of our goals.

This opens the door to growth. As psychologist Rick Hanson explains, whatever you hold in attention has a special power to change your brain. Attention is like a combination spotlight and vacuum cleaner: It illuminates what it rests upon and then sucks it into your brain-and your self. Setting the intention to pursue anti-racism will help adjust one's life lens, and it will deactivate the trance of autopilot. This will help you tap into your internal motivation to be anti-racist.

And according to studies, being motivated internally is what will most help you to make lasting change. Affirming why you want to be anti-racist as part of your intention will remind you of your goal and help you stick to it. This is why we offer the 30-Day Challenge: It provides participants with a clarity of purpose and helps them commit to action.

3. Courage

Facing facts about racism, white privilege, and white supremacy is hard.

Robin DiAngelo, a sociologist and author, coined the term "white fragility" to describe "the defensive reactions so many white people have when our racial worldviews, positions, or advantages are questioned or challenged." She continues:

For a lot of white people, just suggesting that being white has meaning will trigger a deep, defensive response. And that defensiveness serves to maintain both our comfort and our positions in a racially inequitable society from which we benefit.

Reckoning with shame, blame, guilt, and anger takes courage and vulnerability. As researcher Brené Brown says, vulnerability is when we feel uncertainty, risk, or emotional exposure. Vulnerability takes courage; it takes learning how to be brave and afraid at the exact same time. Courage allows us to be an everyday hero and to inspire collective heroism.

To be anti-racist, you have to sit with the discomfort and put courage, compassion, and vulnerability over comfort. Cultivating an anti-racist mindfulness practice is essential to doing and sustaining this work. Challenge participants say The AntiRacist Table Mindfulness Practices incorporated in the Challenge provided a space for them to face hard emotions and to find compassion.

4. Individuality

Seeing another person's individuality means noticing the details and qualities, both positive and negative, that set them apart from the group. But mental shortcuts that psychologists call heuristics "can lead us to make potentially damaging assumptions about other people," as Zaid Jilani writes in Greater Good. "Racial stereotyping, for instance, comes from the belief that membership in a racial group defines someone on a range of characteristics, including their behavior."

To be anti-racist, it's critical to understand and recognize that Black people have historically been assigned a negative group identity, being labeled lazy, irresponsible, dangerous, and angry. Realizing that these stereotypes can prevent us from seeing Black people as individuals is an important awareness because, according to research, when we view people who are "not like us" in terms of their own individual tastes and preferences, we feel less threatened by them.

5. Humanity

Supporting humanity means rehumanizing African Americans.

As philosopher Michelle Maiese argues, the process of dehumanization demonizes "the enemy, making them seem less than human and hence not worthy of humane treatment." The result is a framing of "good versus evil."

According to Maiese, "dehumanization might be mitigated or reversed through humanization efforts, the development of empathy, the establishment of personal relationships between conflicting parties, and the pursuit of common goals."

Just as denial is the heart of racism, so seeing humanity in others is at the heart of anti-racism. "We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny," wrote Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. "Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."

6. Anti-racist work

In this context, "anti-racist" is a verb, defined by the action one is taking. An anti-racist is "one who is supporting an anti-racist policy through their actions or expressing an anti-racist idea," writes Ibram X. Kendi.

To be anti-racist, one must actively work to create anti-racist policies. One must engage the world seeing all racial groups as equals and intentionally promote equity. Anti-racists support policies that reduce racial inequity, such as:

Reparations to address the wealth gap between Black families and white created by slavery, Jim Crow segregation, anti-Black practices such as redlining, and other discriminatory public policies in criminal justice and education that have withheld opportunities to build wealth from Black people that have been afforded to whites.

Educating Americans about systemic racism and racist policies and the need to dismantle them.

Holding police with records of excessive force accountable.

7. Equality

"Racial inequity is when two or more racial groups are not standing on approximately equal footing," writes Kendi. One must hold all groups of people-a color, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, ability, age, and any combination of those-as equal. To champion equality is to fight for equity. It is to understand that corrective action is needed to create equity.

8. Empathy

Cultivating empathy is key to rehumanizing the dehumanized. "Empathy is . . . an umbrella term that describes multiple ways people respond to one another, including sharing, thinking about, and caring about others' feelings," writes Jamil Zaki, director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Laboratory and author of The War for Kindness. The best way to foster empathy, suggests Zaki, is to share experiences, because that's the "closest we come to dissolving the boundary between self and other." It's this empathic concern that motivates us to "improve someone else's well-being."

We know from studies that empathy creates connection and it breaks down the "us and them" divide so that we see outsiders as human beings.

But empathy has another benefit to anti-racists: It helps to build the ability to bounce back from shame, a critical tool in this work. Empathy increases shame resilience because it moves us toward connection, compassion, and courage-the opposite of the fear, blame, and disconnection that result from shame. Staying stuck in shame means one is not working to be anti-racist.

9. Allyship

To be an ally is to take on this struggle as if it is your own. It means that you do what is uncomfortable. You are committed to taking a risk, sharing any privilege you have to center marginalized Black and brown people. When you see something, you say something. You imagine and act as if you do not have a choice. You fight to dismantle injustice.

"Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble," wrote Congressman John Lewis just before his death. Allies get into good trouble. As one Challenge participant said, "Coming to terms with and exploring the deeply rooted systems of white supremacy within my own self and the way in which I have worked in the world are critical for me to become a true ally."

10. Love

Choosing love and healing over fear and oppression is a path of courageous vulnerability. Gratitude, joy, and an open heart are all components of love that enable one to do the work to be anti-racist and to bring anti-racism into daily life. Accepting love empowers us to do the hard work. As meditation and communication teacher Oren Jay Sofer says:

The more deeply we feel our own life, the more we experience our interconnectedness with others. This kind of love is a force for change. It bestows the courage to face the suffering in the world and the energy to act for its healing.

Barbara Fredrickson, director of Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Laboratory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, puts it another way: "Love draws you out of your cocoon of self-absorption to attune to others. Love allows you to really see another person, holistically, with care, concern, and compassion."

America is at a critical moment. This is the call of our time. We must do more than put out a sign or read a book-we must come to understand our shared history and work to support our collective humanity by eradicating anti-Blackness in the many forms that it exists. You can begin right now by starting to educate yourself-and the AntiRacist Table 30-Day Challenge is one place to start.

Greater Good wants to know: Do you think this article will influence your opinions or behavior?

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The founders of a new organization, the AntiRacist Table, suggest tools you can use to work against prejudice and inequality.

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Young, healthy people like me are getting very, very sick from the disease caused by the coronavirus.

By

Ms. Gay is a member of the editorial board.

Mara Gay in Brooklyn on Thursday. Credit... Brittainy Newman/The New York Times

Listen to This Op-Ed

Audio Recording by Audm

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The day before I got sick, I ran three miles, walked 10 more, then raced up the stairs to my fifth-floor apartment as always, slinging laundry with me as I went.

The next day, April 17, I became one of the thousands of New Yorkers to fall ill with Covid-19. I haven't felt the same since.

If you live in New York City, you know what this virus can do. In just under two months, an estimated 24,000 New Yorkers have died. That's more than twice the number of people we lost to homicide over the past 20 years.

Now I worry for Americans elsewhere. When I see photographs of crowds packing into a newly reopened big-box store in Arkansas or scores of people jammed into a Colorado restaurant without masks, it's clear too many Americans still don't grasp the power of this disease.

The second day I was sick, I woke up to what felt like hot tar buried deep in my chest. I could not get a deep breath unless I was on all fours. I'm healthy. I'm a runner. I'm 33 years old.

In the emergency room an hour later, I sat on a hospital bed, alone and terrified, my finger hooked to a pulse-oxygen machine. To my right lay a man who could barely speak but coughed constantly. To my left was an older man who said that he had been sick for a month and had a pacemaker. He kept apologizing to the doctors for making so much trouble, and thanking them for taking such good care of him. I can't stop thinking about him even now.

Finally, Dr. Audrey Tan walked toward me, her kind eyes meeting mine from behind a mask, goggles and a face shield. "Any asthma?" she asked. "Do you smoke? Any pre-existing conditions?" "No, no, none," I replied. Dr. Tan smiled, then shook her head, almost imperceptibly. "I wish I could do something for you," she said.

Image

Ms. Gay on April 18. Credit... Mara Gay

I am one of the lucky ones. I never needed a ventilator. I survived. But 27 days later, I still have lingering pneumonia. I use two inhalers, twice a day. I can't walk more than a few blocks without stopping.

I want Americans to understand that this virus is making otherwise young, healthy people very, very sick. I want them to know, this is no flu.

Even healthy New Yorkers in their 20s have been hospitalized. At least 13 children in New York state have died from Covid-19, according to health department data. My friend's 29-year-old boyfriend was even sicker than I was and at one point could barely walk across their living room.

Maybe you don't live in a big city. Maybe you don't know anybody who is sick. Maybe you think we are crazy for living in New York. That's fine. You don't have to live like us or vote like us. But please learn from us. Please take this virus seriously.

When I was at my sickest, I could barely talk on the phone. I'd like to say that I caught up on some reading, but I didn't. I'm a newswoman, but I couldn't look at the news.

Instead, I closed my eyes and saw myself running along the New York waterfront, healthy and whole, all 8.5 million of my neighbors by my side. I pictured myself doing the things I haven't gotten to do yet, like getting married, buying a house, becoming a mother, owning a dog.

I stared at the wall of photographs beside my living room window and promised the people in them over and over again that we would see each other soon.

I watched movies, dozens of them. I rediscovered "Air Force One" and fantasized about what it would be like if Harrison Ford were actually president right now. I stayed up late at night doing breathing exercises and streaming episodes of "Longmire," a show about a Wyoming sheriff in which the good guys always win.

One thing I learned is how startlingly little care or advice is available to the millions of Americans managing symptoms at home.

Ms. Gay's home in Brooklyn. Credit... Brittainy Newman/The New York Times

In Germany, the government sends teams of medical workers to do house calls. Here in the United States, where primary care is an afterthought, the only place most people suffering from Covid-19 can get in-person care is the emergency room. That's a real problem given that it is a disease that can lead to months of serious symptoms and turn from mild to deadly in a matter of hours.

The best care I received came from my friends. Fred, an emergency room resident treating patients at a New York hospital, called me on his bike ride to work, constantly checking in and asking about my symptoms. Chelsea, my college roommate and a physician assistant, has largely managed my recovery from pneumonia. Zoe, my childhood friend and a nurse, taught me how to use a pulse oximeter and later, the asthma inhaler I now use.

Through them, I became an amateur expert. This is the advice they gave me. Here's what I'm telling my family and my friends: If you can, get an oximeter, a magical little device that measures your pulse and blood oxygen level from your fingertip. If you become sick and your oxygen dips below 95 or you have trouble breathing, go to the emergency room. Don't wait.

If you have chest symptoms, assume you may have pneumonia and call a doctor or go to the E.R. Sleep on your stomach, since much of your lungs is actually in your back. If your oxygen is stable, change positions every hour. Do breathing exercises, a lot of them. The one that seemed to work best for me was pioneered by nurses in the British health system and shared by J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series.

Nearly a month later, I'm still sleeping on my stomach and still can't go for a run. But I will be able to do those things, and much more. For now, every conversation with an old friend brings a new rush of love. Every sunny day feels like the first time I saw the ocean as a child and wanted to leap right in.

Many of my neighbors didn't make it. I know because I heard the ambulances come for them late at night. The reports from the city's heroic E.M.T. force suggest that for many of these New Yorkers, it was already too late.

Why are more people dying of this disease in the United States than in anywhere else in the world? Because we live in a broken country, with a broken health care system. Because even though people of all races and backgrounds are suffering, the disease in the United States has hit black and brown and Indigenous people the hardest, and we are seen as expendable.

I wonder how many people have died not necessarily because of the virus but because this country failed them and left them to fend for themselves. That is the grief for me now, that is the guilt and the rage.

As I began to recover, others died.

There was Idris Bey, 60, a U.S. Marine and New York City Fire Department E.M.T. instructor who received a medal for his actions after the Sept. 11 attack.

There was Rana Zoe Mungin, 30, a New York City social studies teacher whose family said she died after struggling to get care in Brooklyn.

There was Valentina Blackhorse, 28, a beautiful young Arizona woman who dreamed of leading the Navajo Nation.

Theirs were the faces I saw when I lay on my stomach at night, laboring for every deep breath, praying for them and for me. Those are the Americans I think about every time I walk outside now in my tidy Brooklyn neighborhood, stepping slowly into the warming spring sun amid a crush of blooming lilacs and small children whizzing blissfully by on their scooters.

I hope the coronavirus never comes to your town. But if it does, I will pray for you, too.

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Opinion | 'I Wish I Could Do Something for You,' My Doctor Said

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Young, healthy people like me are getting very, very sick from the disease caused by the coronavirus. By Ms. Gay is a member of the editorial board. To hear more audio stories from publishers like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

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A return to school this fall will be far different from other back-to-school seasons of the past. In the midst of a global pandemic, and the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks and many others, the systemic inequities that face BIPOC (Black and Indigenous and People of Color) individuals daily are being pushed to the forefront in many conversations among non-BIPOC parents, teachers, co-workers and neighbors.

If you are like me and want resources to keep this conversation going with students and adults, we created an anti-racist reading list for children in grades preK-12, as well as for adults, that can help us all become more kind, caring, and empathetic. The list will be updated as we learn about and read more texts. Do you have additional recommendations for our anti-racist reading list? Please let us know in the comments below.
By Marianne Celano, PhD, ABPP,
Ages 4-8, and
Two families, one Black and one White, discuss a police shooting of a Black man in their neighborhood. This story aims to answer many questions that children have about traumatic events and racial injustice.
By Lupita Nyong'o (author) and Vashti Harrison (illustrator)
Ages 4-8
This picture book is a story about a Black girl who learns to love herself despite having darker skin than the rest of her family.
By Matthew A. Cherry (author) and Vashti Harrison (illustrator)
Ages 4-8
This book is a celebration of natural, Black hair.

As a young girl observes six very different women in her life who each wear the hijab in a unique way, she also dreams of the rich possibilities of her own future, and how she will express her own personality through her hijab.
By Jenny Devenny
Ages 4-8
A story of 2 best friends, a white car and a black car, that have different experiences and face different rules while entering the same race.

Ages 8-12
The biographies of 40 Black women are brought to life in this text that not only educates, but also inspires.

Ages 8-12
This story is about a boy, Garvey, who is bullied until he finds a passion that helps him learn to accept himself.
By Anastasia Higginbotham
Ages 8-12
This book offers an honest and open explanation about how White privilege factors into the lives of White children.

This book about race helps students learn about how racist ideas have permeated the American culture, and what they can do to become anti-racist.

Ages 12+
This novel, written in two parts by two authors-one Black and one White-explores the repercussions of a violent act on a racially divided town.
By Gilly Segal and Kimberly Jones
Ages 12+
When violence erupts at a football game, two girls from different racial backgrounds only have each other to rely on to survive.
By Angie Thomas
Ages 12+
The uneasy balance between Starr's school world and home world is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer.
By Nic Stone
Ages 12+
The story of an Ivy League-bound African-American student named Justyce who becomes a victim of racial profiling. He struggles to reconcile the fact that he's a "good kid" with suddenly being in police handcuffs

Do you have more resources or ideas for our anti-racist reading list? Please comment below.

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An Anti-Racist Reading List for Children and Adults

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A return to school this fall will be far different from other back-to-school seasons of the past. In the midst of a global pandemic, and the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks and many others, the systemic inequities that face BIPOC (Black and Indigenous and People of Color) individuals daily are being pushed to the forefront in many conversations among non-BIPOC parents, teachers, co-workers and neighbors.

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In a newly discovered letter, the famed abolitionist wrote that 'no one monument could be made to tell the whole truth'

smithsonianmag.com

Frederick Douglass, with typical historical foresight, outlined a solution to the current impasse over a statue he dedicated in Washington, D.C., in 1876. Erected a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol, in a square called Lincoln Park, the so-called Emancipation Memorial depicts Abraham Lincoln standing beside a formerly enslaved African-American man in broken shackles, down on one knee-rising or crouching, depending on who you ask. As the nation continues to debate the meaning of monuments and memorials, and as local governments and protesters alike take them down, the Lincoln Park sculpture presents a dispute with multiple shades of gray.

Earlier this month, protestors with the group Freedom Neighborhood rallied at the park, managed by the National Park Service, to discuss pulling down the statue, with many in the crowd calling for its removal. They had the support of Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District's sole representative in Congress, who announced her intention to introduce legislation to have the Lincoln statue removed and "placed in a museum." Since then, a variety of voices have risen up, some in favor of leaving the monument in place, others seeking to tear it down (before writing this essay, the two of us were split), and still others joining Holmes Norton's initiative to have it legally removed. In an essay for the Washington Post, Yale historian and Douglass biographer David W. Blight called for an arts commission to be established to preserve the original monument while adding new statues to the site.

It turns out Frederick Douglass had this idea first.

"There is room in Lincoln park [sic] for another monument," he urged in a letter published in the National Republican newspaper just days after the ceremony, "and I throw out this suggestion to the end that it may be taken up and acted upon." As far as we can ascertain, Douglass's letter has never been republished since it was written. Fortunately, in coming to light again at this particular moment, his forgotten letter and the details of his suggestion teach valuable lessons about how great historical change occurs, how limited all monuments are in conveying historical truth, and how opportunities can always be found for dialogue in public spaces.

In the park, a plaque on the pedestal identifies the Thomas Ball sculpture as "Freedom's Memorial" (Ball called his artwork "Emancipation Group"). The plaque explains that the sculpture was built "with funds contributed solely by emancipated citizens of the United States," beginning with "the first contribution of five dollars ... made by Charlotte Scott a freed woman of Virginia, being her first earnings in freedom." She had the original idea, "on the day she heard of President Lincoln's death to build a monument to his memory."

With this act, Scott had secured immortality; her 1891 obituary in the Washington Evening Star, eulogized that her "name, at one time, was doubtless upon the lips of every man and woman in the United States and is now read by the thousands who annually visit the Lincoln statue at Lincoln Park." Indeed, the Washington Bee, an important black newspaper of the era, proudly referred its readers to "the Charlotte Scott Emancipation statue in Lincoln Park."

Scott's brainchild and philanthropic achievement today stands surrounded: first by protective fencing, then by armed guards wearing Kevlar vests, then by protesters, counter-protesters, onlookers, neighbors and journalists, and finally by a nation in which many are seeing the legacies of slavery for the first time. Not since 1876, at least, has the imagery of kneeling-as torture and as protest-been so painfully and widely seen.

Ironically, Ball had changed his original design in an attempt to convey what we now recognize as the "agency" of enslaved people. Having first modeled an idealized, kneeling figure from his own white body, Ball was persuaded to rework the pose based on a photograph of an actual freedman named Archer Alexander. The new model had already made history as the last enslaved Missourian to be captured under the infamous Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (the arrest took place in 1863, in the middle of the Civil War). A white speaker at the dedication recounted the statue's redesign. No longer anonymous and "passive, receiving the boon of freedom from the hand of the liberator," the new rendering with Archer Alexander depicted "an AGENT IN HIS OWN DELIVERANCE ... exerting his own strength with strained muscles in breaking the chain which had bound him." Thus the statue imparted a "greater degree of dignity and vigor, as well as of historical accuracy."

Few today see it that way-and neither did Frederick Douglass in 1876.

Even as he delivered the dedication address, Frederick Douglass was uncomfortable with the statue's racial hierarchy and simplistic depiction of historical change. Having known and advised the President in several unprecedented White House meetings, Douglass stated bluntly to the assembled crowd of dignitaries and ordinaries that Lincoln "was preeminently the white man's President, entirely devoted to the welfare of white men."

Yet, Douglass acknowledged that Lincoln's slow road to emancipation had been the fastest strategy for success. "Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible," Douglass orated. "Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined."

Douglass saw Lincoln not as a savior but as a collaborator, with more ardent activists including the enslaved themselves, in ending slavery. With so much more to do, he hoped that the Emancipation statue would empower African Americans to define Lincoln's legacy for themselves. "In doing honor to the memory of our friend and liberator," he said at the conclusion of his dedication speech, "we have been doing highest honors to ourselves and those who come after us."

That's us: an unsettled nation occupying concentric circles around a memorial that Douglass saw as unfinished. The incompleteness is what prompted the critique and "suggestion" he made in the letter we found written to the Washington National Republican, a Republican publication that Douglass, who lived in D.C., would have read. "Admirable as is the monument by Mr. Ball in Lincoln park," he began, "it does not, as it seems to me, tell the whole truth, and perhaps no one monument could be made to tell the whole truth of any subject which it might be designed to illustrate."

Douglass had spoken beneath the cast bronze base that reads "EMANCIPATION," not "emancipator." He understood that process as both collaborative and incomplete. "The mere act of breaking the negro's chains was the act of Abraham Lincoln, and is beautifully expressed in this monument," his letter explained. But the 15th Amendment and black male suffrage had come under President Ulysses S. Grant, "and this is nowhere seen in the Lincoln monument." (Douglass' letter may be implying that Grant, too, deserved a monument in Lincoln Park; some newspaper editors read it that way in 1876.)

Douglass's main point was that the statue did not make visible "the whole truth" that enslaved men and women had resisted, run away, protested and enlisted in the cause of their own freedom. Despite its redesign, the unveiled "emancipation group" fell far short of this most important whole truth.

"The negro here, though rising," Douglass concluded, "is still on his knees and nude." The longtime activist's palpable weariness anticipated and predicted ours. "What I want to see before I die," he sighed, "is a monument representing the negro, not couchant on his knees like a four-footed animal, but erect on his feet like a man."

And so his suggestion: Lincoln Park, two blocks wide and one block long, has room for another statue.

Nearly a century later, Lincoln Park would indeed get another statue-of Mary McLeod Bethune, the African American activist and educator, with a pair of frolicking children-placed in 1974 at the other end of the park, as if the three were to be kept as far away as possible from their problematic predecessor. Lincoln's statue was even rotated 180 degrees to face Bethune when her statue was installed; nonetheless, these separate memorials are not in dialogue, figuratively or spatially.

Douglass's solution was not to remove the memorial he dedicated yet promptly criticized, nor to replace it with another one that would also fail, as any single design will do, to "tell the whole truth of any subject." No one memorial could do justice, literally, to an ugly truth so complex as the history of American slavery and the ongoing, " unfinished work " (as Lincoln said at Gettysburg) of freedom. Nobody would have needed to explain this to the formerly enslaved benefactors like Charlotte Scott, but they made their public gift just the same.

And yet if the statue is to stand there any longer, it should no longer stand alone. Who would be more deserving of honor with an additional statue than the freedwoman who conceived of the monument? In fact, Charlotte Scott attended its dedication as a guest of honor and was photographed about that time. A new plaque could tell Archer Alexander's story. Add to these a new bronze of Frederick Douglass, the thundering orator, standing "erect on his feet like a man" beside the statue he dedicated in 1876. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should juxtapose Douglass and Lincoln, as actual historical collaborators, thus creating a new "Emancipation Group" of Scott, Douglass, Lincoln, Archer Alexander-and Bethune.

This would create an entirely new memorial that incorporates and preserves, yet redefines, the old one, just as the present is always redefining the past. In a final touch, add to the old pedestal the text of Douglass's powerful yet succinct letter, which will charge every future visitor to understand "the whole truth" of the single word above, cast in bronze - EMANCIPATION - as a collaborative process that must forever "be taken up and acted upon."

Scott A. Sandage is Associate Professor of History at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pa., and Jonathan W. White is Associate Professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University, Newport News, Va. Follow them on Twitter at @ScottSandage and @CivilWarJon.

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What Frederick Douglass Had to Say About Monuments

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smithsonianmag.com Frederick Douglass, with typical historical foresight, outlined a solution to the current impasse over a statue he dedicated in Washington, D.C., in 1876. Erected a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol, in a square called Lincoln Park, the so-called Emancipation Memorial depicts Abraham Lincoln standing beside a formerly enslaved African-American man in broken shackles, down on one knee-rising or crouching, depending on who you ask.

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Credit... P.S. Spencer

Opinion
The black people I come from were owned and raped by the white people I come from. Who dares to tell me to celebrate them?

By

Ms. Williams is a poet.

NASHVILLE - I have rape-colored skin. My light-brown-blackness is a living testament to the rules, the practices, the causes of the Old South.

If there are those who want to remember the legacy of the Confederacy, if they want monuments, well, then, my body is a monument. My skin is a monument.

Dead Confederates are honored all over this country - with cartoonish private statues, solemn public monuments and even in the names of United States Army bases. It fortifies and heartens me to witness the protests against this practice and the growing clamor from serious, nonpartisan public servants to redress it. But there are still those - like President Trump and the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell - who cannot understand the difference between rewriting and reframing the past. I say it is not a matter of "airbrushing" history, but of adding a new perspective.

I am a black, Southern woman, and of my immediate white male ancestors, all of them were rapists. My very existence is a relic of slavery and Jim Crow.

According to the rule of hypodescent (the social and legal practice of assigning a genetically mixed-race person to the race with less social power) I am the daughter of two black people, the granddaughter of four black people, the great-granddaughter of eight black people. Go back one more generation and it gets less straightforward, and more sinister. As far as family history has always told, and as modern DNA testing has allowed me to confirm, I am the descendant of black women who were domestic servants and white men who raped their help.

It is an extraordinary truth of my life that I am biologically more than half white, and yet I have no white people in my genealogy in living memory. No. Voluntary. Whiteness. I am more than half white, and none of it was consensual. White Southern men - my ancestors - took what they wanted from women they did not love, over whom they had extraordinary power, and then failed to claim their children.

What is a monument but a standing memory? An artifact to make tangible the truth of the past. My body and blood are a tangible truth of the South and its past. The black people I come from were owned by the white people I come from. The white people I come from fought and died for their Lost Cause. And I ask you now, who dares to tell me to celebrate them? Who dares to ask me to accept their mounted pedestals?

You cannot dismiss me as someone who doesn't understand. You cannot say it wasn't my family members who fought and died. My blackness does not put me on the other side of anything. It puts me squarely at the heart of the debate. I don't just come from the South. I come from Confederates. I've got rebel-gray blue blood coursing my veins. My great-grandfather Will was raised with the knowledge that Edmund Pettus was his father. Pettus, the storied Confederate general, the grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, the man for whom Selma's Bloody Sunday Bridge is named. So I am not an outsider who makes these demands. I am a great-great-granddaughter.

And here I'm called to say that there is much about the South that is precious to me. I do my best teaching and writing here. There is, however, a peculiar model of Southern pride that must now, at long last, be reckoned with.

This is not an ignorant pride but a defiant one. It is a pride that says, "Our history is rich, our causes are justified, our ancestors lie beyond reproach." It is a pining for greatness, if you will, a wish again for a certain kind of American memory. A monument-worthy memory.

But here's the thing: Our ancestors don't deserve your unconditional pride. Yes, I am proud of every one of my black ancestors who survived slavery. They earned that pride, by any decent person's reckoning. But I am not proud of the white ancestors whom I know, by virtue of my very existence, to be bad actors.

Among the apologists for the Southern cause and for its monuments, there are those who dismiss the hardships of the past. They imagine a world of benevolent masters, and speak with misty eyes of gentility and honor and the land. They deny plantation rape, or explain it away, or question the degree of frequency with which it occurred.

To those people it is my privilege to say, I am proof. I am proof that whatever else the South might have been, or might believe itself to be, it was and is a space whose prosperity and sense of romance and nostalgia were built upon the grievous exploitation of black life.

The dream version of the Old South never existed. Any manufactured monument to that time in that place tells half a truth at best. The ideas and ideals it purports to honor are not real. To those who have embraced these delusions: Now is the time to re-examine your position.

Either you have been blind to a truth that my body's story forces you to see, or you really do mean to honor the oppressors at the expense of the oppressed, and you must at last acknowledge your emotional investment in a legacy of hate.

Either way, I say the monuments of stone and metal, the monuments of cloth and wood, all the man-made monuments, must come down. I defy any sentimental Southerner to defend our ancestors to me. I am quite literally made of the reasons to strip them of their laurels.

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Opinion | You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body Is a Confederate Monument

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Opinion The black people I come from were owned and raped by the white people I come from. Who dares to tell me to celebrate them? By Ms. Williams is a poet. NASHVILLE - I have rape-colored skin. My light-brown-blackness is a living testament to the rules, the practices, the causes of the Old South.

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Amid the most profound social upheaval since the 1960s, these novelists, historians, poets, comedians and activists take a moment to look back to the literature.

Clockwise, from top left: Bayard Rustin in New York City, August 1963; Tyra Wilson and Kita Williams kneel outside Dallas City Hall in honor of George Floyd, June 4, 2020; the novelist Jesmyn Ward. Credit... Eddie Adams/Associated Press; Lynda M. Gonzalez, via The Dallas Morning News, via Associated Press; David Levenson, via Getty Images

Almost 100 years ago, responding to the public outcry over the violent drowning of a Black boy by a white mob at a public beach on Lake Michigan, a citywide (multiracial but white-led) commission published "The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot." "Centuries of the Negro slave trade and of slavery as an institution ... placed a stamp upon the relations of the two races which it will require many years to erase," the nearly 700-page 1922 report began. "The past is of value only as it aids in understanding the present; and an understanding of the facts of the problem ... is the first step toward its solution." As protests spread across America once more, bringing to front pages and the forefronts of our minds ugly truths about our country that shouldn't have been forgotten in the first place, we turn again to the written record, to the literature. In an effort to deepen our understanding of race and racism in America, we asked writers to share with us the texts that have done the most to deepen theirs. Together these histories, novels and verses have helped shape our collective consciousness of a subject that is irreducible, and universal.
Appreciating social movements in hindsight is a complicated endeavor. Leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Harriet Tubman are often whitewashed to appease modern sensibilities. Some, like Bayard Rustin, are almost forgotten entirely.

I came across John D'Emilio's LOST PROPHET (2003) by chance, in my local bookstore in college. I don't often take notes while reading for pleasure, but this time I made a detailed index on the back flap, marking pages and lines I wanted to save for future reference.

For example, did you know Rustin introduced Gandhian tactics of nonviolent protest to Dr. King? Did you know he helped organize the first Freedom Rides, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a boycott of segregated New York City public schools?

As a young Black man with a temper, I credit Rustin with strengthening my faith in pacifism. He was a Black queer Quaker from Pennsylvania who went to jail for his sexuality and his refusal to fight in American wars. When I myself came face to face with armored cops a few weeks ago, I felt a powerful calm. I didn't want to lash out. I wanted them to look me in the eye and see I wasn't afraid; I wasn't going to move. They could attack me, arrest me, shoot me with gas and rubber, and still, I wasn't going to move.

UNEXAMPLED COURAGE (2019), by Richard Gergel, is a remarkable book. In clear and elegant prose, Gergel - a United States district judge in South Carolina - strips legal cases of jargon and presents them as what they essentially are: human drama. The result is intellectually and emotionally satisfying. The author's loving admiration of Judge J. Waties Waring - who descended from slave-owning Confederates, but turned his back on "the doctrine of white supremacy" in his courtroom - is obvious, but the evidence for it is rendered so dispassionately that it feels apt. As I finished it I felt deeply moved all around, but mostly by the incredible courage of the ordinary Black Americans in the 1951 Briggs v. Elliott case, over school segregation. Meticulously researched and full of heart, this book is important at this time when the United States is confronting its ever-present past.

Ira Katznelson's WHEN AFFIRMATIVE ACTION WAS WHITE (2005) was one of the first books that helped me concretely understand how racism was embedded into federal policy. In my American history classes growing up, the New Deal had been celebrated as the great catalyst of intergenerational opportunity and wealth for millions across the country. And it was. What I had not been taught, however, was how New Deal legislation was intentionally crafted to prevent millions of Black Americans from having access to its benefits. As Katznelson outlines, in the 1930s, 75 percent of Black workers in the South were employed as either maids or farmworkers. People in those professions were excluded for decades from social programs that set the minimum wage, regulated work hours, created labor unions and Social Security - which is to say, the programs that were the economic bedrock for millions of White Americans.

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's AN INDIGENOUS PEOPLES' HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES (2014) helped me clarify my place in this country. It confirmed what had been told to me by my ancestors: that Indigenous peoples, from the North Pole to the South, have been here since before the world was known as round. As a conquering nation, the United States has rewritten history to make people of the U.S. forget our past as natives to this land. This is especially apparent in the Mexi-phobic, immigrant-phobic policies of our time.

If every politician were to read and understand this book - which should be required in every high school curriculum - we would have a reconsideration of our current border policies and our practice of detaining human beings in cages. Our present is made of a past of genocide and colonialism. This book is necessary reading if we are to move into a more humane future.

Right now I'm rereading Marlon James's BLACK LEOPARD, RED WOLF (2019). Wild that fantasy is where I turn to think about race and these states. But the book's first line, "The child is dead," begins all our troubles these days. George Floyd, still his mother's son, calling for her with his last breath. James's book follows in the tradition of Octavia Butler and Toni Morrison: In his world, like our own, everyone is complicit. A few pages in, I remember that the one telling us what has happened is in a cell - death and prison, aren't these the sources of this nation's discontent? Name a story more American than that. And still, the story gives me hope. On the first page is tragedy; the next 600 explore, challenge and critique an encyclopedia of phobias and isms, in language so rich and a story so compelling that you aren't even aware the reading is making you wiser until it already has.

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From left: James Baldwin at his London book launch, April 1972. An 11-year-old protester, Elliot Logan, stands in front of a portrait of George Floyd in Minneapolis, June 3, 2020. Credit... Popperfoto, via Getty Images; Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

Desus: As a child, I attended a program for extremely gifted children. We were so advanced we read Richard Wright's BLACK BOY (1945) in third grade. I still have my copy and it's in shambles, because that became my favorite book. The vivid description of Richard's life in the South fascinated me - and, as a young boy in the Bronx, I could still relate. His depiction of racist situations, and being called the "N-word," hit me; because at that age I too had already been called the "N-word." That book showed me Black people have been going through the struggles I'd been going through forever.

Mero: I read TO BE A SLAVE (1968), by Julius Lester, illustrated by Tom Feelings, in around seventh grade. My teacher, shout-out to Mr. Adeghe, was from Ghana and very passionate. All the "American History" classes I took prior to that were all about Pilgrims and Native Americans shaking hands and eating turkey. This book was like a nuclear bomb of knowledge that made me connect even more with my Afro-Latino identity and roots.

For understanding the Jim Crow South, I always recommend AFTER FREEDOM (1939), based on the anthropologist Hortense Powdermaker's hard-won observations in Mississippi and the best of the great fieldwork studies from that era. Less often read, although it ought to be more, is Mark Schultz's THE RURAL FACE OF WHITE SUPREMACY: Beyond Jim Crow (2005). Schultz spent years on this oral history project, capturing the fascinating personal stories of elderly black and white residents of a Georgia county who spoke candidly about race relations in the first half of the 20th century. For contemporary inner-city politics and violence issues, check out Cid Martinez's THE NEIGHBORHOOD HAS ITS OWN RULES (2016), an astute analysis of activist politics in Los Angeles. Although it is not about America, INFORMAL JUSTICE IN DIVIDED SOCIETIES (2002), by Colin Knox and Rachel Monaghan, helped me place our domestic race issues in a global context. Americans tend to view this country's racial situation as singular and distinct, but in the streets of Watts ring echoes of Belfast and Cape Town.

Among the books I have gone back to in this historic moment are: DARKWATER: Voices From Within the Veil (1920), by W.E.B. Du Bois, because of his thoughtful insights 100 years ago into the very matters that now call people into the streets at some risk; and DARKNESS OVER GERMANY: A Warning From History (1943), by E. Amy Buller, because of what she tells us about the mass psychology of fascism.

Race is a living, breathing thing that morphs across time and context and even our own understanding; so the most important books that have shaped my understanding of race are tied to who I was at the time that I read them. The list will change as I change, and that is as it should be.

I read Anne Moody's COMING OF AGE IN MISSISSIPPI (1969) as a child, before I knew what memoir was. But still the book resonated with me, as I already understood what it meant to be a Black girl in a world where race and gender circumscribed who we could become. As a young adult, I read A FINE BALANCE (1996), by Rohinton Mistry, and for the first time understood that racism in the United States has genealogies other than the global slave trade. (I immediately signed up for courses on South Asian studies at my historically Black college.) As an adult, I think of Derrick Bell's science-fiction story THE SPACE TRADERS (1992) at least once a week, mostly wishing everyone else had also read it so that we could stop reliving its message. Finally, there is no book more important to understanding the underpinnings of race, racism and uprisings right now than a new book by William A. Darity Jr. and A. Kirsten Mullen, FROM HERE TO EQUALITY (2020).Part history and part social policy, it takes economic reparations for Black Americans seriously. I wish we could say the same for America.

Few reading experiences on the history of race in America have been as profound for me as the works of Eric Foner. From RECONSTRUCTION (1988),his definitive study of the era, to last year's tour de force on the trio of constitutional amendments that established THE SECOND FOUNDING after the Civil War, no one has done more since W.E.B. Du Bois's BLACK RECONSTRUCTION IN AMERICA (1935) to refute the racist fabrications of previous generations of Lost Cause "scholars." In rescuing the facts about the promise and violent overthrow of our country's most thrilling experiment in interracial democracy, Foner has proved that no one set of historians has the final word. "The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery," Du Bois wrote - succinctly, poetically and so very sadly - of the period of Reconstruction's nakedly racist rollback (perversely named "Redemption") that ushered in nearly a century of Jim Crow.

I'm also inspired by a new generation of scholars - from Kimberlé Crenshaw's CRITICAL RACE THEORY (1995) to Martha Jones's VANGUARD (2020) - who are shining a light on this crucial chapter in our story, pointing out its harbingers in earlier efforts to circumvent the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments (especially voter suppression). As dark and unsettling forces attempt to roll back the gains of what historians sometimes call "The Second Reconstruction" of the 1960s, and as tyrannical impulses seek to curtail our most foundational and sacred constitutional rights, let us look to these examples of great scholarship, which preserve the noble tale of the triumphant determination of black people to rise undiminished out of the ashes of racial repression, violence and lynching.

Clockwise from left: Derrick Bell, the first tenured black professor at Harvard Law School, took an unpaid leave of absence in 1990 to protest the school's racist hiring practices; the author Zora Neale Hurston, November 1934; Black Lives Matter protesters march the length of Manhattan, June 3, 2020. Credit... Steve Liss/The LIFE Images Collection, via Getty Images; Beinecke Library, Yale University, Van Vechten Trust; Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times

Every work of American literature is about race, whether the writer knows it or not. That said, these are some nonfiction books that have given me necessary tools to think about our culture. In college I read both bell hooks's BLACK LOOKS (1992)and Donald Bogle's TOMS, COONS, MULATTOES, MAMMIES & BUCKS (1973), and was never the same. Toni Morrison's PLAYING IN THE DARK (1992) is utter genius, revealing through literary analysis how whiteness doesn't exist without blackness. Nella Larsen's QUICKSAND (1928) and PASSING (1929), both published during the Harlem Renaissance, feel just as contemporary and lucid today in their portrayal of mixed-race women and the perils of white passing. More recently, I have been enamored by the brilliance of both Hilton Als's WHITE GIRLS (2013) and Margo Jefferson's NEGROLAND (2015).

Gunnar Myrdal's massive sociological study AN AMERICAN DILEMMA (1944) saw "the Negro problem" as something that could never be understood through data about black living conditions alone, but as a phenomenon of the majority's power. It was a moral situation in which conflicting values were held both within the white population and, importantly, within white individuals themselves.

If change did not come about, Myrdal predicted uprisings. "America can never more regard its Negroes as a patient, submissive minority," he writes. "They will organize for defense and offense. ... They have the advantage that they can fight wholeheartedly."

Myrdal perceptively noted that the average white Northerner did not understand racism as something in which he or she was taking part every day. But he also argued that whites were deeply troubled by the contradiction between their egalitarian principles and their attitude toward black citizens. This was the "American dilemma."

There is much value in this big book, but even more to be learned today from Myrdal's naïveté. By the time of the civil rights movement, it had become clear to a new generation of critics that the whites Myrdal had interviewed - perhaps like many today who are rushing to issue public statements or participating in multiracial rallies - were still perfectly capable of compartmentalizing words and deeds, living with moral dissonance.

So-called third-world problems - hunger, poverty, violence - are often explained as a result of particular "political cultures" endemic to specific nations. But while partly true, that narrative is also reductionist. All countries interact with other countries, and most "developing" nations have to sustain unequal relations with larger powers that systematically abuse them through military interventions, economic sanctions or unequal treatises. The borderlands between Mexico and the United States are a clear and poignant example of this interrelatedness. In THE FEMICIDE MACHINE (2012), Sergio González Rodríguez focuses on Ciudad Juárez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, where the rate of femicides started escalating drastically in the early 1990s, after decades of mutually accorded industrialization programs that resulted in NAFTA. "The Femicide Machine" discusses the politics of killing women for being women not within the oversimplifying framework of Mexican culture alone, but as a result of the economic interactions between Mexico and the U.S., and the geopolitical conditions that fuel them.

I find myself these days reaching for James Baldwin's NO NAME IN THE STREET (1972), his first book after Dr. King's assassination, which broke him. Shadowed by grief and trauma, this memoir is as fragmented as Baldwin's memories. "Much, much, much has been blotted out," he writes, "coming back only lately in bewildering and untrustworthy flashes." The book is also Baldwin's attempt to come to terms with America's latest betrayal of Black people, and his effort to muster the energy and the faith to keep fighting - to give Black people the language to keep fighting. The prose is angry, because Baldwin is profoundly wounded. If "The Fire Next Time" (1963) was prophetic, "No Name in the Street" was the reckoning.

I read THE NATURE OF PREJUDICE (1954), by Gordon W. Allport, sometime in the '70s, while I was in prison. This book had the greatest impact on my ability to understand the difference between prejudice and racism. Prejudice is a normal reaction to the unknown. Racism is a premeditated sickness.

Harriet Jacobs's INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A SLAVE GIRL (1861), for its sophisticated critique of slavery, 19th-century feminism and the gendered nature of white supremacy. Paula Giddings's WHEN AND WHERE I ENTER (1984), for the groundbreaking nature of her research, and because in the post-Kerner Commission era, when black women were blamed for "the state of the black family" and stereotyped as "welfare queens," Giddings provided historical context for understanding the black women I knew as a child. Robin D.G. Kelley's HAMMER AND HOE (1990) managed to contextualize black radical politics within a rural, Southern and Marxist framework, challenging the liberal argument that civil rights was concerned only with integrated lunch counters, not the dismantling of global racial capitalism.

Jesmyn Ward's SING, UNBURIED, SING (2017); Isabel Wilkerson's THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS (2010); Kiese Laymon's HEAVY (2018); David Oshinsky's WORSE THAN SLAVERY (1996); Claudia Rankine's CITIZEN (2014); J. Mills Thornton's DIVIDING LINES (2002); John W. Dower's WAR WITHOUT MERCY (1986); Patrick Phillips's BLOOD AT THE ROOT (2016); Françoise Hamlin's CROSSROADS AT CLARKSDALE (2012); Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin Jr.'s BLACK AGAINST EMPIRE (2013).

Each speaks, in some way, to the power of racism, and sometimes just sheer, raw, unadulterated anti-blackness, in destroying millions upon millions of lives. Each also lays out the power of the refusal to accept subjugation. And that the subsequent and ongoing battles between anti-blackness and freedom are messy.

Protesters gather for a silent march outside the Brooklyn Museum, June 14, 2020. Credit... Demetrius Freeman for The New York Times

TELL MY HORSE: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica (1938), by Zora Neale Hurston (1938): Determined to tell the stories of Black people outside of distant, scientific analysis, Hurston writes of her experiences of spiritual practices in these two Caribbean nations.

SING, UNBURIED, SING, by Jesmyn Ward: This is one of the best novels I've ever read. Set in Mississippi, it involves an odyssey to the notorious Parchman Farm penitentiary to pick up a lover; a ghost who haunts an elderly former inmate at said prison; and a young boy who observes it all.

MINOR FEELINGS (2020), by Cathy Park Hong: This wonderfully crafted essay collection is a necessary read for those who want to understand Asian-American experiences - as well as immigration and migration, intergenerational trauma and even anti-Blackness.

THICK (2019), by Tressie McMillan Cottom: In her second book, the sociologist, a savant and wordsmith, addresses the intersections of race, gender and class with enviable grace and confidence.

CANNIBAL (2016), by Safiya Sinclair: One of my favorite poetry collections. Sinclair covers so much ground: her Jamaican background, spirituality, womanhood, America, race relations. She laces words together in a beautiful tapestry, full of history, life, death and, most of all, renewal.

Reading is a way of practicing the imagination necessary to broaden our capacities to understand ourselves and others. These four books constellate conversations that have long been held separate from one another, lest their accumulation create an energy perilous to the colony: Simone Browne's DARK MATTERS (2017), Dina Gilio-Whitaker's AS LONG AS GRASS GROWS (2019), Dolores Dorantes's STYLE (2016) and Mahmoud Darwish's JOURNAL OF AN ORDINARY GRIEF (1973). Each book exists separately within its own conditions, while taking on exponential meaning in relation to one another.

BELOVED (1987), by Toni Morrison: I read this when I was 19. No book, no matter the intelligence behind it, can put the reader into the position of unfreedom in which African-Americans lived as enslaved people. Morrison, I think, knew this. What "Beloved" taught me to see and to feel was what it might be like to have the things we think of as universally human - in this case, a mother's love for her children - twisted and deformed by the institution and experience of slavery.

CUSTER DIED FOR YOUR SINS (1969): In this essay collection, the lawyer and activist Vine Deloria Jr. shouts, chides, teases and preaches about the pain and absurdity of being Native American in a modern world.

NOTES OF A NATIVE SON (1958), by James Baldwin: No other writer has written as lucidly, powerfully and productively about what it means to be black in America - and, as a result, what this country means.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE (1967), by Gabriel García Márquez: Billed as a Latin American fantasy, the Colombian-Mexican author's magical-realist epic is as much an American fantasy, about the lives caught in the web of 19th- and 20th-century colonialism.

There are several dozen books explicitly about race in America that have left lifelong marks on me, but only two have reversed the course of my own thought. The first is Albert Murray's THE OMNI-AMERICANS (1970).Murray's argument is simple but profound: America is a mongrel nation, both culturally and in its DNA. Though we may come up with all kinds of methods to obscure this basic truth, "any fool can see," he writes, "that the white people are not really white, and that black people are not black."

The second is RACECRAFT (2012), by Barbara J. Fields and Karen Elise Fields. The Fields sisters prove with witty, withering brilliance that racism - and the ideology of white supremacy, rooted in economic exploitation - creates race, and not the other way around.

Finally, though it's trans-Atlantic in scope, the British sociologist Paul Gilroy's monumental work AGAINST RACE (2000) argues that race is not something intrinsic and immutable but something fluid, illusory and imposed, "an afterimage - a lingering effect of looking too casually into the damaging glare emanating from colonial conflicts at home and abroad."

All three books convinced me that we will never transcend racism so long as we continue to reify the illusory, inherently hierarchical color categories that it gives us.

Whites may find it challenging to confront stereotypes and comprehend the deeply embedded legacies of slavery and Jim Crow, but even harder is embracing remedies, because seemingly race-neutral policies perpetuate our racial caste system. With engaging profiles of housing advocates and the opposition they face, Conor Dougherty's GOLDEN GATES (2020) focuses on California, but has lessons for all metropolitan areas. Smugly deeming itself racially progressive, the state allows high-wage employment (mostly for whites and educated immigrants) to grow faster than housing supply, ensuring that priced-out black and Hispanic families will suffer greater homelessness and displacement to job-starved distant suburbs. Segregation increases as voters enact local zoning codes to prevent new home-building, but those in desperate need of housing can't register to vote in the no-growth towns that ban them. That's structural racism.

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'Every Work of American Literature Is About Race': Writers on How We Got Here

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Amid the most profound social upheaval since the 1960s, these novelists, historians, poets, comedians and activists take a moment to look back to the literature. Almost 100 years ago, responding to the public outcry over the violent drowning of a Black boy by a white mob at a public beach on Lake Michigan, a citywide (multiracial but white-led) commission published "The Negro in Chicago: A Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot."

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In the summer of 2020, the U.S. commemorated Independence Day amid nationwide protests for racial justice and systemic reforms in the wake of George Floyd's death. That June, we asked five young descendants of Frederick Douglass to read and respond to excerpts of his famous speech, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?". It's a powerful, historical text that reminds us of the ongoing work of liberation.

A text version of the full speech is available here.
This video was inspired by Jennifer Crandall's documentary project "Whitman, Alabama." Visit whitmanalabama.com.

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VIDEO: Frederick Douglass' descendants deliver his 'Fourth of July' speech

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Five descendants of Frederick Douglass read and respond to excerpts of his famous speech, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?".

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Skip to Content

Current Exhibitions

Picture the Dream: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement through Children's Books

On view through November 8, 2020

Picture the Dream is the first exhibition of its kind to delve into the events, people, and themes of the civil rights movement through the children's picture book. Picture books are one of the most compelling forms of visual expression, and this exhibition showcases them as an effective bridge between art and storytelling, championing aspects of the movement that are both celebrated and forgotten.

The exhibition is guest curated by award-winning children's book author Andrea Davis Pinkney and marks the High's fifth collaboration with The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. Picture the Dream will be on view at the High from August 15 through November 8, 2020, and at The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art from February 7 through May 30, 2021.

Banner Image Credit: PJ Loughran (American, born 1973), Headed for Montgomery, Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom: My Story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March, 2015, written by Lynda Blackmon Lowery, india ink and acrylic with digital components. Collection of the artist.

Dedication
Picture the Dream is dedicated to the foot soldiers and beacons whose lights have taken flight. Your legacies lift us. Your inspiration empowers our steps. You are angels who guide the way.

The Lasting Legacy of Activism

Bryan Collier (American, born 1967), Untitled, All Because You Matter, 2020, written by Tami Charles, collage. Collection of the artist.

The year 2020 marks the anniversary of several key events from the civil rights movement. Sixty-five years ago, in 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Five years later, Ruby Bridges integrated her New Orleans elementary school, and four Black students catalyzed the sit-in movement at the segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. The exhibition honors these bold actions and voices of the past while highlighting the importance of activism today, in a time when the fight for justice continues nationwide.

Through Picture the Dream, titles by beloved children's book authors and artists as well as talented newcomers come together to encourage discussion and inspire young people to be tomorrow's agents of transformation. The presentation will include more than eighty artworks, ranging from paintings and prints to collages and drawings, that evoke the power and continuing relevance of the era that shaped American history and continues to reverberate today. The exhibition will emphasize children's roles as activists and tell important stories about the movement's icons, including Parks, Bridges, Congressman John Lewis, Ambassador Andrew Young, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Picture the Dream consists of three sections and a short film. The first section, "A Backward Path," investigates life and conditions leading up to the crystallization of the definitive civil rights movement. The second, "The Rocks Are the Road," focuses on key voices and events that shaped the movement. Finally, the third section, "Today's Journey, Tomorrow's Promise," explores equality in the present day, looking at what has changed and what progress can still be made. Each segment strives to display how vibrant stories for children can unpack difficult dialogues around activism and race relations in the United States.

Click on an image below to learn more.

Coretta Scott

Kadir Nelson
American, born 1974
Cover illustration
Coretta Scott, 2009
Written by Ntozake Shange
Oil on wood panel
Collection of the artist

After his death, King's wife, Coretta Scott King, carried on her husband's legacy. Caldecott winner Kadir Nelson's powerful portrait shows that Coretta always looked ahead, focusing on the hope of a better tomorrow.

"As you witness the power conveyed through the art of picture books, you'll be brought to a place of revelation. Here, we stand on firm ground. Here, we can rejoice in the legacy of social justice, a heritage built by the everyday heroes who came before and by the steadfast individuals who continue to carry equality's message. Here is a dream worth following." -Andrea Davis Pinkney

Andrea Davis Pinkney is an editor for Scholastic in New York City, where she and husband, illustrator and collaborator Brian Pinkney, live with their family.

Pinkney is a New York Times-best-selling and Coretta Scott King Book Award-winning favorite figure of children's literature. She has penned four of the books featured in Picture the Dream and has a new title, Loretta Little Looks Back, set to debut this fall.

She also loaned her creative voice to the exhibition labels and text, which she wrote to guide visitors through the galleries in the same way a narrator guides readers through a story.

Film and Animated Play

The short documentary film that will be within the galleries is an opportunity to expand on the stories behind the works of art. Through a series of compelling interviews with authors, illustrators, and activists, viewers will gain a more comprehensive idea of the voices within the movement as well as the artists who visualize history into the pages of treasured books.

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Alliance Theatre at The Woodruff Arts Center, of which the High is also an arts partner, will present an animated edition of the world-premiere play Sit-In (October 2020) based on Andrea Pinkney's book Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down. The play is written by lauded author and playwright Pearl Cleage and features music by Eugene Russell IV. Visit www.alliancetheatre.org for details.

Continue the Conversation

Picture the Dream is an open invitation to start important discussions with children, friends, and family. Take a look at a list of all the books in the show and our family discussion guide, or make the conversation virtual! Complete any of these sentences that inspire you in a post on your favorite social media channel with the hashtag #highmuseumofart.

Civil Rights Are . . .
Activism is . . .
Equality is . . .
Fairness is . . .
Demonstrating is . . .
Freedom is . . .
Peace is . . .
Harmony is . . .

Press

Atlanta Journal Constitution | "High Museum exhibits children's books on civil rights"
WABE | "The High's New Exhibit 'Picture The Dream' Showcases Civil Rights Movement Through Children's Books"
Fox 5 Good Day Atlanta | "Exhibit presents unique 'picture' of civil rights movement"
Traveling Mom | "44 Ways to Teach Kids about Civil Rights, Both Virtual and Real"

Picture the Dream: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement through Children's Books is co-organized by the High Museum of Art and The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Amherst, Massachusetts.
Major funding for this exhibition is provided by

The Lettie Pate Evans Foundation
The Rich Foundation, Inc.

This exhibition is made possible by

Premier Exhibition Series Sponsor

Exhibition Series Sponsors

Premier Exhibition Series Supporters
The Antinori Foundation
Sarah and Jim Kennedy
Louise Sams and Jerome Grilhot

Benefactor Exhibition Series Supporter
Anne Cox Chambers Foundation
Robin and Hilton Howell

Ambassador Exhibition Supporters
Rod Westmoreland

Contributing Exhibition Series Supporters
Lucinda W. Bunnen
Marcia and John Donnell
W. Daniel Ebersole and Sarah Eby-Ebersole
Peggy Foreman
Mr. and Mrs. Baxter Jones
Joel Knox and Joan Marmo
Margot and Danny McCaul
The Ron and Lisa Brill Family Charitable Trust

Additional support is provided by 2020 Grandparents Circle of Support members
Spring and Tom Asher, Anne Cox Chambers, Ann and Tom Cousins, Sandra and John Glover, Shearon and Taylor Glover, Sarah and Jim Kennedy, Jane and Hicks Lanier, and by Lavona Currie, Nena Griffith, Ellen and Tom Harbin, and Margaretta Taylor

Generous support is also provided by
Alfred and Adele Davis Exhibition Endowment Fund, Anne Cox Chambers Exhibition Fund, Barbara Stewart Exhibition Fund, Dorothy Smith Hopkins Exhibition Endowment Fund, Eleanor McDonald Storza Exhibition Endowment Fund, The Fay and Barrett Howell Exhibition Fund, Forward Arts Foundation Exhibition Endowment Fund, Helen S. Lanier Endowment Fund, Isobel Anne Fraser-Nancy Fraser Parker Exhibition Endowment Fund, John H. and Wilhelmina D. Harland Exhibition Endowment Fund, Katherine Murphy Riley Special Exhibition Endowment Fund, Margaretta Taylor Exhibition Fund, and the RJR Nabisco Exhibition Endowment Fund.

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Copyright © 2020 High Museum of Art

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Picture the Dream: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement through Children's Books

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This is not home schooling, distance learning or online schooling.

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This is not home schooling, distance learning or online schooling.

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They say something today that needs to be repeated daily like a mantra: What is happening is not home schooling. It is not distance learning. It is not online schooling.

In this guest column, Hughes and Jones explain what it really is that we are doing.

By Hilary Hughes and Stephanie Jones

Gov. Brian Kemp announced today that schools won't re-open this year, marking a historic moment in time that none of us have experienced or imagined before, a time that will shape us all - and possibly education - moving forward. It's a time to pause, take a collective breath, and learn to be in this new reality so our path forward is one that we can be proud of when we look back on it.

What is happening is not home schooling.

It is not distance learning.

It is not online schooling.

There are philosophies and research guiding those ways of teaching and learning; theories and pedagogies that are enacted in intentional ways. So, we need to guard against using language that we already have about education.

What we are doing right now is something different. (Think "Hunger Games." "Contagion." "Grapes of Wrath.") Schooling and its purposes can change in the blink of an eye when a society is in shock and crisis.

So, let's call this what it is: Covid-19 Schooling; or better yet, Teaching and Learning in Covid-19.

What we're doing today is teaching and learning to be in Covid-19.

Over the last two decades, much about education has turned into what some might call a rat race: rigid and narrow academic expectations, standardized test scores linked to students' value and teachers' pay, extreme competition among students and schools (often leading to cheating and anxiety); militant, inequitable behavior management and discipline, near elimination of the arts and humanities, de-valuing of social and emotional well-being, decreased time outdoors, diminished physical movement and health, and more time "measuring learning outcomes" through a variety of expensive and otherwise costly assessments.

These conditions have hurt children, teenagers, their teachers, and their families. They exist within a system that has seduced us into believing that education is linear, predictable, and quantifiable.

The system runs on stress and pressure, moving targets of success, and micro-managing every aspect of school (and home) life in a way that has pushed educators out of the profession and students to the point of believing that anxiety and depression are normal.

It is a system that has forgotten the important things about life and learning.

But then everything changed and no matter how we got to this point, everyone's lives have been altered forever.

In an instant:

PK-12 schools, colleges, and universities have been shut down. Teachers and professors have had to reimagine what their teaching looks like from a distance and what is even possible for students to learn and do in their own homes.

Educators are working from home. Many are also parents and/or caretakers for sick and elderly family members, and they're not only still trying to work but are also to manage their children's school assignments and their families' needs. They are trying teach their kids while they work or figure out how to pay bills because they've been laid off.

Single parents and guardians are doing things without another adult's help.

Young people have been cut off from physical social interaction with friends, while navigating this new world of schooling. They are subjected to the exponentially increasing horrors of Covid-19, helping with their families, and watching parents and guardians plot out how to safely get food, go to work each day, work at home, locate emergency aid, and/or shelter them (or not) from all they can that is this new reality.

This is not business as usual and it is unethical to act as if it could be. No one can (or should) expect the Covid-19 schooling happening at home to be anything close to usual, and perhaps this moment is providing all of us a chance to do something different: learn to be.

Learning to be will take some work, and maybe we're in a moment of system decompression right now. All of us: children, teenagers, college students, teachers, professors, administrators, parents, and guardians might finally be getting to a point of taking a collective deep breath.

There is no "transforming" face-to-face teaching and learning into Covid-19 teaching and learning overnight. And even if that was possible, doing so might not make sense in this time of national and global emergency.

Learning to be could be paying attention to the ups and downs of emotions, the highs and lows of motivation, the grief of losing routines, of familiarity, of human touch, of loved ones.

Learning to be could be talking about keeping hands clean, not touching faces, sanitizing every surface, and not visiting family members and friends as a way to keep our whole community safer.

Learning to be could be not stressing about messes (or assignments), thinking of creative ways to connect with each other, letting kids explore and do things that are of interest to them.

It could be wearing pajamas all day some days and getting dressed other days. It could be reading together or alone, dancing, making YouTube videos, building forts (inside or outside), singing, playing video games for hours, snuggling pets, watching old movies, cooking weird and new things, writing bad poetry, learning about something you've always wanted to know more about, playing board games, making board games, texting, napping, walking, riding bikes, and doing whatever works for you and yours.

Learning to be means putting an end to the rat race, taking away tests (state mandates are already lifted), stopping the busy work, forgetting about the grades you expected to be putting into the system, ending judgment and punishments, and determining how you can best support your students (and yourself) during this life-altering moment. Teachers can learn to be with students and not over them.

If all of us can take a collective breath and allow ourselves to be in this moment, we can also give our students and their caregivers the space and time everyone needs to learn to be during this time. Together. And apart.

This is not home schooling. And it's not online schooling. Teaching and learning in a time of Covid-19 is what we're doing, and we're figuring it out day by day.

We have a collective opportunity to answer the call of our unprecedented time and make today's education as humane, generous, caring, and yes, even as joyful as we possibly can.

We can all learn to be.

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About the Author

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Opinion: This is not home schooling, distance learning or online schooling.

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Two University of Georgia education professors says that what is happening is not home schooling. It is not distance learning. It is not online schooling. let's call this what it is: Covid-19 Schooling; or better yet, Teaching and Learning in Covid-19.

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Transform your conversations about racism

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Transform your conversations about racism

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Let's face it. Racial justice work can be emotionally taxing. That's why I created Racial Justice from the H.E.A.R.T. Our programs ease the wear and tear on your heart as you create change.
TRANSFORM YOUR CONVERSATIONS ABOUT RACISM
Are you a person of color who wants to be good at conversations about racism without exhausting yourself? Are you afraid of saying the wrong thing?

Are you a European American who is afraid to say the wrong thing?

Check out the free online master class below.
TACKLE YOU IMPLICIT RACIAL BIAS
Science shows we all have it but most of us are scared to admit it.

Don't get called out for your hidden biases!

Transform your biases in our 5 Day Challenge BEFORE you harm others.

Details Below.

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Racial Justice From the HEART: Dr. Amanda Kemp

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Let's face it. Racial justice work can be emotionally taxing. That's why I created Racial Justice from the H.E.A.R.T. Our programs ease the wear and tear on your heart as you create change. TRANSFORM YOUR CONVERSATIONS ABOUT RACISM Are you a person of color who wants to be good at conversations about racism without exhausting yourself?

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21-Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge

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21-Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge

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The 21-Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge is designed to empower you to be a more effective player in the quest for justice.

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31 Children's Books to Support Conversations on Race, Racism, and Resistance

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31 Children's Books to Support Conversations on Race, Racism, and Resistance

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17 Books that Promote the Understanding of Autism

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17 Books that Promote the Understanding of Autism

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about 1 in 59 children in the U.S. has been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Yet despite improvements, people with autism are still relatively underrepresented in the realm of film, TV and literature.

In honor of Autism Awareness Month, we compiled a list of children's books that feature characters on the spectrum and tackle issues related to autism.

While some speak from the perspective of a child with autism, others show the perspective of a neurotypical sibling or friend. All promote understanding and acceptance for kids on the spectrum.

This story has been updated to include the CDC's new statistics about the prevalence of autism.

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17 Children's Books That Promote Understanding Of Autism

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about 1 in 59 children in the U.S. has been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Yet despite improvements, people with autism are still relatively underrepresented in the realm of film, TV and literature.

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Racism Has Devastating Effects on Children's Health

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Racism Has Devastating Effects on Children's Health

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August 2
The nation's largest group of pediatricians warned this week that racism can have devastating long-term effects on children's health.

A policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics is the first it has issued to its members on the dangers of racism. Doctors involved in the report saidthe current political and cultural atmosphere makes the work more urgent.

"If you look at what's in the news today, in social media, on Twitter, there's so much kids are exposed to," said Jackie Douge, a pediatrician with the Howard County Health Department who co-wrote the statement. "As much as you want to keep it in the background, it's not in the background. It's having direct health effects on kids."

Their report comes at a time when racism is dominating headlines, driven by racist tweets from President Trump, which have inspired chants at his rallies, and also by the rise of white nationalism.

Other pediatricians welcomed the report, which drew on 180 key studies and includes specific recommendations, and said the danger to their patients has become acute.

"There was a time not too long ago under another president when I think we as a society were talking about living in a post-racial age. That's changed pretty dramatically," said Nia J. Heard-Garris, a pediatrician at Northwestern University. "It's a new age of racism."

A study published last year in JAMA Pediatrics found an increase in teenagers' stress and worry about discrimination between 2016 and 2017. The researchers surveyed 2,572 high school students in Los Angeles during the 2016 presidential campaign and again during the first several months of 2017, after Trump's election. Teenagers who were more stressed were more likely to drink, smoke or experiment with drugs.

Scientists have documented health disparities among races in the United States for decades. African Americans are more likely than whites to die of diabetes and have a higher prevalence of hypertension and heart disease. Black children are four times as likely to be admitted to the hospital for asthma.

Environmental factors such as income levels, education, exposure to pollution and access to high-quality health care explain some of the differences. But researchers have become increasingly certain that racism and discrimination play a role, as well.

Exposure to racism in adults has been linked to an increased risk of heart disease, depression and other ailments.

And researchers have increasingly identified dangers racism presents to the development of babies and children. Studies have found lower birth weights in babies born to African American mothers who experience discrimination. A recent analysis found an increased risk of premature birth among Latina women following Trump's election, part of a pattern of poorer health outcomes among Latinos during his administration. Other recent studies have found an increased risk of depression, obesity and greater susceptibility to sickness among children who are exposed to racism. Researchers have linked racism experienced by children to worsened sleep, higher rates of doctor visits and lower self-esteem.

One of the main mechanisms responsible for those effects, researchers say, is the way prolonged stress wears away at people's bodies. Experiences of discrimination can flood the body with stress hormones such as cortisol - a chemical that readies the body to fight or flee. Studies have show that even the anticipation of discrimination can trigger the stress response. Over time, stress hormones can lead to inflammatory reactions that make the body more susceptible to chronic diseases.

There are other ways discrimination can affect children's health. The American Academy of Pediatrics report points out structural problems such as the disproportionate number of minority youths incarcerated by the juvenile justice system, disparities in access to health care, food insecurity and poverty.

One challenge researchers often encounter is how to measure exposure to racism and tease it apart from other health factors. Many studies rely on self-reported experiences or feelings of discrimination. They typically conclude that a correlation exists between racism and negative effects on health but cannot prove those health effects are caused by racism. But taken together, researchers say, the thousands of studies linking racism and health suggest there is a strong relationship.

A few studies have used real-life situations to measure racism's effects more directly. One study linked the increase in harassment of Arab Americans after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to significantly higher rates of preterm birth and low birth weights among Arabic-named women in the six months following the terrorist attacks.

Another study was conducted after a 2008 immigration raid at a meat-processing plant in Iowa that involved hundreds of Latinos. Using birth certificate data from the nine months after the raid, researchers found a greater risk of premature birth and low birth weight for babies born to Latina mothers. The heightened risk existed for both immigrant mothers and those born in the United States, suggesting that the perception of discrimination was a factor, even for women not personally at risk of deportation.

In recent years, Heard-Garris has studied how vicarious racism - discrimination experienced by parents - can have health consequences for their children. In 2018, she published a systematic review of more than 1,300 studies on racism and children's health. Some of the health impacts, she found, were more immediate and measurable, such as increased likelihood of substance abuse or obesity.

Other effects were more indirect and pernicious, she said. Even experienced vicariously, she found, racism can threaten a child's sense of the world as just, fair and safe and instead foster feelings of helplessness and despair - which have long-term implications for mental and physical health.

The primary job of pediatricians is to protect children's health, said Kyle Yasuda, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. "It's more than just medicine and genetic makeup. It means looking at all the determinants of health. And science has shown us racism plays a part in that equation."

The new report issued by AAP to its 67,000 members includes an extensive list of recommendations. It advises pediatricians to take racism into account in their clinical practices - to be prepared to counsel families on their exposure to racism and to make their clinics as welcoming to all groups as possible. It also calls for pediatricians to examine their own biases and address them.

The report calls racism "a socially transmitted disease passed down through generations, leading to the inequities observed in our population today." And, it says, "Pediatricians are uniquely positioned to both prevent and mitigate the consequences of racism as a key and trusted source of support for pediatric patients and their families."

The AAP recommends diversifying the pediatrics field and training clinic staff and pediatric residents to be more "culturally competent" and better able to communicate sensitively and effectively with families from all backgrounds. And it calls for pediatricians to join community efforts - such as creating safe playgrounds or healthy food markets - to combat racism's effects on segregated, impoverished areas. The report also recommends more funding and research to address the health effects of racism.

Researchers will keep monitoring the long-term impact of racism on kids' health, Heard-Garris said. "I see them trying to shut it out and tune it out. I think they're trying to figure out ways of coping that previous generations didn't have to. And I don't think we'll know what the consequences are going to be for a while."
Read more: Trump's presidency may be making Latinos sick The trauma of separation lingers long after children are reunited with parents 'He always doubles down': Inside the political crisis caused by Trump's racist tweets

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Racism has devastating effects on children's health, pediatricians warn

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August 2 The nation's largest group of pediatricians warned this week that racism can have devastating long-term effects on children's health. A policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics is the first it has issued to its members on the dangers of racism.

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Data Shows How Parents Accidentally Pass on Racial Prejudice

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Data Shows How Parents Accidentally Pass on Racial Prejudice

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Children learn prejudice from their parents, a new study suggests, and racism hits kids whether or not they hear their dads raging about immigration , hurling invective, or dropping the odd slur. Research found that parents who harbored private, implicit biases against other races appeared to pass those along to their kids as well. The findings suggest that efforts to stamp out racism may be fruitless until adults address their own biases - and that kids may pick up on even subtle hints at prejudice.

"Our research revealed that parents are powerful vehicles of ethnic prejudice transmission towards their children," co-author on the study Giuseppe Carrus of Roma Tre University in Italy told . "Not only through their explicit communications and actions, but also through their unaware and unconscious beliefs, stereotypes and automatic behaviors."

That's not to say kids aren't sort of racist all by themselves. Studies have identified prejudice in children as young as three years old , and even infants seem to prefer faces that match their own ethnicities and people who speak their own languages . Experts agree that an ethnicity bias clearly emerges at around three years of age , peaks in 8-year-olds, and then gradually declines .

The question is how much we should be blaming parents for this bias. A handful of studies have noted strong similarities between the racial attitudes of parents and children , while others have found only weak correlations between racist parents and kids who display ethnic bias . This ambiguity prompted Carrus and colleagues to investigate how parents' implicit and explicit biases impact their children, with a large sample of 318 white kids between the ages of 3 and 9.

Carrus and his team first asked each parent to respond to 20 statements about ethnic prejudice ("immigrants take our jobs"; "immigrants transmit values not required in our country"). Then, the researchers showed each child photographs of six children from different ethnic groups and asked them to indicate which child he or she "would like to be," and which child he or she "would like to invite over for a playdate." This measured each child's level of implicit bias. Finally, they asked the children to assign adjectives to each photograph, some positive (nice; good; clean) and some decidedly negative (dirty; stupid; bad). This measured each child's level of explicit bias.

Carrus and colleagues found that parents who displayed high levels of prejudice were significantly more likely to have children who displayed explicit and implicit bias. "Our findings suggest that children's prejudice may be rooted in the automatic behavior and implicit social influence processes enacted by their significant adults, more than in what parents explicitly think (and likely say) about ethnically different people to their children," the authors write in the study.

For policymakers, the takeaway is that interventions to prevent bias need to include both parents and children. "Ethnic bias should be contrasted through prevention programs on children and adults," Carrus says. "Rather than with interventions on ethnically biased children."

But for parents, the findings have more personal implications. Besides taking pains to avoid explicitly derogatory statements, the study suggests parents who aspire to raise tolerant children need to ensure that they aren't subtly hinting at their biases in ways that kids internalize. Parents can accomplish this by not "using 'us vs. them' expressions," Carrus suggests, "or by smaller things, such as showing themselves open to talking about other cultures and countries, watching TV and movies from other countries, eating food from other parts of the world. "

"Education to diversity is also a key for overcoming prejudice," Carrus says. "By transmitting the importance of endorsing universal values of humanity, tolerance, and benevolence in our lives."

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New Data Shows Parents Accidentally Pass on Prejudice

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Children learn prejudice from their parents, a new study suggests, and racism hits kids whether or not they hear their dads raging about immigration , hurling invective, or dropping the odd slur. Research found that parents who harbored private, implicit biases against other races appeared to pass those along to their kids as well.

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What to Do When Your Child is the Only Black Student in Class

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What to Do When Your Child is the Only Black Student in Class

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What To Do When Your Child Is The Only Black Student In Class

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Girl mom here. And I must admit, sending my daughter to school has me pretty freaked out. I don't mean in the sense that something will happen to her but...that something will happen to her identity. Granted, this isn't her first time in public shool.

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If you've ever seen something unusual on your kid's skin, you've likely turned to the internet for guidance as you anxiously wait for an appointment with your pediatrician. On health education sites, you'll find images of every common dermatological condition, including eczema, hand-foot-and-mouth disease, chicken pox, impetigo and measles. But the images almost exclusively feature white patients. (To see for yourself, just do a quick search of these conditions on the Mayo Clinic, WebMD and American Dermatological Association websites. Even the illustrationsof bumps, sores and rashes are only shown on white skin.)

For years, this has frustrated Ellen Buchanan Weiss, whose toddler son is mixed race. She's tried searching for photographs online to reference conditions such as chicken pox and hives, but tells me that "even adding the qualifier 'chicken pox on black child' yields mostly Caucasian examples." Recently, she decided to do something to help other parents facing similar barriers, and began collecting photos on her own. Her project Brown Skin Matters is an Instagram account filled with reference images of dermatological conditions on non-white skin. You can see what ant bites can look like on a child who is Hispanic and black. Or how the viral illness Fifths disease can manifest in a child who is black and white.

From the photos, it's clear that conditions look different on different skin tones. On a post featuring a black child with chicken pox, one person commented: "Thank you! My mom (white) always said she wasn't sure if we'd actually had chicken pox because they didn't look how she expected. But the pediatrician said we did."

While Weiss is not a medical professional, she is working with physicians to review the viewer-submitted photos. She emphasizes that the information on Brown Skin Matters is for educational and reference purposes only, and not a diagnosis. "I'm just a regular person who dearly loves her son and wants equitable representation and resources available to him and other people who look like him," Weiss says.

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See What Children's Rashes Look Like on Darker Skin With 'Brown Skin Matters'

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If you've ever seen something unusual on your kid's skin, you've likely turned to the internet for guidance as you anxiously wait for an appointment with your pediatrician. On health education sites, you'll find images of every common dermatological condition, including eczema, hand-foot-and-mouth disease, chicken pox, impetigo and measles.

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Most texts feature white characters

For decades, children's books in school libraries and classrooms have overwhelmingly featured white faces. And as the U.S. school-age population grows more diverse, students of color are less likely than white students to see books with characters that look like them or share their cultural background.

Some educators and children's book authors are trying to change that.

Nonprofits like We Need Diverse Books advocate for children's literature that better reflects the experiences of all young readers. In online communities, such as those formed around Twitter hashtags #DisruptTexts and #DiversityJedi, teachers, authors, and critics discuss which books are given to students in classrooms and what messages they convey. Even DonorsChoose.org, the school crowdfunding platform, recently pledged to match donations to teacher requests for diverse learning materials.

The ripples of this ongoing conversation have reached a lot of classrooms, said Jess Lifshitz, a 5th grade teacher at Meadowbrook Elementary School in Northbrook, Ill.

"More teachers now know it's the right thing to have books that represent a wide variety of people," said Lifshitz. But, she added, "I think people do that, and they kind of want to check it off the checklist."

Important Messages

Supporters of diverse books say that it's important for children of color to see their own identities and experiences reflected in literature. And studies have shown that black children who receive messages emphasizing cultural pride-though not necessarily through books-have higher self-esteem, better social-emotional functioning, and increased classroom engagement.

But developing a truly inclusive classroom library goes beyond bringing in diverse books. "Just having them on the shelf does not ... do that teaching or unlearning of the stereotypes that we are barragged with all the time," said Laura Jiménez, a lecturer in Boston University's education school.

Following the civil rights and women's rights movements, a call for multicultural education in the 1970s and '80s drove schools to incorporate texts that would challenge stereotypes about people of color and shed light on the historical injustices perpetrated against those groups, said Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, an associate professor in the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education.

Those texts were meant to repair distorted narratives, said Thomas, but they can be painful for children of color to read because they often deal with traumatic events. Thomas has seen these patterns persist in the literature that students have access to today-many of the books about black people cover slavery or the civil rights movement.

"The white child gets all kinds of mirrors of the self in literature," said Thomas. "Endless, countless adventures. The full range of history-the good, bad, and the ugly. Whereas other children only get a very narrow slice of that history."

Now, some educators are examining the composition of their classroom libraries as a whole and the stories that these books tell. And they're asking their students to examine the stereotypes that they hold as readers.

Auditing the Classroom

The Cooperative Children's Book Center, a library at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education, has tracked diversity in children's books since the 1980s. Last year, 11 percent of children's books published in the United States featured main characters who were African or African-American, about 9 percent were about Asian-Americans or Pacific Islanders, about 7 percent featured Latino main characters, and only 1 percent were about native peoples. That's in contrast to the demographics of public schools today, where there are now more students of color than white students.

Even when teachers bring diverse books into their lessons, the broader context of a classroom or school library might still disproportionately favor white characters.

Noelle Mapes, a 2nd grade teacher at PS 142 in New York City, has found that to be true in her own classroom.

Three years ago, when she was teaching 3rd grade at a different school, she started conducting an annual diversity audit of her classroom library with her students. First, they looked at national trends in the racial diversity of children's books, using the cooperative center's data. Then, the elementary schoolers did their own tally in the classroom, recording the race of the protagonist of each book.

Mapes now does this activity every April, after introducing her students to the idea that books can be both "windows," exposing readers to new worlds and perspectives, and "mirrors," reflecting readers' own experiences-a framework developed by author and education researcher Rudine Sims Bishop, a professor emerita of education at Ohio State University.

Every year, the highest percentage of books feature white protagonists. And every year, students are surprised-and disappointed.

In Mapes' classroom, the overrepresentation of white characters isn't for lack of trying to improve. The first year Mapes did the audit in her old school, students started bringing in books with protagonists of color to donate. As a result of her project, the PTA allocated funds for teachers to buy more titles. She also uses school-provided funds for her classroom to buy diverse books every year.

Over time, the percentage of diverse books in her old classroom increased, Mapes said. But when she left the school, books with white main characters still outnumbered books featuring characters of color in her classroom library. "Each year, as that initiative grows, as awareness grows around what kinds of books we want to buy and have donated, the margins should decrease," she said.

Perpetuating Stereotypes?

In examining her classroom library, Mapes said, she's also noticed some of the narratives that her collection shapes. In years when she has had the time, she's gone through some of the categories of books with her students after the audit. When they looked at the books about Native Americans one year, she noticed a theme: All were set in the past.

That trend holds true across children's books about native people, conveying the myth that they don't exist anymore, said Debbie Reese, the founder of the American Indians in Children's Literature blog.

"The idea that we can have present-day culture, modern-day society as part of our lives and still have our traditional religion and culture intact-it's a no-brainer to me as a native person, but society has a hard time understanding that," said Reese, who is tribally enrolled at Nambé Pueblo. Characters also often aren't named by their tribal affiliation, Reese said, which obscures the fact that there are more than 500 different federally recognized native nations, all with unique languages and cultures.

Some educators are asking students to interrogate these "single story" narratives that they may carry.

Every spring, Lifshitz, the Illinois teacher, does an activity around bias in books. She covers the titles on a handful of picture books in her classroom and poses some statements describing what the books are about-sentences like: "This is a book dealing with sadness and struggle and loss," or "This is a book about the love and joy that exists between family members."

Lifhsitz's students, who are majority white, are asked to match up each book with each statement, relying on cover art alone. Usually, the children guess that the covers featuring black families are about struggle, pain, or trauma-even when they aren't.

Once the titles and summaries of the books are revealed, the students can usually explain what has happened in the exercise. "They're willing to say, 'Oh you know what, I was totally using skin color to make an assumption, and that's what led me to the wrong answer,'" she said.

Teaching students to think critically about the kinds of stories books are telling is just as important as having a diverse array of literature in the classroom, said Lifshitz.

No matter how much she works to confront stereotypes in her classroom, students are still going to confront them out in the world, she said. "If I don't give them tools to recognize that, having the books in my classroom isn't really doing much to change how they're reading outside of the classroom."

Published in Print: June 12, 2019, as Teachers Push for More Diverse Books, Fewer Stereotypes

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Teachers Push for Books With More Diversity, Fewer Stereotypes

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For decades, children's books in school libraries and classrooms have overwhelmingly featured white faces. And as the U.S. school-age population grows more diverse, students of color are less likely than white students to see books with characters that look like them or share their cultural background.

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In August of 1619, a ship appeared on this horizon, near Point Comfort, a coastal port in the English colony of Virginia. It carried more than 20 enslaved Africans, who were sold to the colonists. No aspect of the country that would be formed here has been untouched by the years of slavery that followed. On the 400th anniversary of this fateful moment, it is finally time to tell our story truthfully.

The 1619 Project is a major initiative from The New York Times observing the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe the country's history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are.

Photograph by Dannielle Bowman

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In August of 1619, a ship appeared on this horizon, near Point Comfort, a coastal port in the English colony of Virginia. It carried more than 20 enslaved Africans, who were sold to the colonists. No aspect of the country that would be formed here has been untouched by the years of slavery that followed.

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The Science Behind Why Black People Root for Everybody Black

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The Science Behind Why Black People Root for Everybody Black

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In 2017, at the Emmy Awards, Issa Rae, actress and producer of the HBO-hit Insecure, was asked who she was rooting for to win. "I'm rooting for everybody Black," Rae shared, provoking controversy among those who argued that her statement was racially biased. But Rae's comment gets at something deeper about the psychology of how Black people relate to one another.

The concept of "linked fate" was developed by political scientist Michael Dawson and indicates that Black people feel that their destinies are tied to the destinies of other Black people. When one Black person is racially discriminated against, it sends a symbolic message to all Black people that they too are vulnerable to this same type of discrimination, based on having a shared skin color. Thus, their destinies are linked. Research has found that Black people feel this sense of linked fate with one another because of their common vulnerability to racial discrimination. A report released in July of 2019 by Pew Research Center finds that Black people have a higher rate of linked fate than any other racial group.

Linked fate means that when one Black person succeeds, other Black people feel their success vicariously; one person's success is the entire community's. This leads to a communal rather than competitive dynamic among Black people, wherein Black people are willing to help one another.

Linked fate can also be traced back to a history of communalism among people of African descent. The South African concept of "Ubuntu" means "I am because we are." The term was coined in 1846, originating in the book Testamente Entsha by HH Hare. It became popularized in the west through the work of Nobel prize-winning archbishop and anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu. Ubuntu emphasizes a common humanity, highlighting how what happens to one person affects everyone.

The concepts of Ubuntu and linked fate differ, however, in that Ubuntu joins together all of humanity, whereas linked fate emphasizes a common bond among people of African descent. Is it unfair for Black people to feel for and support people who share their race? If White people embraced linked fate, then wouldn't that be racist? To answer these questions, we must consider the larger political context in which different racial groups exist.

Research finds that a Black person is less likely to be called back for a job than a White person with a criminal record, even when the two share an identical resume. When Black students commit the same school infraction, multiple times, teachers are more likely to label Black students as troublemakers and deserving of more severe discipline than Whites.

One study presented research participants with a story about someone who committed a felony, and the race of the person in the story was manipulated to be either Black or White. The study found that both college students and police offers rated the person in the story as more culpable for the crime when they were Black versus White. The study also found that this bias in perceived culpability was stronger among police officers who unconsciously dehumanized Black people (demonstrated an unconscious association between Black people and apes).

With racial discrimination creating an environment that makes it more difficult for Black people to succeed, Black people counteract this unfairness through being willing to support one another. Thus, rather than being an unfair boon for Black people, linked fate and Black people's resulting willingness to support other Black people, is a way to attempt to level the playing field amidst a group that continues to face striking disadvantage.

But this sense of community, this natural ability to feel for one another among Black people, also comes with a dark side. When harm befalls one Black person, the pain ripples throughout the Black community. Black people often experience personal distress in reaction to publicized police shootings aimed at other Black people. One research study found that police shootings of unarmed Black people are related to poorer mental health among Black people living in the state in which the shooting occurred. "'Having seen something so horrific and traumatic that happened to someone else, I'm reminded in a very painful and salient way that the deck might be stacked against me,'" stated Atheendar S. Venkataramani, one of the study's authors.

Linked fate is why harm to one Black person is often felt by all Black people, but also why Black people are rooting for everybody Black. Black people experience a collective emotional world. People of African descent have a long history of lifting each other up. Linked fate is the key to understanding why.

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The Science of Why Black People Root for Everybody Black

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In 2017, at the Emmy Awards, Issa Rae, actress and producer of the HBO-hit Insecure, was asked who she was rooting for to win. "I'm rooting for everybody Black," Rae shared, provoking controversy among those who argued that her statement was racially biased.

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The Difference Between Latino & Hispanic

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The Difference Between Latino & Hispanic

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The difference between "Latino" and "Hispanic" in one cartoon

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Many people don't know when to say "Hispanic" and when to say "Latino." So I drew a comic to explain the difference.

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Teaching 6-year-olds about Privilege and Power

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Teaching 6-year-olds about Privilege and Power

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It was clear his students were used to this type of question. They immediately started throwing out ideas.

"I think why African American people end up on the street is because they lose jobs because people were treating them badly, and then they end up on the street with no home," said one girl.

"Some people might also be homeless if they try to apply for jobs, but they keep getting denied because of the color of their skin," suggested a boy.

Turner and his students have been discussing all year long how power and privilege are built into all aspects of society. He often takes opportunities like this one to ask students to connect those prior conversations to whatever topic is at hand. In fact, the structural inequalities that lead to homelessness is one of the least potentially controversial topics they've tackled. They've also discussed microaggressions, gender inequality, gender identity and structural racism.

"I think that kids can handle a lot more nuance than we generally give them credit for," Turner said. "You can talk about anything with kids. You can make anything accessible, no matter how uncomfortable or atrocious it may seem."

Some people may think first grade is a bit early for some of these heavy topics. Some parents have pushed back against Turner's approach, and he's received many critical -- and sometimes hateful -- comments online from people who disagree with him. But Turner says kids are aware of race from a very early age, as early as 6 months old. And his students bring their own honest questions to class.

Turner sees what he's doing as planting seeds of inquiry and offering students some tools so they can continue to grapple with issues that are at the core of American society as they grow up. He says that, as a white man, he had the privilege not to think about how his race, class and sexuality smoothed his way through life. He's doing a lot of that work now, and he says teachers owe it to both their white students and their students of color to initiate these conversations in safe and developmentally appropriate ways.

But when recess comes, they still run around with friends, play in the dirt and have fun. The difference is that when they see something on TV or encounter discrimination on the playground, they're empowered to talk about it outright.
GIVING KIDS TOOLS TO GRAPPLE WITH DIFFICULT TOPICS
About half of Turner's students are kids of color. Turner wants his students to feel comfortable talking about privilege and power so they can move through life aware of how these issues play out all around them. He wants to equip them with the vocabulary, tools and confidence to continue engaging difficult subjects as their understanding gets more nuanced. He says they aren't too young. In fact, he's found his students are often better at talking about difficult issues than most adults. They just process them from a 6-year-old's perspective.

Take fairness. Turner noted that it's common for young kids to exclude one another in games and on the playground based on differences, including racial differences. When that happens, Turner doesn't ignore the racial aspect of the exclusion. He talks about it openly with kids.

"I mean, if you've ever seen kids try to get into line and like who goes in front of who, and cutting in line, you'll know immediately that kids want everything to be fair. So it actually doesn't take that much for kids to enter into the conversation about racism and privilege."

Turner is also careful to weave these discussions into everything he does. He doesn't isolate discussions of race to Black History Month, or talk about Native Americans only around Thanksgiving. When his class studied money, for example, they noticed that only white men are pictured. Or, when the class was learning to skip-count by twos, Turner had them practice by tallying the number of men and women in the U.S. Senate. From there, they had a fruitful discussion about unequal representation in Congress and whether that's fair. Students had mixed opinions, which Turner loves.

"That is a lesson that stuck with a lot of kids and it gets referenced a lot," he said.

Check out the MindShift Podcast to hear what these conversations sound like in Bret Turner's classroom. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, NPR One, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts to learn more about what brought Turner, a straight white man, to teach this way. And, hear about some of the gratitude and pushback he's gotten from parents.
BRET TURNER'S JOURNEY TO TEACHING ABOUT POWER AND PRIVILEGE
Turner didn't always teach this way. In his early years of teaching, when students would ask a question that implicated race or asked why there were more white characters in their classroom books than kids of color, he would steer the conversation back to the lesson. He'd say they'd talk about it later or brush past the topic. But he began to realize that he was sending kids the message that they shouldn't talk about those issues.

"All of the evidence, both academic and anecdotal, that I've ever seen suggests that you actually have to talk to kids about it," Turner said. "And if you don't, you are unfortunately perpetuating the idea that it is not to be talked about, that white privilege is off-limits, that racism has been solved."

But that doesn't mean it's comfortable for him. Turner is acutely aware that he's a straight white man with a lot of privileges. He was worried he didn't have the depth of understanding, or the personal experience, to teach about these difficult topics well. He also knows he's not the only one doing this work -- many teachers of color have been bringing these types of lessons into their classrooms for years. Still, 80 percent of classroom teachers are white, so he sees it as his duty to help students navigate these tricky issues.

"When I realized that opting out of conversations and difficult questions was potentially damaging, I realized I couldn't do it anymore," Turner said. "As uncomfortable as I might be sometimes."

Still, he admits there are logistical challenges to teaching this way. He has a jampacked curriculum to get through, and every time one of these conversations comes up, it takes time. He understands that many teachers fear messing up or not knowing all the answers, and that can be a barrier to even starting this type of classroom conversation. At first he felt that way, too, but gradually he came to a place where he'd rather try, admit what he doesn't know, and model being a learner to find the answers.

Turner is also careful to set expectations at the start of the year with parents. He tells them at back-to-school night that in his classroom, they will be talking about all the "isms" -- racism and sexism among them -- because kids bring questions about them into the classroom. And he uses his newsletter to communicate to parents when a potentially fraught conversation took place spontaneously, or if one is planned.

"I don't want any of this to seem like cloak-and-dagger stuff where I'm doing this 'indoctrination' behind their backs in class," Turner said. When it's relevant, he also sends articles home, videos of the class, and recaps of the discussions, "just so I can be as open and clear as possible, so it doesn't take people by surprise."

Oakland mother Carla Wicks appreciates Turner's leadership. She's an African American parent whose daughter, Kendal, was in Turner's class last year. When she heard his back-to-school speech about the "isms," she approached him afterward to thank him for his "courage."

Wicks and her husband didn't have to sit their kids down to talk about racism -- it comes up all the time. When Kendal was in preschool, she was already hearing messages that lighter skin colors are more beautiful.

"These are the conversations that we have, as people of color, very early on, all the time," Wicks said.

She sees it as a teacher's job to be culturally literate and sensitive so they can respond nimbly when issues of race, privilege or power come up in the classroom. She trusts her kids' teachers to understand what's developmentally appropriate, and they should be able to have difficult conversations with kids in ways that equip them to live in a complicated world.

"I think if most human beings going through our education system had these conversations at this early age, then we'd probably be in a different place than we are today," she said.

But Turner said other parents have objected to his approach. They've told him these topics are too heavy for young children, or that he's abusing his position of power as a teacher to push a "liberal agenda."

Turner has taken that critique to heart, analyzing his classroom practice for whether there's truth in those claims. He understands that young kids want to please their teachers, but says he's not telling his students what to think. He asks questions that help kids to see patterns of injustice, and encourages them to make connections across the curriculum.

"I don't know what we want of kids other than for them to be critical thinkers and to question when things don't seem right," Turner said.

CLASSROOM RESOURCES BRET TURNER USES TO TEACH ABOUT POWER AND PRIVILEGE

Turner also shares these resources with parents:

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Teaching 6-Year-Olds About Privilege and Power

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Privilege and power play out in the world all around us every day. And kids notice. First-grade teacher Bret Turner has decided not to avoid the difficult conversations and questions his students bring to class. Instead, he's weaving discussions of things like racism and gender inequality into everything he does.

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Teaching Tolerance provides free resources to educators-teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioners-who work with children from kindergarten through high school. Educators use our materials to supplement the curriculum, to inform their practices, and to create civil and inclusive school communities where children are respected, valued and welcome participants.

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Without #ClearTheAir tonight, I'm going to share something that #ClearTheAir helped me do.

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Without #ClearTheAir tonight, I'm going to share something that #ClearTheAir helped me do.

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Without #ClearTheAir tonight, I'm going to share something that #ClearTheAir helped me do.
— lizzie fortin (@lizziefortin) September 4, 2019

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Without #ClearTheAir tonight, I'm going to share something that #ClearTheAir helped me do.

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Without #ClearTheAir tonight, I'm going to share something that #ClearTheAir helped me do.

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Without #ClearTheAir tonight, I'm going to share something that #ClearTheAir helped me do.

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NYC Kids Allowed to Miss School for Climate Strike

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NYC Kids Allowed to Miss School for Climate Strike

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NEW YORK - Call it an activist field trip. New York City students will be allowed to miss school for a massive youth protest against climate change, officials announced Thursday.

Public school students can have their absences excused if they miss class to attend the Sept. 20 "Climate Strike" demanding an end to fossil fuel use and a transition to green energy, according to the Department of Education.

The teen-led protest is expected to draw a huge crowd to Foley Square joining similar rallies across the world coinciding with the United Nations General Assembly.

"Today's leaders are making decisions for our environment that our kids will have to live with," Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday on Twitter. "New York City stands with our young people. They're our conscience. We support the 9/20 #ClimateStrike."

All protesting students will have to get permission from their parents to have their absences excused, the DOE said. Elementary school kids will only be able to leave school with a parent, officials said.

The Education Department will give schools, parents and students guidance about how kids can participate in the rally, officials said. The DOE said it will also "encourage class discussions about the impact of climate change."

The city also supported students who participated in nationwide school walkouts protesting gun violence in March of last year. Those who protested were not marked absent as long as they went straight back to class after the brief rallies.

But the DOE did not offer the same amnesty for a daylong student walkout the following month, saying kids who participated would be marked absent under normal attendance policies.

The New York City climate strike is backed by more than 100 environmental and political activist groups and other institutions, including New York Communities for Change, The New School and the Sierra Club.

The protesters' demands include a "Green New Deal" that would end fossil fuel extraction and move the nation onto entirely renewable energy sources by 2030. Green New Deal policies have been backed by the likes of U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

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NYC Kids Allowed To Miss School For 'Climate Strike' Protest

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NEW YORK - Call it an activist field trip. New York City students will be allowed to miss school for a massive youth protest against climate change, officials announced Thursday. Public school students can have their absences excused if they miss class to attend the Sept.

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Teacher Education Needs to Acknowledge Whiteness

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Teacher Education Needs to Acknowledge Whiteness

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Opinion

Whiteness is socially constructed. Teachers need to deconstruct it

When I was in 3rd grade, I begged my mother to help me choose an outfit for my school's "Pioneer Day." My mom looked at me, sighed in resignation, and said, "OK." My eyes lit up in excitement but quickly dimmed, as she continued, "But you know you would not have been one of them."

One of them.

Even at 9 years old, I knew she was right. I am biracial, a descendant of enslaved Africans and the daughter of an East Asian immigrant. Clearly, White colonialism was not my history. Yet, I hated that my parents always reminded me that I wasn't White, or rather, I wasn't normal.

I don't know when I had come to understand that Whiteness equated normalcy. In my predominantly White schooling, my teachers, though some well-intentioned, erased me by centering a monolithic, Eurocentric perspective. How students spoke, how we behaved, and what we learned were all premised on a standard that upheld Whiteness. In 6th grade, my teacher pulled me aside and told me not to hang with my African-American friends because they were "bad," and I was "better" than them.

Later, I learned to reposition how I understood "normal," thanks to my parents, who supplemented my formal education with African-American history and sent me to Chinese school to learn about my two cultures. For me, this education was critical for building a sense of self.

Yet, two decades past my primary school experience, the majority of teachers are still far less racially and ethnically diverse than their students. Most curricula still do not extend beyond the dominant Western canon.

Most teacher trainings emphasize classroom management, how to write an objective, and how to check for understanding-which are important for any skilled educator. But before mastering these goals, teachers must reflect on their identities in relationship to power and privilege. This understanding might support teachers working against unjust structures, refusing to passively support systems that oppress vulnerable communities they might serve.

Some cities have tried to address this disconnect, but change hasn't been easy. When New York City's public schools chancellor Richard Carranza recently mandated an implicit bias training for teachers, the trainings received mixed reviews. One anonymous White teacher told the New York Post, "It feels like I'm in a dystopian novel where all of a sudden being White is bad. All of a sudden, I'm the enemy."

What this response exposes is the lack of understanding of institutionalized racism in this country and the ways educators explicitly or implicitly uphold systematic oppression. Ongoing teacher education that addresses Whiteness rigorously and systematically could lessen this confusion.

Whiteness was constructed to establish a racial hierarchy that sustains the privilege and power of White individuals and rewards those who assimilate to Whiteness, shedding their own cultural pluralities. Though race is biologically false, it is socially real. As historian David Roediger put it in his 1994 Towards the Abolition of Whiteness, "Whiteness is not only false and oppressive, it is nothing but false and oppressive."

People weren't "White" or "Black" before they arrived on the indigenous land we now call the United States. As Africans were kidnapped and enslaved on western shores, colonists created a "White identity." In Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, Ibram X. Kendi traces how the term "race" was utilized to identify, differentiate, and animalize African people.

So how does this shape our current reality? The construction of Whiteness led to government authorized racially segregated neighborhoods. The construction of Whiteness led to racially segregated schools where resources and opportunities continue to be hoarded for already privileged children. The construction of Whiteness explains the impulses of White parents up in arms about the possibility of sending their children to school with "disadvantaged" (read: Black and Brown) children. The construction of Whiteness explains why Black children are over-disciplined and grow up to be five times more likely to be incarcerated than their White counterparts. The construction of Whiteness can explain why at the tender age of 3 or 4, Black preschoolers are watched more closely and more likely to be marked as behaviorally challenged.

Whiteness fuels environmental racism, maintaining safety for some and toxic environments for others. From South Los Angeles, to Flint, Mich., to the Bronx, N.Y., working class Black and Brown communities are disproportionately exposed to harmful pollutants and live in food deserts with restricted access to healthy food that place their children in precarious health conditions.

Teachers-and not just White teachers-not only need to learn how to be "culturally relevant," but must gain a deeper understanding of the political histories and conditions that shape the lived experiences of themselves and their students. Teacher education must help everyone think critically of the world around them so that tomorrow's teachers, policymakers, doctors, lawyers, and service workers don't perpetuate and sustain inequity.

What does it mean to acknowledge Whiteness in teacher education? It means preventing Black children from being traumatized by teachers who think it's OK to auction Black students during a lesson on slavery, as one 5th grade teacher recently did at a private school in Bronxville, N.Y. Acknowledging Whiteness in teacher education means reflecting children's identities in their learning and authority figures. Acknowledging Whiteness means disrupting the notion that there is only one standard of success by instead honoring our country's beautiful cultural pluralism.

Deconstructing Whiteness in schooling is an ongoing, uphill battle for many of us, but each step forward matters. We as educators should sit in our discomfort, interrogate sentiments of defense or anger that may bubble up when discussing race and power, and question how we might be complicit in producing biases that harm children.

By 3rd grade, I felt ashamed because my schooling rarely connected with my identity. What would it have been like to feel recognized and valued the moment I entered school? Is this not what all children deserve?

Published in Print: September 11, 2019, as Moving Beyond Culturally Relevant Teacher Prep

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Teacher Education Needs to Acknowledge 'Whiteness'

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Opinion When I was in 3rd grade, I begged my mother to help me choose an outfit for my school's "Pioneer Day." My mom looked at me, sighed in resignation, and said, "OK." My eyes lit up in excitement but quickly dimmed, as she continued, "But you know you would not have been one of them."

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Lies My Bookshelf Told Me: Slavery in Children's Literature

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Teaching Tolerance provides free resources to educators-teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioners-who work with children from kindergarten through high school. Educators use our materials to supplement the curriculum, to inform their practices, and to create civil and inclusive school communities where children are respected, valued and welcome participants.

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Here's My Challenge to White Parents this Year

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Here's My Challenge to White Parents this Year

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Last school year, my seven-year-old son's childhood ended. He was in grade two, and we had to explain to him the intricacies of being a Black boy in the school system.

My son had a great grade two teacher. But he did have a challenging year as the only Black child in his class-he was beginning to question his identity. He wasn't always happy going to school, and his teacher, as lovely as she seemed, was consistently calling me to report on what I considered trivial concerns. She said he didn't express excitement enough, and the next time she called it was to tell me he was expressing his emotions too much. We tried a collaborative approach: talking to her, talking to him each time, but the calls continued.

Finally, we sat him down and had "the talk." We had to tell him that his behaviour had to be twice as good as his classmates'. That he had to stand extra still when it was time to line up to go out for recess and to be sure not to get too excited in class. When other kids bothered him, he should always just ignore them and never engage. Essentially, to never defend himself or raise his voice, because his teacher may misinterpret his behaviour as threatening. We had to teach him to police his behaviour first, before others had the opportunity to do so. We had to teach him the realities of being Black.

The very next day, after we asked our seven-year-old son to dim his light, we received a glowing report from his teacher.

Prior to this, in an attempt to address my son feeling uncomfortable in the classroom, and an overarching issue around equity in the school system, I tried to have a conversation with the school principal. I tried to talk to her about the fact that for Black children, punishments are often harsher and their behaviour is watched much more closely than that of white children. We wanted to ensure that we disrupted any narrative being formed about our son-he's a sweet, sensitive child who stops to give money to every homeless person he sees, who asks the big questions about the universe, who philosophizes about the existence of God, Santa and an alternate universe where we are all superheroes in the same breath. The principal shifted in her seat, looked at her watch over and over, alluding to the fact that she had another meeting to get to.

She denied our experience by saying that "things are better now," and then, in what I consider typical of the heavy-handed approach applied to Black kids and parents, she decided to escalate the conversation to the superintendent without our consent or (at the very least) a courtesy call telling us what she intended to do.

When I share these experiences with white friends, they respond with shock, sympathy and sometimes anger on our behalf. There's also guilt. Guilt that they do not have these experiences, that they love their child's school, that their kids get to be naughty and grow freely with few consequences. Sometimes there is silence. But these are not the reactions I'm looking for. Instead of sympathy or guilt, I want action.

Here's the truth of the matter. A white voice advocating carries more weight than a Black one. My Black voice is heard as bitter. It's seen as stirring up trouble, as scary and threatening. It's why people get panicked when groups of Black people hold meetings.

So please, use your voice this school year to speak up for my kids and all the kids who look like mine, because, frankly, I'm tired.

If you want to be an ally, here are seven practical things you can do to help:

1. Educate yourself on equity vs. equality

Equality means treating everyone the same, but anti-Black racism means that kids are not all on an even playing field at school. Equity is realizing that factors like race, gender and income put people in unique situations, and that we need to give them different things to make them successful. And you can help. Do some research to find out why Black experiences are different from those of other racialized groups. The world has set expectations of my son that are hugely problematic and often result in Black children disengaging from school. Lobby your school board to hire more Black teachers, which research shows will benefit your child just as much as mine. Don't accept trite responses like "there are no qualified Black candidates." This is simply not true and is a lazy and unacceptable response to questions of equity in 2018.

2. Order books with Black characters for your classroom

There's no question that all kids deserve representation, and the reality is that Black kids see very little of themselves reflected in the books, shows and movies they're surrounded by. We affirm our son and daughter constantly at home, but they spend more time at school than they do at home with us. I am tired of my daughter drawing herself as white with blond hair. So, when you are ordering from Scholastic and you see a book with Black characters, order it and donate it to your child's library or class.

3. Ask the tough questions

I've already faced off with my child's principal, who didn't have time to discuss equity and most likely thinks I have a chip on my shoulder because I spoke the truth about outcomes for Black children and what that means for my son. I need help. I need you to go into the principal's office and ask him or her if the teachers receive equity training, if they are trained on systemic and anti-Black racism and what that looks like in a school. Ask her if they have any Black teachers, and if they don't, why not? Do they have a plan in place to address this?

4. Push for more than just Black History Month

While you are in that meeting with the principal, ask about Black History Month. Push to have Black history incorporated throughout the curriculum year-round. Tell them you want your kids to know about the history of people of African descent-not just slaves, but the sculptors and artists who lived thousands of years before slavery. And when it is Black History Month, advocate for it to be about more than drummers coming in for a gym assembly and a few lessons on Martin Luther King.

5. Make art class more diverse

Visit the art teacher or your child's teacher and ask them to incorporate artists, art styles and crafts from countries other than Western ones. There are enough classes throughout the year to feature African-influenced arts and crafts at some point.

6. Teach your kids that colour does matter

You can't tell your kids to be colour-blind because then you are telling them to ignore difference. You want them to celebrate difference. So teach them that Black is beautiful. Buy them Black dolls to play with. Most of all, show them Black excellence beyond sports and music. Talk to them about Black inventors, and while you're at it, maybe mention that to your child's teacher as well. Why not make a traffic light craft and spend a little time talking about the man who invented it? His name was Garrett Augustus Morgan and he was African-American. No, kids are not "colourblind"

7. Stay vigilant for us

Pay attention to the Black children in your child's class and how they are being treated. Our kids are often isolated, literally boxed with tape, as happened in one Peel classroom, made to sit on separate mats or treated more harshly than other students. If you are on a school trip and you see it, let us know. If you don't know the parents, speak to the principal and tell her you want the parents to know. Our children often can't speak up for themselves when things happen at school. They may feel something is wrong, but they may not have the words to articulate what is happening to them. If you are there and you see something, speak up for them.
Kearie Daniel is a mom of two. You can follow her blog at wokemommychatter or on Twitter at @wokemommy
Read more:
Why I created a Facebook group for black moms only
27 books to help talk to your kids about racism

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Here's my challenge to white parents this school year

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Last school year, my seven-year-old son's childhood ended. He was in grade two, and we had to explain to him the intricacies of being a Black boy in the school system . My son had a great grade two teacher.

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17 Afro-Latino Children's Books to Read to Your Kids

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17 Afro-Latino Children's Books to Read to Your Kids

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The sooner the barriers that confine children to gender stereotypes break, the better. Max loves the idea of making something by hand, and takes a liking to the dolls and dresses he sees inside a shop. Shining a light on traditional gender roles and the importance of following your dreams, Max Loves Muñecas! also speaks to child homelessness, losing loved ones, and the kindness of strangers.

Ages: 5-8

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17 Afro-Latino Children's Books to Read to Your Kids

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No matter how hard people try to make it so, when it comes race and culture, there is no one-size-fits-all. And you know what, that's what makes us beautiful. Being Afro-Latino doesn't mean you're less black or less Latino than anyone else.One of the best things we can do for our children is to help them embrace all of who they are-including cultural differences that make them unique.

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Teachers Must Not Only Be Non-Racist, But Anti-Racist

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"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke.

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For more than three decades, Alabama public interest attorney Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, has advocated on behalf of the poor, the incarcerated and the condemned, seeking to eradicate racial discrimination in the criminal justice system. An intimate portrait of this remarkable man, True Justice: Bryan Stevenson's FIght for Equality follows his struggle to create greater fairness in the system and shows how racial injustice emerged, evolved and continues to threaten the country, challenging viewers to confront it.

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True Justice: Bryan Stevenson's Fight for Equality

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For more than three decades, Alabama public interest attorney Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, has advocated on behalf of the poor, the incarcerated and the condemned, seeking to eradicate racial discrimination in the criminal justice system.

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In today's current political and cultural climate, it's crucial that everyday Americans are engaging in important conversations about race, bias, discrimination, and privilege. For people of color, these conversations are nothing new; they are a requirement in communities where experiences of racism, bias, and bigotry are a part of everyday life. But for many white people who have never been burdened by a system built specifically to keep us down, these conversations can seem confusing, uncomfortable, and awkward, which is makes them even more necessary. If you're not sure how to talk about issues of race in America, try picking up one of the many incredible books about race instead of asking people of color to explain it to you.

If you really want to be a better ally, if you really want to be a on the front-lines in the war against racism and discrimination in the United States, you have to take the initiative to educate yourself. It isn't up to people of color to inform or reform white people. As " White people, stop asking us to education about racism," a collective piece from an African American voice on Medium, so clearly explains, "Don't ask us to provide the information for you. Instead, participate in your own education. We've already given you enough of our free labor. Don't ask us for anymore."

If you're trying to unlearn the biased systems in America that are designed to keep people of color down, here are 10 books about race in America you can start with.

'So You Want to Talk About Race' by Ijeoma Oluo

In her bestselling book So You Want to Talk About Race, Editor at Large of The Establishment Ijeoma Oluo unpacks some of the biggest racial issues facing the United States today, including white privilege, micro-aggressions, police brutality, the Black Lives Matter movement, and so much more. Simple, straightforward, andrazor-sharp, this book is an accessible and friendly user guide for anyone trying to understand identity, representation, and racism in modern day America.
Click here to buy.

'When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir' by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele

If you really want to understand the Black Lives Matter movement and the people who put their lives on the line fighting for its behalf, When They Call You a Terrorist is a must-read. Written by artist, activist, and Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors and journalist and author Asha Bandele, this powerful and breathtaking memoir reveals what it is like to be Black in today's violently racially charged America.
Click here to buy.

'An African American and Latinx History of the United States' by Paul Ortiz

If you want to understand the racial landscape of modern-day America, you first have to understand the nation's past, and Paul Ortiz's new bottom-up history book is the perfect place to start. Spanning more than 200 years, this alternative narrative offers a definitive and intersectional look at the country's development through the eyes of the African American and Latinx communities that helped it flourish, often to their own detriment.
Click here to buy.

'This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror' by Moustafa Bayoumi

In this eye-opening book about fear, racism, paranoia, and surveillance, Moustafa Bayoumi offers an unflinching look the culture of the War on Terror as experienced by Muslim Americans. A powerful blend of personal experience and academic research, this engaging collection of writing is an important and timely addition to the world of Muslim studies.
Click here to buy.

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10 Books About Race To Read Instead Of Asking A POC To Explain It To You

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In today's current political and cultural climate, it's crucial that everyday Americans are engaging in important conversations about race, bias, discrimination, and privilege. For people of color, these conversations are nothing new; they are a requirement in communities where experiences of racism, bias, and bigotry are a part of everyday life.

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19 Books About White Supremacy & How to Combat it

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19 Books About White Supremacy & How to Combat it

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The United States is in the midst of a domestic terrorism crisis. I've picked out 19 must-read books about white supremacy and white nationalism, which should help you understand why racist violence is such a huge domestic threat, and how to combat it.

Although the U.S. was founded upon, and has been governed by, the ideals of white supremacy, white nationalists are a threat to life in this country. In the aftermath of the weekend mass shootings in El Paso, TX and Dayton, Ohio, white nationalists took to social media to laud the El Paso terrorist as a "saint," and to promote his ideas and actions. On its Hatewatch blog, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported that some were praising the El Paso attack as an act of "accelerationism" - or "the belief among some far-right extremists that committing acts of terrorism will cause society to collapse," providing the "opportunit[y] to build a country for only white, non-Jews."

Hate crimes rose nine percent over the last year, according to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, and researchers at the University of North Texas found that "counties that had hosted a 2016 Trump campaign rally saw a 226 percent increase in reported hate crimes over comparable counties that did not host such a rally." The rise of the so-called Trump Effect has been charted by numerous groups, including America's Voice. Popular opinion holds the White House's rhetoric responsible for white supremacist attacks like the one in El Paso. It's time to get educated and take action.

'Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism' by Michelle Goldberg

Christian nationalism is intrinsically linked to white nationalism, largely through the Christian Identity Movement. Michelle Goldberg teases out these connections, and identifies the threats to democracy posed by Christian nationalism, in Kingdom Coming.
Click here to buy.

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19 Books About White Supremacy & How To Combat It

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The United States is in the midst of a domestic terrorism crisis. I've picked out 19 must-read books about white supremacy and white nationalism, which should help you understand why racist violence is such a huge domestic threat, and how to combat...

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White Teachers Need to See Color. Here's Why.

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White Teachers Need to See Color. Here's Why.

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When I first started writing, I wrote a piece called 10 Things I Wish my White Teacher Knew. I took some time to reflect on my school years as a black girl with mostly white teachers in Metro Detroit. I got a lot of positive feedback. One teacher said, "I loved your piece!" I thanked her and I told her she was a remarkable teacher, and our students were lucky to have her. She responded,"I don't see color, I just see kids." I knew she meant no harm, so I smiled. But it bothers me to this day I didn't ask her to reevaluate her approach. So, I have been thinking about the eleventh thing I wish my white teacher knew: You need to see color.

You need to see color because there is nothing wrong with color.

The cure for racism in education is not colorblindness. Colorblindness erases the student's individuality in the educational space. The statement is a microaggression, or a statement with an undercurrent of prejudice, which says that your racial and cultural identity is not a factor. Our students are grappling with their identity and race is a part of that. The way our world is set up, black and brown kids have to be taught self-love on purpose. So, provide opportunities which allow them to broadcast their racial and ethnic identities, and be proud of it! It's okay to say things like "black is beautiful," and for a white educator to facilitate a discussion on race. It just has to come from the right place.

You need to see color so that you can lift up students' perspectives.

If you are a white teacher in a minority classroom, you may not understand your students' perspective on certain issues. For example, the flag demonstration #takeaknee -Kaepernick says he is taking a knee to bring light to police brutality and injustice. However, there is another loud voice which says he is disrespecting troops. This "narrative switching" is very popular tool for white supremacists. Historically, when people of color stepped "out of order" people in power changed the narrative. So much that minorities were branded as troublemakers, even to their own people.

Teachers, it is important that you understand the dichotomy of your reality and theirs, and color is necessary for that. You don't have to agree with your students' perspectives. However, it is necessary that we understand black and brown children may experience and interpret events differently than yourself. When you try to change that narrative, you erase their unique experiences which shape them-you whitewash them. Do not find yourself on the wrong side of this issue. Allow open conversations so children can speak truth to power. Model how in America people can have different perspectives and coexist.

You need to see color because your black and brown students do not have the luxury to unsee color.

Minority students are taught to be constantly aware of themselves and others. I remember when I had my first job interview. My mom took me shopping. We had a hard time finding a nice suit that was professional, but that didn't appear too aggressive. Then a harder time wearing ballet flats because I did not want to appear to be domineering. Every person of color has a similar story where an elder takes time to talk about the way their physical appearance is interpreted by white people. Do white people talk about how to make themselves appear more culturally aware in interviews?

Too often we minorities quiet ourselves to not appear too black or ethnic out of fear that we will be seen as undesirable. As a white teacher of minority students you should create a space where your students are not worried about you judging them for being themselves; i.e getting loud, laughing infectiously, even blowing hot air out of their mouths. Take their words at face value and adopt a policy of assuming positive intent, even if your logic or history has taught you otherwise.

Teachers need to see color because it is one of the things that make your students unique.

Every time a white teacher says, "I don't see color," you abandon a child in an educational void by refusing to recognize them for who they are. Additionally you fail to prepare them to enter a world who will see their color as a factor to their success and abilities. As more white teachers travel into predominantly black schools to teach, and students of color migrate into affluent white communities to learn, I get excited about the possibilities. On the other hand, I fear they will become less self-aware of their cultural significance and asked to blindly assimilate. So, if this is going to work, it is time to kill the idea of the colorblind white teacher for minority students.
Join us in our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook to talk about your teaching questions, including those around teaching and race.

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White Teachers Need to See Color. Here's Why.

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When I first started writing, I wrote a piece called 10 Things I Wish my White Teacher Knew. I took some time to reflect on my school years as a black girl with mostly white teachers in Metro Detroit. I got a lot of positive feedback. One teacher said, "I loved your piece!"

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Watch America to Me Docu-series for free! Enter code: ATM2019

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Watch America to Me Docu-series for free! Enter code: ATM2019

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FILM PLATFORM - Educational Rights and Screening Licenses

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Looking for the perfect film for a class or campus screening? Let our team of expert recommend the right film for you. Fill out the following details, and we will be in touch ASAP with our film recommendations.

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Atlanta’s Cyclorama had the black role in a Civil War battle all wrong. She set about to fix that.

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Atlanta’s Cyclorama had the black role in a Civil War battle all wrong. She set about to fix that.

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Washington Post

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Atlanta Timeline of Education in America (print big)

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Van Explains It All - Implicit Bias - The Van Jones Show | 6/3/18

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Parents create a word cloud about types of diversity.

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Parents create a word cloud about types of diversity.

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Recommended Resources D&E Parent January 2019

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Brown v Board of Education might be the most well-known Supreme Court decision, a major victory in the fight for civil rights. But in Topeka, the city where the case began, the ruling has left a bittersweet legacy. RH hears from the Browns, the family behind the story.

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Revisionist History is Malcolm Gladwell's journey through the overlooked and the misunderstood. Every episode re-examines something from the past - an event, a person, an idea, even a song - and asks whether we got it right the first time. Because sometimes the past deserves a second chance.

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Skip to Main Content Gain access to ad-free versions of 20+ podcasts from the Pushkin library along with exclusive bonus episodes and other member benefits. Revisionist History is Malcolm Gladwell's journey through the overlooked and the misunderstood.

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Implicit Bias refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner.

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Implicit Bias refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner.

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Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity

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The topic of race relations between women is brought to the Red Table with famed diversity educator Jane Elliott link

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Ep062: Join us at our new podcast!

Hello Good Ancestors!
It's me, your host, Laya Saad! And I am back with some really exciting news.
We have a new digital home and a new podcast! But let me back track for a moment to give you some context and let you know what's happening.

Ep061: 2021 End of Year Bonus Episode - Part 2

I'm thrilled to share our final bonus episode of 2021 Good Ancestor conversations.
(You can find our first bonus episode here)
As you listen to these wonderful excerpts from Episodes 50 through 59 you will find all the joyful emotions come to surface. What a glorious way to end our podcast listening year with our special guests who have uplifted our spirits and showed how to continue to live the life of a Good Ancestor.

Ep060: 2021 End of Year Bonus Episode - Part 1

As we close out this year it is my honor and pleasure to bring you the first of two bonus episodes highlighting our memorable episodes this wonderful year.

We wanted to close out this year with a celebration of all of the wonderful guests we've had the pleasure of speaking with this year. Thank you for sharing your time this past year, which as Layla mentioned in the introduction of this episode is the most valuable thing in the world. We are grateful for our Good Ancestor community.

Ep059: #GoodAncestor Valarie Kaur, author of 'See No Stranger'

In this episode, I speak with best-selling author, lawyer, filmmaker, educator, and civil rights leader, Valarie Kaur.
Valarie Kaur's debut book, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love is our Good Ancestor Book Club selection for the month of November 2021.
Valarie Kaur is a renowned civil rights leader, lawyer, best-selling author, award-winning filmmaker, educator, innovator, and celebrated prophetic voice. She leads the Revolutionary Love Project to reclaim love as a force for justice. Valarie burst into American consciousness in the wake of the 2016 election when her Watch Night Service address went viral with 40 million views worldwide. Her question "Is this the darkness of the tomb - or the darkness of the womb?" reframed the political moment and became a mantra for people fighting for change.

In the last twenty years, Valarie has won policy change on multiple fronts - hate crimes, racial profiling, immigration detention, solitary confinement, Internet freedom, and more. She founded Groundswell Movement, Faithful Internet, and the Yale Visual Law Project to inspire and equip advocates at the intersection of spirituality, storytelling, and justice.

Valarie has been a regular TV commentator on MSNBC and contributor to CNN, NPR, PBS, the Hill, Huffington Post, and the Washington Post. A daughter of Sikh farmers in California's heartland, Valarie earned degrees at Stanford University, Harvard Divinity School, and Yale Law School. Valarie's debut book, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love, was released in 2020 and expands on her "blockbuster" TED Talk.

Ep058: #GoodAncestor Jasmine Mans, author of 'Black Girl, Call Home'

In this episode, I speak with Black poet, Jasmine Mans.

Jasmine Mans is a poet from Newark, New Jersey. Her recently published book, Black Girl, Call Home (Penguin Random House) has been named one of Oprah's Most Anticipated LGBTQ Books and a TIME Magazine Must Read, to name a few; and Jasmine herself named as Essence's #1 Contemporary Black Poet to Know.

Jasmine's poetry has gone viral many times over on YouTube. She has opened packed shows for Mos Def and Janelle Monae; and performed at such esteemed venues as the Kennedy Center, Broadway's New Amsterdam Theater, the Wisconsin Governor's Mansion, and the Sundance Film Festival. Mans also participated in "Brave New Voices", an 8-episode poetry documentary on HBO.

Jasmine is a contributor to the 1619 Project and co-hosted the Kennedy Center's Arts Across America series alongside renowned poet Jason Reynolds. Jasmine is also the voice behind Ulta Beauty's MUSE campaign. Jasmine created the company Buy Weed From Women, where she sells her own designs in support of women working in the cannabis industry.

Ep057: #GoodAncestor Thérèse Cator on Embodied Black Girl Liberation

In this episode, I speak with embodiment practitioner and leadership coach, Thérèse Cator.

Thérèse is a mother, a trauma-informed embodiment practitioner, leadership coach, artist, and founder of Embodied Black Girl, a global community that stands for the embodied liberation of Black women and femmes and women of color everywhere. Embodied Black Girl is devoted to creating a safe space for Black women and femmes and women of color to heal from intergenerational trauma, racialized stress, and colonial conditioning in service of our individual and collective liberation and healing.

Her work deeply explores the shadows and gifts of humanity and bridges leadership, spirituality, healing, somatics, mindfulness, decolonization, and social change. Thérèse deeply believes that healing is both personal and political; spiritual and corporeal.

In 2020 alone, Thérèse led many healing circles for the Black community, attended by nearly 5,000 folks. She also led Becoming Human, a series of lessons for white people to dismantle white supremacy, for thousands of people. Thérèse's work has been featured in Forbes, Motherly Magazine, Mind Body Green, and Women's Health Magazine.

Thérèse grew up in Brooklyn, New York. These days you can find her hanging out with her son watching or building trains and tending to her plant babies.

Ep056: #GoodAncestor Savala Nolan - 'Don't Let It Get You Down'

In this episode, I speak with writer, speaker, and lawyer, Savala Nolan.

Savala Nolan is a writer, speaker, and lawyer. Her first book, Don't Let It Get You Down: Essays on Race, Gender and the Body is our Good Ancestor Book Club selection for the month of October 2021.

Savala is executive director of the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. She and her writing have been featured in Vogue, Time, Harper's Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, the Boston Globe, and more. She served as an advisor on the Peabody-winning podcast, The Promise. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family.

Don't Let It Get You Down is a powerful collection of 12 memoiristic essays - lyrical and magnetic in their cadence - that offer poignant reflections on living between society's most charged, politicized, and intractably polar spaces-between black and white, rich and poor, thin and fat.
Content warning: in the opening of this conversation, Savala shares her connection to her second great grandmother who was murdered at the hands of racist vigilantes in the 1890s.

Ep055: #GoodAncestor​​ ​Leesa Renée Hall on the Inner Field Trip®

In this episode, I speak with the anti-bias facilitator and mental wellness advocate, Leesa Renée Hall.

Leesa Renée Hall is an anti-bias facilitator who has helped over 65,000 leaders with quiet, gentle, and highly sensitive personalities go on an Inner Field Trip® to explore their unconscious biases so they protect their energy, stand on the side of justice, and become better ancestors.

In 2017, Leesa embarked on a personal journey of writing half a million words over 365 consecutive days. Over that year she used questions to help her unpack her own unconscious biases around her race, gender, religion, ancestry, and nationality. This led her to the work that she does today, leading thousands of people through her signature body of work called the Inner Field Trip®, a process of self-reflection using guided questions and reflective writing.

Leesa is also the host of the Inner Field Trip Podcas t where she hosts conversations with those who have advice on how to Stumble Bravely, and the creator of the Inner Field Trip card deck, which includes 40 guided prompts to help people uncover their hidden stereotypes so they can be more courageously on the side of justice and create a future without bias.

Ep054: #GoodAncestor​​ Pragya Agarwal on '(M)otherhood'

In this episode, I speak with author, speaker and behavioural & data scientist, Pragya Agarwal.

Pragya Agarwal is a behavioural and data scientist, who has worked as a consultant and speaker for the United Nations, UNESCO, Environment Agency, NHS, UK Police Commissioners, Cabinet Office, and US Defence Services, and various international universities including Oxford, Cambridge, Columbia, Koblenz, Imperial College and more. Pragya has held a Leverhulme Fellowship and senior academic positions in US and UK Universities for over 12 years. She has also held fellowships at University of California- Santa Barbara, University of Melbourne and Johns Hopkins University.

Pragya is the author of a number of academic books and numerous scholarly articles, and three non-fiction books and many articles for a general audience. Her writing has appeared in Guardian, Prospect, Forbes, Huffington Post, BBC Science Focus, Scientific American, WIRED and New Scientist, Wellcome Collection, as well as magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Stylist, Elle and so on. Her creative non-fiction writing also appears in a number of literary magazines. Besides non-fiction books for adults, she has also recently written her first book for children. She is a two-time TEDx speaker and has appeared as an expert on many international podcasts and shows such as NPR, BBC Women's Hour, BBC Radio 4 'The Spark' and Darren Brown's podcast 'The Bigoted Brain'.

Pragya moved to the UK from India 20 years ago, and now lives in the north of the country, near the sea, with her family. She has three children, a dog and a cat.

Ep053: #GoodAncestors ​Rebecca Walker & Lily Diamond on 'What's Your Story?'

In this episode, I speak with the co-authors of What's your Story?,Rebecca Walker and Lily Diamond.

Rebecca Walker is a bestselling author, editor, and cultural critic who has contributed to the global conversation about race, gender, culture, and power for over two decades. She has spoken at over four hundred universities, conferences, literary festivals, and corporate campuses around the world, and is a co-founder of the Third Wave Fund, an organization that supports women and transgender youth working for social justice. Rebecca has won many awards, and was named by Time magazine as one of the most influential leaders of her generation. She lives in Los Angeles.

Lily Diamond is a writer, educator, and advocate working to democratize wellness through storytelling, accessible practices for inner and outer nourishment, and revolutionary acts of self-care in relationship to our earth and human communities. Lily is the author of the bestselling memoir-cookbook Kale & Caramel: Recipes for Body, Heart, and Table, and her work has been featured in the New York Times, VICE, Healthyish, Women's Review of Books, Refinery29, and more. She lives in Maui, Hawai'i, where she grew up, on occupied native Hawaiian land.

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Interviews with change-makers & culture-shapers exploring what it means to be a good ancestor.

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Author & Speaker

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Elite colleges are making strides to diversify their student bodies, both racially and economically. In the last few years, we've seen most top schools commit to enrolling more low-income students, through financial aid, recruiting efforts and programs for high school students aimed at expanding the pipeline.

But once those students arrive on campus, says Anthony Abraham Jack, they often find the experience isolating and foreign.

"There's a difference between access and inclusion," explains Jack, an assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and author of the new book The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students. "Universities have extended invitations to more and more diverse sets of students, but have not changed their ways to adapt to who is on campus."

For his book, Jack profiles low-income students at an unnamed elite college. He puts them into two groups: Those coming from prep schools, and those coming from under-resourced public schools.

In those two groups, he finds key differences, but one common problem: "We have paid less attention to what happens when students get on campus than their moment of entry and where they go once they graduate."

Fixing the problem, he argues, means creative and thoughtful solutions, like keeping dining halls and dorms open during holiday breaks - because not every student can afford a ski trip, or even a bus ticket home.

I spoke with Jack recently about his ideas for improving life - and outcomes - for these students. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Back in 2015, you wrote an opinion piece about how elite schools were recruiting low-income students from elite prep schools. You called those students the "Privileged Poor," which is now the title of your new book. How did that come to be? Your research shows that those students have a different experience on campus than low-income students coming from underserved public schools. Can you explain?
I was a Head Start kid who went to public school up to 11th grade, and my senior year was an anomaly in a private school. I thought my senior year was just a detour; a one-off. But when I got to Amherst College, turns out that prep school was an HOV lane for poor students.

A lot of my classmates were poor like me, but they went to Andover and Exeter, Saint Paul and Choate. All of these boarding schools that I had never heard of. They were talking about studying abroad for their junior year to learn the language. They were talking about snow tubing trips that the school paid for. In graduate school, we started reading a lot of the sociology of education, and I didn't see my classmates in the literature.
So the doubly disadvantaged are low-income students who don't have this institutional knowledge. How does that manifest?
There are two groups of low-income students on campus, and they have two sets of experiences. I've termed them the doubly disadvantaged and the privileged poor. The biggest difference between the two, according to how students told their stories, is: one group felt more at home, and the other felt culture shock.
The folks making policy in higher education tend to be folks where the system worked for them. Your book seems to push readers to try and change their perspective.
The privileged poor, the students who went to the private schools, they knew the hidden curriculum, the hidden rules that govern these places. They felt more comfortable, and they directed themselves in a way that was more similar to their middle-class peers. The doubly disadvantaged, they felt out of place and experienced that culture shock and isolation.

We have been teaching students from more privileged backgrounds for so long, that we take a lot for granted on a college campus. Mental health offices, career service offices, they are so used to students being more proactive and entering their doors because they've been taught that if you want something, you go out and get it. The fact that you have to go seek things out, that's an unspoken rule on a college campus that disproportionately hurts low-income students from disadvantaged high schools. There is a bias towards privilege on a college campus that permeates so many things that we do.

I hope that anyone who reads this book asks one important question: What else do I take for granted? The big thing I uncover in the book is the hidden curriculum that operates on the college campus. On the academic side, how does one engage with different faculty members? The expectation is that students are the ones who are proactive, and yet we use terms like office hours. Professors often say when office hours are, but never what they are. Only a certain segment of the population has ever heard the term, let alone had the opportunity to master what skills you need to make the most use out of office hours.

It's not just what students know that we take for granted; it's also what they can afford. Spring break is a perfect example. "Oh, spring break! You're going to go home or you're going to have some fun in the sun!" Often times, that's actually not the case. For a lot of our students, home is not necessarily the place you want to go.
As colleges recruit more low-income students, there have been efforts to integrate these students into campus life. In your book, you talk about how some of those initiatives are well-intentioned, but sometimes do more harm than good. Can you give me an example?
Universities are actually saying, "Come here. Money will not be a barrier to your entry or what you want to do." That is what these colleges are saying, but what's actually happening is, when students get on campus, they realize just how the social undercurrents of this place, and the official policies of the place, make them feel like second-class citizens in a first-class world.

It has implications not just for your GPA and retention, but also for your use of resources on campus. It's about who feels comfortable going into the career service office to get help with the resume, who feels comfortable getting help with a mental health diagnosis, who feels comfortable doing all those little small things that are the foundation for one's future when you leave college.
There are about 20 million students going to college today - and only a very small percentage of them go to an elite school, like Harvard or Yale. So why should we care about what happens on those campuses?
At the school that I study, there was a program that gave students free tickets to events. That's actually a good thing because those extra university events can quickly add up over the course of a semester. The school decided to protect low-income students from being viewed as getting a scholarship ticket, so they created a separate line to pick up tickets for those who are on scholarship. How that ultimately plays out in public is that a whole bunch of white and Asian students are in the paying line, and then on the opposite end of the room, you have a line of people who are picking up the free tickets. That line is mostly black and Latino with Asian and white students sprinkled in. It becomes the opposite of invisible; it becomes highlighted. You are literally separate from your peers. You can't help but think about the Jim Crow South.

Those kinds of policies undercut moments where students feel they are full members of the community. It cuts at the trust that students have not just with the institution, but with the people who are in positions to help them.

A lot of things that I study happen at all schools. The miscommunication between faculty and students has been documented across higher education, at community colleges and four-year schools.
So if the privileged poor are more comfortable and prepared for college, might that be a solution? Especially considering the Education Department's push to increase school choice, and allow public dollars to be spent on private schools.
I tried to remove all of the things that we know hurt students integration into college, like living off campus, commuting and working. I'm showing you that even at a place like this, even under the best of conditions, higher education still privileges a narrow set of experiences that are more likely to be held by those of middle-class and upper-middle-class families.

If I'm able to show that food insecurity exists at schools like Yale, Harvard, Penn and Princeton, how then do you think it manifests itself at the University of Wisconsin or at Texas Tech, or at the regional college? Yes, I study the elites. But more importantly, I study how poverty and inequality shape how students make it to higher education, and how they move through it.
So the book is about college, but not really?
Putting students in private schools is not a social policy; it's an abdication of responsibility. Social policy would be trying to figure out how do we get our underserved K-12 schools to be able to compete, not just with their suburban counterparts, but what if they aspired to be something greater. What would happen if our public schools actually looked more like some of the private schools that we know have a ton of resources? One thing this book actually shows is that when you give low-income students the resources and the experiences of those from more affluent backgrounds, they enter college with the skillset and the orientations to navigate the place successfully. They take advantage of the resources that are available.

It shows that the privileged poor is what happens when you are actually given a shot to succeed and not just a whole bunch of extra weight to hold you down as you try to climb up the ladder that is the American dream. But, I think just sending students to a private school is not scalable, and we're not actually helping all the students that we are here to help.

The university is just my site to study something greater. This book is about poverty and inequality. I'm just bringing it to higher education. As universities diversify their campuses, their connections to neighborhoods that previously were overlooked - low-income communities, predominantly minority communities, predominantly immigrant communities, and rural communities - all of those connections become stronger and stronger. And we need to understand how poverty and inequality work, not just to understand a student's education trajectory, but also to understand what can we do for the students who do make it to these schools.

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As Elite Campuses Diversify, A 'Bias Towards Privilege' Persists

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Elite colleges are making strides to diversify their student bodies, both racially and economically. In the last few years, we've seen most top schools commit to enrolling more low-income students, through financial aid, recruiting efforts and programs for high school students aimed at expanding the pipeline.

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Academy Award®-nominated filmmaker Steve James (Hoop Dreams, Life Itself) examines racial, economic and class issues in contemporary American education in the ten-part unscripted documentary series America to Me.

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