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How can I be an upstander?

By doing something to help a person being bullied or abused online, you can be part of creating a positive cultural change.

A lot of people want to help if they see others being harmed online, but they don't know how to, or they worry they'll be attacked for speaking up. There are some ways to support the targeted person and help them feel less isolated while still keeping yourself safe.

Depending on your style, what you feel confident doing and how someone is being bullied or abused, you may choose a different way to help each time, and that's OK. All the options can have a huge positive impact. Here are some you can try on their own or combined with each other.

Reach out to the person being bullied or abused

Send a message to the person being bullied or abused. Ask if they're OK and offer your support. Whether they're your friend, or someone you only kind of know, a few words of support can go a long way.

Remember to use supportive language. It's important to avoid phrases that might make them feel worse, like 'You must be so embarrassed' or 'I would want to die if I were you'. You could say 'Hey are you OK? I saw what was posted and it's not cool'.

Let them know there are ways to get help, including reporting harmful content. You could send them these links and help them work out what to do:

You could also suggest they talk to a confidential counselling and support service.

If you don't know the person who was targeted very well, you may be able to ask someone who's closer to them to check they're coping OK.

Call out the bad stuff online

If you feel confident and safe, speak up about the bullying or abuse you see online. It could be as simple as posting a comment, GIF or meme that says 'This is not OK'.

Or you could show your support by leaving a positive comment about the targeted person, such as saying what you like about them. This can take some of the impact away from the bad stuff and help the person feel better.

Even if you're not the one who was targeted by bullying or abuse, you can report it to the site, game or app where it happened. This helps to keep everyone safe online. Collect evidence as proof and check The eSafety Guide for links.

Say something to the person being mean

If you feel like someone is taking things too far online, think about reaching out to them privately to let them know what they're doing could be causing harm. Maybe they're unaware of how they're making the other person feel. Or maybe they know it's mean, and hearing that you think it's not cool will help them change their behaviour.

Call in other support

It's important to call in other support if the drama is getting serious or the person who was bullied or abused seems really affected by what was posted online about them - maybe they're not turning up to school or they seem really withdrawn or less talkative.

Talk to a trusted adult like a parent, teacher or older sibling so they can help you work out what to do. You could show this page to them, to help explain what's happening. Or you could get advice about what to do from a free, confidential counselling and support service like Kids Helpline (for young people up to 25).

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How to be an upstander | eSafety Commissioner

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How can I be an upstander? By doing something to help a person being bullied or abused online, you can be part of creating a positive cultural change. A lot of people want to help if they see others being harmed online, but they don't know how to, or they worry they'll be attacked for speaking up.

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Jeanne's Pick: TEDx Video - Is My Skin Brown Because I Drank Chocolate Milk?

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Jeanne's Pick: TEDx Video - Is My Skin Brown Because I Drank Chocolate Milk?

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https://youtu.be/l_TFaS3KW6s?si=XMsf4-hQ4YHOifGz

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Is My Skin Brown Because I Drank Chocolate Milk? | Beverly Daniel Tatum | TEDxStanford

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Lee Lee's Pick:  Get Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable Luvvie Ajayi Jones

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Lee Lee's Pick:  Get Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable Luvvie Ajayi Jones

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Luvvie Ajayi Jones: Get comfortable with being uncomfortable | TED Talk

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Luvvie Ajayi Jones isn’t afraid to speak her mind or to be the one dissenting voice in a crowd, and neither should you. “Your silence serves no one,” says the writer, activist and self-proclaimed professional troublemaker. In this bright, uplifting talk, Ajayi Jones shares three questions to ask you…

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Angie's Pick: Keedron Bryant - I JUST WANNA LIVE (Official Lyrics Video)

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Angie's Pick: Keedron Bryant - I JUST WANNA LIVE (Official Lyrics Video)

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Keedron Bryant - I JUST WANNA LIVE (Official Lyrics Video)

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National Black History Month has its origins in 1915, when historian and author Dr. Carter G. Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. This organization is now known as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History External (ASALH). Through this organization, Dr. Woodson initiated the first Negro History Week in February 1926. Dr. Woodson selected the week in February that included the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, two key figures in the history of Black Americans.

Carol M. Highsmith, photographer. The African American History Monument, completed in 2001 on the state capitol grounds in Columbia, the capital city of South Carolina. 2007. Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division.

In 1975, President Ford issued a Message on the Observance of Black History Week External urging all Americans to "recognize the important contribution made to our nation's life and culture by black citizens." In 1976, ASALH expanded this commemoration of Black history in the United States from a week-long observance to Black History Month, which also has been known as African American History Month. In the same year, President Ford issued a Message on the Observance of Black History Month External . In subsequent years, presidents continued to issue messages External honoring Black History Month.

In 1986, Congress passed Public Law 99-244, which designated February 1986 as "National Black (Afro-American) History Month." This law noted that February 1, 1986 would "mark the beginning of the sixtieth annual public and private salute to Black History." The law further directed the president to issue a proclamation calling on the people of the United States to observe February 1986 as Black History Month with the appropriate ceremonies and activities. President Reagan issued Presidential Proclamation 5443 External , which proclaimed that "the foremost purpose of Black History Month is to make all Americans aware of this struggle for freedom and equal opportunity." This proclamation stated further that this month was a time "to celebrate the many achievements of African Americans in every field from science and the arts to politics and religion."

Since 1996, presidents have issued annual proclamations for National Black History Month. In January 1996, President Clinton issued Presidential Proclamation 6863 External for "National African American History Month." The proclamation emphasized the theme for that year, the achievements of Black women from Sojourner Truth to Mary McLeod Bethune and Toni Morrison. Since 1996, Congress has regularly passed resolutions honoring Black History Month. In February 1996, the Senate passed Senate Resolution 229 commemorating Black History Month and the contributions of Black American U.S. Senators.

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Research Guides: Black History Month: A Commemorative Observances Legal Research Guide: History and Overview

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National Black History Month has its origins in 1915, when historian and author Dr. Carter G. Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. This organization is now known as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History External (ASALH).

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ASALH | The Founders of Black History Month (est. 1915)

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The story of Black History Month begins in Chicago during the summer of 1915. An alumnus of the University of Chicago with many friends in the city, Carter G. Woodson traveled from Washington, D.C. to participate in a national celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of emancipation sponsored by the state of Illinois. Thousands of African Americans travelled from across the country to see exhibits highlighting the progress their people had made since the destruction of slavery. Awarded a doctorate in Harvard three years earlier, Woodson joined the other exhibitors with a black history display. Despite being held at the Coliseum, the site of the 1912 Republican convention, an overflow crowd of six to twelve thousand waited outside for their turn to view the exhibits. Inspired by the three-week celebration, Woodson decided to form an organization to promote the scientific study of black life and history before leaving town. On September 9th, Woodson met at the Wabash YMCA with A. L. Jackson and three others and formed the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH).

He hoped that others would popularize the findings that he and other black intellectuals would publish in The Journal of Negro History, which he established in 1916. As early as 1920, Woodson urged black civic organizations to promote the achievements that researchers were uncovering. A graduate member of Omega Psi Phi, he urged his fraternity brothers to take up the work. In 1924, they responded with the creation of Negro History and Literature Week, which they renamed Negro Achievement Week. Their outreach was significant, but Woodson desired greater impact. As he told an audience of Hampton Institute students, "We are going back to that beautiful history and it is going to inspire us to greater achievements." In 1925, he decided that the Association had to shoulder the responsibility. Going forward it would both create and popularize knowledge about the black past. He sent out a press release announcing Negro History Week in February, 1926.

Woodson chose February for reasons of tradition and reform. It is commonly said that Woodson selected February to encompass the birthdays of two great Americans who played a prominent role in shaping black history, namely Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, whose birthdays are the 12th and the 14th, respectively. More importantly, he chose them for reasons of tradition. Since Lincoln's assassination in 1865, the black community, along with other Republicans, had been celebrating the fallen President's birthday. And since the late 1890s, black communities across the country had been celebrating Douglass'. Well aware of the pre-existing celebrations, Woodson built Negro History Week around traditional days of commemorating the black past. He was asking the public to extend their study of black history, not to create a new tradition. In doing so, he increased his chances for success.

Yet Woodson was up to something more than building on tradition. Without saying so, he aimed to reform it from the study of two great men to a great race. Though he admired both men, Woodson had never been fond of the celebrations held in their honor. He railed against the "ignorant spellbinders" who addressed large, convivial gatherings and displayed their lack of knowledge about the men and their contributions to history. More importantly, Woodson believed that history was made by the people, not simply or primarily by great men. He envisioned the study and celebration of the Negro as a race, not simply as the producers of a great man. And Lincoln, however great, had not freed the slaves-the Union Army, including hundreds of thousands of black soldiers and sailors, had done that. Rather than focusing on two men, the black community, he believed, should focus on the countless black men and women who had contributed to the advance of human civilization.

From the beginning, Woodson was overwhelmed by the response to his call. Negro History Week appeared across the country in schools and before the public. The 1920s was the decade of the New Negro, a name given to the Post-War I generation because of its rising racial pride and consciousness. Urbanization and industrialization had brought over a million African Americans from the rural South into big cities of the nation. The expanding black middle class became participants in and consumers of black literature and culture. Black history clubs sprang up, teachers demanded materials to instruct their pupils, and progressive whites stepped and endorsed the efforts.

Woodson and the Association scrambled to meet the demand. They set a theme for the annual celebration, and provided study materials-pictures, lessons for teachers, plays for historical performances, and posters of important dates and people. Provisioned with a steady flow of knowledge, high schools in progressive communities formed Negro History Clubs. To serve the desire of history buffs to participate in the re-education of black folks and the nation, ASNLH formed branches that stretched from coast to coast. In 1937, at the urging of Mary McLeod Bethune, Woodson established the Negro History Bulletin, which focused on the annual theme. As black populations grew, mayors issued Negro History Week proclamations, and in cities like Syracuse progressive whites joined Negro History Week with National Brotherhood Week.

Like most ideas that resonate with the spirit of the times, Negro History Week proved to be more dynamic than Woodson or the Association could control. By the 1930s, Woodson complained about the intellectual charlatans, black and white, popping up everywhere seeking to take advantage of the public interest in black history. He warned teachers not to invite speakers who had less knowledge than the students themselves. Increasingly publishing houses that had previously ignored black topics and authors rushed to put books on the market and in the schools. Instant experts appeared everywhere, and non-scholarly works appeared from "mushroom presses." In America, nothing popular escapes either commercialization or eventual trivialization, and so Woodson, the constant reformer, had his hands full in promoting celebrations worthy of the people who had made the history.

Well before his death in 1950, Woodson believed that the weekly celebrations-not the study or celebration of black history-would eventually come to an end. In fact, Woodson never viewed black history as a one-week affair. He pressed for schools to use Negro History Week to demonstrate what students learned all year. In the same vein, he established a black studies extension program to reach adults throughout the year. It was in this sense that blacks would learn of their past on a daily basis that he looked forward to the time when an annual celebration would no longer be necessary. Generations before Morgan Freeman and other advocates of all-year commemorations, Woodson believed that black history was too important to America and the world to be crammed into a limited time frame. He spoke of a shift from Negro History Week to Negro History Year.

In the 1940s, efforts began slowly within the black community to expand the study of black history in the schools and black history celebrations before the public. In the South, black teachers often taught Negro History as a supplement to United States history. One early beneficiary of the movement reported that his teacher would hide Woodson's textbook beneath his desk to avoid drawing the wrath of the principal. During the Civil Rights Movement in the South, the Freedom Schools incorporated black history into the curriculum to advance social change. The Negro History movement was an intellectual insurgency that was part of every larger effort to transform race relations.

The 1960s had a dramatic effect on the study and celebration of black history. Before the decade was over, Negro History Week would be well on its way to becoming Black History Month. The shift to a month-long celebration began even before Dr. Woodson death. As early as 1940s, blacks in West Virginia, a state where Woodson often spoke, began to celebrate February as Negro History Month. In Chicago, a now forgotten cultural activist, Fredrick H. Hammaurabi, started celebrating Negro History Month in the mid-1960s. Having taken an African name in the 1930s, Hammaurabi used his cultural center, the House of Knowledge, to fuse African consciousness with the study of the black past. By the late 1960s, as young blacks on college campuses became increasingly conscious of links with Africa, Black History Month replaced Negro History Week at a quickening pace. Within the Association, younger intellectuals, part of the awakening, prodded Woodson's organization to change with the times. They succeeded. In 1976, fifty years after the first celebration, the Association used its influence to institutionalize the shifts from a week to a month and from Negro history to black history. Since the mid-1970s, every American president, Democrat and Republican, has issued proclamations endorsing the Association's annual theme.

What Carter G. Woodson would say about the continued celebrations is unknown, but he would smile on all honest efforts to make black history a field of serious study and provide the public with thoughtful celebrations.

Daryl Michael Scott
dms@darylmichaelscott.com
Professor of History
Howard University
Vice President of Program, ASALH
© 2011, 2010, 2009 ASALH

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ASALH - The Founders of Black History Month | Origins of Black History Month

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The story of Black History Month begins in Chicago during the summer of 1915. An alumnus of the University of Chicago with many friends in the city, Carter G. Woodson traveled from Washington, D.C. to participate in a national celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of emancipation sponsored by the state of Illinois.

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Explore the history of DEI, from the Civil Rights Act to recent events, and understand its critical role in creating inclusive workplaces.

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The Little Known History Of DEI And Why It’s Critical To Its Survival

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Explore the history of DEI, its growth and challenges, and why it remains essential for organizational success. Learn why DEI is vital to the future of workplaces.

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A Class Divided (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

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An article on ways to develop "upstandership" in young children.

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Sesame Street: How to be an Upstander to Racism Song | #ComingTogether

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Experiencing racist bullying behaviour can be extremely distressing and it can have a hugely negative impact. It is also discrimination (when someone treats you unfairly or wrongly simply because of who you are), which is against the law under the Equality Act 2010 and is classed as a ‘hate crime’.

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Anti-Racist Books to Read and Reread Now | Penguin Random House

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These anti-racist books are vital to learning about the Black experience of the past and present, and the insidious racism that still exists.

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Dr. David Childs, D.D., Ph.D.Northern Kentucky UniversityWe will continue our theme of providing teacher resources for K-12 classrooms. In our latest article we highlighted resources from PBS Learning Media for elementary social studies teachers. In this article we want to highlight a number of teac

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Interactive student participation is one of the most effective delivery methods for the often difficult and abstract concepts of inclusion and belonging. Prepared under the supervision of curriculum development specialists from the Sarasota County School District, our age-appropriate lessons address applicable learning intentions and success criteria expected of every student while engaging students in Embracing Our Differences' core values: diversity, inclusion, integrity and respect.

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Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Resources for Classrooms | Common Sense Education

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Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Resources for Classrooms is a list of 36 apps, games, and websites curated by Common Sense Education editors.

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Activities that Promote Racial and Cultural Awareness
Article and learning activities that discuss cultural awareness in young children. Offers experiential learning activities to raise awareness of and respect for difference.
Grade Level: pre-school - elementary
Subject Area: social studies, all-school activities

Liberation Curriculum
Source: The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education InstituteProvides document-based lesson plans, online educational resources and professional development workshops regarding the modern African American Freedom Struggle and King's vision of a just and peaceful world. Currently directed by Dr. Julie Henderson, this educational initiative seeks to transform the way young people learn about history by emphasizing the actions of ordinary people who made extraordinary contributions to liberation movements.
Grade Level: elementary - high school
Subject Area: social studies, US History

Tolerance in Times of Trial
Source: PBS
Uses the treatment of citizens of Japanese and German ancestry during World War II as historical examples of ethnic conflict during times of trial. Examines contemporary examples of ethnic conflict, discrimination, and stereotyping at home and abroad.
Grade Level: middle - high school
Subject Area: social studies, US History

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Activities that Promote Racial and Cultural Awareness Source: PBS Article and learning activities that discuss cultural awareness in young children. Offers experiential learning activities to raise awareness of and respect for difference. Grade Level: pre-school - elementary Subject Area: social studies, all-school activities All about Me Source: Advocates for Human Rights Encourages discovery of personal...

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Kids Need Diverse Literacy | Rebecca Clark | TEDxGatewayArchWomen

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Second- and third-grade students at Reach Academy in Oakland, California, are huddled quietly together on a rug to hear their teacher, Natalya Gibbs, read Princess Grace. There are no tussles, no chatter, no snickering, as Gibbs pans the book in a half circle so that each student can see the illustrations.

The pink and purple book cover depicting a girl in a tiara and puffy dress turns out to be misleading: this isn't your typical fairy tale. Grace, the central character, wistfully hopes she's chosen to be a princess in her town's annual parade, but with the help of her friends and her nana, she realizes that not all princesses have to wear a crown and frilly dress or "have a daddy of [their] own." After hearing the stories of princesses from all over the world-warriors, artists, and scientists-Grace decides she wants to be a Gambian princess and goes to the parade sporting traditional kente robes.

"Why do you think Grace changed her mind about the kind of princess she wanted to be?" Gibbs pauses reading to ask the class. "The other princesses seem like more fun and she didn't want to just stand around looking pretty," responds one student.

During her own childhood, Gibbs remembers escaping through books, happy to read most anything she could get her hands on. But as she got older, it got harder to find books that resonated with her. "I wanted to see myself reflected in stories because I started to become more aware of my own identity-I am mixed [race] and where do I fit in?" she says.

These memories of reading-and looking for good books to read-have inspired Gibbs's teaching practices over her three years at Reach Academy, a Title I elementary school of 400 students. In her class of 22, Gibbs tries to ensure that her classroom library provides a mirror for her students-a world in which they can see characters and themes that reflect their identities and experiences, such as skin color or hair style, family and home life structures, spoken languages, or abilities.

But mirrors aren't enough, Gibbs adds. At Reach Academy, nearly all students are students of color. Once students "feel seen themselves," it's also critical that they be exposed to characters and stories that are different- windows into the lives, customs, and beliefs of others "so that when they grow up, they are able to work with all different kinds of people."

Too often, children from marginalized populations, like those at Reach Academy, have felt neglected in popular literature, wrote Rudine Sims Bishop, a writer and professor emeritus at Ohio State University, whose 1990 essay "Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors" is credited with the windows and mirrors framing. Bishop held that "when children cannot find themselves reflected in the books they read...they learn a powerful lesson about how they are devalued in the society of which they are a part."

But she also emphasized that diverse literature is equally valuable in more homogeneous schools where certain demographic groups dominate: "Books may be one of the few places where children who are socially isolated and insulated from the larger world may meet people unlike themselves," said Bishop.

In the decades since Bishop's essay was published, "windows and mirrors" has been widely adopted as a pedagogical approach in classrooms. The Teaching Tolerance website, for example, features a lesson plan for teachers that helps students identify windows and mirrors in their own reading. And We Need Diverse Books, a nonprofit that partners with Scholastic, offers recommendations and support for educators hoping to diversify their class reading lists.

The concept has been applied in other subjects besides English language arts: social studies teachers are increasingly including the stories of historical figures often left out of textbooks, and STEM teachers are making more of an effort to depict scientists and mathematicians who are women or people of color in hopes of addressing larger disparities in the field.

Though budgets are tight for most schools, even small changes-like sharing one book that references a child's experiences-can have an impact on student engagement, says Gibbs. She emphasizes that materials also matter, and makes a point of including posters, wall hangings, and even skin-toned crayons so that children "can see themselves in all aspects of their classroom."

"It's about 'Who is this class? What do they bring?' I'm growing my curriculum based on the community of children that I have each year, which means learning about my students and their cultures and making sure that they're represented," says Gibbs.

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At a school in Oakland, California, students see themselves-and the broader world-in the books they read.

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'There will be times when you walk into a room and no one there is quite like you until the day you begin to share your stories.' - Jacqueline Woodson, The Day You Begin
The books we use offer a valuable opportunity to bring our students' languages, cultures, histories, and voices into our classrooms. They also provide the opportunity to introduce students to a wide range of diverse stories that reflect different perspectives and experiences - both theirs and others.

This concept is often referred to as "mirrors and windows" and was introduced by Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop in her iconic essay, " Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors."

Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop: Mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors

Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop discusses her "Mirrors, Windows and Sliding Glass Doors" analogy to highlight the importance of diversity in books.

What Are Mirror Books?

Mirror books are books that reflect different aspects of students' identity, including:

family

gender

race

ethnicity

culture (such as special traditions, celebrations, songs, nursery rhymes, and games)

language and how language is used

religion

socio-economic status

immigration experience / status

other aspects of identity and lived experiences

By enabling students to make connections to themselves, mirror books:

provide validation and affirmation

tell students that their stories matter

show students possibilities of who and what they can be

Maya Christina Gonzalez: Seeing Ourselves in Books

Author and illustrator Maya Christina Gonzalez talks about why it is so important for all children to see themselves in books and also shares her book My Colors, My World/Mis colores, mi mundo with young readers.

Connections with curriculum

Seeing themselves in books can also communicate important messages to students about their place in school. The authors of More Mirrors in the Classroom: Using Urban Children's Literature to Increase Literacynote that "Seeing oneself represented in the characters, authors, and illustrators in a classroom and school library can go a long way in making sure we are conveying a message to children that school is for and about them." (Fleming et al, p. 20)

This is also one reason that using mirror books is such a powerful example of:

For example, in an excerpt from Colorín Colorado's award-winning film You Are Welcome Here, filmed in Dearborn, MI, middle school teacher Anna Centi talks about connections her refugee students from Yemen made to Linda Sue Park's book A Long Walk to Water, observing that she has been able to push her students with more rigorous text when they feel connected to the stories they read. You can read more about the research supporting the use of culturally responsive instruction from the New America Foundation.

When mirror books are missing

Along those lines, when children do not see themselves in the literature they read, or when they encounter negative stereotypes or inaccuracies about their communities in books, they may think that their stories or experiences don't matter.

They may also believe the "people like them" do not:

read for pleasure

appear as the protagonist or hero of the story

appear in different kinds of stories, like detective or fantasy stories

enjoy different types of genres, like poetry or science fiction

have experiences they see others having, such as spending time in nature or going to the library

work in different kinds of careers, like science or engineering

write or illustrate books (or work in the publishing industry)

Just as the use of mirror books can have a positive impact on students' self-concept in the school setting, a lack of mirror books can have a negative impact. The authors of More Mirrors in the Classroom note, "Many children develop the impression that books are not about them or for them, and they can start to feel disinterested in and excluded from school" (p. 11)

The More Mirrors team also reflects on students' limited access to culturally responsive materials in their literacy instruction, noting that within commonly used basal readers and text sets,

"(F)ew text selections include urban settings, multicultural and multilingual communities, and the urban architecture and ecology with which young children in urban public schools are familiar. When urban selections are included, they often depict communities, families, and children from a deficit perspective, rather than presenting authentic and affirming images of urban life." (vii-viii)

Grace Lin: Cultural mirrors and windows

Grace Lin talks about her first picture book, The Ugly Vegetables, and reflects on her own childhood experience as the only Asian girl in her class. She also talks about what happened when she told her classmates she wanted to try out for the part of Dorothy inthe school's production of The Wizard of Oz.

What Are Window Books?

Window books are books where children see aspects of a world that is different than their own.

Window books offer a glimpse into other people's lives and:

introduce readers to new worlds, perspectives, and experiences

allow readers to develop new interests

engage readers with important topics and social issues

Window books also remind readers that their view is not the only view, which is why Dr. Bishop notes in the video clip above that "diversity needs to go both ways," observing that "children who always find their mirrors in books...get a false sense of what the world is like because it's becoming more and more colorful and diverse as time goes on."

Hena Khan: "I hope my books are mirrors and windows"

Hena Khan talks about her middle grade novel Amina's Voice and shares her hopes that kids of all backgrounds will connect to her books and that adults will share them with diverse groups of students.

When Windows Become Mirrors

Even as they introduce readers to different perspectives, window books also show us what we all have in common. Dr. Bishop reminds us that a story that seems to be about someone very different than ourselves can provide powerful moments of recognition.

In her groundbreaking essay on windows and mirrors, she writes, "When lighting conditions are just right, however, a window can also be a mirror. Literature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection we can see our own lives and experiences as part of the larger human experience. Reading, then, becomes a means of self-affirmation, and readers often seek their mirrors in books."

Gene Luen Yang echoes that theme in the video clip below.

Gene Luen Yang: Finding our common humanity in "Black Boy" by Richard Wright

Gene Luen Yang recalls the impact that Richard Wright's novel Black Boy had on him in high school.

Building Empathy and Community

Since diverse books can serve both as mirrors and windows of different human emotions and experiences, they offer a powerful opportunity to build community, increase students' empathy, and push back against bias and prejudice. This can also make them a valuable tool to support social-emotional learning (SEL) and discussion in the classroom.

For example, the books on this booklist highlight the ways that schools and communities can make children from diverse backgrounds feel welcome:

These booklists dig deeper into tougher topics, providing an entry point into hard, important conversations:

Access to Diverse Books

Knowing that all students can benefit from diverse books is only the first step in increasing students' access to diverse books, which is often limited in many schools, including those serving primarily students of color.

The authors of More Mirrors in Classrooms write, "Many classroom libraries in under-resourced urban public schools still have few books with characters of color. In some cases, those books are relegated to a single 'multicultural' bin, even in cases where 100% of the students are African American or Latino." (p. 11)

Why is access limited?

This lack of access is due to a few factors, including, as noted above, a lack of resources for schools, limited awareness of the value of diverse books for all students, and minimal familiarity with the high-quality diverse books that are available to students.

There is also a tremendous disparity in the publishing industry. The Cooperative Children's Book Center has been tracking statistics on diversity in children's publishing since the 1990s, and their data have told the same story since they started their work.

Even though more diverse books are being published than ever before:

the number of diverse books published each year still is dwarfed by the number of titles published featuring white, English-speaking, middle class protagonists as "the norm"

the number of books featuring animals also greatly outnumbers the numbers of diverse books published each year.

(See the infographic below for a powerful visual representation of this disparity.)

As a result:

children who would see themselves reflected in diverse books have many fewer choices available

educators, librarians, and families may not be familiar with the diverse books that are being published

fewer diverse books are included in classroom activities, curriculum materials, text sets, literacy celebrations, and library events

Video: Matt de la Peña reflects on why his books are easier to find in some schools rather than others

Award-winning author Matt de la Peña recalls a conversation with a teacher who said she enjoyed his books but didn't have many copies at her school since the student population was so different from his characters.

We Need Diverse Books

The good news is that there is tremendous energy around creating, sharing, and celebrating diverse books across the country. We Need Diverse Books (WNDB) has played a major role in this conversation, starting as a social media campaign and grassroots movement that has shone a spotlight on the importance of diverse books for children and youth. (You can learn more about how WNDB started in our interview with founder Ellen Oh below.)

WNDB is now a non-profit organization that has created a range of opportunities within the publishing industry for authors and students. In addition, WNDB has:

created a new award recognizing diverse books called The Walter Award, named after the late Walter Dean Myers, a lifelong champion of diversity in publishing for children and youth

published multiple anthologies for children and young adults featuring diverse authors

Awards

The number of diverse books being published and winning awards has continued to increase in recent years. For example, in addition to The Walter and other numerous awards highlighting diverse books, the following books have won Newbery and Caldecott Awards in recent years:

Changes in publishing

At the same time, broader, deeper changes are happening. For example:

Award-winning writer Cynthia Leitich Smith (Muscogee) started Heartdrum, a Native-focused imprint at HarperCollins, in response to the need for more titles written and illustrated by Native authors.

Chispa Comics will be a new LatinX comics book imprint led by David Bowles, Hector Rodriguez III, and Javier Chapa.

Linda Sue Park has started KiBooka, a website that features books by authors and illustrators of Korean descent.

These kinds of structural changes help not only increase the number of titles available but also ensure that there are more diverse voices in the conversations and decisions within the children's publishing industry, librarian circles, and education - a necessary step in increasing students' access to mirrors and windows through diverse books.

Finding diverse books

To find recommendations of diverse book titles, see How to Find Diverse Books.

Authors Reflect on Asian Representation in Children's Books

In these interviews, authors reflect on seeing themselves in books (or not) and how their Asian heritage has shaped their work. Featured authors include Erin Entrada Kelly, Gene Luen Yang, Ellen Oh, Hena Khan, Uma Krishnaswami, Grace Lin, and Rukhsana Khan.

Cynthia Leitich Smith: What inspired Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids

Cynthia Leitich Smith shares the story behind Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids, an anthology she edited that features stories, poems, and artwork from a diverse group of Native contributors. These connected stories center on a powwow held at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI.

Closing Thoughts

This is an exciting time to be using diverse books with your students given how many outstanding books are being published and how many people are working to increase students' access to diverse book. As our students come of age in an increasingly global world and navigate a wide range of issues and challenges, the mirrors and windows we provide for our students have never mattered more.

We hope that this guide will provide you with lots of ideas for books you can share with students and ideas for bringing these books into the classroom.

Recommended Resources

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Why Diverse Books Matter: Mirrors and Windows

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'There will be times when you walk into a room and no one there is quite like you until the day you begin to share your stories.'

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PBS KIDS Talk About | Race, Racism & Identity | PBS KIDS

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Black Student Voices: Classroom Discussions on Race

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Camilla Mutoni Griffiths, Nicky Sullivan

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In Schools, Honest Talk about Racism Can Reduce Discrimination

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New laws make it harder for teachers to discuss racism and inequality, but psychological evidence shows these conversations dispel causes of bias and distress

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Helping Kids Embrace Diversity

Dr. Roger Harrison offers parents advice on how to nurture empathy and embrace diversity from an early age.

Why Is it Important to Talk About Race and Racism?

When we teach kids early on that it's OK to talk about race, we help them to understand, respect, and appreciate the differences between people.

This builds empathy and compassion for others so that kids are better able to see when things in their world seem unjust or unfair - and can do something about it.

What's the Best Way to Talk About Race and Racism?

There's no "right" way to talk to your kids about race or racism. For each family, that conversation will be different, depending on your own race, nationality, and personal experience with racism.

Here are some ways to get the conversation started, and keep it going:

First, get the facts. By learning about the issues, you'll be better able to report them. Listen to a podcast, watch a show, or read up on the history of racism and civil rights so that you're prepared to talk and answer any questions.

Clarify your family's values. Use your words, your example, and your actions to show your children what you believe in. Values to focus on can include equal treatment for all, justice, standing up for those who are suffering, and respecting all people no matter the color of their skin, the language they speak, or other differences.

Speak in simple terms. Don't overwhelm kids with too much information. State the facts, simply and clearly. If you want to address something that's happened in the news, be honest about what happened, but don't give kids more info than they need.

Be age-appropriate. Topics of race and racism are big-picture issues, and this can be hard for younger kids to grasp. Here are suggestions for addressing it by age:

Preschoolers: Kids this age are learning about right and wrong, and have a keen sense of fairness (and they'll let you know about it!). So talk about what's fair and what's not. Give examples kids can relate to, such as: "What if someone made a rule that says everyone with [your child's hair or eye color] has to eat a different snack at snack time than the rest of the class? Does that seem fair?"

School-age kids: Use practical examples from everyday life to help school-age kids understand how they might feel if they're discriminated against or left out on purpose. Something like, "How would you feel if someone held on to all the swings during recess and didn't give any other kids a turn?" Or, "How would you feel if you saw a fifth-grader bullying a first-grader?" Then, connect these questions to real-life examples of groups of people who have been discriminated against. Asking questions like these helps to increase kids' empathy and spark their passion to stand up for others.

Preteens and teens: Older kids and teens are better prepared to tackle tougher topics. They can understand how someone might feel if they are a target of racism, but they may feel helpless to do anything about it. Brainstorming ways to help - such as speaking up for a friend who's bullied or excluded because of skin color, or writing letters to school principals or elected officials - can help kids feel empowered.

Ask questions - lots of them. Help your child process thoughts and feelings by asking questions like, "What do you think about what you saw on TV?", "What have you heard?" or "What are your friends talking about?" This helps you get a sense of your child's understanding so you can fill in any gaps with facts or emphasize the values that you hold in your family.

Create a safe place to share feelings. Tough conversations like these bring up strong emotions, like anger, sadness, confusion, and others. Kids who have been victims of racism, or have family members who have been, might have even stronger feelings or fears around these topics. Let your child know that their feelings are important and OK. It helps to share your own feelings in a healthy way. Say something like, "I feel sad right now and that's OK. I won't always feel this way." This helps kids put things into perspective.

Keep the conversation going. Talking to your kids about race and racism shouldn't be a one-time thing. Encourage your child to come to you with questions and continue to talk about it.

Race and Racism: What If I Don't Have an Answer?

It's OK not to have all the answers. If you don't know how to answer something, be honest and say so. Tell your child that you'll find out and share what you've learned.

Race and Racism: What Else Can We Do as a Family?

Parents can do many things to raise compassionate kids who want to help others. Here are some to do together as a family:

Befriend people who are different. Consider choosing a school, daycare, or club with kids from other areas and different backgrounds. This way, kids learn that they can find friends anywhere.

Learn about other cultures. Learn together about people from other places and cultures. Read books, watch movies, listen to music, and learn about celebrations that aren't part of your own traditions. Attend cultural fairs and museums that highlight stories, art, and the history of people who are different from you.

Speak up. When you see something that isn't fair, do something about it. Say something. Write a letter. Create art that supports a cause - or start one. And encourage your kids to do the same.

Talk often as a family and do things together to learn about and celebrate the differences between people. You'll help nurture your child's empathy for other people, and your own.

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Race and the harmful effects of racism are common topics of conversation for some families. Other parents, though, might talk about racism and discrimination with their kids rarely, or not at all.To help put an end to racism, everyone has to take an active role, no matter who they are.

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Talking to Young Children About Race and Racism

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Here are tips, books, and resources to help you have meaningful conversations with young children about race, racism, and anti-racist behavior.

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EmbraceRace is a multiracial community dedicated to sharing and developing best practices for raising and caring for kids, all kids, in the context of race. We partnered with MomsRising - a transformative multicultural organization of more than a million members working to increase family economic security and end discrimination against women and mothers - to create these tips for our communities.

They are designed to help parents of all backgrounds talk to and guide their children about race early and often by lifting up age-appropriate activities that can be incorporated easily into your daily life. We hope these tips provide some much needed support for families committed to building tolerance, racial equity, and a social culture where all kids and families can thrive!

1) Start early.

By 6 months of age babies are noticing racial differences; by age 4, children have begun to show signs of racial bias.

Let your child know that it's perfectly okay to notice skin color and talk about race. Start talking about what racial differences mean and don't mean.

2) Encourage your child.

Encourage your child to ask questions, share observations and experiences, and be respectfully curious about race.

Expose your child to different cultural opportunities - photographs, films, books, or cultural events, for example - and discuss the experience afterwards.

You don't have to be an expert on race to talk with our child. Be honest about what you don't know and work with your child to find accurate information.

3) Be mindful.

What kids hear from us is less important than what they see us do.

You are a role model to your child. What you say is important, but what you do - the diversity of your friendship circle, for example - is likely to have a bigger impact.

If your child doesn't attend a diverse school, consider enrolling her in aer-school or weekend activities such as sports leagues that are diverse if you're able. Choose books and toys that include persons of different races and ethnicities. Visit museums with exhibits about a range of cultures and religions.

4) Face and know your own bias.

Let your child see you acknowledge and face your own biases.

We're less likely to pass on the biases we identify and work to overcome.

Give your child an example of a bias, racial or otherwise, that you hold or have held. Share with your child things you do to confront and overcome that bias.

5) Know and love who you are.

Talk about the histories and experiences of the racial, ethnic, and cultural groups you and your family identify with. Talk about their contributions and acknowledge the less flattering parts of those histories as well.

Tell stories about the challenges your family (your child's parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents and great grandparents, others) has faced and overcome.

6) Develop racial cultural literacy.

Develop racial cultural literacy by learning about and respecting others.

Study and talk about the histories and experiences of groups we call African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and whites, among others.

Be sure your child understands that every racial and ethnic group includes people who believe different things and behave in different ways . There is as much diversity within racial groups as across them.

7) Be honest.

Be honest with your child, in age-appropriate ways, about bigotry and oppression.

Children are amazing at noticing patterns, including racial patterns (who lives in their neighborhood versus their friends' neighborhoods, for example). Help them make sense of those patterns, and recognize that bigotry and oppression are sometimes a big part of those explanations.

Be sure your child knows that the struggle for racial fairness is still happening and that your family can take part in that struggle.

8) Tell stories.

"Lift up the freedom fighters ": Tell stories of resistance and resilience.

Every big story of racial oppression is also a story about people fighting back and "speaking truth to power." Teach your child those parts of the story too.

Include women, children and young adults among the "freedom fighters" in the stories you tell. A story about racial struggle in which all the heroes are men wrongly leaves many people out.

9) Be active.

Be active - don't be a "bystander" on race.

Help your child understand what it means to be, and how to be, a change agent.

Whenever possible, connect the conversations you're having to the change you and your child want to see, and to ways to bring about that change .

10) Plan for a marathon, not a sprint.

It's okay to say, "I'm not sure" or "Let's come back to that later, okay?" But then do come back to it.

Make race talks with your child routine. Race is a topic you should plan to revisit again and again in many different ways overtime.

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10 tips for teaching and talking to kids about race

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These tips are designed to help parents of all backgrounds teach and talk to their children about race early and often by lifting up age-appropriate activities that can be incorporated easily into your daily life.

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Black Student Achievement Plan / BSAP - Home

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Successful Black student achievement is defined by high academic performance, strong social-emotional awareness and management, and a positive cultural identity. Futhermore, strategies and methods utilized to cultivate these things shall be directly responsive to the unique needs of Black students due in large to the historic and ongoing social and economic conditions experienced by Black people.

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Would you look at that? It's not the month of February and we are sitting here talking about race. Welcome! You posted the black square photo on all your social media accounts. Maybe you even yelled at your supposedly not racist uncle for a comment that he once made over the Thanksgiving table. Maybe you have been out every night, marching in support of black lives that have been wrongly taken too soon. Now you're wondering what's next. What more can you do? The answer: read!

I have compiled a list of books that will meet you where you are in your journey of learning about race. Confused about what the term "white feminist" means? There's a book for that! Want to learn more about the journey that it took for black people to get the right to vote? There's a book for that! Want to learn how to bring up the topic of race to your friend Matt? Well, there's even a book for that, too (oops, sorry Matt)!

I personally think that the hardest thing about learning is figuring out where to start. It can seem so overwhelming, especially if you're trying to understand the complex history of racism. I've been a black woman for 26 years, and I still don't have all of the answers. That's the fun part about learning, though: you're never too old to crack open a book and pick up where you left off; or in some questions, start from the beginning. Pick up any one of these books with an open mind. You are here for a reason. Let's do the work together.

Blackballed: The Black Vote and US Democracy by Darryl Pinckney

Blackballed explores Pinckney's focus on how black people have participated in the U.S. electoral elections from when they first got the right to vote-well, some of them got the right to vote due to the 15 th Amendment, which was ratified in 1870; the rest received the right in 1965, due to the Voting Rights Act-to President Barack Obama's two campaigns. Part memoir, part historical reflection, all political: there's something for everyone.

White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color by Ruby Hamad

The concept of white feminism (feminism that focuses only on the struggles of white women without addressing the forms of oppression that women of color and women who lack other forms of privilege) has been used as a weapon of white supremacy for centuries. White Tears/Brown Scars speaks to the participation of white women in different campaigns of oppression. Remember: feminism isn't feminism unless it's inclusive.

Eloquent Rage by Brittney Cooper

Listen: Black women have a right to be angry. Malcolm X once said that the "most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman." He's not wrong.

Cooper wants us to be angry because being angry is a superpower. The anger of the black woman inspires change: it makes Serena Williams a better tennis player. It makes Beyoncé a better performer. It fuels us in ways that other emotions don't. With her signature wit and utter charm, Cooper argues that we need three things in this life to survive: eloquent rage, feminism, and friendship. With that simple list, we could take over the world.

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15 Books About Race Everyone Should Read

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If you're interested in learning more about racial justice, start with these 15 books about race and racism. Figuring out where to begin can be overwhelming, so these books provide a starting point for learning and discussion.

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Most of us have only scratched the surface when it comes to understanding racism in America. These anti-racism books can help you gain further insight and become a true ally.

Our editors and experts handpick every product we feature. We may earn a commission from your purchases.

rd.com, via bookshop.org (3)

Anti-racism books that make a difference

When it comes to understanding race and social justice in this country, authors of the most prominent books about racism have a message: Skip the announcements about your good intentions and instead settle in to do the hard work. Investing in our own understanding of systemic racism allows us to reflect on our own behavior and learn to do better. It's also important to realize this work is not the responsibility of any one race-it must be shared by everyone who wants a better and more fair country. The best books on race, culture, and allyship are a good place to start if you truly want to understand the history and underlying context of racism in America.

On this list, you'll find thought-provoking, informative nonfiction books by a variety of scholars, historians, and social justice writers, including well-known Black authors and female authors. These works have won numerous awards-from Pulitzers to National Book Critics Circle awards-or sparked national conversations that have changed the way we look at certain aspects of this topic, and they are all definite must-reads.

You can purchase these titles at Bookshop.org, an online bookstore with a mission to financially support local, independent booksellers, and do your part to support an independent and/or Black-owned bookstore in the process.
Join the free for great reads, monthly discussions, author Q&As and a community of book lovers.

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20 Books About Racism Everyone Should Read

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Think you understand racism in America? Think again. But these books on anti-racism and White privilege can help you gain further insight.

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Several Antiracist Books Are Selling Out. Here's What Else Black Booksellers and Publishers Say You Should Read

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Indie booksellers want readers to select a range of books on anti-racism and novels to educate themselves and take action. Here are their suggestions.

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Context

Most of us believe that every child, no matter what they look like or where they come from, deserves a safe, just, and welcoming school where they can thrive.

But certain politicians try to divide us by sending police to monitor and punish Black and Brown students in schools that have been denied funding to even cover the basics, while ensuring well-resourced schools with mostly white students have enrichment activities, teacher training, and parent engagement.

By joining together across race and place, we can rewrite the rules to ensure every student-whether Black, Brown, or White-has up-to-date learning materials that give a full picture of our nation's history, the support of educators who are prepared to foster dialogue on racial justice and its impact on students and communities, and a well-resourced school environment.

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We are joining together across race and place to ensure every student has the opportunities they need to succeed.

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We need diverse books because we need books in which children can find themselves, see reflections of themselves. I wrote a piece maybe 1990 it was published which I called "Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors." And I think that's really why we - children need to see themselves reflected.

But books can also be windows. And so you can look through and see other worlds and see how they match up or don't match up to your own. But the sliding glass door allows you to enter that world as well. And so that's the reason that the diversity needs to go both ways. I mean it's not just children who have been underrepresented and marginalized who need these books.

It's also the children who always find their mirrors in the books and, therefore, get an exaggerated sense of their own self-worth and a false sense of what the world is like because it's becoming more and more colorful and diverse as time goes on. So, I think that's why.

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Learn more about why diverse books matter for all kids and how to find high-quality fiction and nonfiction books that explore and celebrate our diverse and multicultural communities.

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Advice

Creating space to talk about race can open powerful learning for you and your students. These tips can help you make race conversations normal, constructive and successful.

Background

Racial dynamics, disparities and divisions permeate our society, communities, schools and classrooms. Systemic racism is so deeply rooted in our history, culture and institutions that there's no escaping it. Visible or not, its impacts are ever-present.

Yet, discussions of racism are typically not part of our curriculum - unless we're teaching social sciences or literature, or highlighting a particular holiday or hero. And even then, the race content may often be lacking or lackluster.

Adding to this context is the fact that a majority of our public school students are students of color while only 18 percent of our teachers are teachers of color. This presents different challenges for white teachers and teachers of color when approaching issues of race.

Because racism is complex and contentious, many of us are afraid to even broach the subject.

Fear of opening a can of worms and making a mistake can be paralyzing. It often feels easier and safer to avoid the topic altogether. Instead of calling attention to racism, we too often wish it would just go away. But whether we choose to talk about it or not, racism is already in the building. And, the more we avoid it, the more it grows.

Silence and inaction reinforce the status quo. Avoidance speaks volumes - it communicates to students of color that racism doesn't matter enough to warrant attention and, by omission, invalidates their experiences, perspectives, identities and lives. White students, on the other hand, often see racism being accepted and normalized, without acknowledgement or accountability. And the lofty ideal of educational excellence and equity for all students, if it even exists at your school, may seem like a hollow commitment.

To advance real solutions, we need to address real problems. As teachers, we have "teachable moments," or opportunities to constructively and productively address race. But these opportunities need to be thoughtfully created, seized, planned and managed. We have choices when addressing matters of race. In our own classroom, we are the power-holder, the gatekeeper, and the standard setter. One choice is to unconsciously and passively perpetuate racism, while the other is to consciously and actively pursue racial equity.

You probably don't have to revamp your entire curricula or classroom practice. But there are many ways we can make room for addressing racial dynamics. Discussions in your classroom can even be steppingstones to addressing race in your school, school district and community. Creating the space to talk about race can open the way for some of the most powerful learning and change that you and your students will ever experience.

The following tips can help you make race conversations normal, constructive and successful. These skills are best learned through collective dialogue with others committed to addressing racial equity, as well as through lots of practice. When discussions of race and racism become normalized, the promise of equity can be realized.

1. Create a Welcoming Classroom and School

Each class has its own culture and learning climate. When you make equity and inclusion prominent priorities in your classroom norms, routines and environment, your students will feel a greater sense of belonging, safety and openness. Balance participation and learning opportunities.

The more you can form authentic relationships and connections with all your students and their families, the more you will understand them-especially those who typically face the most marginalization, such as students of color, LGBTQ students, students from low-income families, English language learners, new immigrants, and students with physical or learning disabilities. New research is beginning to find that teacher empathy can be a key factor in student success and the reduction of punitive disciplinary actions.

Create a supportive culture and hold an affirming space for all of your students, individually and collectively, by:

Using diverse curriculum materials, differentiated instruction methods and give students some choices to accommodate different interests and learning styles.

Contributing to the welcoming climate of your school. For example, excess surveillance often unfairly targets and triggers students of color due to prevailing patterns of racial bias, thereby undermining efforts to create a school climate that is inclusive and conducive to learning.

2. Root Out Biases and Barriers

Everyone, regardless of race, can have unconscious racial bias. Be willing to examine your own bias and the ways you may be privileged or unaware. Reflect upon all aspects of your teaching practice.

Ask yourself:

Could your curriculum, pedagogy, grading, classroom management or disciplinary practices be giving preference to some students while putting others at a disadvantage?

Are there any barriers to learning and success that some students may be experiencing?

What are the racial impacts of different policies and practices at your school and school district?

Then, look at available data to see if there are patterns of inequitable outcomes or unintended consequences.

Finally, invite observation, discussion and feedback from colleagues and students about routine practices in order to surface lessons and equitable alternatives.

3. Encourage Self-Expression

Give your students the ability and validation to bring their full racial and cultural identities into your classroom so they can be themselves and speak their truths. Trust their wisdom and show deep respect. Discussions can begin by giving students an opportunity to share their experiences, perspectives or stories. Identify and appreciate points of connection, as well as differences.

Give students permission to only share what they want. Don't put anyone on the spot or expect any individual to represent their racial or cultural group. Your students may be your best teachers about matters of race, each with unique experience and expertise.

4. Be Open Yourself

Be willing to share different dimensions of your own racial identity and cultural background. Be open about your experience with racial inequities and/or racial privilege and any efforts you've participated in to advance racial justice. How has your racial identity been both a strength and a challenge in your life? What have you learned along the way, what were your mistakes, and what are you still learning?

If you are white, you may be used to the privilege of not having to think or talk about race, especially your own. Push yourself to take some risks, which will likely lead to some rich learning. Your honesty and humility will help your students open up.

5. Engage, Don't Avoid

Racism is perpetuated by silence-and silence is complicity. Being "colorblind" often serves as a pretense to downplay the significance of race, deny the existence of racism, and erase the experience of students of color. Be willing to lead the uncomfortable conversations and turn them into teachable moments. Learn to break through your own discomfort to embrace the tensions and unknowns.

When racism needs to be addressed but is being avoided, make it your job to initiate and facilitate a constructive conversation. Don't put the burden on students of color to have to bring things up or do all the heavy lifting to help white students learn. Even if you don't feel confident or fully skilled, challenge yourself and be courageous. At the other end of the spectrum, you also don't want too heavy-handed about race, where the discussion feels forced or too narrowly framed. Instead, you want to strategically provide the space for students to bring up their own angles on an issue. Let go of perfection and expect some messiness. Like anything else, it gets easier with practice.

6. Create Opportunities for Discussion

Use current events, cultural happenings and local angles to spark relevant and meaningful discussions among your students. Pop culture (e.g. music, movies, sports, celebrities) is particularly engaging for young people, supplying continuous fodder for important race conversations. Keep abreast of race-related news sites or social media by people of color to get ideas for hot topics.

Discussions about race are often reactive, once blatant racism has occurred, and often not very constructive-with lots of blaming and shaming. Be proactive by creating planned opportunities for students to share stories and life experiences in ways that connect to your curriculum. You still may need to react, at times, to incidents of racism in your classroom-such as micro-aggressions (routine slights and insults)-but you can prepare in advance your process for addressing them so that you're not caught off-guard. You'll need to make your discussions developmentally appropriate, but students at all levels - even very young - are already aware of, and affected by, race.

7. Talk About Racism and Racial Equity

If you want to get real about race, you have to also be willing to talk about racism and racial equity. Here are some concepts that you can introduce to add clarity and context to your discussions:

Race is not simply an individual characteristic or cultural identity. More significantly, it is a social category and a power dynamic-a marker of a racial group's positional power in society. Racial identities are socially assigned, regardless of how you self-identify. While attention to diversity (variety) is important, it is even more critical to address equity (fairness or justice), since racism is fundamentally about power.

Systemic racism - inequities and ideas about race based on history, institutions and culture - routinely advantages white people and disadvantages people of color. Some racism is conscious and intentional, but a lot of racism is

unconscious and unintentional (also known as implicit bias). Racism can be intensified by other intersecting inequities, such as gender and class, thus race requires explicit, but not exclusive attention.

Racial equity (or racial justice) is the systematic fair treatment of all people, resulting in fair opportunities and outcomes for everyone. Racial equity is not just the absence of discrimination but also the presence of values and systems that ensure fairness and justice. Systematic equity, which affirmatively and continually supports and ensures the fair treatment of all people, is needed to supplant the system of racism.

Racism is experienced at many levels-internalized, interpersonal, institutional and structural. Interpersonal manifestations of racism get a lot of our attention because they are more visible and visceral. But they are often just the superficial symptoms of broader systems with deeper root causes. Engaging in a systems analysis, can help students identify deeper causes and generate options for solutions.

Racial equity is not just the absence of discrimination but also the presence of values and systems that ensure fairness and justice.

This can provide a productive path for your discussions, beginning with the sharing of personal experiences and observations of racism, then working through some analysis and arriving at proposed solutions and strategies to advance racial equity.

8. Establish and Enforce Group Norms

Since conversations about race can be difficult and divisive, establish some agreements before you begin the conversation. Allow your students to generate, agree to, and hold each other accountable to, their own norms. Display these agreements and refer back to them, as needed. Decide upfront on the goals and parameters of the conversation - what you are and are not going to address.

Example group norms are: honoring confidentiality, using "I" statements instead of "You" statements, focusing on actions and impacts rather than assumptions and intentions, participating fully but evenly, deeply listening, allowing disagreement, appreciating feedback instead of getting defensive, and always respecting each other.

Learning and using restorative justice practices, such as peace circles, can also be helpful for addressing harm or conflict. These practices can help bring real issues to the surface while also fostering healthy communication, conflict resolution and relationships.

9. Process is as Important as Content

If you expect a challenging conversation, take time to get centered and take some deep breaths together. Try to be fully present with each other, without any distractions. Pay attention not only to what is being said (or not being said), but also to how it is being said, and who is saying it (or who is not speaking). Expect to do more facilitating and process management, with the content of the conversation mostly generated in real time by your students.

You can invite students to lead all or parts of the conversation. This not only gives them more ownership of the content, but also helps them practice important skills. You can be ready to guide or mediate, if needed, but you don't always have to lead the discussion, especially if some of your students have more direct experience with the topic at hand.

Decide upfront on the goals and parameters of the conversation - what you are and are not going to address.

Even if there is disagreement, as long you've followed your group norms and everyone feels heard and respected, the conversation will likely be constructive and productive. Build in movement breaks, as well as time at the end for
appreciations and closure.

10. Model Your Values and Vision

Practice equity, inclusion, empathy and respect in your own classroom. Your actions, more than your words, will have the greatest impact on your students. They are looking to you for leadership and ally-ship. You can play a formative role in helping them build critical skills for navigating the complexities of race.

Talking about racism is just a start. Taking action is the biggest driver of change. Create opportunities and strategies to move from awareness and analysis to action and impact. You and your students can go beyond the classroom by advocating for equity in your school and school district. Speak up and speak out. Be intentional about supporting more voices and leadership of people of color. And be proactive by proposing bold and concrete solutions that embody the values and vision of equity and inclusion for all.

Racial Justice in Education Links

Myth

It's easier and safer to avoid talking about racism with students and colleagues.

Reality

Silence and inaction reinforce the status quo, and tells students of color that racism doesn't matter.

Speak up for racial justice

Stay Informed We'll come to you

We're here to help you succeed in your career, advocate for public school students, and stay up to date on the latest education news. Sign up to stay informed

Myth

It's easier and safer to avoid talking about racism with students and colleagues.

Reality

Silence and inaction reinforce the status quo, and tells students of color that racism doesn't matter.

Speak up for racial justice

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10 Principles for Talking About Race in School | NEA

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Creating space to talk about race can open powerful learning for you and your students. These tips can help you make race conversations normal, constructive and successful.

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Examine the past, understand the present, and create a better future.

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On June 19, 1865, enslaved African Americans in Texas were told they were free. A century and a half later, people across the U.S. continue to celebrate the day, which is now a federal holiday.

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National Museum of African American History and Culture

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On "Freedom's Eve," or the eve of January 1, 1863, the first Watch Night services took place. On that night, enslaved and free African Americans gathered in churches and private homes all across the country awaiting news that the Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect. At the stroke of midnight, prayers were answered as all enslaved people in Confederate States were declared legally free. Union soldiers, many of whom were black, marched onto plantations and across cities in the south reading small copies of the Emancipation Proclamation spreading the news of freedom in Confederate States. Only through the Thirteenth Amendment did emancipation end slavery throughout the United States.

But not everyone in Confederate territory would immediately be free. Even though the Emancipation Proclamation was made effective in 1863, it could not be implemented in places still under Confederate control. As a result, in the westernmost Confederate state of Texas, enslaved people would not be free until much later. Freedom finally came on June 19, 1865, when some 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas. The army announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved black people in the state, were free by executive decree. This day came to be known as " Juneteenth," by the newly freed people in Texas.

The post-emancipation period known as Reconstruction (1865-1877) marked an era of great hope, uncertainty, and struggle for the nation as a whole. Formerly enslaved people immediately sought to reunify families, establish schools, run for political office, push radical legislation and even sue slaveholders for compensation. Given the 200+ years of enslavement, such changes were nothing short of amazing. Not even a generation out of slavery, African Americans were inspired and empowered to transform their lives and their country.

Juneteenth marks our country's second independence day. Although it has long celebrated in the African American community, this monumental event remains largely unknown to most Americans.

The historical legacy of Juneteenth shows the value of never giving up hope in uncertain times. The National Museum of African American History and Cultureis a community space where this spirit of hope lives on. A place where historical events like Juneteenth are shared and new stories with equal urgency are told.

View Our Juneteenth Digital Toolkit

As you celebrate Juneteenth this year, the museum offers additional resources to help you embrace the rich history of Freedom Day.

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Juneteenth is an often overlooked event in our nation's history. On June 19, 1865, Union troops freed enslaved African Americans in Galveston Bay and across Texas some two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

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CA School Board Association-FAQ on Critical Race Theory

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Inspired by the storytellers, the conversations and the art that have arisen from the Black Lives Matter movement, we know that there are a lot more stories that need to be told, and a lot more listening that needs to be done. So we handed the mic over to Black people across the U.S. to ask them to share their thoughts, their feelings and their experiences with us. We worked with artists and animators to bring their words to life. Here is what they wish you knew.

SUBSCRIBE: https://goo.gl/vR6Acb

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This story is a part of our Human Condition series. Come along and let us connect you to some of the most peculiar, stirring, extraordinary, and distinctive people in the world.

Got a story idea for us? Shoot us an email at hey [at] GreatBigStory [dot] com

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Come hang with us on Vimeo: http://goo.gl/T0OzjV
Visit our world directly: https://greatbigstory.com

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Black Voices Speak Their Truth | Great Big Story

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Inspired by the storytellers, the conversations and the art that have arisen from the Black Lives Matter movement, we know that there are a lot more stories that need to be told, and a lot more listening that needs to be done. So we handed the mic over to Black people across the U.S.

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Teaching About Race, Racism and Police Violence

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Teaching About Race, Racism and Police Violence

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Skip to main content

Our country's system of policing has a history of violence that disproportionately steals the lives of Black, Indigenous and other people of color along with individuals with disabilities. And despite years of protests, the Black Lives Matter movement, efforts for police reforms, and ongoing cries for justice, we continue to witness and mourn people killed and brutalized by police.

These acts of violence-along with the often lack of accountability-damages trust and affects young people across the United States, prompting parents, caregivers, educators and communities to seek resources on how to address these subjects at home or in the classroom.

The resources below can help spur much-needed discussion around implicit bias and systemic racism, but they can also help inspire us all to enact the changes that will create a more just society.

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Discussing Race, Racism and Police Violence

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Our country's system of policing has a history of violence that disproportionately steals the lives of Black, Indigenous and other people of color along with individuals with disabilities. And despite years of protests, the Black Lives Matter movement, efforts for police reforms, and ongoing cries for justice, we continue to witness and mourn people killed and brutalized by police.

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Beatriz's Pick: Talking Race With Young Children

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Beatriz's Pick: Talking Race With Young Children

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subscribe to Parenting: Difficult Conversations podcast

subscribe to Parenting: Difficult Conversations podcast

Even babies notice differences like skin color, eye shape and hair texture. Here's how to handle conversations about race, racism, diversity and inclusion, even with very young children.
A few things to remember:

Don't shush or shut them down if they mention race.

Don't wait for kids to bring it up.

Be proactive, helping them build a positive awareness of diversity.

When a child experiences prejudice, grown-ups need to both address the feelings and fight the prejudices.

You don't have to avoid topics like slavery or the Holocaust. Instead, give the facts and focus on resistance and allies.

In addition to Jeanette Betancourt, senior vice president for Social Impact at Sesame Workshop, we spoke to Beverly Daniel Tatum: We recommend her TEDx talk as well as her book, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations About Race.
Additional Resources:

Babies begin to notice race at 6 months old - in fact, according to this pair of studies by Professor Kang Lee at the University of Toronto, they actually show signs of racial bias by this age.

One in 10 children is multiracial - according to Pew Research Center. This includes children with parents of two different races, plus those with at least one multiracial parent.

Watch the whole "I Love My Hair!" video from Sesame Street.

Thanks to Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton. Derrick Gay, and Jinnie Spiegler of the Anti-Defamation League, which has a wide range of resources for anti-bias education.

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Talking Race With Young Children : Parenting: Difficult Conversations

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subscribe to Parenting: Difficult Conversations podcast subscribe to Parenting: Difficult Conversations podcast Even babies notice differences like skin color, eye shape and hair texture. Here's how to handle conversations about race, racism, diversity and inclusion, even with very young children. A few things to remember: Don't shush or shut them down if they mention race.

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In West Virginia's Roane County Schools, finding a Black teacher is like scaling one of the many mountains in the town: a steep uphill climb. The 484-square-mile rural county of less than 15,000 is 97% White with a Black population so low it's marked 0% by federal counts. A history of slavery and racism is even embedded in the town's name: Spencer Roane was an 1800s slaveowner and judge who opposed abolition.

So when Ugo Naomi Onwuka, a biracial Nigerian American, returned to the county she grew up in to teach as a substitute, she was an outlier. But under her belt was a fresh bachelor's degree in child and family studies with a concentration in child development. She felt prepared to take on her first public school job.

By only the second day in the classroom, Onwuka's elementary-grade students were curious about her hair.

"They were like, 'Wow, I've never seen that before," Onwuka posted in a TikTok video that went viral. "So we talked about what Black hair is, how I did my hair like this, and I showed them a picture of me in my Afro."

With her permission, some of her students combed their hands through her hair. Children are hands-on learners, after all, she thought.

Not soon after, however, she felt a shift among her colleagues. She heard whispers and felt like she was being treated differently. She stopped receiving substitute assignments.

Then, about a month after her start date and without warning, Onwuka no longer worked for the district.

@ugoonwuka2 i'm doing my best guys ???????? #fyp #foryou #viral #teaching #teachersoftiktok #blackteacher #blackeducator ♬ original sound - Ugo Onwuka

Anti-CRT policies balloon

Unlike many other red states, West Virginia - despite an attempt to pass an anti-critical race theory bill - does not have a law on the books limiting teachers from discussing race and gender topics in the classroom.

In March, the state Senate advanced a bill to prohibit schools from teaching that "an individual, by virtue of the individual's race, ethnicity, or biological sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously," among other things. Despite passing both the House and Senate, the bill failed to become law after the legislature missed the final vote deadline before the session ended.

The state is one of some 36 where similar policies or statements have been introduced or adopted since then-President Donald Trump introduced such language through executive orders in 2020, according to the UCLA School of Law Critical Race Studies Program's CRT Forward Tracking Project. Since then, at least 28 states have adopted policies or statements that educators say limit discussions around race and gender, create a culture of fear, and prevent marginalized students and their peers from learning about their histories and identities.

In 2020 and 2021, some 894 school districts representing 35% of all K-12 students dealt with local actions related to anti-CRT campaigns in classrooms, according to researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of California, San Diego.

Some teachers now avoid books like Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye" and Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" - long seen as classic pieces of literature but now banned in various parts of the country.

Educators reported incidents of teachers being unsure of whether or how to discipline use of the n-word and having to notify parents before students watch Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. These teachers say they feel harassed and targeted, and they are afraid to speak with their colleagues about race or gender-related issues.

Even in states where laws haven't been passed, educators say national rhetoric has mobilized local groups of parents who are hypervigilant about what's taught in the classroom. On one hand, parents are pushing for their own rights to control what their children learn, and on the other hand, teachers, counselors and sometimes administrators say their profession and experience are being questioned.

Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice, who supports anti-CRT efforts, said teachers should not be allowed to discuss social justice issues and worldviews. "There shouldn't be a worldview taught in the classroom that is outside and antithetical to the teaching in the home," Justice said.

"Teachers are government actors - they're government employees - and they do not have the right to free speech," Justice said. "They're employees, and they are told what to do. And their job is to do what they're told."

When asked about whether parents should similarly have their rights respected to control what's taught in school when they feel that social justice issues such as Black Lives Matter or LGBTQ rights can't be separated from their children's identities, Justice did not directly answer the question.

In the 1990s, as Tina Philibotte was growing up in Manchester, New Hampshire, she was the only Korean American student. Even today, according to 2020 Census data, just 6% of the Granite State's population is Asian.

"And what I heard constantly growing up is, 'We don't see you as one of those people - we see you just like us,'" remembers Philibotte, who is now a chief equity officer for Manchester School District. "You're one of the good ones."

Philibotte and her few friends of color found themselves "code-switching," or altering their speech and behavior to fit in a White-majority setting - "because we needed to protect ourselves and get through the day," she said. "We have to actually reckon with the fact that people just don't want to see us and don't want to acknowledge our full existence."

Nearly three decades later, Philibotte is still grappling with this situation. "On most days in this job, I've walked into a room and I am the only person of color," Philibotte said. And now, thanks to New Hampshire's divisive concepts law, she finds herself thinking twice before discussing race-related issues at all.

As someone who offers statewide diversity, equity and inclusion training, she's had to swap out the word "bias" with "socialization" in the training she provides.

"It's a reminder of how I just don't belong," Philibotte said. "We have to change all of our words to suit the needs of this law." New Hampshire's statute prohibits training and education that, among other things, teaches that an individual is consciously or unconsciously inherently racist, sexist or oppressive as a result of their racial, sexual, gender, or other identities.

Unlike Philibotte, Deborah Gist, superintendent of Tulsa Public Schools, did not change her district's anti-bias training for teachers after Oklahoma's anti-CRT law passed. "We're confident that there isn't anything that we are doing that is inconsistent" with the law, Gist said.

Still, in February, a teacher filed a complaint with the state board of education alleging the district had violated the law, HB 1775. The complaint said mandatory training the teacher was "forced to watch" included statements "that specifically shame white people for past offenses in history, and state that all are implicitly racially biased by nature."

The training, which was reviewed by K-12 Dive, did not include statements shaming White people for historical events, or statements alleging only White people are implicitly biased.

Rather, it explained the concept of implicit bias and how it exists in the subconscious whether you actually hold those beliefs or not. It also cited facts on the shifting racial composition of U.S. public school enrollment, statistics on disproportionate discipline rates for Black students and students with disabilities, and research on implicit and explicit bias. Furthermore, it described cultural competence and urged teachers to make all students from all backgrounds feel welcome.

Where White people are specifically mentioned in the training, it is to acknowledge changing racial demographics in school enrollment and that cultural institutions designed around a predominantly White middle class society were shifting to adapt to a more culturally diverse society.

"Implicit racial biases may not be part of who you believe yourself to be, but they're still there," said the instructor in the training. "Implicit biases generally lead people to favor those in their own racial group and hold biases against those who aren't. Still, research has shown that people can hold implicit racial biases about their own racial group."

The Oklahoma State Department of Education, which reviewed nearly identical audio and video trainings, first found the audio - but not the video - violated the law. As a result, however, the department recommended to the Oklahoma State Board of Education that Tulsa Public Schools, the state's largest district, be downgraded to "accredited with deficiency."

The board went even a step further than the department's recommendation, warning the district it could lose its accreditation entirely.

Following the board's decision, the department clarified in a comment to Fox 25 that both the audio and video "violated the spirit of the law" but said the audio "had a greater impact on the agency's review team." The incident "underscores how the vague language of HB 1775 invites imprecise judgment calls, which in turn can have a chilling effect on classroom instruction," the department said.

Facing the risk of potential discreditation, Gist pulled the training altogether.

Decades after feeling unsafe as a Korean American student, Philibotte now sees her high school-aged daughter walking the same path as she routinely deals with racial harassment and slurs.

"This is the reality of our country's disparities," Philibotte's daughter told the New Hampshire House of Representatives during a 2021 hearing on the divisive concepts statute. Reminiscent of what she wanted during her own childhood, Philibotte said her daughter was seeking an environment where she felt safe and her experiences understood.

Safety is, however, the opposite of what resulted. Shortly after her testimony, Philibotte's daughter began receiving death threats. The student is not being named here out of fear for her well-being.

While state lawmakers lauded Philibotte's daughter for speaking up, they nonetheless passed the divisive concepts ban soon after. "And at the end of the day, nothing changed," Philibotte said.

It's students like Philibotte's daughter who are shortchanged the most when classroom censorship laws and book bans are put in place, say lawyers, free speech advocates and educators who oppose the measures.

"It affected the teachers, but the effect is really going to happen to the students," said Anthony Crawford, a 9th grade English teacher in Oklahoma City who is involved in a lawsuit against Oklahoma's anti-CRT law. "It's going to show within years from now."

Multiple educators report the laws negatively impacting their relationships with students.

"Unless we can establish that relationship where there's a sense of safety [and] security, the learning just doesn't happen," said Anton Schulzki, a social studies teacher in Colorado and former president of the National Council for the Social Studies. "Or it doesn't happen in a way that should make you feel safe."

The laws have had a disproportionate impact on educators and students of color, including Black and Native American students, some teachers said. Educators of color, Philibotte said, are more careful than their White colleagues with what they can and cannot broach in the classroom.

"It kind of puts you even more at risk," said Philibotte, "because I already have a target on my back."

Crawford laments the situation faced by his own Black daughter and his Black students, who he said would have been empowered by learning about their history and identities.

"As a father, this lets me know that, you know, the type of teaching I need to do at home with my daughter, to make sure that she understands who she is, as she grows up," Crawford said. "And know that the lessons that she learned at home will never be repeated in the school."

In the past year, multiple free speech lawsuits have cropped up around the nation challenging divisive concepts laws. At the forefront of this movement is the ACLU, which has filed separate lawsuits in New Hampshire, where Philibotte has joined in her individual capacity, and Oklahoma, where Crawford is involved.

Other lawsuits were filed in Florida, one of which led to a partial temporary injunction in August against Gov. Ron DeSantis' Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees Act, or Stop WOKE, by U.S. District Judge Mark Walker. The act limits how schools discuss race, gender and history in classrooms, building on the state board's previous efforts to do the same.

"Florida has seemed like a First Amendment upside down," Walker said in his decision. "Normally, the First Amendment bars the state from burdening speech, while private actors may burden speech freely. But in Florida, the First Amendment apparently bars private actors from burdening speech, while the state may burden speech freely."

Lawyers for the ACLU, which has challenged the higher education portion of the same law, said they are on the lookout for its impact on K-12 and are open to future litigation.

As lawsuits make their way through these jurisdictions, trends to censor classroom discussions are expected to take hold in states like West Virginia and Arizona where proposals narrowly failed earlier, said Jeremy Young, senior manager of free expression and education at PEN America.

Young said he expects lawmakers to add new penalties and punishments to existing restrictions on instruction. "There may also be a shift to other types of censorious legislation, such as 'curriculum transparency' bills that place undue administrative burdens on teachers and make it easier for activists to challenge classroom materials," he said.

the situation in roane county really left me a lot more messed up then people realize. I lost my job, my family, my home. I'm not in therapy bc I can't afford it. i don't have medical care bc I can't afford it. im dealing with severe anxiety and depression as a result
- yugie (@UgoOnwuka) November 13, 2022

'My only options were to either assimilate or leave'

And as lawmakers and policymakers and community members haggle over the laws and the implementation, teacher morale continues to tank.

Gist, whose school district's anti-bias trainings nearly cost the system its accreditation, said the fear-driven environment has made the jobs of already underpaid teachers even more difficult.

"There's no question that it plays a role in the ability to bring people on and for folks to stay," Gist said.

According to a RAND report released in August, nearly 1 in 4 educators surveyed earlier this year said their school or district leaders asked them to avoid teaching about social or political issues. They also reported harassment, primarily from students' family members, related to how race, racism and bias are taught in schools - something that can negatively shape teachers' perceptions of their school's climate, the RAND report said.

"We're seeing ... these pockets where there's really high distrust and even downright disgust towards educators as being incapable of doing their jobs," said Megan Fromm, education manager for the National Association for Media Literacy Education.

Moms for Liberty's Justice, for her part, questions whether parents should trust educators. "And so my question back to the teachers and the curriculum experts and all the people is, why should we trust you to talk about anything else with our kids" other than what is in teaching standards?

"Why should we even allow you the time to talk about anything else with our children besides the curriculum set forth? When you can't even seem to do that very well," Justice said.

For Fromm, sentiments of mistrust are "wearing on educators."

This is borne out in the RAND report, which found 43% of teachers who reported harassment over policies about teaching race, racism or bias said their school did not foster "a sense of belonging for teachers of color."

Onwuka, the former substitute teacher for Roane County Schools, is considering legal action based on her alleged treatment as an educator of color. What happened is still open to debate: Onwuka claims she was pushed out of the district and fired, while the district alleges she resigned after concerns from community members surfaced but before they could address these concerns with Onwuka.

Roane County Schools Superintendent Richard Duncan did not respond to questions about the details of what led to Onwuka's departure from the district. However, he noted the district has generally had issues with staff "distributing inappropriate social media content using official email" and "creating social media content while obviously at school."

According to Onwuka, her racial identity and decision to engage with children on the subject was met with community pushback that eventually cost her her job. "They are saying I was pushing something on them when the reality is that this is my way of life," Onwuka said. "I am a confident Black woman living in a predominantly White space, and it angers them. My only options were to either assimilate or leave."

Expecting to be harassed had she stayed, Onwuka has ventured far from West Virginia - to teach in Costa Rica.

"The kids are the reason I stayed for so long," Onwuka said about teaching in the United States. "And while I learned a lot, I am not certain if I want to go back [there] to public schools or not."

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Star-Spangled Bans: Anti-CRT policies lead schools to downplay race, history

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In West Virginia's Roane County Schools, finding a Black teacher is like scaling one of the many mountains in the town: a steep uphill climb. The 484-square-mile rural county of less than 15,000 is 97% White with a Black population so low it's marked 0% by federal counts.

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Ideas that make up critical race theory have been around long before it got its name

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NPR's A Martinez talks to Kimberle Crenshaw, who coined the term "critical race theory," about anti-racism and why she believes it must be part of American discourse.

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For the first time, we're observing the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday under new laws in multiple states that ban the instruction of "divisive" interpretations of our racial past. The assaults have given new weapons to an enduring faction in American society that has long resisted the reckoning that his life's work demanded.

In King's day, this faction was known as the "Massive Resistance," an effort to organize and frustrate the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education ruling and efforts to build multiracial classrooms. Today, this faction is known as the "anti-CRT" effort, which seeks to proscribe race-related curricula, books or trainings that offer a discomforting view of our past and its current implications.

Teachers, public officials and students are in a particularly unsustainable bind. They're charged with honoring King as a figure while disavowing the ideas that he lived and died to advance. They're being asked not merely to defer King's dream of racial equality but to decommission it altogether.

King would likely take bitter note of the all-too-familiar dynamics behind today's backlash. After the 2020 global movement for racial justice in the United States and beyond in the wake of the savage police killing of George Floyd, legislatures in 32 states have relied on what is patently a lie - that antiracism is antiwhite - to fuel the antidemocratic crusade against what they call "critical race theory."

For more than 30 years, scholars have employed critical race theory as an analytical tool. The right has rebranded it as the new racism, as wokeness run amok, as a threat to innocent schoolchildren and as a stalking-horse for the demise of "Western civilization" itself. The theory has become the target of coordinated efforts to stigmatize and erase generations of antiracist knowledge, advocacy and history. The objective is both to disappear antiracism's history and to deny its contemporary salience.

King himself is a prime casualty in this effort. Apostles of the McCarthyite crackdown on critical race theory have exploited him as a mouthpiece for their cause, reducing him to a solitary, decontextualized line from the "I Have a Dream" speech about a future in which his four children were to be judged not "by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

Some use King's words to erase his deeds and those of millions more who rose up to "make good the promises" since Reconstruction. In Tennessee, for example, the Moms for Liberty sought to ban Frances E. Ruffin's children's book "Martin Luther King Jr. and the March on Washington"by framing its descriptions of segregation and the violence meted out against King and others as traumatizing and racist. The Moms argue that Ruffin's portrayal of white racism against people of color "will sow the seeds of racial strife, neo-racism, neo-segregation, and is an affront" to King's ideals. This reveals precisely what comes of a persistent and willful ignorance of King's legacy.

The sheer power on display to turn King against himself - a process that has been underway since the first day this holiday was celebrated - is a grim reflection of the way opponents have long subjected antiracist thinking and activism to distortion, misappropriation and redefinition. The brazen casting of critical race theory as the contemporary villain following 2020's racial reckoning is no surprise.

The King holiday and Black History Month are an excellent opportunity - perhaps the only opportunity - to course-correct, contest and redirect the misconceptions about King's legacy and its interface with critical race theory. Recovering the real King begins by freeing his image from the clutches of those seeking to substitute truthful education with a saccharine narrative built on illusions, delusions and lies.

Dr. King was an "inconvenient truth teller." His insistence on the urgency of racial justice put him at odds with moderate whites in the South, and his denunciation of imperialism put him at odds with allies more narrowly focused on the freedom struggle within U.S. borders.

For telling these truths, in life, King was often criticized rather than celebrated. At the time of his death, polls showed that most white people held an unfavorable view of him. The FBI, under J. Edgar Hoover, framed him as a national security threat. Some Black leaders were hardly convinced of his tactics - his civil disobedience was too radical for some, his nonviolence too accommodationist for others. But for King, the demands for racial justice were not to be won through a popularity contest or by painting a comforting picture of the U.S. social order. Nor was King's an identity-obsessed demand for recognition. He offered a clear-eyed assessment of a would-be democracy in a state of disrepair. Confronting it at its source was the only way forward.

It's no accident that the firestorm over critical race theory has singed King's message: King was, in fact, a critical race theorist before there was a name for it. A core observation of the theory is the recognition that the promise of liberation extends beyond the elimination of formal segregation and individual-level prejudice. Critical race theory explores how racial inequality was historically structured into the fabric of the republic, reinforced by law, insulated by the founding Constitution and embedded into the infrastructure of American society. Similarly, King observed in 1967 that "the doctrine of white supremacy was embedded in every textbook and preached in practically every pulpit," entrenched as "a structural part of the culture."

Accordingly, King's appeal in the March on Washington in 1963 was grounded in the assertion that the promise of a fully inclusive American democracy - one that lived up to its oft-stated ideals - required creative confrontation with a republic out of step with its promises. He rebuffed those who found fault in the tensions created by placing our norms and our realities in sharp relief.

King famously wrote a letter rejecting the counsel of white moderate allies who argued for a gradualist accommodation to the prioritized sensibilities of those who didn't experience the sting of segregation. As a father, he conveyed the anguish of his own children, who couldn't understand why they weren't allowed into the Funtown amusement park, which barred Black visitors, while the joy of white children was privileged. He argued elsewhere that "justice for black people cannot be achieved without radical changes in the structure of our society."

King centered the promise of equal access to the ballot - now under concerted assault - at the heart of his prophetic mission. He fought to win passage of both the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, and he understood that the provisions of each law were part and parcel of the same struggle for true and lasting racial justice. While he hailed the landmark voting reform as "a great step forward in removing all of the remaining obstacles to the right to vote," he also insisted that the vote be used to "rid the American body politic of racism." King would instantly recognize the mutually reinforcing objectives of denying the ballot, an indispensable instrument of reform, while also silencing the substantive case for reform by whitewashing the country's racial past.

Contrary to countless assertions from the right, King did not endorse colorblindness. It wasn't the remedy for dismantling the ugly realities that white supremacy had produced. Like today's critical race theorists, King understood that American racism was systemic and demanded systemic remedies. He was forthright in acknowledging that anti-Black racism "was not a consequence of superficial prejudice but was systemic." Throughout his career, King set his sights on institutional-level change, calling for solutions built on the race-conscious analysis of inequalities across our society.

King invoked a "bank of justice" to be mobilized against the many structures of racial oppression to ultimately realize "the security of justice" for all Americans. This commitment explicitly extended to the mode of race-conscious practice that now goes by the name of affirmative action.

When questioned whether he would support such outlays, King bluntly replied, "I do indeed," and went on to explain: "Can any fair-minded citizen deny that the Negro has been deprived? Few people reflect that for two centuries the Negro was enslaved and robbed of any wages - potential accrued wealth which would have been the legacy of his descendants. All of America's wealth today could not adequately compensate its Negroes for his centuries of exploitation and humiliation."

Much of King's legacy may never be taught in public schools, if this manufactured panic that demands critical thinking about racism be expunged from curricula and libraries continues. In North Dakota, for example, King's understanding of structural racism would contradict the state's newly minted edict that racism cannot be taught as anything more than an individual's prejudice and bias. His understanding of the historical debt created by centuries of uncompensated labor flies directly in the face of Oklahoma's prohibition of material suggesting that current generations bear any responsibility for the actions of their ancestors.

Not only did King clearly recognize that antiracism must address built-in headwinds that unnecessarily disadvantage some groups over others, but so does, incidentally, the Supreme Court, as seen in its many rulings. Yet an instructor seeking to explain King's expansive vision of justice or a professor highlighting legal cases about institutional discrimination will be in jeopardy if they teach these ideas in some states that have adopted such laws.

King's ideas could also fall under efforts in states such as Oklahoma or Texas that forbid the use of classroom materials that might create guilt or discomfort in public school students. King's description of a social order in need of repair would trigger complaints that current generations are made to feel responsible for the sins of our past. New Hampshire, meanwhile, has proposed legislation forbidding antiracist critiques of the nation's founding and history.

Indeed, under most of these laws, King's concrete work and documented analysis of racism's enduring legacy in American society would be suspect. In his final speech, on the eve of his death, he said he might not get to the promised land with us. This prophecy would rest uneasily in curricula that sanction assumptions that we haven't already become that society that King dreamed we would one day be.

This imposition of a fairy-tale account of America makes King's sacrifice utterly illegible. It is a memory-holed vision of the past better suited to George Orwell's dystopian reveries than to a nation seeking to redeem its promise of genuine, expansive and democratic self-rule.

Nationwide, lawmakers are legislating that our schools and workplaces turn away from King's mandate to make good on the country's broken promises, and wallow instead in the wages of this ignorance. It is an ignorance that grows out of an earlier effort to impose an approved orthodoxy about the American past. One of the enduring consequences of the United Daughters of the Confederacy's textbook campaigns was the persistence of Confederate propaganda and Lost Cause mythology masquerading as the truth about the history of the Civil War and its aftermath. The United Daughters ensured that millions of children inherited a view of America's past grossly warped by the whitewashing of slavery and the violent Redemption, when white Southerners called for a return to white supremacy, that followed Reconstruction. The democratic crisis we face today is an unrecognizable spasm from that past, illegible in part because our educational system and national myths have not overcome these past manipulations to embrace this history.

To truly honor King's memory, then, we must defeat the faction that facilitated the U.S. Capitol riot, put democracy on life support, and continues to demand that critical interrogation of its past be censored by law. King implored that we put our bodies on the line to face the organized forces of white reaction in his day - and it's clear that he'd be fighting in exactly the same way to preserve his prophetic legacy in our own day, when the right to equal education, to vote freely and to realize true cross-racial justice are once more under bitter attack.

Reclaiming his legacy is to realize that there is no daylight between a truly democratic society and a racially just one.
Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw is a professor at the Columbia and UCLA law schools and executive director of the African American Policy Forum.

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Op-Ed: King was a critical race theorist before there was a name for it

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For the first time, we're observing the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday under new laws in multiple states that ban the instruction of "divisive" interpretations of our racial past. The assaults have given new weapons to an enduring faction in American society that has long resisted the reckoning that his life's work demanded.

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Kassie Bracken, Mark Boyer, Jacey Fortin, Rebecca Lieberman and Noah ThroopAug. 17, 2022

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What’s Actually Being Taught in History Class (Published 2022)

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Schools across the country have been caught up in spirited debates over what students should learn about United States history. We talked to seven social studies teachers about how they run their classrooms, what they teach and why.

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Vol. 17

No. 3

Abstract

A Spotlight on Public Responses

Making a Statement

Centering Equity and Justice Over Reputation

By studying how school leaders have publicly responded to racial incidents in the past, we can learn how to successfully navigate future crises.

Abstract

A Spotlight on Public Responses

Making a Statement

Centering Equity and Justice Over Reputation

Last year's heightened awareness of racial injustice, prompted by the state-sanctioned murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and multiple other Black Americans, and subsequent battles over teaching accurate histories of race and racism have prompted school leaders to wrestle with several questions: Should I publicly respond to these crises? If I do respond, what is the right thing to say? How do I balance what I believe, district guidelines, and the needs of the students and families that I serve?

Although aspiring school leaders receive ample training in handling issues related to instructional leadership and teacher supervision, most lack the knowledge required for leading diversity initiatives or navigating racial crises (Davis et al., 2015; Young et al., 2010). And based on the varying levels of quality and depth in school leaders' recent public responses to these crises, it is clear that the training these leaders received in preparation programs was insufficient.

A Spotlight on Public Responses

My research on how school leaders have responded to racial violence in the past-conducted as part of my PhD studies-provides insight into how to successfully navigate future racial crises. Using media reports and newspapers, I studied 538 incidents of racial violence in K-12 schools that took place from 2014 to 2019. These incidents were spread across 41 states and Washington, D.C.; a majority occurred in the Midwest and the South. Most revolved around the use of racial slurs, racist graffiti or signs, racist social media posts, or racism at athletic events. There were also several incidents that did not neatly fit into one category: racist "promposals," students holding mock slave auctions, and students wearing Ku Klux Klan robes to school, just to name a few.

Many of these media reports included links to school leaders' public responses. I studied 140 of these press releases, letters, emails, and social media posts to find commonalities. Although critical race theory (CRT) has recently been at the center of many school board protests and has been characterized as anti-American and revisionist in nature, I found it to be an excellent analysis tool. Critical race theory acknowledges that racism is not a deviation from the norm in our society, but instead has been a feature of our laws, policies, and practices since its founding (Harris, 1993). It also centers counternarratives that detail the experiences of racially minoritized people (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002).

CRT provided the theoretical grounding for me to understand how and why some school leaders chose to address these crises the way they did, especially those who claimed racism was not a part of their community. They often focused the response on protecting their school's image and reputation, rather than effectively addressing the issue at hand: the persistence of white supremacy and systemic racism in our education systems.

Instances of racial violence in schools require school leaders to be prepared to be bold, courageous, and decisive in their responses.

Many school leaders described the incidents as individual acts of racism that were unrepresentative of their schools and communities. When members of one suburban high school marching band used the letters on their instrument covers to spell out a racial slur, the principal shared his disappointment by saying that the students' actions were stunning to the community: "As you all know, this is not who we are."

Statements from school and district leaders often used numbers to demonstrate the isolation of such despicable acts. A district superintendent in the Southwest wrote that "X Public Schools employs more than 14,000 individuals. The unacceptable behavior reported by the students is specific to one employee." Similarly, a superintendent in the Midwest assured the community that "the actions of one individual do not represent the values of 5,000 students."

Leaders often highlighted their schools' values, many of which explicitly celebrated diversity and inclusion. One suburban high school principal who was responding to an act of racial violence stated that "X High School will not be defined by this incident. We will remain one community that celebrates our diversity." Leaders also underscored the importance of tolerance, kindness, and safety for all by making clear that they had zero tolerance for discrimination and hate. When responding to a threat to kill Black students, an East Coast high school principal wrote, "We must not tolerate any form of bigotry or hate, no matter the race and ethnicity of the suspect or those of the intended victim or victims . . . Hate is hate, and we must eradicate it from our school."

Making a Statement

At first glance, these responses appear to be strong condemnations of racial hatred and violence, which is exactly what we should expect from our leaders. However, by drawing a bright red line around the school and placing the individuals responsible for racist actions outside it, many school leaders missed a crucial opportunity for race-conscious leadership. Such leadership does not shy away from conversations about race but instead works to create opportunities for staff at every level to openly discuss racial issues and grow in their racial awareness (Flores & Gunzenhauser, 2019).

Additionally, race-conscious leaders must be willing to acknowledge and then work to counter the ways that racism functions within their schools. Although leaders may not want to believe that the perpetrators are representative of our communities, it is important to recognize two things: 1) Whether representative or not, the individuals responsible for racist actions are still a part of our communities, and 2) systemic racism is absolutely embedded in our organizations and institutions (Ray, 2019).

If school leaders can begin to accept these statements as fact, it can empower them to address incidents more courageously and compassionately.

My research also revealed multiple examples of educational leaders engaging in equity-minded school leadership-a reform approach that "foregrounds the policies and practices contributing to disparities in educational achievement and abstains from blaming students for those accumulated disparities" (Bensimon et al., 2016). An example of this form of leadership was evident in a joint statement by a Midwest principal and district superintendent. The statement read in part:

"We will not be silent in the face of racist language in our schools-and we cannot perpetuate it. We will not make excuses for actions that hurt the students . . . we have a lot of work to do to repair harm and rebuild trust with our students and our community. We take that responsibility seriously."

A similar statement was made by a middle school principal in the West, who wrote:

"We are beginning our own work to open a dialogue and take real steps towards being our best selves as well. We have just created an Equity Committee that will be examining our curriculum and our practices to look for our own biases and to seek out new perspectives. I would also like to invite our parents to join us in these conversations to lend their voices and expertise. We are limited to our own experience, and the only way to grow is to invite others in."

These school leaders not only called attention to the racist incidents and took responsibility for those actions but also centered the experiences of those harmed by racial violence by acknowledging the devastating impacts of racial violence for students of color. Most importantly, they worked to develop specific and targeted shifts in policies and practices. These statements are necessary, but they are only the first step. How do we make sure that school leaders are empowered to do this work?

Centering Equity and Justice Over Reputation

Empowering leaders will involve transforming educational leadership preparation programs to be explicitly race-conscious and equity-minded. Just as we predict the arrival of hurricane and flu seasons, we must also treat racial crises as predictable occurrences and proactively train school leaders to successfully address them. Trainings might focus on developing racial awareness and identity; cultivating racially inclusive educational spaces that encourage people to bring their whole selves into the room; or creating meaningful partnerships with culturally specific community-based organizations (like the Black Parent Initiative in Portland, Oregon). Although programs may not be able to prepare school leaders for every crisis, a comprehensive focus on racial equity and justice within curricula can ensure that leaders begin with a strong foundation in race-conscious leadership.

We must also provide meaningful opportunities for practicing school leaders to learn with and from each other through professional learning communities specifically dedicated to racial justice. These spaces would benefit from including leaders who have navigated racial crises in their schools and can provide genuine insight into the challenges and opportunities that came from their experiences. Discussing potential failures, particularly when those failures are public, can be difficult. However, openly sharing those experiences in a supportive, collaborative space, could provide leaders with a critical support system to share best practices.

For example, the USC Race and Equity Center, where I am currently a research associate, recently launched the inaugural Racial Equity Leadership Academy with more than 80 principals from the Los Angeles Unified School District. Over the course of the year, these school leaders took part in monthly, virtual PD sessions focused on topics related to racial equity, including addressing implicit bias, cultivating relationships with families and communities of color, and addressing racial violence in schools by incorporating racial equity plans into everyday policies and practices. This work is critical for effectively responding to racial violence in schools and must center equity and justice, rather than reputation management.

Every day, families of all races, backgrounds, and experiences entrust their community's principals with their children's growth and development. Instances of racial violence in schools require school leaders to be prepared to be bold, courageous, and decisive in their responses. It is not enough to condemn the act of racism. Leaders must also commit to taking actionable steps to ensure the safety and well-being of those harmed. The vision of a more equitable society depends on this type of leadership and our children, particularly children of color, deserve nothing less.

References

Bensimon, E. M., Dowd, A. C., & Witham, K. (2016). Five principles for enacting equity by design. Diversity and Democracy: The Equity Imperative, 19(1).

Davis, B. W., Gooden, M. A., & Micheaux, D. J. (2015). Color-Blind Leadership: A Critical Race Theory Analysis of the ISLLC and ELCC Standards. Educational Administration Quarterly, 51(3), 335-371.

Flores, O.J., & Gunzenhauser, M.G. (2019). The problems with colorblind leadership revealed: a call for race-conscious leaders. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 32(8), 963-981.

Harris, C. I. (1993). Whiteness as Property. Harvard Law Review, 106(8), 1707-1791.

Ray, V. (2019). A Theory of Racialized Organizations. American Sociological Review, 84(1), 26-53.

Solórzano, D. G., & Yosso, T. J. (2002). Critical Race Methodology: Counter-Storytelling as an Analytical Framework for Education Research. Qualitative Inquiry, 8(1), 23-44.

Young, B. L., Madsen, J., & Young, M. A. (2010). Implementing Diversity Plans: Principals' Perception of Their Ability to Address Diversity in Their Schools. NASSP Bulletin, 94(2), 135-157.

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Navigating Responses to Racism in Your School Community - ASCD

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Vol. 17 No. 3 Abstract A Spotlight on Public Responses Making a Statement Centering Equity and Justice Over Reputation By studying how school leaders have publicly responded to racial incidents in the past, we can learn how to successfully navigate future crises.

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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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In the aftermath of George Floyd's killing, teenager Mandy Zhang grew frustrated with the media. Its portrayal of the protests sweeping the country negatively shaped her friends' and family's perception of the Black Lives Matter movement, she said.

"Rather than focusing on the purpose of the Black Lives Matter movement and peaceful protests, the focus was on the violence and looting," she told NBC News in an email.

So Zhang, a student at Walter Payton College Preparatory High School in Chicago, and some of her friends channeled their frustration into writing a letter to the Asian community in hopes of uniting Asian and Black communities, she said. They then decided to form the Dear Asians Initiative to continue these efforts and, with the help of volunteers from across the U.S. and Singapore, translated the letter into eight Asian languages.

"Without the leadership of Black Americans, we would not have been able to immigrate to the U.S. and start a new chapter in our lives," it reads. "They helped us, and it is our time to help them."

Like Zhang, many Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders across the country have shown their support for the Black community and Black Lives Matter movement in the aftermath of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and many other Black Americans.

"So many of the social and political advances that Asian American communities have seen over the centuries have been the direct result of Black struggle and activism," CJ Leung, a member of the San Francisco Bay Area group Asians4BlackLives, said in an email, citing the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, one of the gains of the Civil Rights Movement that enabled many Asian families to immigrate to the United States.

"Many of us wouldn't even be in this country, if not for Black struggles for justice," Leung added.

Here's a look at some of the many ways the AAPI community has been showing solidarity with the Black community, from organizing and participating in protests to providing educational resources and fundraising.

The Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity on Monday held a healing space for Black LGBTQ+ Muslims. The session featured meditation, dhikr, art-making and prayer for those who may have lost loved ones to police brutality.

Marissa Afualo is organizing a protest in the U.S. territory of American Samoa on Saturday. She told The Samoa Observer that the territory wants to stand up against racism. "For me, this human rights movement is personal," she told the publication. "I look at the faces of my niece and nephew who are half African American, and can't help but feel fear for their safety."

AAPI Women Lead in late May hosted an Instagram live discussion centered around building power through solidarity and creating change through education and organizing. The group has also used its platform to call its network to participate in peaceful demonstrations, and shared links to bail funds and an illustration explaining the roots of structural racism.

The Minnesota nonprofit Coalition of Asian American Leaders has been holding weekday solidarity calls to support Black lives and liberation. "We acknowledge this is not our movement to lead, but we know that this is a moment for Asian communities to show up in support," the group has said online.

Japanese Americans for Justice on Sunday held a vigil in San Francisco to honor Black people who have been killed by police, and Japanese Americans who died in incarceration camps. The group also livestreamed the event, and offered a list of ways to support and learn more about the movement. The vigil was held in seven cities coordinated by Tsuru for Solidarity.

Viet Rainbow of Orange County, a nonprofit advocating equitable treatment of the LGBTQ community, helped organize two protests in Southern California, last Saturday, June 6, and this Saturday, June 13. The group has also been hosting dialogues with Vietnamese parents and youth around the Black Lives Matter movement and anti-blackness, Hieu Nguyen, the group's founder and chair, said.

The Southeast Asian Freedom Network, a nationwide coalition, on Saturday co-hosted a panel discussion to encourage the Cambodian community to defend Black lives. "We know what it means to be forced to find peace with our trauma and to find justice on our own without solidarity from the outside world," the group wrote in a Facebook post.

Vietnamese Solidarity and Action Network hosted a virtual two-hour event Friday featuring more than two dozen speakers in a conversation on racism and the Black Lives Matter movement. Topics included how the Civil Rights Movement benefited Southeast Asian Americans, how community members are talking to their families about racism, and how to push for systemic change. Interpreters translated the event in Vietnamese.

South Asian Youth in Houston hosted the virtual " Reflect and Respond " event on June 3 to discuss how South Asians can act in solidarity with the Black community and created a "Fighting Anti-Blackness" resource list with podcasts, readings and documentaries.

On Guam, Talaani Gilbert and Talysa Kakas organized a peaceful protest on Hagåtña, the island's capital. Gilbert and Kakas, who are half-black and half-Chamorro, said they wanted to support protestors around the world and educate residents of Guam about racism, according to Post Guam.

From June 2 to 7, Julie Vang, a yoga instructor in Minnesota, hosted free yoga and meditation sessions. In a Facebook post, she wrote: "Justices need to be served but it takes clear minds, healthy nervous system's & compassionate hearts to show up and make revolutionary changes."

Tsuru for Solidarity told NBC Asian America that it held a virtual weekend of action called "Tsuru Rising!" from June 6 to 7. On the first day, the group hosted speakers from Black Lives Matter and other organizations to discuss the intertwined nature of anti-blackness and state violence. On the second day, it called for direct action, including the release of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees and police accountability and reform.

On June 8, Act to Change held an event called " Solidarity Convos: Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders for Black Lives." One panelist, Kwame Alexander, emphasized that children can be raised to be empathetic adults. "To the people watching, do the books on your shelf reflect the world you claim you want?" Alexander asked. "It's one thing to talk about how we want more unity, how we want solidarity. What kind of books are your children reading?"

Approximately 2,700 people attended a digital event hosted by Hawaii resident Healani Sonoda-Pale for the Black Kia'i (Protectors) from Mauna Kea to discuss their experiences on the mountain that indigenous Hawaiians have been fighting to save from desecration. "The forum was to facilitate a discussion on how Black Lives Matter and our own movements here in Hawaii, particularly Mauna Kea, intersect yet it ended up being more of a reflection of the Black experience in our movement," Sonoda-Pale told NBC News.

Equality Labs organized the virtual event " South Asians in Defense of Black Lives: A Conversation with Zoé Samudzi," which will take place Friday. Writer, photographer and University of California, San Francisco sociology doctoral candidate Zoé Samudzi will join Equality Labs and 14 other organizations to discuss how South Asians can support the Movement for Black Lives and advocate for anti-racism. Other organizations involved include South Dakota Voices for Peace, API Chaya, the South Asian Helpline and Referral Agency, the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action and Stand With Kashmir.

Pasifika First Fridays hosted a march and die-in on June 5 in lieu of its usual monthly event to show solidarity with Utah's Black community. The group implemented social distancing rules and required all attendees to wear masks.

BAYAN USA Northeast, Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance and the Filipino Migrant Center joined Black Lives Matter rallies in California and New York.

The National Council of Asian Pacific Americans hosted a press conference featuring speakers such as Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., and Hmong National Development President and CEO Bao Vang to speak out in support of the Black community.

During a protest in Salt Lake City, Utah resident Litia Niumeitolu shared her experiences with racism and sexism as a Pacific Islander in the United States. She holds a doctorate degree in mathematics and computer science, and worked for more than 45 years as an educator, yet she is often assumed to be a maid. "I am telling you all today, stop telling people to clean up your messes. ... People can't clean up the messes you created for hundreds of years," she said. "I honor, I respect and I salute Black people for giving me a voice and space to exist today in America."

On Sunday, the Sunday Jump, a community open mic series in Los Angeles' Historic Filipinotown, raised about $550 for Black Lives Matter Los Angeles during an open mic livestream fundraising event.

The University of Chicago's South Asian Students Association is raising money for two Chicago organizations: Brave Space Alliance and My Block My Hood My City's Small Business Relief Fund. "Though we might not all be in Chicago at the moment, we hope this is one way for us to come together and show up for Black individuals in a way South Asian communities have often failed to do," the organization said on Facebook.

In Denver, Jenny Duong and her partner fundraised money that was recently used to feed more than 650 protestors with food purchased from local Asian businesses, she said. Duong added that they are looking to invest remaining funds into Black communities, future demonstrations or other fundraising efforts.

The Coalition for Asian American Children and Families, Chinese-American Planning Council, Asian Americans for Equality, East Coast Asian American Student Union, India Home, Mekong NYC, Sakhi for South Asian Women and South Asian Youth Action joined over 171 organizations in calling on New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to defund the New York Police Department. Adhikaar, MinKwon Center for Community Action and GAPIMNY are among other organizations advocating for the defunding of the NYPD.

The South Asian Sexual & Mental Health Alliance created the " Talking to Your South Asian Family About BLM " toolkit for South Asians to better navigate discussions with their families about race and privilege. The toolkit includes advice on how to approach the conversations, additional readings on Black oppression and suggested organizations to donate to.

South Asians looking to conduct a workshop on anti-black racism can use the curriculum developed by Desis Rising Up and Moving. The workshop includes topics such as the histories of white supremacy and what South Asians can do to help eliminate racism and exploitation. DRUM is also co-hosting the "South Asians in Defense of Black Lives" event.

The national nonprofit South Asian Americans Leading Together created a resource guide for South Asians on how to address anti-black racism and advocate for Black lives, while the Jakara Movement released several videos in Punjabi about how Sikhs can address anti-blackness. The South Asian Public Health Association declared racism a public health crisis and shared a 2015 study analyzing the public health perspective on racism. All three groups are co-hosting the "South Asians in Defense of Black Lives" event.

The Bangladeshi American Women's Development Initiative provided 13 other ways that people can support current anti-racism efforts if they can't participate in protests, including making donations, educating those around them and watching organizers' children while they are at protests.

Though the Berkeley South Asian Radical History Walking Tour usually conducts tours through Berkeley, California, to highlight South Asian activism in the city, it created a "How to Talk to Your South Asian Family About Black Lives" resource guide. The guide has been shared by other organizations, including South Asian Youth in Houston and South Asian Americans Leading Together.

Densho released a statement calling for the end of anti-black racism in the Asian American community and is also promoting educational resources. The organization also told NBC Asian America that it is having internal discussions about how to interrupt systems that inflict violence upon Black Americans.

The Asian-American Women's Political Initiative provided a solidarity letter, educational resource list and a guide for people to call on their elected officials to defund the police. AAWPI also highlighted a week of action from June 8 to 14 to call on Boston Mayor Marty Walsh to defund the Boston Police Department.

The Asian American Advocacy Fund provided a list of resources and action items for its community. The readings address justice for Black Americans and prison abolition, while action items include donating to bail funds, showing up for protests and supporting the Black communities' demands.

The Japanese American Cultural & Community Center released a statement affirming that it stands with the Black community, calling on its own community members to donate and support Black-led arts and cultural organizations. It also provides several Black-led organizations for people to support.

The Progressive Vietnamese American Organization published a piece called " What Southeast Asian Refugees Owe to Black Lives " detailing the impact of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 and Black civil rights leaders' advocacy for Southeast Asian refugees in the United States. "We must remember those who paved the way for our resettlement," Trinh Q. Truong wrote. "Two decades before the first Southeast Asian refugees resettled in the United States, Black civil rights activists advanced the policies that helped reshape immigration policies that have saved our families."

On June 1, Washington, D.C., resident Rahul Dubey opened his home to almost 70 protesters escaping police officers' tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets. "I hope that my 13-year-old son grows up to be just as amazing as they are, and I hope that they continue to fight," Dubey told ABC 7 News station WJLA of the protesters.

The Southeast Asian Diaspora Project, Korean Community Services of Metropolitan New York and Viet Activism have provided online resources to begin conversations about anti-racism, names of racial justice organizations to donate to, and actions people can take to support the movement.

The Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association and the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation published statements affirming their support for Black communities, and the APALA said it stands in solidarity with the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Both also provided anti-racism resources for Asians to educate themselves on allyship.
Follow NBC Asian America on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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75 ways Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are speaking out for Black lives

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In the aftermath of George Floyd's killing, teenager Mandy Zhang grew frustrated with the media. Its portrayal of the protests sweeping the country negatively shaped her friends' and family's perception of the Black Lives Matter movement, she said.

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Nervous. Concerned. Worried. Wary. Unprepared.

This is how middle and high school teachers have told me they have felt over the past few years when it comes to teaching the troublesome topic of slavery.

Although I work with teachers in Massachusetts, their reaction to teaching about slavery is common among teachers throughout the U.S.

Fortunately, in recent years there have been a growing number of individuals who have weighed in with useful advice.

Some, such as history professors Hasan Kwame Jeffries and Kenneth Greenberg, have advocated for helping students see the ways in which enslaved people fought back against the brutality of slavery. Whether through a focus on the fight to maintain family and culture, resistance at work, running away, physical confrontation or revolt, students get a deeper understanding of slavery when the lessons include the various ways that enslaved people courageously fought against their bondage.

Others, like James W. Loewen, the author of the popular book " Lies My Teacher Told Me," have argued for a focus on how slavery has deeply influenced our popular culture through movies, television series, historical fiction and music.

There are also those who recommend the use of specific resources and curriculum materials, like the Harriet Jacobs Papers Project, the four-part documentary series " Africans in America" and the Freedom on the Move database, which features thousands of runaway slave advertisements.

Heeding some of these recommendations, in my work with teachers we have sought to come up with lessons that students like Ailany Rivas, a junior at Claremont Academy in Worcester, Massachusetts, say have helped them to become "more informed and educated about the brutal history of slavery and its legacy." These lessons that I have developed take a variety of approaches but are all rooted in taking a look at the realities of slavery using historical evidence.

Many students have echoed Ailany in feedback that I have collected from nine different classes where I have helped design lessons about slavery.

And the teachers whom I have worked with have all shared informally that they are now confident in taking on the challenge of teaching the complex history of slavery.

Much of this confidence, in my opinion, is due to four things that I believe are mandatory for any teacher who plans to deal with slavery.

1. Explore actual records

Few things shine the light on the harsh realities of slavery like historical documents. I'm talking about things such as plantation records, slave diaries and letters penned by plantation owners and their mistresses.

It also pays to examine wanted advertisements for runaway slaves. These ads provided details about those who managed to escape slavery. In some cases, the ads contain drawings of slaves.

These materials can help teachers guide students to better understand the historical context in which slavery existed. Educators may also wish to look at how people such as historian Cynthia Lynn Lyerly, who wrote a chapter in " Understanding and Teaching American Slavery," have used historical documents to teach about slavery.

2. Examine historical arguments

In order to better understand different perspectives on slavery, it pays to examine historical arguments about how slavery developed, expanded and ended.

Students can read texts that were written by abolitionists like Frederick Douglass and pro-slavery advocates like George Fitzhugh.

They should wade through the newspaper advertisements that provided details about those who managed to escape slavery.

Looking at these different arguments will show students that history is filled with disagreement, debate and interpretations based on different goals.

For instance, in examining arguments about slavery, teachers can show students how early 20th-century historians like Ulrich Bonnell Phillips sought to put forth ideas about kind masters and contented slaves, while others from the 1990s, such as John Hope Franklin, co-author of " Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation," focused on how Black people resisted slavery.

Seeing these starkly different portrayals of slavery gives students a chance to examine how things such as choice, context, racism and bias might affect the way slavery is seen or viewed.

3. Highlight lived experiences

In my 11 years of teaching history, many students entered my classes with a great deal of misinformation about what life was like for those who lived under slavery. In pre-unit surveys, some stated that the enslaved worked only in the cotton fields and were not treated that badly. We know the historical records tell a different story. While many worked as field hands, there were others who were put into service as blacksmiths, carpenters, gunsmiths, maids and tailors.

To combat misconceptions like this, I advise teachers to use historical sources that feature details about the lived experiences of enslaved people.

For instance, teachers should have students read Harriet Jacobs' memoir - " Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl " - alongside diaries written by white plantation owners.

Scrutinize photographs of slave quarters and excerpts from the Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, which contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery.

Ask students to examine various historical sources to gain a better understanding of how people lived through their bondage over time.

4. Consider the relevance

It is also crucial for teachers to consider the various ways in which slavery is relevant to the present with their students. I advise them to ask questions like: How has the history of slavery influenced the status of Black people in the United States today? Why are there so many movies about slavery?

In Ailany's class, we ended our unit by providing students with a chance to read and think about the relevance of recent picture books about slavery like Patricia Polacco's " January's Sparrow," Ann Turner and James Ransome's " My Name Is Truth: The Life of Sojourner Truth" and Frye Gallard, Marti Rosner and Jordana Haggard's " The Slave Who Went to Congress."

We asked students to draw on what they had learned about slavery to consider and then share their perspectives about the historical accuracy, classroom appropriateness and relevance of a selected picture book. Students always have much to say about all three.

[ Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation's newsletter to understand the world. Sign up today.]

Teaching slavery has been and will continue to be challenging. To teachers who are asked or required to take on this challenge, the four things discussed above can serve as strong guideposts for creating lessons that should make the challenge easier to navigate.

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Here's what I tell teachers about how to teach young students about slavery

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Few issues are as difficult to deal with in the classroom as slavery in the US. Here, a professor who trains teachers on how to present the topic offers some insights.

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/ CBS News

The following is a transcript of an interview with CBS News racial justice contributor Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, a professor at Boston University, that aired Sunday, June 19, 2022, on "Face the Nation."
MARGARET BRENNAN: For more, we'd like to turn to CBS News racial justice contributor, Dr. Ibram Kendi, who is also the author of two new books, "How to Raise an Antiracist" and "Good Night Racism." Good morning. Happy Father's Day, by the way.

DR. IBRAM X. KENDI: Thank you.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I know you have a six-year-old daughter. So I wonder how are you going to teach her what this holiday is?

DR. KENDI: Well, I'm actually going to teach her that it's Freedom Day. And that throughout this nation's history, there has been two perspectives on freedom, really two fights for freedom. Enslaved people were fighting for freedom from slavery and enslavers were fighting for the freedom to enslave. And in many ways that sort of contrast still exists today, there are people who are fighting for freedom from assault rifles, freedom from poverty, freedom from exploitation. And there are others who are fighting for freedom to exploit, freedom to have guns, freedom to maintain inequality. So I really want to get her to understand that there are multiple kinds of freedom. And she should be fighting for and joining with those who are fighting for freedom from something like slavery.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So this concept gets to sort of the core of what so many of your books are about when you say antiracist, and I just want to be clear, for people who are listening, you do not teach critical race theory or CRT, which is become very politicized. You focus on this idea of antiracism, how do you explain to people at home the difference? And for those who say, this might be too advanced for a child? How do you- how do you respond?

DR. KENDI: Well, the difference is critical race theory is an antiracist sort of theory, but I'm thinking about something, you know, I'm really trying to get the American people to really understand that there's, there's inequality. And the cause of that inequality is not what's wrong with let's say, black people, it's what's wrong with- with bad policies. And the way kids can understand it is kids understand bad rules. My daughter understands what's not fair. And we can teach children that there's bad rules in society, there are things that are not fair in society. And that's why, let's say black people have less, it's not because they are less.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You- so I think for people at home who are trying to understand the concept, it's interesting, because you basically are arguing, being colorblind is not a virtue. For so long people were taught, be blind to color. You're saying, acknowledging this is important, because if you ignore it, it allows racism to survive, does that right?

DR. KENDI: It does. And unfortunately, we as parents, and teachers and caregivers of children, and just you know, adults want to believe that, but unfortunately, it's just not true. I mean, studies show that as early as three years old, our kids have an adult-like concept of race, they're not only seeing color, but they're attaching it to qualities like smartness, like honesty. And so we have to share with our children. Yes, there are all these different colors. But they don't mean anything. Just like a book cover doesn't mean anything, you literally have to open the book, and you have to open someone's heart to see who they and what they truly are.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You know, Condoleezza Rice, the former Secretary of State was on this program around this time last year. And I was reading her remarks and she said, when it comes to teaching about race, she wants children to be taught about America's birth defect of racism, but also forward progress on its issues. She said, I don't want this to be black against white, my weaponization of my identity against yours. Do you see that weaponization happening because there is fear of that?

DR. KENDI: I actually think that, that weaponization can happen, but that's why for instance, I talk about the clash between racism and antiracism, as opposed to black and white. And I also think it's important for us to understand what I call in my work, racist progress, how over time, let's take voter suppression policies have become more sophisticated over time. And so if we're not recognizing both racial progress, and racist progress, then we're going to be missing the ways in which racism and why racism is persisting and why inequality is persisting.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You know, one of the things that we are tracking right now in this country is this threat of domestic extremism. And just this week, the 18-year-old white man who killed 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, made an appearance in federal court. He apologized to his parents, but explained his motivation as being about preventing the elimination of the white race. How do parents prevent their child from being radicalized like that?. I mean, that sounds like online recruitment for terrorism or something.

DR. KENDI: It is. And that's a huge, huge problem. I mean that- the number of particularly white male teens who have been recruited in multiplayer video games, online through memes through direct messages, you know, is really high. And the way that we protect our kids from that is ensure they can identify white supremacist ideology. And the way you the way they can identify white supremacist ideology is to teach them about it. There's no way they're going to be able to protect themselves from it, just like they can't protect themselves from cars. They have to understand to look both ways whether they're teenagers or young people, so they won't get harmed.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Dr. Kendi, thank you very much. Good luck with the books. And Happy Father's Day again. We'll be right back.

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Transcript: Ibram X. Kendi on "Face the Nation," June 19, 2022

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CBS News The following is a transcript of an interview with CBS News racial justice contributor Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, a professor at Boston University, that aired Sunday, June 19, 2022, on "Face the Nation."

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Numerous events and activities are packed into Juneteenth celebrations this year in Galveston, Texas. Over three weeks, residents have their pick of festivals, a gospel concert, galas, a business summit, freedom tours, reenactments, a parade and more.

June 19, 1865, marks the announcement to enslaved Black Texans that they were finally free-two and a half years after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and two months after the Civil War ended. Last year, President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act-codifying a holiday officially observed in Texas since 1980. This year's observance holds deeper meaning in confronting the efforts to obstruct the teaching of honest history.

But questions about Juneteenth linger: How does this originally Texan commemoration affect us all, and how might it inform our next steps in creating a just society?

Substance or Substitute?

In Galveston, residents are happy that Juneteenth is getting national attention but don't want the holiday to become a substitute for confronting the effects of slavery. The story of Juneteenth-enslavers continuing bondage after Black people were to be freed-exemplifies issues of power that continue today.

"Many folks are just really pleased to have it recognized as a national holiday, and that in and of itself is meaningful," says Carol Bunch Davis, Ph.D., professor and assistant vice president for academic affairs at Texas A&M University at Galveston. "I tend to be a little bit more skeptical, I think, about those sorts of things, because I think almost instantaneously the conversation became, 'OK, now you have this holiday, so what else do you want?'"

Black residents want, as Davis explains, equal opportunity and a true reckoning with their local history. "It's great that we have a history of Black people in Galveston who have always celebrated [Juneteenth], but how does it reconfigure or inform the way that we think about the city's identity broadly?"

Teaching the Honest History of Juneteenth

The national spotlight on Juneteenth is an occasion to explore Texas' short yet brutal history of slavery.

Galveston Island was the site of a bustling illegal slave trade long after the abolition of the importation of enslaved people in 1808. The island, a Mexican territory, was a safe port for pirates, who'd ransack vessels carrying enslaved Africans in the Caribbean and raid other smugglers on the Gulf of Mexico. White settlers later gained independence from Mexico and formed the Republic of Texas in 1836, primarily to continue slavery, which was being abolished in Mexico. It's important to point out that similar to the Civil War's Lost Cause narrative, Texas' Battle of the Alamo is also a whitewashed version of history that paints Texas settlers as heroic champions of freedom.

Fast-forward to 1865 and the end of the Civil War, when enslavers ignored Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, just as settlers had ignored Mexico's attempt to end slavery in its territory. Finally, in late June, thousands of Black Union soldiers, and Army Gen. Gordon Granger, arrived in Galveston and other Texas cities to force compliance with the law. This is American history.

Teaching history honestly in schools is under threat through numerous legislative efforts- including the 2021 law in Texas-that aim to obscure and limit how the history of slavery and the Black freedom struggle are taught. It's rare to find a textbook chapter dedicated to Juneteenth and its historical significance. And by June 19, most schools have finished for the year, so commemoration doesn't easily fit into academic calendars.

It's possible, however, to uplift hard history beyond classroom walls. "We need to find creative ways of doing that," says Sue Johnson, executive director at Galveston's Nia Cultural Center. "And we need not be afraid of pushback from critics of the distorted view of critical race theory. We need to move despite all of that in new and innovative ways of getting those messages across but being intentional and consistent."

The Nia Cultural Center employs storytelling through art, history lessons and programs for youth. The center's Juneteenth Legacy Project Headquarters was established primarily to teach the complete African American story and advocate absolute equality and collaborative growth.

"We need to finance those kinds of programs, and we need to do them in every space we find available-churches, community centers, homes, homeschooling curriculums, where we have control over what we teach," Johnson says.

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Numerous events and activities are packed into Juneteenth celebrations this year in Galveston, Texas. Over three weeks, residents have their pick of festivals, a gospel concert, galas, a business summit, freedom tours, reenactments, a parade and more.

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This is a moment in time when leaders everywhere need to speak out. If you are unsure what to say, seek guidance in developing a message that is authentic to you and your organization.

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Jeanne's Pick: TEDx Video / Is My Skin Brown Because I Drank Chocolate Milk? / Beverly Daniel Tatum

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Jeanne's Pick: TEDx Video / Is My Skin Brown Because I Drank Chocolate Milk? / Beverly Daniel Tatum

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Is My Skin Brown Because I Drank Chocolate Milk? | Beverly Daniel Tatum | TEDxStanford

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ASCD: Moving Beyond Stock Stories About Racism

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ASCD: Moving Beyond Stock Stories About Racism

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There are several different types of stories about race and racism in the United States that educators teach in schools. Stock stories are well-known stories that seek to justify the status quo, paper over the effects of racism, or diminish the efforts of antiracists (Bell, 2010). For example, many students have heard the story about Rosa Parks refusing to leave her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955, because she was simply tired after a long day of work. This is a common stock story related to the Civil Rights movement.

Concealed stories are the stories hidden beneath stock stories that offer important truths about how race and racism shape life in the United States (Bell, 2010). The concealed story about Rosa Parks is that she was an experienced activist who recognized her arrest could propel the Civil Rights movement forward.

As researchers, we wanted to unpack the influence on students of these different stories. We conducted a four-year study involving five different northeastern high schools serving predominantly Black and Latinx students. These schools were all committed to engaging their students in learning to analyze, navigate, and challenge racism, but took very different approaches to this work (Seider & Graves, 2020). We spent more than 300 days in these high schools, observing classes, collecting data, and talking with students and teachers to learn more about how different approaches to antiracism education can influence young people's beliefs and commitments. Along the way, we also observed how students in these high schools responded to different types of stories about race and racism in the United States.

During one school visit, we observed a U.S. history teacher at Espiritu High School (all students, teachers, and schools named in this article are pseudonyms) discuss the concealed story of Rosa Parks with her students, explaining how, following her arrest, Parks partnered with numerous other activists and attorneys to transform the Montgomery Black community's outrage and indignation at her arrest into a successful boycott of the city's segregated bus system.

Ignoring those aspects of Parks's story and just saying she was "tired" in effect conceals the power of intentional and collective social action to challenge racism. But when these concealed stories are brought to light, as scholar Lee Ann Bell (2010) explains, they can become resistance stories that inspire, motivate, and inform students' developing commitment to antiracism.

This example demonstrates the power of introducing students to a framework-stock stories vs. concealed stories vs. resistance stories-for interrogating their own learning about race and racism. While such frameworks are sometimes dismissed as merely abstract theories, scholar Bettina Love (2019) has observed that "theory helps explain our reality and our students' realities...Theory does not solve issues-only action and solidarity can do that-but theory gives you language to fight [and] knowledge to stand on." The students learning the concealed story about Rosa Parks went on to identify other stock stories they had been taught about Christopher Columbus, Thanksgiving, and the American Dream-stories they later discovered sought to downplay the effects of racism in the United States.

Across the schools participating in our study, we identified specific practices that educators use to investigate concealed stories about race and racism with their students, and, in so doing, turn those concealed stories into resistance stories that strengthened their students' investment in equity and antiracism.

One practice to investigate concealed stories that we uncovered in our study was the use of culture circles. Educators at Make the Road Academy begin lessons or units focused on oppression with this learning practice, which was developed by philosopher-educator Paulo Freire (1970) to position teachers not as truth tellers delivering information to their students, but as truth seekers working alongside their students. In so doing, Freire argued, students will learn to take charge of their own learning (see Souto-Manning, 2010 for more on culture circles).

At Make the Road Academy, teachers began the culture circles by sharing an artifact with their students that was related to the new unit-a photograph, text, video, song, advertisement, or piece of art that connected in some way to the social issue they were studying. Students then worked together in culture circles- small groups of five or six students- to respond to six prompts about the artifact:

Description: What do you see?

First analysis: What does it mean?

Real-life applications: How does this type of oppression affect real life?

Related problems: What are some of the related problems caused by this oppression?

Root causes: What are the root causes of these problems?

Actions: How can we take action to rectify these problems?

For example, at the start of a 9th grade earth science unit investigating natural disasters, Ms. Slater, a Black educator in her early twenties, shared with her students the opening minutes of Spike Lee's 2006 documentary When the Levees Broke about the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the city of New Orleans. The students viewed the film's opening images of the devastated city in stunned silence, but their silence shifted to sounds of disbelief and disapproval when the film shifted to footage of volunteers continuing to clean up and rebuild the city three years after the hurricane.

Ms. Slater handed out markers and flip chart paper, and the students broke off into their culture circles to consider the six prompts described above. Already highly familiar with this educational practice, each small group of students divided their flip chart paper into six boxes and got to work. According to Paulo Freire (1970), such culture circles can engage students in a "live and creative dialogue in which everyone knows some things and does not know others, in which we all seek together to know more" (p. 87). He believed that for students to begin to see themselves as civic and political actors, the teacher must be careful to coordinate the culture circles- rather than direct them-by presenting information and asking questions.

While each of the culture circles applied the six prompts to When the Levees Broke, Ms. Slater moved around the room listening to the students' dialogue and jumping in with her own questions and nudges. After 15 minutes, one group's flip-chart paper read:

Description: Broken houses, Black people, clouds, people, trees, water, poverty

First Analysis: Government doesn't help people in need; Government doesn't help people without money; Citizens were emotionally and physically hurt; Government shows favoritism; Citizens needed living necessities.

Real Life Applications: Government does not prepare states for emergencies; Do not depend on the government; Be safe not sorry; Previous storms; People die; People losing their homes.

Related Problems: Hurricane Sandy; Education and lives are in jeopardy; People have no place to go; Government didn't think New Orleans was important because of previous storms; Hurricane Irene.

Root Causes: Weather in New Orleans, Communities unprepared for storms; Discrimination against poor people and Black people; Government corruption.

Actions: Rebuild the community; Volunteer work; Protesting to the government; Be prepared; Build stronger houses; Depend more on ourselves; Do our own hurricane drills.

As can be seen here, Ms. Slater's culture circles surfaced students' recognition of the role that race and racism played in the United States' response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster. If the stock story about race in the United States is that our federal government treats all its citizens equally and without prejudice, the footage from When the Levees Broke-and ensuing discussions in the culture circles-pushed her students to reflect on the concealed story of our federal government treating some citizens' emergencies with more urgency than others. In other words, the combination of a powerful artifact like When the Levees Broke and a pedagogical routine for reflecting on this artifact allowed the concealed story of Hurricane Katrina to emerge.

The discussion moved forward from there to the actions that students could take to challenge inequity and injustice. Investigating concealed stories such as Hurricane Katrina can turn them into resistance stories.

Teachers at Espiritu High School and Make the Road Academy led their students in questioning stock stories and uncovering concealed stories about racism, but it was students at Harriet Tubman High School who took the lead in interrogating the stories they were learning about race and racism. The African American literature course at Tubman High School was taught by Mr. Kamin, a white man and veteran educator who had enthusiastically developed the course a year earlier for Tubman seniors. The majority of his students identified as Black.

Midway through their study of James Baldwin's 1962 novel Another Country, a group of students requested an after-school meeting with Mr. Kamin to express some concerns about their learning. Baldwin's novel portrays the racism experienced by African Americans in the United States in the 1950s as well as the complexity of interracial relationships during this time. When the students sat down with Mr. Kamin, they expressed two concerns.

First, they felt Mr. Kamin was dominating class discussions with his own analyses of the novel. The students' second critique was that their teacher was guiding the class conversations to "optimistic outcomes." In other words, they felt Mr. Kamin was focusing the class's discussions on Baldwin's prescriptions for overcoming white supremacy rather than his descriptions of "Black suffering and Black pain and the experience of living under white supremacy." The students saw Baldwin's novel as illuminating painful truths about the Black experience in the United States, and they wanted more time and space to discuss these truths before shifting the conversation to how to challenge these inequities.

The students were echoing scholarship on culturally responsive instruction. In his book For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood... and the Rest of Y'all Too, scholar Christopher Emdin (2017) recommends that educators make time and space for "co-generative dialogues" that enlist students as co-developers of lessons and learning strategies for their class. According to Emdin, these "co-gens" ideally take place during a lunch block or after school and allow students to take greater ownership over their own learning.

In reflecting on that meeting with his students, Mr. Kamin admitted that he'd been meaning all year to set up the kind of co-generative groups that Emdin talks about, but had failed to do so. Receiving all those critiques from his students had been difficult, but Mr. Kamin also recognized that his students had essentially taken the initiative to establish a co-generative dialogue for their class. He had the humility to see their initiative and engagement as a "great opportunity" for feedback and collaboration.

Following that first co-generative meeting with his students, Mr. Kamin not only began to restrain his participation in class discussions, he also invited students to identify readings and topics they wanted to incorporate into the syllabus and lead discussions on. In essence, Mr. Kamin adjusted his teaching to position his students as knowledge holders with important roles to play in deciding which stories about race and racism got told in class.

Finally, we observed a theater class at Harriet Tubman High School in which students authored their own resistance stories. Tubman's theater teacher, Ms. Calderón, included in her curriculum a unit on Theater of the Oppressed -a type of performance developed by Brazilian playwright Augusto Boal that explores how to respond to oppressive events and circumstances. Actors perform a short scene depicting a microaggression, stereotype, or experience with discrimination relevant to their own lives, then invite members of the audience to join the scene and improvise a response to the oppression. The same scene might be replayed several different times so that different audience members can volunteer to join the scene and collaborate with the actors to identify solutions to the oppression (see Snyder-Young, 2011 for more on using Theater of the Oppressed with youth).

After introducing her students to Theater of the Oppressed, Ms. Calderón divided her students into teams and asked them to develop their own scenes featuring a particular form of oppression or injustice that felt relevant to them. One of the groups focused on racial profiling, another developed a scene on body shaming, and a third featured misogyny in the workplace. Ultimately, these theater students performed their scenes for the entire Tubman community and, in keeping with the tenets of Theater of the Oppressed, classmates in the audience could volunteer to enter each scene and try to disrupt the oppression taking place.

It is important to note that Theater of the Oppressed differs wholly from some of the problematic teaching practices that have gone viral on social media in recent years involving teachers instructing Black students to reenact particular aspects of enslavement or Jewish children to role play aspects of the Holocaust. Scholar Bree Picower (2021) terms these practices "racist reproductions" because they take on the façade of educating students about racism while actually re-creating racial hierarchies and racial trauma. In stark contrast, Theater of the Oppressed offers participating students agency in identifying forms of oppression they want to investigate in greater depth and developing tools and strategies for resisting that oppression. Teachers can also check in with students as they conceptualize, develop, and perform their scenes to ensure they are experiencing the process as empowering rather than triggering.

In the performance focused on racial profiling, for example, the scene featured a Muslim woman trying to pass through security at the airport, being pulled aside for additional surveillance, and being asked to remove her headscarf. Students in the audience who volunteered to enter the scene improvised a variety of responses to this profiling that ranged from requesting a more private setting for the additional search, to complaining to the TSA supervisor, to starting an online petition to challenge the practice. As one theater student, Allen, said of this scene: "It opens your eyes even more to not only the wrongs that go on in society, but also how you can use theater to portray those wrongs and find a solution." In effect, the process of improvising responses to oppressive circumstances over and over again-and inviting different audience members to join the scene-allowed these students to author their own resistance stories that felt authentic and truthful.

Our goal in sharing these educators' practices was not for educators in other settings to adopt them wholesale. We recognize that schools and classrooms are such context-specific places that powerful practices in one setting might not be effective in another. However, we do believe that illustrating strategies we've seen in action can catalyze educators' thinking about the stock stories about racism currently going unquestioned in their own textbooks or curriculum, as well as avenues that they and their students can take to bring concealed stories and resistance stories to light. In taking these steps, educators can simultaneously support their students' engagement in their academic work and nurture their development into citizens committed to challenging inequity.

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Moving Beyond Stock Stories About Racism - ASCD

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There are several different types of stories about race and racism in the United States that educators teach in schools. Stock stories are well-known stories that seek to justify the status quo, paper over the effects of racism, or diminish the efforts of antiracists (Bell, 2010). For example, many

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POLITICO: GOP sees ‘huge red wave’ potential by targeting critical race theory

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POLITICO: GOP sees ‘huge red wave’ potential by targeting critical race theory

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GOP sees ‘huge red wave’ potential by targeting critical race theory

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Republicans in state legislatures across the country are gearing up to push through dozens of anti-critical race theory bills this year.

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I'm Black But Look White. Here Are The Horrible Things White People Feel Safe Telling Me.

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I'm Black But Look White. Here Are The Horrible Things White People Feel Safe Telling Me.

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I was outside my house gardening a few weekends ago when a neighbor, whom I had known for almost 30 years, stopped by so I could pet his large, fluffy dogs. I took my gloves off, squatted down to give the dogs a really good scratching around their ears and felt the sun on my back. What could be better? And then my neighbor said: "Why do you have a 'Black Lives Matter' sign on your front lawn when all those people do is kill each other?"

My lovely day screeched to a halt.

"You know I'm Black, right?" I said, standing up as tall as my 5'4" frame would allow, the sun shining on my blond hair. I continued to pet his dogs, because I needed the comfort of petting dogs at that moment, and because I needed to keep my hands busy so they didn't slap that man's face.

After the usual back and forth of him saying "No!" and me saying "Yes!" and then him trying to gauge exactly "how Black I was" by asking which of my parents was Black and me replying "Both," we had a very uncomfortable conversation about racism.

I told him about my father's struggles to get an education because guidance counselors and admissions agents would not accept Black people into community colleges or SUNY programs in the 1950s and '60s. I told him that even though my father was a veteran, he could not be approved to use the GI Bill for college or buy a house, since no one would process his paperwork because he was a Black man. I told him that people painted "Go Home Nigger" on the back of our home when my parents finally saved enough money to build a house in the suburbs of Syracuse, New York. And I told him how "Black Lives Matter" calls attention to the fact that Black people are considered less than white people ― and that needs to stop.

I also told him if people don't understand that Black lives matter, Black people will continue to be murdered by the police and denied opportunities by the establishment. We will not be allowed to participate in the "American Dream," and we will be made to feel that this is somehow our fault, when it is in fact the fault of a racist society with the full support of our government.

This isn't the first time I've had to have this conversation. Encounters like this have been going on for a very long time for me.

Both of my parents are Black but have white ancestors. Those recessive white genes were passed on to me, and I was born very light-skinned, with blue eyes and light, wavy hair. This was not a surprise. In both of my parents' families there are "white" babies who pop up each generation. I have aunts, uncles and cousins on both sides of my family who are also white-presenting.

There is the story of my grandmother's cousin Neville, who left the family in the 1940s to pass for white so he could join the Army and fight in World War II. He married a German girl, returned to Syracuse and never returned to being Black. Family members would see him on the streets and they would look past each other. He was lost to us because he chose an easier way ― and forsook his ancestry. Neville became a cautionary tale for me. I never wanted to be like him.

There is also the story of a great-aunt, Annie Mother, who would pass as white to purchase properties and then sell or rent them to Black family members and other Black families who could not find decent, affordable housing. I wanted to be like Annie Mother, so I pursued a career in social justice, specifically issues related to housing.

My parents originally tried to purchase a home in Syracuse in the 1960s. Most of the houses they made offers on had deed restrictions that stated the home could not be "sold to Negros." Determined to own their own home, they decided to build a house, and found some land in a subdivision in Liverpool, New York, where the builder was happy to sell to them. Despite this good news, they soon learned they couldn't get approved for a mortgage. My dad had a good job at General Electric and my parents had savings, but none of this was enough, because they were Black.

My dad accepted a transfer to a position in Alaska, because he could earn double what he'd make in Syracuse. My mom and I moved in with my grandmother for a year and my mom banked all of my dad's checks. When he returned, my parents paid cash to have their house built in Liverpool.

This was the same house on which people painted "Go Home Nigger." They did this when we already were home ― there was no other "home" to go to. We lived in a white neighborhood, and I went to a school where all the other students were white. Before I started kindergarten, my parents had "the talk" with me. If you don't know about "the talk," let me explain it to you. "The talk" is about race. It's about being Black in a world run by white people, where white people make the rules. In order to survive, let alone thrive, you need to know you are Black and know what that means, even if you present as white.

My parents were worried. This was 1969. People knew we were Black, and that I would be starting school in a district where there were no other Black children. I didn't look Black, but I am Black, so we figured I could and would be subjected to racist actions by my peers. We were prepared for groups of white parents to gather at the school to shout at me. Or spit on me. My parents needed me to understand that if this happened, it didn't mean I was bad. It meant the adults were bad ― and that I'd need to rise above like Dr. King had done.

In our home, Dr. King was whom we strived to be. Even at 4 years old, I knew who he was. I was taught King's principals of nonviolence. My parents marched on Washington with King and hoped for a better world for me. I set off for school the next day, prepared to walk through a gauntlet of screaming hatred. I was on the lookout. But there didn't seem to be anything happening. If any protesters had been there, they probably wouldn't even have known I was Black. With my blond braids and my sparkling new outfit from Sears, I might have walked right by them. I was ready to learn ― and learn I did. But just because there weren't protesters doesn't mean there weren't challenges.

My kindergarten teacher did not feel it was appropriate for a Black child to learn and play with white children. She left me inside the classroom on my own while the other students played. I stood by the window and cried. My parents complained to the principal ― a child of Italian immigrants ― and he stepped in. I was then permitted to play with my classmates. Worried that my teacher would not engage me in the same ways she did with the other students, my parents worked with me on my alphabet, math and reading every night after dinner. I excelled.

When we moved from Syracuse to Rochester, New York, our new neighborhood was also largely white. I didn't even find this strange. I fit in and made very good friends, some of whom I am friends with to this day. But I always knew I was Black, and forgetting who I was simply wasn't an option.

In middle school, my history teacher told the class that if we really wanted to insult Black people, we should call them "Uncle Toms." In high school, one student came dressed as a klansman for Halloween, carrying a noose. Another student, wearing blackface and a loincloth, ran around in front of him. When the few Black students and a number of our white classmates complained to the principal about it, we were told we needed to "develop a sense of humor." Another student, who would later become a teacher, called me a "white nigger." I found myself constantly defending affirmative action, busing and desegregation with friends and classmates whose parents thought that if Black people "infested" their white world, chaos would ensue.

Many years have passed since then, but sadly, this madness hasn't stopped.

My neighbor, the one who asked me why "Black lives matter," is not the only one who has felt comfortable asking me such a question or making a statement rife with racism.

White people think I am white too, and therefore feel safe saying all kinds of horrible things they might not say publicly. I've had people tell me it "disgusts" them to see interracial couples. They've told me they don't understand why Black neighborhoods look so "ghetto," and that Black people are "animals" or "thugs." Many of these people are educated, and hold jobs or positions that give them some form of power or influence over Black people. They are doctors, judges, lawyers, social workers and politicians. That's frightening.

In every instance where I've encountered racist rhetoric, I have made it my business to speak up. I have told (or reminded) these people that I am Black. I have told them my family's story. And I have done whatever I could to educate them about the systems of racism that exist in this country.

Sometimes they say: "But you're different!" Then I ask them if other Black folks they know are also "different." When they say yes, I ask them: "How are all the Black people you know 'different'? When are you going to realize that we are not different? That you have been misled into believing that Black people are somehow bad, and that what you see with your own eyes ― these Black people you know, and know are not different or bad ― are good people like you?"

There is a purposeful and strategic force dedicated to segregation and racism. There are people who benefit from Black people and white people remaining in conflict. When people of different races live together and truly want to know and understand each other, it is harmonious. But when races are separated, it breeds suspicion and distrust. It becomes "us versus them," and it weakens us as a nation.

Living as a Black woman who looks white has allowed me to experience white privilege firsthand. Because people assume I am white, it is assumed I am honest, smart and trustworthy. Many times I have thought to myself: If I looked Black, how would these people treat me? And I have known, without a shadow of a doubt, that I would be treated with disdain or suspicion, or as a criminal. I know in many instances that if I looked Black, the police would have been called to question me. And this sickens and angers me. How many of our Black brothers and sisters have had the police called on them simply for the act of living their lives?

As a nation, we need to stop this. The best way to achieve change is to accept and learn about our racist past and the injustices visited upon our Black citizens. It's deeply concerning that people are protesting the possibility of our country's history being accurately taught in schools. The only way for America to be great is to accept all of our citizens at face value, and the only way to do that is to understand our intertwined roots ― our history and all the pain and tragedy that exists within it ― and face this, together, head-on.

Miriam Zinter is a Black woman who presents as a white woman. She began her career as a community organizer, was the executive director of a not-for-profit neighborhood organization, became the senior housing programmer for the City of Rochester and now works in the housing finance sector. She serves on a number of boards that serve people who are homeless and people who are poor. She is married, with two adult children and a spoiled shiba inu dog. Her parents live down the street from her, and she values every day she has with them. She has two sisters whom she loves very much and speaks with every day. She loves animals, comedy, books, food and wine. You can follow her on Twitter at @MimZWay unless, she says, "you are a hateful troll ― then just move on ― and live your own life."

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I'm Black But Look White. Here Are The Horrible Things White People Feel Safe Telling Me.

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I was outside my house gardening a few weekends ago when a neighbor, whom I had known for almost 30 years, stopped by so I could pet his large, fluffy dogs. I took my gloves off, squatted down to give the dogs a really good scratching around their ears and felt the sun on my back.

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Across the United States right now, people are feeling isolated and afraid. As schools and businesses close, people are worrying about their health, their families, their jobs and their future. All of these worries make sense, and of course there's nothing wrong with being afraid. But as people share news, fears and concerns, some people are sharing something else, as well: racism and xenophobia.

Obviously, Chinese people are not responsible for a virus simply because the first reported cases were in China. But some politicians and media figures have taken to referring to the "Chinese Coronavirus." They've used stereotypes about the different foods people eat around the world or made jokes that rely on "Chinese-sounding" words or phrases to make light of the crisis and somehow suggest that Chinese people are to blame. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that China should apologize for the virus.

While it might be tempting to think we should just shake this kind of language off and focus on larger concerns, the truth is that racist and xenophobic words have real-world effects. Across the U.S., Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders report being harassed at school, in stores, on the streets and on the subway. Last month in London, a Singaporean man was assaulted, kicked and punched by a man who said, "I don't want your coronavirus in my country."

We know that racist "jokes" can quickly become racist rants, and those rants can turn to violence. So it's up to all of us to make it clear that we're not OK with racist responses to this crisis.

To do that, Teaching Tolerance recommends a four-step process for speaking up against bias:
Interrupt
Question
Educate
Echo
Here's what speaking up against racism during the coronavirus might look like now.

Interrupt

Interrupting means taking a time out. It shows the person you're talking, texting or chatting with that what they've said is important enough to pause your conversation to address-that you need to talk about the racism before you talk about anything else. Here are a few phrases to try:

"Hang on. I want to go back to what you called the virus."
"Just a second-let's get into your point that the virus is somebody's fault."
"Before we talk about that, I want to talk about the language you just used."

Question

We're all familiar with "questions" that are really warnings: What did you just say to me? or Are you really going to do that? But in this context, the goal of questioning really is to better understand why the person said what they did. You might ask:

"Why did you call it the 'Chinese Coronavirus'?"
"Why do you think that?"
"Where did you get that information?"

One note: Asking someone to explain why a racist joke is funny is a great way to stop them from making racist jokes to you again. But if you want to have a real discussion about what they've said, it might work better to ask something like, "What made you say that?"

Educate

The key to educating is to continue the conversation. The goal here isn't to just provide facts about the topic generally to the person you're talking to with, but to explain why what they've said needs rethinking.

That means that, to educate folks around racism associated with the coronavirus, we need to understand not only the virus but also the racism.

For example, you might explain that it's actually not common anymore to name a disease after its place of origin, that there's a long, bad history of associating diseases with specific groups of people and that the name COVID-19 was chosen very carefully to avoid repeating those mistakes.

If someone doesn't understand why a comment they made was racist, you can educate them about the long history of stereotyping immigrants-and Asian people, specifically-as people who bring disease. You can explain how this stereotype is both wrong and harmful.

And if someone tries to play down racist phrases as "just a joke," you can educate them about the discrimination and racism many AAPI folks are facing right now, so they better understand the impact of their words.

Echo

It takes an effort to speak up against racist ideas and language. This is particularly true of people who are targeted by that language. That's why we need to have each other's backs. When someone else speaks up, echo them. Thank them, and emphasize or amplify their message any way you can. This not only encourages more speaking up-it also ensures that no one thinks your silence in response to biased ideas or language means you're OK with it.

Of course, echoing is harder while we're social distancing, but there are many ways to do it. Online, we can re-share antiracist messages. And in chats or conversations, we can respond to offer support and agreement.

In the coming weeks, we're all going to have to make an effort to take care of one another. We'll probably need to make some more sacrifices to ensure that our communities stay as safe and healthy as possible. Speaking up against bigotry, particularly if you're not the target, costs very little.

If we all commit to interrupting, questioning, educating and echoing to fight racist rhetoric, we can start making our communities safer and healthier today.

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Across the United States right now, people are feeling isolated and afraid. As schools and businesses close, people are worrying about their health, their families, their jobs and their future. All of these worries make sense, and of course there's nothing wrong with being afraid.

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A veteran human rights educator explains the value of teaching students to call each other in rather than out.

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As educators we (sometimes unknowingly) step into roles of advocate, caretaker, guide, and even mother or father to students. Students pay attention to everything we say and do. They particularly pay attention to our silence.

We may be uncomfortable talking about race, but we can no longer afford to be silent. We have chosen a profession, which-like parenting-requires that our comforts come second to those of children.

Many black and brown students are educated in school systems and classrooms where they, despite making up the racial majority, are taught how to understand a world by a staff comprised of a powerful minority. When their teachers choose to remain silent about moments of racial tension or violence-violence that may well touch students' own communities or families-these children are overtly reminded of their inferior place in society.

Even as a black teacher, I have to set a tone for my students that signals that it's safe to talk about race. Even with me, students of color are afraid to say the word white or to name the blatant racism of slavery and Jim Crow. If that's the case, imagine how much more difficult it is for them to engage in dialogue about mass incarceration rates; the militarism of police; the killing of innocent black men and women; cycles of poverty; the destruction of our bodies, minds and souls; the lack of access to healthy food and quality schools; and gentrification. These are all symptoms of a type of racism that remains deadly to this day because, despite bodies lying in the street, we refuse to talk about it.

White teachers must also broach these topics with white children attending white schools. These students need to learn about the destructive power of racism and brutality that have plagued our country for centuries. They should also understand that Alton Sterling, Philando Castile and Trayvon Martin were preceded in death by Emmett Till, Jimmie Lee Jackson and countless others whose stories and deaths we must also teach. Our lack of instruction becomes deadly when we allow fear and discomfort to indirectly allow white students to labor under false, privileged assumptions.

Moreover, the silence on the part of white teachers who teach black and brown children is insulting. Imagine seeing white people, the perceived dominant race, loving and appreciating black culture when it is pretty-enjoying the music, food, culture and beauty of our people-but remaining silent about our oppression and refusing to see how the beauty of our culture was largely born out of necessity. It hurts students when their teachers only acknowledge what black people have done for this country and not what this country has done to them.

But how encouraging is it to know that we stand in a powerful and political position where we can directly influence and break this silence?

Begin by confronting your own biases-about yourself, your students, your fellow educators, the world. This process is essential; if educators don't do this, think about how much damage we could do to the open, vulnerable minds of our students. In particular, examine your feelings about the police. And, regardless of your personal feelings about law enforcement, it is critical to understand that many black and brown students have incredibly negative perceptions about the police. This difficult understanding on the part of teachers can hopefully lead to dialogue and healing in schools.

Once you've done the inner work of evaluating your own comfort levels and examining your biases, start the conversation. You might begin by admitting to students that-like them-you are scared, frustrated, angry, confused, hurt or uncomfortable. Students at any age understand these feelings and will appreciate your humility, compassion and vulnerability, especially black and brown students. This is how you lay the foundation.

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As educators we (sometimes unknowingly) step into roles of advocate, caretaker, guide, and even mother or father to students. Students pay attention to everything we say and do. They particularly pay attention to our silence. We may be uncomfortable talking about race, but we can no longer afford to be silent.

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Education Week: What Is Critical Race Theory, and Why Is It Under Attack?

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Education Week: What Is Critical Race Theory, and Why Is It Under Attack?

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What is critical race theory and why are states banning it?

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What Critical Race Theory Is and What it Means for Teachers - Learning for Justice

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What Critical Race Theory Is and What it Means for Teachers - Learning for Justice

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Editor's note: This blog was republished with permission from Robert Kim. You can view the original post on Heinemann.com. Watch Robert Kim, Cornelius Minor and Kass Minor talk about anti-CRT legislation as part of Heinemann's ForwardEd series on Tuesday, August 24, at 7:30 p.m. ET.
Educators around the nation are grappling with so-called "anti-critical race theory" laws that are cropping up around the nation. What's going on here, and how should educators respond to this development? Civil rights law and policy expert and Heinemann author Bob Kim breaks it down for us here:

What is critical race theory?

Critical race theory (or "CRT") is a school of thought that explores and critiques American history, society, and institutions of power (including government and legal systems) from a race-based perspective. An intellectual outcropping of the critical legal studies and feminist legal theory movements of the 1970s, the CRT movement has contributed to a deeper understanding of how race has been constructed in and impacted the United States. It also poses key questions, such as: Has the American legal system and traditional civil rights litigation been effective at achieving racial justice? And if not, what should be done about that?

What are "anti-CRT" laws?

As of July 2021, 26 states have proposed legislation or executive actions banning or limiting the teaching of principles attributed to CRT in public schools. (To be clear: these proposals don't have all that much to do with actual critical race theory.) So far, those bills have been signed into law in six states (Idaho, Iowa, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas), and four other states (Georgia, Florida, Montana and Utah) have issued executive rules or memos with a similar purpose.

While the proposals vary in scope and content, one common goal is to discourage or prohibit staff training and/or curriculum and instruction in public K-12 and/or postsecondary schools that "stereotypes," "scapegoats" or causes "discomfort or guilt" among members of a particular race or sex (or the government) by suggesting they are responsible for racism/sexism or are "inherently" racist, sexist or oppressive. Some proposals prohibit additional actions, such as "promoting or advocating the violent overthrow of the United States government"; "promoting division between, or resentment of" people of different races or classes; or even suggesting that "the advent of slavery in the territory that is now the United States constituted the true founding of the United States" (a direct response to the 1619 Project).

Where did this "anti-CRT" movement come from?

Many state "anti-CRT" bills contain provisions similar to those found in documents issued by the former Trump Administration. In September 2020, the Trump Administration issued a memo to federal agencies directing them to identify and cancel any staff training programs that focus on "critical race theory" or "'white privilege,' or any other training or propaganda effort that teaches or suggests either (1) that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country or (2) that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil." Weeks later, President Trump issued an executive order that purported "to combat offensive and anti-American race and sex stereotyping and scapegoating" by restricting the federal government and its contractors from conducting diversity training that examined systemic racism, white privilege and other issues involving race and gender bias. This executive order was revoked by President Biden on his first day in office, but its contents have since been replicated by state legislatures.

Can I still discuss and teach issues pertaining to racism or sexism in schools or staff trainings?

Yes. However, depending on whether an anti-CRT law is in effect where you teach or work or not, there may be a few restrictions on how you teach or provide training on these concepts. Check with your school administrator-and take a moment to look up your state to get clear on the rules of the road.

A scan of the provisions in states where anti-CRT legislation has passed reveals that educators and school training facilitators still enjoy wide latitude. For example, in Texas, educators can (and may be required) to teach topics related to the "history and importance of the civil rights movement" and "the history of white supremacy, including but not limited to the institution of slavery, the eugenics movement, and the Ku Klux Klan, and the ways in which it is morally wrong." In Idaho, any curriculum that was allowed before is still okay as long as no student is "compelled" to adhere to certain tenets ascribed to critical race theory. In Iowa, any otherwise prohibited content is allowable in staff diversity trainings if those trainings are voluntary-and even in mandatory trainings, trainers are allowed to respond to questions related to critical race theory (as described in the statute). And Iowa and New Hampshire educators or diversity trainers can still teach or train about "the historical existence of ideas and subjects" related to race and gender; "the inherent humanity and equality of all persons"; "sexism, slavery, racial oppression, or racial segregation"; "promote racial, cultural, ethnic, or intellectual diversity or inclusiveness"; or teach any topic otherwise prohibited in the legislation "as part of a larger course of academic instruction." (In fact, many of these "anti-CRT" bills contain similar provisions that allow educators to continue teaching topics related to racism, sexism, history, the civil rights movement and anything that is prescribed under state academic content standards.)

Are the anti-CRT laws legal?

That's a good question. States do have the broad discretion to control the content of classroom instruction or school employee trainings. But they can't enact laws with a discriminatory purpose (for example, if they are directed harmfully at specific racial or ethnic populations). Laws can't be so vague that it's impossible for educators or state-funded contractors or trainers to decipher what's allowable or what's not. And laws that unduly restrict academic freedom or the ability of students to receive a diverse range of information and ideas may violate the First Amendment.

Remember also: Public school educators enjoy free speech protections when they choose to speak out on issues of racism, sexism and other matters of public concern in their personal capacities (i.e., on your own time). That said, in our highly connected world, even personal speech may impact the school community; in general, for public school educators, the more unconnected to work your speech is (as indicated by what, where, when, to whom and how you communicate), the greater your right to speak freely. Government employees do have a right to speak out at work, but this right is more limited than when they are speaking in their personal capacities.

What can I do to address anti-CRT laws?

These "anti-CRT" laws are creatures of state legislatures and/or governors. If you are experiencing a problem or unnecessary restriction related to your job, report it your local or state elected representative (or your union representative, if you have one). That's your right. You may also wish to pay a visit to civil rights advocacy organization defending free speech or educators' rights. (As a former ACLU attorney, I always appreciated calls from educators; they helped me to understand how laws or policies impact practitioners on the ground-whether or not I later represented them in court.)

At the school and community level, you may wish to raise the topic of "anti-CRT" laws at a staff or supervisory meeting. Your goal is to understand clearly what's prohibited and what isn't. (See above: there are a LOT of loopholes in these laws!) School trainers may wish to have a dialogue with school administrators prior to conducting professional development sessions to clarify permissible versus prohibited content. Get this in writing! And remember to keep the language of the anti-CRT provision front and center in these conversations.

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What Critical Race Theory Is and What it Means for Teachers

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Education law and policy expert Bob Kim answers some key questions for educators about these so-called "anti-critical race theory" laws and what's really going on.

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In my equity journey as a White educator, I have often found myself asking (and heard my colleagues ask) "OK, I get it... what do I do?" The amount of resources on equity in education can be overwhelming, and it can be easy to feel stuck and not sure where to go next. Here are some concrete ideas that have helped me get unstuck and move from ideas to action.

A productive question I have asked myself when I feel stuck and unsure about what to do next is: "What do I need in order to deepen engagement in equity work?" This can be a great question for those at the beginning of equity work and also for those who are having trouble sorting through the vast number of resources that are out there. My answer to that question has changed as I have moved along in my equity journey, and that's the point. Really, what do I need? More information? Statistics? Stories? Allies? Organizations to work with? Accountability? This question can help you narrow your focus and also guide your conversations with colleagues and administration.

Diversifying Explicit Curriculum

Your curriculum is a good place to start. A staple of equity work is diversifying our teaching so that it doesn't overemphasize the White, male, heterosexual, cisgender perspective. We can do that by critically examining both our explicit and implicit curricula. Explicit curriculum is "what" we teach. It's the subjects and source material that we cover and what we submit for administrative and school board approval.

There have been major efforts at diversifying explicit curriculum by expanding the canon of books that students read in English class to include non-White, non-Western sources; ensuring that world history class truly focuses on world history and not just European history; and bringing Indigenous and non-Western understandings of the world into science, psychology, and even mathematics (see the field of ethnomathematics).

One important aspect of diversifying explicit curriculum is to consider the role that people from marginalized groups play and how their experience is depicted. I found that after I initially replaced some of my sources that emphasized the White, male, heterosexual, cisgender experience with more diverse sources, a pattern emerged that troubled me. Even when the characters and stories in my class reflected "diversity," they still followed stereotypical paths. Stories of slavery painted the enslaved only as victims. Modern-day Black characters always dealt with gangs and drugs. Brown characters were always immigrants and spoke Spanish. Gay male characters loved fashion. Characters with disabilities were defined by their disabilities. I made (and will continue to make) a concerted effort to break this pattern. The best resource for doing this was my students.

It started with a conversation about movies- Black Panther and Moana, particularly. My students helped me understand why the character of Black Panther was so empowering for them-that character's culture was a central part of his identity, but not in stereotypical ways. They noted something similar about the Disney movie Moana -not only did it center Indigenous culture, but also it had a female lead that had no romantic interest.

I am still in the process of finding stories that avoid stereotypical depictions of already marginalized folks, but as the search continues, I have found tremendous value in discussing this with students. Even if we can't find a better resource or story, our conversations about why a particular story's depiction of a "minority" character is problematic have always been profound. Author Nic Stone has addressed this issue with regard to Black characters in this article.

Diversifying Implicit Curriculum

I use the term implicit curriculum to refer to other aspects of what we teach, either within or outside of the explicit curriculum. This could refer to images, music, and quotations. An approachable, concrete step in equity work is to conduct an audit of these aspects of your curriculum. Consider the images, music, and quotations you use, not so much in the explicit curriculum (like sources in a document-based question), but for general encouragement and inspiration. Do these reflect the diversity of your student body and school community, and do they draw attention to underrepresented groups?

When I conducted this kind of audit on myself, I found that most of the pictures and memes I used as inspiration or bell ringers featured pictures of founding fathers (I am a history teacher, after all), with a few images and quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. and memes featuring male voices. Since then, I have tried to add more balance by including more memes and quotes from non-White, non-male people.

I invited my students into that process, asking them to find pictures, quotes, and memes that they found inspiring. This accomplished two purposes that are fundamental to equity work: diversifying class material and incorporating student voice.

I did the same for the music I play in class while students enter and during games or study time. My music reflected my background-classic rock with a few modern hits sprinkled in. The only non-English song in my playlist was "Macarena," and I'm not sure that should count! My students helped to diversify my playlist with music that they enjoyed that was school appropriate.

The Power of Small Changes

These efforts will bear fruit in making a more equitable curriculum and classroom experience. One resource that has been particularly helpful is Cornelius Minor's book . He champions the idea of bending the curriculum to the students, rather than bending the students to the curriculum, and offers small, concrete steps we can take in our curriculum and classroom that can help to chip away at systems that often stymie this work.

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In my equity journey as a White educator, I have often found myself asking (and heard my colleagues ask) "OK, I get it... what do I do?" The amount of resources on equity in education can be overwhelming, and it can be easy to feel stuck and not sure where to go next.

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What is Critical Race Theory? Start Here

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What is Critical Race Theory? Start Here

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What Is Critical Race Theory? Start Here

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With CRT at the forefront of national debate, these free online resources will bring you up to speed.

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A 501(c)(3) nonprofit, WNDB aims to create a world where every reader can find themselves in the pages of a book. To reach this goal, we've created programs to mentor diverse writers and illustrators, support diverse publishing professionals, and provide books to classrooms nationwide.

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Children’s Books

20 Picture Books for 2020: Readings to Embrace Race, Provide…

As scholars, writers, and parents who use books to connect with our children and spark conversations with them, we’ve developed this book list to help engage the broad range of emotions and needs of diverse children in our multiracial society.

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EmbraceRace supports parents to raise children who are brave, informed and thoughtful about race. Join the movement!

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What Is (and Isn’t) Critical Race Theory? A Closer Look at the Discipline Texas’ Governor Wants to ‘Abolish’

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What Is (and Isn’t) Critical Race Theory? A Closer Look at the Discipline Texas’ Governor Wants to ‘Abolish’

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Get essential education news and commentary delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up here for The 74's daily newsletter.
Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a bill last week that restricts how current events and America's history of racism can be taught in Texas schools. It's been commonly referred to as the "critical race theory" bill, though the term "critical race theory" never appears in it.

But in signing the bill, Abbott said "more must be done" to "abolish critical race theory in Texas," and announced that he would ask the Legislature to address the issue during a special session this summer.

Meanwhile, the debate has taken hold across the nation. Last year, conservative activist Christopher Rufo began using the term "critical race theory" publicly to denounce anti-racist education efforts. Since then, conservative lawmakers, commentators and parents have raised alarm that critical race theory is being used to teach children that they are racist, and that the U.S. is a racist country with irredeemable roots. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and others have called the theory racist itself for centering the nation's story on racial conflict. In addition, conservative commentator Gerard Baker has argued that critical race theory bans critical thought in favor of what resembles religious instruction.

Those who study the discipline say that the attacks have nothing to do with critical race theory, but instead are targeting any teachings that challenge and complicate dominant narratives about the country's history and identity.

They say that critical race theory itself actually shifts emphasis away from accusing individuals - in history or in the classroom - of being racist, which tends to dominate liberal discussions of racism. Instead, it offers tools for shifting public policy to create equity and freedom for all.

So what is critical race theory, and why is it relevant to Texans? And why is there an effort against it in Texas - and around the nation?

What is critical race theory?

Critical race theory is a discipline, analytical tool and approach that emerged in the 1970s and '80s. Scholars took up the ways racial inequity persisted even after "a whole set of landmark civil rights laws and anti-discrimination laws passed" during the civil right movement, Daniel HoSang, professor of ethnicity, race and migration and American studies at Yale University, said.

"These scholars and writers are asking, 'why is it that racial inequality endures and persists, even decades after these laws have passed?'" HoSang said. "Why is racism still enduring? And how do we contribute to abolishing it?"

HoSang described critical race theory not as "content," or a "set of beliefs," but rather an approach that "encourage[s] us to move past the superficial explanations that are given about equality and suffering, and to ask for new kinds of explanations."

In the introduction of Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement, a seminal collection of the foundational essays of the movement edited by principal founders and scholars like Kimberlé Crenshaw and Neil Gotanda, the editors write that critical race theory is about transforming social structures to create freedom for all, and it's grounded in an "ethical commitment to human liberation."

Key concepts

Racial formation: One key concept in critical race theory is racial formation. Developed by sociologists Michael Omi and Howard Winant, the theory rejects the idea that race - Black, white, Asian - is a fixed category that has always meant the same thing. Instead, it traces the way that race has been defined, understood and constructed in different ways throughout history. Omi and Winant define race as an "unstable and 'decentered' complex of social meanings constantly being transformed by political struggle."

For example, they write that in the U.S., the racial category of "Black" was created as slavery was established and evolved. Africans whose specific identity was Ibo, Yoruba or Fulani in Africa were grouped into the category "Black" as they were enslaved in America. Part of the meaning of being "Black" in America was being less than human and therefore enslavable. James Baldwin wrote in "On Being White and Other Lies" that Europeans who moved to America became "white" through a process of "denying the Black presence, and justifying the Black subjugation."

Omi and Winant describe racial formation as the "process by which social, economic and political forces determine the content and importance of racial categories, and by which they are in turn shaped by racial meanings" - a process that has continued throughout history.

Monica Martinez, a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin who specializes in Latinx history, described how racial formation has played out in Texas in the racialization of Mexicans and the history of anti-Mexican violence.

"Before this region became Texas, there were debates about the character of Mexicans as a group of people," she said. Figures like Stephen F. Austin and John Calhoun cast them as "treacherous people, thieves and murderers."

From 1910 to 1920, she explained, hundreds of ethnic Mexicans were victims of lynchings, as well as violence at the hands of police and the Texas Rangers. Many of them were American citizens, and they included labor organizers and journalists who were writing about race and injustice. This amounted to an effort to "remove Mexicans from having economic or political or cultural influence," she said.

"Oppression was enacted through violence, and it was sanctioned by governors, Texas legislators and local courts," she said.

Oppression was furthered by "Juan Crow" segregation laws that racially segregated communities, relegated Mexican American children to poorly developed schools and intimidated Mexicans from voting. This system of laws and policies had lasting effects on Mexican Americans and how they're conceived of today.

Rhetoric has played a role in racial formation as well, continually loading the term "Mexican" with racial meaning.

"100 years ago, people talked about Mexicans as bandits, as thieves, and as a threat," she said. "Today, they talk about them as potential cartel members and gang members."

This language contributes to racial profiling and violence today. "In communities in south Texas, anybody who looks 'Mexican,' or looks like an 'immigrant,' can be targeted-not just with policing, but also by [general] hostility," she said.

Racism is structural: The mainstream understanding is that racism is an individual prejudice and choice. The default is to be free of bias and racism, so racism is an exception from the norm. It can be addressed by individual measures, such as humiliating and punishing the person who messes up, and enforcing moral codes on an individual level.

On the other hand, critical race theory says that racism is inherent in our institutions and structures of governance. It's ordinary, and it's baked into all our consciousnesses in complex ways through our education, government, the media, and our participation in systems. Racism must be addressed not just by punishing individuals, but by shifting structures and policies.

HoSang, the Yale professor, explained that critical race theory isn't focused on "the stock characters of a racist," such as Bull Connor, who directed police to use fire hoses on civil rights protesters in Birmingham, Alabama. HoSang said that a focus on denouncing individuals is "not a good use of our energy." Instead, he said, the question is, "Even in places where civil rights and anti-discrimination laws passed, why do these forms of inequality persist?"

"So [critical race theory] actually says, no, we shouldn't be preoccupied with trying to discern 'who is the racist here,' because that moves the attention away from the structures," he said.

One example of this is in housing segregation - how "many, many complex layers" of "policies around zoning, lending and redlining, around private realtors and developers" have reproduced unequal access to housing, which in turn furthers gaps in generational wealth and stability, HoSang said.

In his article for the Austin American-Statesman, Dan Zehr traces how this process has played out in Austin, which has one of the highest levels of income segregation in the nation. In 1928, city plans created a "negro district" east of Interstate 35 and denied public services and utilities to Black people outside of it, pushing Black residents to the eastern part of the city. When the government began offering loans to promote homeownership and help citizens rebuild wealth as part of the New Deal after the Great Depression, neighborhoods for people of color were excluded through a practice called "redlining." Austin's "negro district" was the largest redlined zone in the city, Zehr writes.

"As most Americans gained equity in new homes or upgraded the value of their existing houses, the black population saw a racial wedge driven deeper between Anglo affluence and African-American poverty," he explains.

All these processes are systemic. "You can't explain [this] through any one person's biases and prejudices." HoSang said.

Is critical race theory being taught in K-12 classrooms?

Experts and teachers put it plainly.

"Nobody in K-12 is teaching critical race theory," Andrew Robinson, an 8th grade U.S. history teacher at Uplift Luna Preparatory in Dallas, said. "If I tried to walk in and teach critical race theory, my kids would just have a blank stare on their face."

"Critical race theory is not being taught in schools," Martinez said.

Keffrelyn Brown, a professor of cultural studies in education at UT-Austin and a teacher-educator, agreed.

"A vast majority of teachers in K-12 schools don't know critical race theory," she said. "They are not coming into the classroom and saying, 'I'm going to teach critical race theory.'"

HoSang pointed out that to begin with, critical race theory is not "a body of content that can be taught."

Given that, Abbott's calls to "abolish critical race theory in Texas" make no sense, those who study it said.

"I don't think you can 'abolish' a theory," Brown said.

How does Texas' new law and surrounding debate discuss critical race theory?

While it has gained the ire of national Republicans on Fox News and elsewhere for months, critical race theory was thrust in the political spotlight in Texas this spring because of the progress of HB 3979. Lawmakers claimed that it combats the theory.

The wording of the bill is vague - for example, it bans discussion of current events unless a teacher "strive[s] to explore those topics from diverse and contending perspectives without giving deference to any one perspective," and teachers can't teach that "with respect to their relationship to American values, slavery and racism are anything other than deviations from, betrayals of, or failures to live up to, the authentic founding principles of the United States, which include liberty and equality."

In an early statement supporting the legislation, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said that critical race theory is a "woke philosoph[y]" that "maintain[s] that one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex or that any individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive."

The phrase "critical race theory" does not appear in the bill once, however.

Brown described the way the term "critical race theory" has been mobilized as a label that has nothing to do with critical race theory itself.

"It has become the catch-all phrase for any kind of perspective, or any kind of framework, or any kind of knowledge that shows the roots of racism and how deeply they are embedded in our society," she said.

Experts pointed out several key mischaracterizations of critical race theory.

Political discourse has claimed that critical race theory unfairly assigns guilt and blame to individuals based on their race. In one section that lists concepts teachers can't teach, the bill prohibits teaching that "an individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of the individual's race or sex."

"[Critical race theory] has nothing to do with sentiment, guilt or shame," HoSang said. "In fact, one of its premises is that those are not actually helpful places to examine. It's taking us out of racism as a psychological and emotional question, and is focusing much more on the structures, the policies that people create that govern our lives."

Martinez said the worry comes out of "false claims that when you teach histories of slavery, or race, or racism, that you make some white students feel guilty or shame for being white."

To focus on directly instilling racial guilt would be taking a liberal, individualistic approach that critical race theory actually critiques.

The bill also prohibits teaching that "one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex," or that "an individual, by virtue of the individual's race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously."

If anything, Martinez said, the current, longstanding way of teaching Texas history already teaches that one race is superior. "Look at how it teaches the history of the Texas revolution - that people like Stephen F. Austin are racially superior to the treacherous Mexican, like Santa Anna," she said. "Texas history has been taught in a way that celebrates people who were fighting for the institution of slavery, that were espousing publicly that Mexicans were an inferior race."

HoSang agreed. "There's so much of the dominant curriculum that does just what the bills claim they're objecting to, in terms of constructing a moral ideology," he said. "One could argue the current curriculum promotes intolerance and animosity against Indigenous people, and that it does the same for immigrants."

Future impact

Brown, the UT-Austin cultural studies professor, described the new Texas law as an effort to "try to stop the momentum over the last year and a half of families and communities saying we need to know more about racism."

"We need to understand [our history of racism] so that we actually can get to a place where we are operating with justice, with equity, with fairness," she said.

Instead, she said, the bill may "create enough confusion and possible concern that teachers or districts would just simply not talk about issues of race, or racism, for fear that it's going to create some conflict."
Isabella Zou is a reporting fellow at The Texas Tribune, the only member-supported, digital-first, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
Abbott's press office did not comment on what he additionally wants the legislature to do about "critical race theory" during this summer's special session. But many teachers worry about the "chilling effect" that the new law will already have on their attempts to teach history well - which includes nurturing students' critical thinking skills by bringing in multiple perspectives on historical events, and showing how the past has impacted present day issues.

"What they're trying to say with this is that the actions of the past aren't affecting the present," said Robinson, the 8th grade history teacher in Dallas. "They want us to act like slavery and Jim Crow have no bearing on the issues in our society right now. And if that's the case, then they should cancel my class."

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What Is (and Isn't) Critical Race Theory? A Closer Look at the Discipline Texas' Governor Wants to 'Abolish'

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Get essential education news and commentary delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up here for The 74's daily newsletter. Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a bill last week that restricts how current events and America's history of racism can be taught in Texas schools.

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In a Thursday afternoon virtual session during the National Principals Conference, two Philadelphia administrators discussed the importance of school leaders adopting an equity mindset to address key social, cultural, economic and environmental challenges that impact the success of all students.

Richard Gordon, principal of Philadelphia's Paul Robeson High School, highlighted the importance of learning conditions for student success and drew attention to the stark differences of building conditions between schools in Philadelphia and those in the better-funded surrounding suburbs.

Sharif El-Mekki, an administrator who now serves as CEO of the nonprofit Center for Black Educator Development, focused on how crucial teacher diversity is not just from the perspective of same-race teachers' impacts on students facing marginalization, but on White colleagues who learn from diverse educators near them and improve how they engage with communities and build relationships as a result.

A report issued in 2017 detailed how Philadelphia's schools need an estimated $5 billion in repairs, with around 75% of schools in disrepair due to delayed maintenance. Highlighting the state some schools are in, Gordon showed attendees a Now This News video published in 2019, documenting mold, asbestos and leaks during a walkthrough of one school building by Pennsylvania State Sen. Vincent Hughes.

El-Mekki asked how, when students in crumbling schools look around themselves, they should be expected to see the condition of the buildings they're in and not think, "This is what society thinks of me."

The principalship is now in the position of having to be the advocate for students on equity, said Gordon, who is also the National Association of Secondary School Principals' 2021 Principal of the Year and K-12 Dive's 2017 Administrator of the Year. He added that it's his job, regardless of the circumstances, to provide access to resources students need both inside and outside of the classroom.

Many of Paul Robeson High School's students live in some of Philadelphia's poorest neighborhoods, which also impacts health outcomes, employment prospects and exposure to crime. In 2013, the school had been slated for permanent closure by the School District of Philadelphia. It was ultimately spared and placed under Gordon's leadership.

With a focus on promoting an all-inclusive family atmosphere, community service learning, civic responsibility, and individual evaluations of each student to help them lay out a personal college and career plan, Gordon and his staff oversaw an impressive turnaround that included a 98% graduation rate, 50% college attendance rate, a suspension rate that fell below 5%, and a 22% decline in truancy.

Gordon also stated that principals must ask themselves whether they want to be leaders or managers, and that they must also consider how to address learning experiences to make sure the right opportunities are provided for students, and that students are learning how to be the best individuals they possibly can.

Whatever it is our students want to engage in across a variety of personal goals, school leaders have to seek the resources to provide pathways to those opportunities, Gordon continued - and that's where community partnerships come into play for his school.

He also praised the role of his faculty and staff in creating an equity mindset at Paul Robeson High School. Progress in a school can't happen without having an extremely collaborative team in place, one that is committed to diversity and equity and reflective of your school's values and the kids you serve, Gordon said.

As head of the Center for Black Educator Development, El-Mekki is also keenly aware of the role relationships play in building equity mindset among students and staff. Teacher diversity is crucial, both for the engagement and success of students facing marginalization, as documented by the research of Constance Lindsay, and for the White colleagues of teachers of color who learn valuable lessons on how to engage with communities and build relationships.

Recruiting Black students to pursue careers in education, however, can be a challenge in itself, El-Mekki said, citing Christopher Emdin of Teachers College at Columbia University, who has said that this can sometimes feel like inviting them back to the scene of a crime committed against them.

So while the Center For Black Educator Development's goals include increasing Black high school students' interest levels in the education profession, the number of Black college students majoring in education, and the number of Black men and women earning teacher certifications annually, other systemic changes must occur to support those efforts.

To facilitate that, he posed five essential questions to consider in building an equity mindset in schools:

What are ways you neglected to agitate for change in the past and what are your commitments now?

What is an additional anti-racist stance you'll practice this school year?

Mentally audit your classroom. What are the additional mirrors you will consistently create for Black and brown students?

How will you converse with your students about considering the field of education?

No matter where your class is on the continuum of a fully inclusive and anti-racist community, what can you change to improve your class for Black and brown and other marginalized students?

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NPC 2021: How can principals build, strengthen equity mindset in schools?

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In a Thursday afternoon virtual session during the National Principals Conference, two Philadelphia administrators discussed the importance of school leaders adopting an equity mindset to address key social, cultural, economic and environmental challenges that impact the success of all students.

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3 Documentaries You Should Watch About The Tulsa Race Massacre

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3 Documentaries You Should Watch About The Tulsa Race Massacre

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If all you know about the Tulsa Race Massacre is the re-creations of the attack featured in HBO series like and Lovecraft Country, prepare yourself for a serious education over the next few weeks.

Monday marks the 100th anniversary for one of the worst acts of racial violence in American history, the Tulsa Race Massacre. Back in 1921, a mob of white people tore down and burned the Greenwood district of Tulsa, Okla. - a segregated part of the city so prosperous and bustling, it was known as Black Wall Street.

Jump to reviews of Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Race Massacre (The History Channel, May 30), Dreamland: The Burning of Black Wall Street (CNN and HBO Max, May 31), and Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten (PBS, May 31).

According to some historians, over 1,200 homes and buildings were destroyed by the violence, killing between 100 and 300 people. But thanks to white-dominated power structures in the city of Tulsa and state of Oklahoma, news about the massacre was wiped from many official sources for decades (several fans of Watchmen and Lovecraft Country have told me they had never heard of the massacre before these fictional TV shows dramatized the attack during their episodes last year and in 2019).

All that will likely change over the next week and beyond, as a flood of programs centered on the Tulsa Race Massacre come to television. From enterprise reporting efforts at ABC, CBS and NBC to projects on National Geographic, CNN, The History Channel and PBS, there are a wide array of documentary films and TV programs aimed at reminding Americans just how deadly unchecked racism can be.

After watching the films offered by The History Channel, CNN and PBS, I saw common themes emerge. First was the power of white society to control what history is recognized, to erase uncomfortable truths and resist efforts to dig up the truth (sometimes literally, as when officials ended early attempts to find mass graves of massacre victims in 1999). Several films featured comments from longtime white residents of Tulsa, including its current mayor, G.T. Bynum, who said they didn't even learn the Tulsa Race Massacre had happened until they were adults.

Such insistence on erasing Black pain from a community's official history creates, by necessity, a shadow history kept among people of color and passed along, often by word of mouth. White America may have tried to forget Tulsa, but the massacre's details lived in the stories of Black survivors and their descendants, handed down like bitter family heirlooms.

(Even worse, for a journalist like me, was to realize the role the media played back then - both in whipping up white fears about Black people through horrifically racist films and newspaper stories, while disappearing news of attacks and lynchings once white people took action.)

The second painful truth was the lasting damage such attacks can have on a people. According to CNN's film, 191 Black-owned business stood in the Greenwood district before the massacre, including one of the finest hotels in the country. These days, there are fewer than a dozen Black-owned businesses in that same area, now reduced to a block-long main drag with modest establishments like a barbershop, health clinic and coffee shop.

Generations of Black wealth were erased in the massacre. Tulsa's racial segregation and the struggle of its Black community remains.

Some people pop up in multiple documentaries, including the Rev. Robert Turner, the sharp-dressing pastor of Historic Vernon AME Church. His church's basement hid survivors of the massacre 100 years ago; more recently, Turner is shown regularly visiting Tulsa's City Hall with a bullhorn, reminding residents of the need for memory and reparations.

"Pastoring a church where the members died and the survivors never saw justice, that aggravated my spirit," Turner says in the History Channel documentary. "It's an embarrassment that we have never had a district attorney investigate the worst crime in this city's history."

Historian Hannibal B. Johnson talks about how Black people enslaved by Native Americans were freed and given land, forming the early basis for the Greenwood district's wealth. And several experts also speak of the effort to find the rumored unmarked mass graves where Black people who were killed in the massacre may have been interred.

Most importantly, the films show how history's broad trends can feed into a singular disaster. As Southern states ratcheted up racialized violence and racially oppressive laws to snatch back Black voting rights, a generation of Black veterans who had served America in World War I were no longer willing to accept the indignities of indiscriminate racial oppression.

When a large group of Black people showed up in Tulsa to stop the lynching of a young Black man unfairly accused of sexually assaulting a white female elevator operator - white crowds had been incited by incendiary, unfair coverage from The Tulsa Tribune - a white man tried to grab a gun from a Black man. A struggle ensued, the gun went off, and the white mob had their excuse to obliterate Black Wall Street over two days of brutal violence.

Here are capsule reviews of three powerful films I found most compelling, from The History Channel, CNN and PBS. Watch at least one of them to learn the kind of American history that should have been taught in classrooms and from schoolbooks nationwide for the past 100 years.
Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Race Massacre, airing on The History Channel (May 30) Dreamland: The Burning of Black Wall Street, debuting on CNN and streaming on HBO Max (May 31) Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten, premiering on PBS (May 31) This story was edited for radio by Nina Gregory, and adapted for the web by Eric Deggans and Petra Mayer.
This is easily the most cinematic of the three documentaries - small surprise, given its pedigree. Co-directed and executive produced by Emmy-winner Stanley Nelson (Freedom Riders), the film is also executive produced by NBA superstar Russell Westbrook, featuring original music from Branford Marsalis. The story begins with words from Rev. Turner's bullhorn, unspooling into an epic tale of how Black people migrated to Tulsa and built a bustling, successful business district, keeping dollars in the Black community until two days of mob violence destroyed it all. Archival footage of Greenwood, looking impossibly clear and vivid, appears next to photos and inspired commentary from experts like The New York Times columnist Brent Staples and historian Scott Ellsworth. The result is a detailed, evocative story of the massacre and its connection to modern Tulsa, including a renewed, modern effort to find mass graves. This compelling film is also paired with a six-part podcast produced by The History Channel and WNYC Studios in collaboration with KOSU public radio in Oklahoma, dubbed Blindspot: Tulsa Burning.

This film features another NBA star, LeBron James, as an executive producer, adding evocative animation sequences to newsreel footage and archival photos to re-create scenes from 100 years ago. CNN's film traces a history similar to Tulsa Burning, bringing cameras to modern Tulsa's modest Greenwood district to show off small businesses continuing a historic legacy, as detailed maps display how much the area has shrunk from its successful heights 100 years ago. While Black people in 1921 enjoyed a community one expert says was like Bourbon Street, Harlem and Washington D.C. rolled into one, racist and resentful white Tulsans used pejorative phrases like "Little Africa" and "N*****town" to describe the area. Named for a popular theater in the Greenwood district, Dreamland uses actors to read powerful quotes from politicians and publications of the time, including Tulsa's mayor during the massacre, T. D. Evans, who blamed the Black victims of the attack for "instigating" a "negro uprising." Rev. Turner also shows up here, pointing out areas in his church's basement where victims huddled while the top floors of the church were destroyed. "I believe there is no expiration date on morality," the pastor says, explaining why he remains an aggressive advocate for uncovering the mass graves and finding justice for the city's Black community.

For a more personal story, consider this film, focused on the work of longtime Washington Post journalist DeNeen L. Brown, whose reporting on the Tulsa Race Massacre has spread word about the history of the attack. Brown, whose father lives in Tulsa and is a pastor at a Baptist church in town, is shown interviewing descendants of attack victims and experts leading the modern effort to find and exhume unmarked graves. She also serves as a producer on the film, alongside human rights investigator Eric Stover, who is featured in interviews as an expert source; the film is narrated by NPR's own Michel Martin, weekend host of All Things Considered. Viewers learn of failed efforts to sue the government for failing to protect the community - descendants were told the statute of limitations had passed. And the film shows how graphic photos of the destruction were turned into postcards and distributed by some white people. Here, the search for evidence of unmarked graves is presented as a bit of a cliffhanger, as experts work to identify likely areas for the remains, hoping to prove they are the discarded bodies of massacre victims. "Oftentimes, Black people are called on camera after something racist occurs to explain racism ... to explain what happened," Brown says in one moment. "But I can't explain why white people hate black people so much."

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3 Documentaries You Should Watch About The Tulsa Race Massacre

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If all you know about the Tulsa Race Massacre is the re-creations of the attack featured in HBO series like and Lovecraft Country , prepare yourself for a serious education over the next few weeks. Monday marks the 100th anniversary for one of the worst acts of racial violence in American history, the Tulsa Race Massacre.

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Burned from the land: How 60 years of racial violence shaped America

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Burned from the land: How 60 years of racial violence shaped America

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Burned from the land: How 60 years of racial violence shaped America

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The Tulsa race massacre of 1921 was one of the worst acts of racial violence in American history. It was also part of a larger pattern of assault, one that targeted communities of color across the country. Learn more in this installment of "History Refocused."

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As educators we (sometimes unknowingly) step into roles of advocate, caretaker, guide, and even mother or father to students. Students pay attention to everything we say and do. They particularly pay attention to our silence.

We may be uncomfortable talking about race, but we can no longer afford to be silent. We have chosen a profession, which-like parenting-requires that our comforts come second to those of children.

Many black and brown students are educated in school systems and classrooms where they, despite making up the racial majority, are taught how to understand a world by a staff comprised of a powerful minority. When their teachers choose to remain silent about moments of racial tension or violence-violence that may well touch students' own communities or families-these children are overtly reminded of their inferior place in society.

Even as a black teacher, I have to set a tone for my students that signals that it's safe to talk about race. Even with me, students of color are afraid to say the word white or to name the blatant racism of slavery and Jim Crow. If that's the case, imagine how much more difficult it is for them to engage in dialogue about mass incarceration rates; the militarism of police; the killing of innocent black men and women; cycles of poverty; the destruction of our bodies, minds and souls; the lack of access to healthy food and quality schools; and gentrification. These are all symptoms of a type of racism that remains deadly to this day because, despite bodies lying in the street, we refuse to talk about it.

White teachers must also broach these topics with white children attending white schools. These students need to learn about the destructive power of racism and brutality that have plagued our country for centuries. They should also understand that Alton Sterling, Philando Castile and Trayvon Martin were preceded in death by Emmett Till, Jimmie Lee Jackson and countless others whose stories and deaths we must also teach. Our lack of instruction becomes deadly when we allow fear and discomfort to indirectly allow white students to labor under false, privileged assumptions.

Moreover, the silence on the part of white teachers who teach black and brown children is insulting. Imagine seeing white people, the perceived dominant race, loving and appreciating black culture when it is pretty-enjoying the music, food, culture and beauty of our people-but remaining silent about our oppression and refusing to see how the beauty of our culture was largely born out of necessity. It hurts students when their teachers only acknowledge what black people have done for this country and not what this country has done to them.

But how encouraging is it to know that we stand in a powerful and political position where we can directly influence and break this silence?

Begin by confronting your own biases-about yourself, your students, your fellow educators, the world. This process is essential; if educators don't do this, think about how much damage we could do to the open, vulnerable minds of our students. In particular, examine your feelings about the police. And, regardless of your personal feelings about law enforcement, it is critical to understand that many black and brown students have incredibly negative perceptions about the police. This difficult understanding on the part of teachers can hopefully lead to dialogue and healing in schools.

Once you've done the inner work of evaluating your own comfort levels and examining your biases, start the conversation. You might begin by admitting to students that-like them-you are scared, frustrated, angry, confused, hurt or uncomfortable. Students at any age understand these feelings and will appreciate your humility, compassion and vulnerability, especially black and brown students. This is how you lay the foundation.

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As educators we (sometimes unknowingly) step into roles of advocate, caretaker, guide, and even mother or father to students. Students pay attention to everything we say and do. They particularly pay attention to our silence. We may be uncomfortable talking about race, but we can no longer afford to be silent.

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Basic tips on safely and effectively filming and reporting incidents of hate.

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With reports of hate-related acts on the rise, it's important to know what you can do as a witness. Here are some basic tips on safely and effectively filming and reporting incidents of hate.

Watch the video version of Filming Hate, made by our Asia-Pacific team.

Also available in: Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese

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With reports of hate-related acts on the rise, it's important to know what you can do as a witness. Here are some basic tips on safely and effectively filming and reporting incidents of hate. Watch the video version of Filming Hate, made by our Asia-Pacific team.

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HERE YOU’LL FIND RESOURCES FOR HARASSMENT ON THE STREET, ONLINE, AND IN THE WORKPLACE

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HERE YOU’LL FIND RESOURCES FOR HARASSMENT ON THE STREET, ONLINE, AND IN THE WORKPLACE

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Hollaback! Together We Have the Power to End Harassment

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Here You'LL Find RESOURCES for harassment on the street, online, and in the workplace.

WORKPLACE HARASSMENT

Hollaback!'s Workplace Equity Policies

We are committed to transparency and believe our workplace policies should be as transparent as our values. These are our workplace policy statements as of February 2021.

Street Harassment

Your safety is first priority. If you feel it's safe and choose to directly respond to harassers we have general guidelines designed to help keep you safe - whether you're the target of the harassment or a bystander looking to make a difference.

A guide on how to intervene when you see harassment happening featuring Hollaback!'s 5D's of bystander intervention. Released by Hollaback! and designed in collaboration with the Center for Urban Pedagogy.

A report released in October, 2014 by Hollaback!, TrustLaw, and DLA Piper offers the first ever global legal resource on street harassment. The "Know Your Rights," guide compiles the latest legal definitions and information on all forms of street harassment across 22 countries and in 12 languages. Creating the guide was a monumental undertaking involving the efforts of 11 legal teams collaborating internationally. Check out the guide and consult our FAQ for more information.

Our recommendations for Policymakers and service providers wanting to invest in combating harassment.

This guide is written for unions, members assistance programs (MAP), employers, human resources departments, employee assistance programs (EAP), and service providers. It gives information and resources regarding support and assistance they can offer their staff, union members, and clients reporting experiences of street harassment. It offers readers:

An understanding of what street harassment is and what it looks like

How it affects employees, union members, and clients

What can be done to support an employee, union member, or client who has experienced it

Where to refer an employee, union member or client who may need further assistance and support as a result of their experience

Using stories from Hollaback! sites, this guide invites readers to recognize how people's identities and oppression overlap and how this affects how they walk down the street.

Street harassment looks different for different populations and LGBTQ+ folks experience more of it than the general population. Even within the LGBTQ+ community folks are affected differently according to factors like race, immigration status, gender identity, and sex. Here is guidance on how to respond if you're targeted with anti-LGBTQ+ harassment - and how to respond if you witness it.

Resilience is especially important in the aftermath of working through crisis and trauma. Learn how to hold yourself and make active choices about how to respond to stress.

Online Harassment

Chances are you've been harassed online (or might be in the future). We partnered with Take Back the Tech! to design this guide that walks you through immediate steps you should take to feel safe and gives you the information you need to make informed decisions.

Brought to you by HeartMob, this resource in comic form explains how fake news is used to harass and silence - and how to tell whether news is legit.

Check out this guide, by Security.org, to learn about resources, laws and best practices to protect whistleblowers.

We collect stories to raise awareness about
harassment. By sharing your testimony, you
change the way people understand this problem.
Remember you are not alone and we've got your back.

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Resources | Hollaback! You Have the Power to End Harassment

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Hollaback!'s Workplace Equity Policies We are committed to transparency and believe our workplace policies should be as transparent as our values. These are our workplace policy statements as of February 2021. Your safety is first priority.

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BYSTANDER INTERVENTION TO STOP POLICE SPONSORED VIOLENCE AND ANTI-BLACK RACIST HARASSMENT

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BYSTANDER INTERVENTION TO STOP POLICE SPONSORED VIOLENCE AND ANTI-BLACK RACIST HARASSMENT

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Hollaback! Together We Have the Power to End Harassment

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WE WOULD LIKE TO INVITE YOU TO ATTEND THE NEXT FREE TRAINING:

Please note you must register in advance for all trainings. Registration is capped at 1,000 people per training.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. The training is currently only offered in English. Additionally, please note at the moment this training may not be ADA compliant.

Don't see the training times you're looking for? We also have free bystander intervention trainings to address gender-based harassment.

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION

In response to continued police violence against black communities and the recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, Hollaback! Is offering this free, one-hour, interactive training to train people on how to safely intervene in the face of police violence and anti-black racism using Hollaback!'s 5D's of bystander intervention.

We'll start by talking about the types of violence and racism black folks are facing right now - from microaggressions to murder - using a tool we call the "spectrum of racism." We'll talk about how anti-black racism is so ingrained into the fabric of our society that we see it present in all forms, from everyday tasks or activities to larger societal institutions. We'll discuss the deep impact harassment, violence, and constant threat of violence has on black communities.

You'll learn what to look for and the positive impact that bystander intervention has on individuals and communities. We'll talk through five strategies for intervention: distract, delegate, document, delay, and direct; and how to prioritize your own safety while intervening. We'll also talk about what to do if you're a person of color worried the violence will turn on you and how to avoid being a "white savior." We'll have time at the end for practice, and you'll leave feeling more confident intervening the next time you see police sponsored, anti-black harassment or violence.

RESOURCES:

ORGANIZATIONS TO SUPPORT:

Black Lives Matter :: A global network fighting for Freedom, Liberation and Justice of Black folks by building local power and intervening when violence is inflicted on Black communities.

Campaign Zero :: A campaign taking deliberate action to end the disproportionate police violence and incarceration of Black communities in America.

Run with Maud :: A justice campaign fighting for due process in the lynching of Ahmaud Arbery. Sign the petition or make phone calls to demand justice for Ahmaud.

Take Action Minnesota :: A Minnesota-based organization pushing for collective aid and pursuing justice in the murder of George Floyd.

Minnesota Teen Activists :: A collective of youth activists fighting white supremacy and injustice in Minnesota.

Fair Fight Action :: An organization promoting fair elections and educating voters about their voting rights nationwide.

NAACP Legal Defense Fund :: America's premiere legal defense organization fighting for racial justice.

Color of Change :: The nation's largest online racial justice organization.

The Bail Project :: Provides free bail assistance to low-income individuals who are legally presumed innocent.

Black Visions Collective :: A Minnesota-based organization that believes in a future where all Black people have autonomy, safety is community-led, and we are in right relationship within our ecosystems.

Reclaim the Block :: A Minneapolis-based campaign that works to move money from the police department to other areas of the city budget, prioritizing community health and safety.

Communities United for Police Reform :: A campaign to end discriminatory policing practices in New York.

Southern Poverty Law Center :: An organization that monitors and exposes the behavior of hate groups and extremists in the US.

American Civil Liberties Union :: An organization dedicated to defending and preserving the civil rights and liberties of all Americans.

National Urban League :: A historic civil rights organization that advocates on behalf of economic and social justice for African Americans and against racial discrimination in the United States

Black Alliance for Just Immigration :: BAJI educates and engages African American and black immigrant communities to organize and advocate for racial, social and economic justice.

Trans Women of Color Collective :: Trans Women of Color Collective (TWOCC) was created to cultivate economic opportunities and affirming spaces for trans people of color and our families, to foster kinship, build community engage in healing and restorative justice through arts, culture, media, advocacy and activism.

INCITE! :: INCITE! is a network of radical feminists of color organizing to end state violence and violence in our homes and communities.

Black Women's Blueprint :: An organization providing a blueprint for black liberation through a feminist lens.

TALK TO OUR TEAM:

To connect with a member of our training team and learn more about how we can customize this training for your team or business, please complete the form below:

We collect stories to raise awareness about
harassment. By sharing your testimony, you
change the way people understand this problem.
Remember you are not alone and we've got your back.

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BYSTANDER INTERVENTION TO STOP POLICE SPONSORED VIOLENCE AND ANTI-BLACK RACIST HARASSMENT | Hollaback! Together We Have the Power to End Harassment

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WE WOULD LIKE TO INVITE YOU TO ATTEND THE NEXT FREE TRAINING: Please note you must register in advance for all trainings. Registration is capped at 1,000 people per training. Friday, April 16th 2021. 5:00PM ET/ 4:00PM CT/ 3:00PM MT/ 2:00PM PT/ 11:00AM HST. Register Here.

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Across the United States right now, people are feeling isolated and afraid. As schools and businesses close, people are worrying about their health, their families, their jobs and their future. All of these worries make sense, and of course there's nothing wrong with being afraid. But as people share news, fears and concerns, some people are sharing something else, as well: racism and xenophobia.

Obviously, Chinese people are not responsible for a virus simply because the first reported cases were in China. But some politicians and media figures have taken to referring to the "Chinese Coronavirus." They've used stereotypes about the different foods people eat around the world or made jokes that rely on "Chinese-sounding" words or phrases to make light of the crisis and somehow suggest that Chinese people are to blame. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that China should apologize for the virus.

While it might be tempting to think we should just shake this kind of language off and focus on larger concerns, the truth is that racist and xenophobic words have real-world effects. Across the U.S., Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders report being harassed at school, in stores, on the streets and on the subway. Last month in London, a Singaporean man was assaulted, kicked and punched by a man who said, "I don't want your coronavirus in my country."

We know that racist "jokes" can quickly become racist rants, and those rants can turn to violence. So it's up to all of us to make it clear that we're not OK with racist responses to this crisis.

To do that, Teaching Tolerance recommends a four-step process for speaking up against bias:
Interrupt
Question
Educate
Echo
Here's what speaking up against racism during the coronavirus might look like now.

Interrupt

Interrupting means taking a time out. It shows the person you're talking, texting or chatting with that what they've said is important enough to pause your conversation to address-that you need to talk about the racism before you talk about anything else. Here are a few phrases to try:

"Hang on. I want to go back to what you called the virus."
"Just a second-let's get into your point that the virus is somebody's fault."
"Before we talk about that, I want to talk about the language you just used."

Question

We're all familiar with "questions" that are really warnings: What did you just say to me? or Are you really going to do that? But in this context, the goal of questioning really is to better understand why the person said what they did. You might ask:

"Why did you call it the 'Chinese Coronavirus'?"
"Why do you think that?"
"Where did you get that information?"

One note: Asking someone to explain why a racist joke is funny is a great way to stop them from making racist jokes to you again. But if you want to have a real discussion about what they've said, it might work better to ask something like, "What made you say that?"

Educate

The key to educating is to continue the conversation. The goal here isn't to just provide facts about the topic generally to the person you're talking to with, but to explain why what they've said needs rethinking.

That means that, to educate folks around racism associated with the coronavirus, we need to understand not only the virus but also the racism.

For example, you might explain that it's actually not common anymore to name a disease after its place of origin, that there's a long, bad history of associating diseases with specific groups of people and that the name COVID-19 was chosen very carefully to avoid repeating those mistakes.

If someone doesn't understand why a comment they made was racist, you can educate them about the long history of stereotyping immigrants-and Asian people, specifically-as people who bring disease. You can explain how this stereotype is both wrong and harmful.

And if someone tries to play down racist phrases as "just a joke," you can educate them about the discrimination and racism many AAPI folks are facing right now, so they better understand the impact of their words.

Echo

It takes an effort to speak up against racist ideas and language. This is particularly true of people who are targeted by that language. That's why we need to have each other's backs. When someone else speaks up, echo them. Thank them, and emphasize or amplify their message any way you can. This not only encourages more speaking up-it also ensures that no one thinks your silence in response to biased ideas or language means you're OK with it.

Of course, echoing is harder while we're social distancing, but there are many ways to do it. Online, we can re-share antiracist messages. And in chats or conversations, we can respond to offer support and agreement.

In the coming weeks, we're all going to have to make an effort to take care of one another. We'll probably need to make some more sacrifices to ensure that our communities stay as safe and healthy as possible. Speaking up against bigotry, particularly if you're not the target, costs very little.

If we all commit to interrupting, questioning, educating and echoing to fight racist rhetoric, we can start making our communities safer and healthier today.

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Across the United States right now, people are feeling isolated and afraid. As schools and businesses close, people are worrying about their health, their families, their jobs and their future. All of these worries make sense, and of course there's nothing wrong with being afraid.

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Doll Test - The Effects of Racism on Children

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Doll Test - The Effects of Racism on Children

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Doll test - The effects of racism on children (ENG)

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Across the United States right now, people are feeling isolated and afraid. As schools and businesses close, people are worrying about their health, their families, their jobs and their future. All of these worries make sense, and of course there's nothing wrong with being afraid. But as people share news, fears and concerns, some people are sharing something else, as well: racism and xenophobia.

Obviously, Chinese people are not responsible for a virus simply because the first reported cases were in China. But some politicians and media figures have taken to referring to the "Chinese Coronavirus." They've used stereotypes about the different foods people eat around the world or made jokes that rely on "Chinese-sounding" words or phrases to make light of the crisis and somehow suggest that Chinese people are to blame. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that China should apologize for the virus.

While it might be tempting to think we should just shake this kind of language off and focus on larger concerns, the truth is that racist and xenophobic words have real-world effects. Across the U.S., Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders report being harassed at school, in stores, on the streets and on the subway. Last month in London, a Singaporean man was assaulted, kicked and punched by a man who said, "I don't want your coronavirus in my country."

We know that racist "jokes" can quickly become racist rants, and those rants can turn to violence. So it's up to all of us to make it clear that we're not OK with racist responses to this crisis.

To do that, Teaching Tolerance recommends a four-step process for speaking up against bias:
Interrupt
Question
Educate
Echo
Here's what speaking up against racism during the coronavirus might look like now.

Interrupt

Interrupting means taking a time out. It shows the person you're talking, texting or chatting with that what they've said is important enough to pause your conversation to address-that you need to talk about the racism before you talk about anything else. Here are a few phrases to try:

"Hang on. I want to go back to what you called the virus."
"Just a second-let's get into your point that the virus is somebody's fault."
"Before we talk about that, I want to talk about the language you just used."

Question

We're all familiar with "questions" that are really warnings: What did you just say to me? or Are you really going to do that? But in this context, the goal of questioning really is to better understand why the person said what they did. You might ask:

"Why did you call it the 'Chinese Coronavirus'?"
"Why do you think that?"
"Where did you get that information?"

One note: Asking someone to explain why a racist joke is funny is a great way to stop them from making racist jokes to you again. But if you want to have a real discussion about what they've said, it might work better to ask something like, "What made you say that?"

Educate

The key to educating is to continue the conversation. The goal here isn't to just provide facts about the topic generally to the person you're talking to with, but to explain why what they've said needs rethinking.

That means that, to educate folks around racism associated with the coronavirus, we need to understand not only the virus but also the racism.

For example, you might explain that it's actually not common anymore to name a disease after its place of origin, that there's a long, bad history of associating diseases with specific groups of people and that the name COVID-19 was chosen very carefully to avoid repeating those mistakes.

If someone doesn't understand why a comment they made was racist, you can educate them about the long history of stereotyping immigrants-and Asian people, specifically-as people who bring disease. You can explain how this stereotype is both wrong and harmful.

And if someone tries to play down racist phrases as "just a joke," you can educate them about the discrimination and racism many AAPI folks are facing right now, so they better understand the impact of their words.

Echo

It takes an effort to speak up against racist ideas and language. This is particularly true of people who are targeted by that language. That's why we need to have each other's backs. When someone else speaks up, echo them. Thank them, and emphasize or amplify their message any way you can. This not only encourages more speaking up-it also ensures that no one thinks your silence in response to biased ideas or language means you're OK with it.

Of course, echoing is harder while we're social distancing, but there are many ways to do it. Online, we can re-share antiracist messages. And in chats or conversations, we can respond to offer support and agreement.

In the coming weeks, we're all going to have to make an effort to take care of one another. We'll probably need to make some more sacrifices to ensure that our communities stay as safe and healthy as possible. Speaking up against bigotry, particularly if you're not the target, costs very little.

If we all commit to interrupting, questioning, educating and echoing to fight racist rhetoric, we can start making our communities safer and healthier today.

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Across the United States right now, people are feeling isolated and afraid. As schools and businesses close, people are worrying about their health, their families, their jobs and their future. All of these worries make sense, and of course there's nothing wrong with being afraid.

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Film Description

Produced by Blackside, Eyes on the Prize tells the definitive story of the civil rights era from the point of view of the ordinary men and women whose extraordinary actions launched a movement that changed the fabric of American life, and embodied a struggle whose reverberations continue to be felt today. Winner of numerous Emmy Awards, a George Foster Peabody Award, an International Documentary Award, and a Television Critics Association Award, Eyes on the Prize is the most critically acclaimed documentary on civil rights in America.

Eyes on the Prize recounts the fight to end decades of discrimination and segregation. It is the story of the people - young and old, male and female, northern and southern - who, compelled by a meeting of conscience and circumstance, worked to eradicate a world where whites and blacks could not go to the same school, ride the same bus, vote in the same election, or participate equally in society. It was a world in which peaceful demonstrators were met with resistance and brutality - in short, a reality that is now nearly incomprehensible to many young Americans.

Through contemporary interviews and historical footage, Eyes on the Prize traces the civil rights movement from the Montgomery bus boycott to the Voting Rights Act; from early acts of individual courage through the flowering of a mass movement and its eventual split into factions. Julian Bond, political leader and civil rights activist, narrates.

The driving force behind Eyes on the Prize and Blackside, Henry Hampton (1940-1998) won numerous awards for this landmark series including the duPont-Columbia Gold Baton, the Peabody Award, and Academy Award nominations. He set out to share his vision of what he called "the remarkable human drama that was the Civil Rights Movement" through the Eyes on the Prizedocumentary and a book of the same title by Juan Williams. In recent years, a number of key figures who appear in the films (including the Reverend Ralph Abernathy, a leader of the Montgomery bus boycott; Coretta Scott King, wife of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, and an activist in her own right; Kwame Ture, also known as Stokely Carmichael, leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; and George Wallace, the 1960s Alabama governor who resisted integration) have died, making this record of their testimony all the more valuable.

Programs in the series:

Awakenings (1954-1956)
Individual acts of courage inspire black Southerners to fight for their rights: Mose Wright testifies against the white men who murdered young Emmett Till, and Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama.

Fighting Back (1957-1962)
States' rights loyalists and federal authorities collide in the 1957 battle to integrate Little Rock's Central High School, and again in James Meredith's 1962 challenge to segregation at the University of Mississippi. Both times, a Southern governor squares off with a U.S. president, violence erupts - and integration is carried out.

Ain't Scared of Your Jails (1960-1961)
Black college students take a leadership role in the civil rights movement as lunch counter sit-ins spread across the South. "Freedom Riders" also try to desegregate interstate buses, but they are brutally attacked as they travel.

No Easy Walk (1961-1963)
The civil rights movement discovers the power of mass demonstrations as the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. emerges as its most visible leader. Some demonstrations succeed; others fail. But the triumphant March on Washington, D.C., under King's leadership, shows a mounting national support for civil rights. President John F. Kennedy proposes the Civil Rights Act.

Mississippi: Is This America? (1963-1964)
Mississippi's grass-roots civil rights movement becomes an American concern when college students travel south to help register black voters and three activists are murdered. The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party challenges the regular Mississippi delegation at the Democratic Convention in Atlantic City.

Bridge to Freedom (1965)
A decade of lessons is applied in the climactic and bloody march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. A major victory is won when the federal Voting Rights Bill passes, but civil rights leaders know they have new challenges ahead.

The Time Has Come (1964-66)
After a decade-long cry for justice, a new sound is heard in the civil rights movement: the insistent call for power. Malcolm X takes an eloquent nationalism to urban streets as a younger generation of black leaders listens. In the South, Stokely Carmichael and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) move from "Freedom Now!" to "Black Power!" as the fabric of the traditional movement changes.

Two Societies (1965-68)
Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) come north to help Chicago's civil rights leaders in their nonviolent struggle against segregated housing. Their efforts pit them against Chicago's powerful mayor, Richard Daley. When a series of marches through all-white neighborhoods draws violence, King and Daley negotiate with mixed results. In Detroit, a police raid in a black neighborhood sparks an urban uprising that lasts five days, leaving 43 people dead. The Kerner Commission finds that America is becoming "two societies, one black, one white, separate and unequal." President Lyndon Johnson, who appointed the commission, ignores the report.

Power! (1966-68)
The call for Black Power takes various forms across communities in black America. In Cleveland, Carl Stokes wins election as the first black mayor of a major American city. The Black Panther Party, armed with law books, breakfast programs, and guns, is born in Oakland. Substandard teaching practices prompt parents to gain educational control of a Brooklyn school district but then lead them to a showdown with New York City's teachers' union.

Power! (1966-68)
The call for Black Power takes various forms across communities in black America. In Cleveland, Carl Stokes wins election as the first black mayor of a major American city. The Black Panther Party, armed with law books, breakfast programs, and guns, is born in Oakland. Substandard teaching practices prompt parents to gain educational control of a Brooklyn school district but then lead them to a showdown with New York City's teachers' union.

The Promised Land (1967-68)
Martin Luther King stakes out new ground for himself and the rapidly fragmenting civil rights movement. One year before his death, he publicly opposes the war in Vietnam. His Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) embarks on an ambitious Poor People's Campaign. In the midst of political organizing, King detours to support striking sanitation workers in Memphis, where he is assassinated. King's death and the failure of his final campaign mark the end of a major stream of the movement.

Ain't Gonna Shuffle No More (1964-72)
A call to pride and a renewed push for unity galvanize black America. World heavyweight champion Cassius Clay challenges America to accept him as Muhammad Ali, a minister of Islam who refuses to fight in Vietnam. Students at Howard University in Washington, D.C., fight to bring the growing black consciousness movement and their African heritage inside the walls of this prominent black institution. Black elected officials and community activists organize the National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana, in an attempt to create a unified black response to growing repression against the movement.

A Nation of Law? (1968-71)
Black activism is increasingly met with a sometimes violent and unethical response from local and federal law enforcement agencies. In Chicago, two Black Panther Party leaders are killed in a pre-dawn raid by police acting on information supplied by an FBI informant. In the wake of President Nixon's call to "law and order," stepped-up arrests push the already poor conditions at New York's Attica State Prison to the limit. A five-day inmate takeover calling the public's attention to the conditions leaves 43 men dead: four killed by inmates, 39 by police.

The Keys to the Kingdom (1974-80)
In the 1970s, antidiscrimination legal rights gained in past decades by the civil rights movement are put to the test. In Boston, some whites violently resist a federal court school desegregation order. Atlanta's first black mayor, Maynard Jackson, proves that affirmative action can work, but the Bakke Supreme Court case challenges that policy.

Back to the Movement (1979-mid 80s)
Power and powerlessness. Miami's black community - pummeled by urban renewal, a lack of jobs, and police harassment - explodes in rioting. But in Chicago, an unprecedented grassroots movement triumphs. Frustrated by decades of unfulfilled promises made by the city's Democratic political machine, reformers install Harold Washington as Chicago's first black mayor.

Martin Luther King stakes out new ground for himself and the rapidly fragmenting civil rights movement. One year before his death, he publicly opposes the war in Vietnam. His Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) embarks on an ambitious Poor People's Campaign. In the midst of political organizing, King detours to support striking sanitation workers in Memphis, where he is assassinated. King's death and the failure of his final campaign mark the end of a major stream of the movement.

Ain't Gonna Shuffle No More (1964-72)
A call to pride and a renewed push for unity galvanize black America. World heavyweight champion Cassius Clay challenges America to accept him as Muhammad Ali, a minister of Islam who refuses to fight in Vietnam. Students at Howard University in Washington, D.C., fight to bring the growing black consciousness movement and their African heritage inside the walls of this prominent black institution. Black elected officials and community activists organize the National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana, in an attempt to create a unified black response to growing repression against the movement.

A Nation of Law? (1968-71)
Black activism is increasingly met with a sometimes violent and unethical response from local and federal law enforcement agencies. In Chicago, two Black Panther Party leaders are killed in a pre-dawn raid by police acting on information supplied by an FBI informant. In the wake of President Nixon's call to "law and order," stepped-up arrests push the already poor conditions at New York's Attica State Prison to the limit. A five-day inmate takeover calling the public's attention to the conditions leaves 43 men dead: four killed by inmates, 39 by police.

The Keys to the Kingdom (1974-80)
In the 1970s, antidiscrimination legal rights gained in past decades by the civil rights movement are put to the test. In Boston, some whites violently resist a federal court school desegregation order. Atlanta's first black mayor, Maynard Jackson, proves that affirmative action can work, but the Bakke Supreme Court case challenges that policy.

Back to the Movement (1979-mid 80s)
Power and powerlessness. Miami's black community - pummeled by urban renewal, a lack of jobs, and police harassment - explodes in rioting. But in Chicago, an unprecedented grassroots movement triumphs. Frustrated by decades of unfulfilled promises made by the city's Democratic political machine, reformers install Harold Washington as Chicago's first black mayor.

Credits

The landmark series Eyes on the Prize, produced by Blackside and first broadcast in 1987, is a special presentation of the award-winning PBS history series, American Experience.
Access the complete program credits here
Awakenings (1954-1956)
Individual acts of courage inspire black Southerners to fight for their rights: Mose Wright testifies against the white men who murdered young Emmett Till, and Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama.

Fighting Back (1957-1962)
States' rights loyalists and federal authorities collide in the 1957 battle to integrate Little Rock's Central High School, and again in James Meredith's 1962 challenge to segregation at the University of Mississippi. Both times, a Southern governor squares off with a U.S. president, violence erupts - and integration is carried out.

Ain't Scared of Your Jails (1960-1961)
Black college students take a leadership role in the civil rights movement as lunch counter sit-insspread across the South. "Freedom Riders" also try to desegregate interstate buses, but they are brutally attacked as they travel.

No Easy Walk (1961-1963)
The civil rights movement discovers the power of mass demonstrations as the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. emerges as its most visible leader. Some demonstrations succeed; others fail. But the triumphant March on Washington, D.C., under King's leadership, shows a mounting national support for civil rights. President John F. Kennedy proposes the Civil Rights Act.

Mississippi: Is This America? (1963-1964)
Mississippi's grass-roots civil rights movement becomes an American concern when college students travel south to help register black voters and three of them are murdered. The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party challenges the regular Mississippi delegation at the Democratic Convention in Atlantic City.

Bridge to Freedom (1965)
A decade of lessons is applied in the climactic and bloody march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. A major victory is won when the federal Voting Rights Bill passes, but civil rights leaders know they have new challenges ahead.

The Time Has Come (1964-66)
After a decade-long cry for justice, a new sound is heard in the civil rights movement: the insistent call for power. Malcolm X takes an eloquent nationalism to urban streets as a younger generation of black leaders listens. In the South, Stokely Carmichael and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) move from "Freedom Now!" to "Black Power!" as the fabric of the traditional movement changes.

Two Societies (1965-68)
Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) come north to help Chicago's civil rights leaders in their nonviolent struggle against segregated housing. Their efforts pit them against Chicago's powerful mayor, Richard Daley. When a series of marches through all-white neighborhoods draws violence, King and Daley negotiate with mixed results. In Detroit, a police raid in a black neighborhood sparks an urban uprising that lasts five days, leaving 43 people dead. The Kerner Commission finds that America is becoming "two societies, one black, one white, separate and unequal." President Lyndon Johnson, who appointed the commission, ignores the report.

Power! (1966-68)
The call for Black Power takes various forms across communities in black America. In Cleveland, Carl Stokes wins election as the first black mayor of a major American city. The Black Panther Party, armed with law books, breakfast programs, and guns, is born in Oakland. Substandard teaching practices prompt parents to gain educational control of a Brooklyn school district but then lead them to a showdown with New York City's teachers' union.

The Promised Land (1967-68)
Martin Luther King stakes out new ground for himself and the rapidly fragmenting civil rights movement. One year before his death, he publicly opposes the war in Vietnam. His Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) embarks on an ambitious Poor People's Campaign. In the midst of political organizing, King detours to support striking sanitation workers in Memphis, where he is assassinated. King's death and the failure of his final campaign mark the end of a major stream of the movement.

Ain't Gonna Shuffle No More (1964-72)
A call to pride and a renewed push for unity galvanize black America. World heavyweight champion Cassius Clay challenges America to accept him as Muhammad Ali, a minister of Islam who refuses to fight in Vietnam. Students at Howard University in Washington, D.C., fight to bring the growing black consciousness movement and their African heritage inside the walls of this prominent black institution. Black elected officials and community activists organize the National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana, in an attempt to create a unified black response to growing repression against the movement.

A Nation of Law? (1968-71)
Black activism is increasingly met with a sometimes violent and unethical response from local and federal law enforcement agencies. In Chicago, two Black Panther Party leaders are killed in a pre-dawn raid by police acting on information supplied by an FBI informant. In the wake of President Nixon's call to "law and order," stepped-up arrests push the already poor conditions at New York's Attica State Prison to the limit. A five-day inmate takeover calling the public's attention to the conditions leaves 43 men dead: four killed by inmates, 39 by police.

The Keys to the Kingdom (1974-80)
In the 1970s, antidiscrimination legal rights gained in past decades by the civil rights movement are put to the test. In Boston, some whites violently resist a federal court school desegregation order. Atlanta's first black mayor, Maynard Jackson, proves that affirmative action can work, but the Bakke Supreme Court case challenges that policy.

Back to the Movement (1979-mid 80s)
Power and powerlessness. Miami's black community - pummelled by urban renewal, a lack of jobs, and police harassment - explodes in rioting. But in Chicago, an unprecedented grassroots movement triumphs. Frustrated by decades of unfulfilled promises made by the city's Democratic political machine, reformers install Harold Washington as Chicago's first black mayor.

Transcript

The landmark series Eyes on the Prize, produced by Blackside and first broadcast in 1987, is a special presentation of the award-winning PBS history series, American Experience.
Access the complete program transcripts here
Awakenings (1954-1956)
Individual acts of courage inspire black Southerners to fight for their rights: Mose Wright testifies against the white men who murdered young Emmett Till, and Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama.

Fighting Back (1957-1962)
States' rights loyalists and federal authorities collide in the 1957 battle to integrate Little Rock's Central High School, and again in James Meredith's 1962 challenge to segregation at the University of Mississippi. Both times, a Southern governor squares off with a U.S. president, violence erupts - and integration is carried out.

Ain't Scared of Your Jails (1960-1961)
Black college students take a leadership role in the civil rights movement as lunch counter sit-insspread across the South. "Freedom Riders" also try to desegregate interstate buses, but they are brutally attacked as they travel.

No Easy Walk (1961-1963)
The civil rights movement discovers the power of mass demonstrations as the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. emerges as its most visible leader. Some demonstrations succeed; others fail. But the triumphant March on Washington, D.C., under King's leadership, shows a mounting national support for civil rights. President John F. Kennedy proposes the Civil Rights Act.

Mississippi: Is This America? (1963-1964)
Mississippi's grass-roots civil rights movement becomes an American concern when college students travel south to help register black voters and three of them are murdered. The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party challenges the regular Mississippi delegation at the Democratic Convention in Atlantic City.

Bridge to Freedom (1965)
A decade of lessons is applied in the climactic and bloody march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. A major victory is won when the federal Voting Rights Bill passes, but civil rights leaders know they have new challenges ahead.

The Time Has Come (1964-66)
After a decade-long cry for justice, a new sound is heard in the civil rights movement: the insistent call for power. Malcolm X takes an eloquent nationalism to urban streets as a younger generation of black leaders listens. In the South, Stokely Carmichael and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) move from "Freedom Now!" to "Black Power!" as the fabric of the traditional movement changes.

Two Societies (1965-68)
Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) come north to help Chicago's civil rights leaders in their nonviolent struggle against segregated housing. Their efforts pit them against Chicago's powerful mayor, Richard Daley. When a series of marches through all-white neighborhoods draws violence, King and Daley negotiate with mixed results. In Detroit, a police raid in a black neighborhood sparks an urban uprising that lasts five days, leaving 43 people dead. The Kerner Commission finds that America is becoming "two societies, one black, one white, separate and unequal." President Lyndon Johnson, who appointed the commission, ignores the report.

Power! (1966-68)
The call for Black Power takes various forms across communities in black America. In Cleveland, Carl Stokes wins election as the first black mayor of a major American city. The Black Panther Party, armed with law books, breakfast programs, and guns, is born in Oakland. Substandard teaching practices prompt parents to gain educational control of a Brooklyn school district but then lead them to a showdown with New York City's teachers' union.

The Promised Land (1967-68)
Martin Luther King stakes out new ground for himself and the rapidly fragmenting civil rights movement. One year before his death, he publicly opposes the war in Vietnam. His Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) embarks on an ambitious Poor People's Campaign. In the midst of political organizing, King detours to support striking sanitation workers in Memphis, where he is assassinated. King's death and the failure of his final campaign mark the end of a major stream of the movement.

Ain't Gonna Shuffle No More (1964-72)
A call to pride and a renewed push for unity galvanize black America. World heavyweight champion Cassius Clay challenges America to accept him as Muhammad Ali, a minister of Islam who refuses to fight in Vietnam. Students at Howard University in Washington, D.C., fight to bring the growing black consciousness movement and their African heritage inside the walls of this prominent black institution. Black elected officials and community activists organize the National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana, in an attempt to create a unified black response to growing repression against the movement.

A Nation of Law? (1968-71)
Black activism is increasingly met with a sometimes violent and unethical response from local and federal law enforcement agencies. In Chicago, two Black Panther Party leaders are killed in a pre-dawn raid by police acting on information supplied by an FBI informant. In the wake of President Nixon's call to "law and order," stepped-up arrests push the already poor conditions at New York's Attica State Prison to the limit. A five-day inmate takeover calling the public's attention to the conditions leaves 43 men dead: four killed by inmates, 39 by police.

The Keys to the Kingdom (1974-80)
In the 1970s, antidiscrimination legal rights gained in past decades by the civil rights movement are put to the test. In Boston, some whites violently resist a federal court school desegregation order. Atlanta's first black mayor, Maynard Jackson, proves that affirmative action can work, but the Bakke Supreme Court case challenges that policy.

Back to the Movement (1979-mid 80s)
Power and powerlessness. Miami's black community - pummelled by urban renewal, a lack of jobs, and police harassment - explodes in rioting. But in Chicago, an unprecedented grassroots movement triumphs. Frustrated by decades of unfulfilled promises made by the city's Democratic political machine, reformers install Harold Washington as Chicago's first black mayor.

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Eyes on the Prize | American Experience | PBS

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Eyes on the Prize is an award-winning 14-hour television that covers all of the major events of the civil rights movement from 1954-1985., including the Montgomery bus boycott in 1954 to the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

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Video: Opinion | A Conversation About Growing Up Black

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In this short documentary, young black men explain the particular challenges they face growing up in America.

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We lead with the heart and courageously work to address racial injustice in education, embodying Black joy, confronting anti-Blackness, and building authentic partnerships with all who support creating equitable school communities across the nation.

​In September 2016, DeShawn Jackson, along with Black Men Uniting to Change The Narrative, planned a day of encouragement. The previous school year, another local elementary school had more than 200 Black men show up to greet students as they arrived at school. The men wore their uniforms, regalia, and Sunday best in hopes of disrupting the inaccurate imagery students have of Black men. Black men make up only 3% of teachers in k-12 education.​

DeShawn had taught at the school for six years and even attended the elementary school as a child. He wanted students to see Black men in a positive light, not like they often are portrayed in media. A bomb threat was called into the school on the day of the event, so school leadership officially canceled it. Yet, after the threat was investigated, nothing was found, and the school remained open. So, DeShawn personally greeted students and about fifty others joined him.

When students arrived at John Muir Elementary School, they were greeted with cheers and high-fives while drums played in the background. Black men showed up because they wanted to counter the perception students have about education and race. Inside the school, staff wore shirts that said "Black Lives Matter We Stand Together."Julie Trout, the art teacher, designed the shirts. Teachers' lessons for the day were focused on racial justice.

​Social Equality Educators (SEE), a group within the Seattle teachers union, decided October 19th would be "Black Lives Matter At School Day." They'd wear Black Lives Matter shirts to school, created a second design with "#Say Her Name," and educators picked from several options. Parent Teacher Associations made buttons and stickers for teachers and students to wear. This attracted national news, which spread to Philadelphia, where the Racial Justice & Organizing Committee of the Caucus of Working Educators was inspired to plan a similar action.

We envision a nation in which we live in authentic and conscious relationship with ourselves, each other, and the lands we occupy with the least amount of harm and violence, in which we are unapologetically Black and collectively love and care for one another as extended intergenerational families. To achieve safety, equity, and liberation for all Black lives, we attend to systems and networks of care to make the domination, erasure, and dehumanization of Black life obsolete. ​

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National coalition organizing for racial justice in education.

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Brian R. Kayser and Abigail Amoako Kayser

When our son was in 3rd grade, a poster his school displayed at the entrance to celebrate Black excellence during Black History Month became fuel for controversy. The poster featured a poem written by Mississippi teacher Jovan Bradshaw: "Dear students. They didn't steal slaves. They stole scientists, doctors, architects, teachers, entrepreneurs, astronomers, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, etc. and made them slaves. Sincerely, Your Ancestors."

An administrator saw that students were arguing over the contents of the poster and removed it under the superintendent's guidance. Later, the superintendent wrote on a blog that the poster "was not bringing the community together in a spirit of inclusivity and celebration." Many members of the school community were outraged that a poster humanizing people who were stolen into slavery could be divisive. Despite requests from families, the school refused to hang the poster back on the wall, and the superintendent, in other interviews and at school board meetings, dug in further that he made the right decision.

As the buzz surrounding the poster grew amongst students, some teachers decided to address the situation in their classrooms. Our son's teacher was one of them. When she opened the discussion, our son raised his hand to discuss what he knew about the horrors of slavery. One of his peers made a cruel joke about slavery, and while the teacher said it was inappropriate, the lack of explanation and clarity in his teacher's response, along with his peers' silence, continued to trouble him.

What also troubles us is that students in other classes did not have a chance to discuss the poster's message and why it was taken down. Teachers may not have been comfortable leading a discussion on the topic because they could not predict responses and were unsure of how to handle potential conflicts. Or, perhaps, they did not see it as something worth talking about. It's also possible that they felt the situation was too controversial and complex for young students when, in fact, the opposite is true.

A Central Conversation Point for Families of Color

In today's highly politicized environment, many people are quick to pacify situations where others might take offense by refusing to address controversial issues both within and beyond the classroom. It's as if we, as educators, are concerned that students, families, or administrators may interpret our opinions as politicized or believe that we have ulterior motives to "brainwash" students into believing what we believe. However, teachers make a strong political statement when they choose not to discuss the daily atrocities Black people and people of color in the United States endure.

The narrative that children are too young to talk about race and racism is false. It's also a privilege of white families. As parents of three Black boys under the age of 9, talking about race and racism is a daily occurrence. When we discuss stereotypes that we see in movies or analyze a current event, we first make sure our children understand the issue at hand and why a stereotype is harmful. We ask our children how they would portray the situation differently. For example, how might a character or scene change in the absence of the stereotype?

Research shows that children can critically engage in these conversations beginning at age 5, with thoughtful reflection, ideas, and questions (Bronson & Merryman, 2009). Infants notice the difference in the melanin in people's skin (Sangrigoli & De Schonen, 2004). From there, children's understanding of how others see them and how they see themselves is shaped by others' perceptions of them. Just like adults, young children can internalize stereotypes and form negative opinions about who they are if we do not give them the words to unpack their feelings and experiences. Children also begin developing prejudiced ideas about race as early as age 2 (Hirschfield, 2008). We must build their capacity to develop counter-narratives to refute these damaging beliefs (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010).

As teachers, we have a moral obligation not to underestimate our students' humanity, feelings, and understanding. So, when conversations come up in the classroom, whether they're about the atrocities of the Middle Passage or a poster's removal, we must feel comfortable moderating them. When Black children share their perspective in these discussions, as our son did, we must amplify, not silence, their voices. These interactions not only bring lived experience that white peers do not have into the classroom, they also develop and solidify children's understanding of power and privilege, how we tell stories, and who we omit or devalue (Ryan & Grieshaber, 2004). This becomes even more important when state curriculum often shows only stereotypical narratives of Black people as slaves, freedom fighters, athletes, or entertainers, as if they did not make valuable contributions in other fields and could be seen as examples of Black excellence in those fields as well.

In the words of Angela Davis, "It is not enough to be non-racist. We must be anti-racist." Inaction is complicity. When we don't reckon with our histories, we don't make room to begin the healing process.

What Can We Do?

Engage in identity self-reflection.

Many teachers ascribe to culturally relevant pedagogy to build a more inclusive and equity-minded classroom. However, what precedes teacher practice is critical reflection of one's identity, background, and histories and interactions with folks from different racial, ethnic, or cultural backgrounds. The majority of elementary teachers are white women from predominantly middle-class backgrounds, and what they choose to include in curriculum and instructional practices is heavily influenced by their own lives and realities (Coopersmith & Gruber, 2009). Teachers must move beyond projects that promote color blindness. Elementary school hallways often show colorful self-portraits of children with similar facial features except for the color of their skin. Instead of these superficial ways of recognizing diversity, teachers must take steps to acknowledge diversity in intentional and authentic ways.

One way teachers can do this is through a curriculum audit. Take some time to understand whose voices you privilege within your curriculum and learning materials and whose are missing. Can your students see themselves, or does your science curricula often privilege white male scientists? Another way to move beyond the superficial recognition of diversity is to build sustained family partnerships within your classroom. This means inviting families to participate and share their culture during class throughout the year, not just for Hispanic Heritage Month or Black History Month. As the teacher learns more about their students' funds of knowledge, they can use that information to inform academic content.
Increase representation with multiple perspectives.
People of color are not a monolith. Black people are not a monolith. Teachers must move away from the single story of Black American history told from a slavery and deficit mindset. We must center and highlight the excellence in Black and Brown communities globally, nationally, and locally and read books written by authors of color with characters of color as protagonists. Picture books like Crown by Derrick Barnes and The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson build confidence and pride and center Black excellence; Leo Leonni's picture books discuss race and identity with younger children. For upper elementary students, we recommend Jerry Craft's New Kid or Christopher Paul Curtis novels.

Being a culturally responsive teacher is about including multiple perspectives in your classroom, pulling from the funds of knowledge of all your students' families, and engaging students to be critically conscious (Ladson-Billings, 1995). In our own experiences, teachers have understood our sons' funds of knowledge by building a sustained relationship throughout the year that is centered on asking questions and listening, as well as making home visits to see our sons where they are most comfortable. When students of color and their families challenge conventional narratives, we must listen and find ways to support them. It is okay to feel uncomfortable and vulnerable but not okay to forgo learning partnerships.

Notice name and talk about race outside the classroom.

Beyond formal classroom settings, children use the idea of race during pretend play and insinuate messages about power and privilege (Ryan & Grieshaber, 2004). When we witness these kinds of interactions, we must facilitate conversations to help children understand the magnitude and context of their words and actions. When Abigail was a kindergarten teacher, one of her students, who is African American, made a comment about how her skin was better than Abigail's because it was lighter. This was an opportunity for Abigail to ask her student where that idea came from, why that student believed it, and how ideas like that are harmful to people with Abigail's skin tone. Though the student's comment was hurtful on a personal level, Abigail approached it from a teaching perspective to teach the student a valuable lesson.

Talk about race at home with white children.

When your child notices differences in skin color or hair texture, do not "color silence" them by ending the conversation or making your child feel bad for discussing it. Instead, use the opportunity to answer their questions honestly, counter colorblindness, and address stereotypes that may be beginning to form (Tatum, 2017). First, it's important to acknowledge that your child is asking a great question and that you'd like to have a conversation. If it is a question rooted in a stereotype, you want to explain what a stereotype is and why the stereotype exists. Then, you want to point out how the stereotype is harmful and why it isn't true while providing counterexamples using books or TV shows. We think of books as both mirrors and windows for our children.

Discussing race and racism with children is not always an easy task. As adults, we all have a desire to protect children's innocence for as long as possible, whether that's leaving Tooth Fairy money under their pillow after we suspect they no longer believe or ignoring racism because we know it's something they'll have to learn eventually. When we shield children from racism, we miss a valuable opportunity to equip them with the tools to identify and call out racism and other forms of hate when it occurs. Silence, in any form, is complicity.

References

Bronson, P., & Merryman, A. (2009). NurtureShock: New thinking about children. London, U.K.: Ebury.

Coopersmith, J. & Gruber, K. (2009). Characteristics of public, private, and bureau of Indian education elementary and secondary school teachers in the United States: Results from the 2007-08 Schools and Staffing Survey: First look. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education.

Derman-Sparks, L., & Edwards, J. O. (2010). Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Ladson Billings, G. (1995). But that's just good teaching! The case for culturally relevant pedagogy. Theory into Practice, 34(3), 159-165.

Ryan, S., & Grieshaber, S. (2004). It's more than child development: Critical theories, research, and teaching young children. YC Young Children, 59(6), 44.

Rogers, R., & Mosley, M. (2006). Racial literacy in a second grade classroom: Critical race theory, whiteness studies, and literacy research. Reading Research Quarterly, 41(4), 462-495.

Sangrigoli, S., & De Schonen, S. (2004). Recognition of own race and other race faces by three month old infants. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45(7), 1219-1227.

Tatum, B. D. (2017). Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? And other conversations about race. New York: Basic Books.

Brian R. Kayser (@bkayser11) is a doctoral student at the Curry School of Education and Human Development at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

Abigail Amoako Kayser (@AmoakoKayser) is a postdoctoral research associate at the Curry School of Education and Human Development at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

More on This Topic: Supporting Early Language Development for Diverse Learners

ASCD Express, Vol. 16, No. 6. Copyright 2020 by ASCD. All rights reserved. Visit www.ascd.org/ascdexpress.

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diverse classrooms and early childhood education

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No, Elementary Students Are Not Too Young to Talk About Race

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Brian R. Kayser and Abigail Amoako Kayser When our son was in 3rd grade, a poster his school displayed at the entrance to celebrate Black excellence during Black History Month became fuel for controversy. The poster featured a poem written by Mississippi teacher Jovan Bradshaw: "Dear students. They didn't steal slaves.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Brian R. Kayser and Abigail Amoako Kayser

When our son was in 3rd grade, a poster his school displayed at the entrance to celebrate Black excellence during Black History Month became fuel for controversy. The poster featured a poem written by Mississippi teacher Jovan Bradshaw: "Dear students. They didn't steal slaves. They stole scientists, doctors, architects, teachers, entrepreneurs, astronomers, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, etc. and made them slaves. Sincerely, Your Ancestors."

An administrator saw that students were arguing over the contents of the poster and removed it under the superintendent's guidance. Later, the superintendent wrote on a blog that the poster "was not bringing the community together in a spirit of inclusivity and celebration." Many members of the school community were outraged that a poster humanizing people who were stolen into slavery could be divisive. Despite requests from families, the school refused to hang the poster back on the wall, and the superintendent, in other interviews and at school board meetings, dug in further that he made the right decision.

As the buzz surrounding the poster grew amongst students, some teachers decided to address the situation in their classrooms. Our son's teacher was one of them. When she opened the discussion, our son raised his hand to discuss what he knew about the horrors of slavery. One of his peers made a cruel joke about slavery, and while the teacher said it was inappropriate, the lack of explanation and clarity in his teacher's response, along with his peers' silence, continued to trouble him.

What also troubles us is that students in other classes did not have a chance to discuss the poster's message and why it was taken down. Teachers may not have been comfortable leading a discussion on the topic because they could not predict responses and were unsure of how to handle potential conflicts. Or, perhaps, they did not see it as something worth talking about. It's also possible that they felt the situation was too controversial and complex for young students when, in fact, the opposite is true.

A Central Conversation Point for Families of Color

In today's highly politicized environment, many people are quick to pacify situations where others might take offense by refusing to address controversial issues both within and beyond the classroom. It's as if we, as educators, are concerned that students, families, or administrators may interpret our opinions as politicized or believe that we have ulterior motives to "brainwash" students into believing what we believe. However, teachers make a strong political statement when they choose not to discuss the daily atrocities Black people and people of color in the United States endure.

The narrative that children are too young to talk about race and racism is false. It's also a privilege of white families. As parents of three Black boys under the age of 9, talking about race and racism is a daily occurrence. When we discuss stereotypes that we see in movies or analyze a current event, we first make sure our children understand the issue at hand and why a stereotype is harmful. We ask our children how they would portray the situation differently. For example, how might a character or scene change in the absence of the stereotype?

Research shows that children can critically engage in these conversations beginning at age 5, with thoughtful reflection, ideas, and questions (Bronson & Merryman, 2009). Infants notice the difference in the melanin in people's skin (Sangrigoli & De Schonen, 2004). From there, children's understanding of how others see them and how they see themselves is shaped by others' perceptions of them. Just like adults, young children can internalize stereotypes and form negative opinions about who they are if we do not give them the words to unpack their feelings and experiences. Children also begin developing prejudiced ideas about race as early as age 2 (Hirschfield, 2008). We must build their capacity to develop counter-narratives to refute these damaging beliefs (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010).

As teachers, we have a moral obligation not to underestimate our students' humanity, feelings, and understanding. So, when conversations come up in the classroom, whether they're about the atrocities of the Middle Passage or a poster's removal, we must feel comfortable moderating them. When Black children share their perspective in these discussions, as our son did, we must amplify, not silence, their voices. These interactions not only bring lived experience that white peers do not have into the classroom, they also develop and solidify children's understanding of power and privilege, how we tell stories, and who we omit or devalue (Ryan & Grieshaber, 2004). This becomes even more important when state curriculum often shows only stereotypical narratives of Black people as slaves, freedom fighters, athletes, or entertainers, as if they did not make valuable contributions in other fields and could be seen as examples of Black excellence in those fields as well.

In the words of Angela Davis, "It is not enough to be non-racist. We must be anti-racist." Inaction is complicity. When we don't reckon with our histories, we don't make room to begin the healing process.

What Can We Do?

Engage in identity self-reflection.

Many teachers ascribe to culturally relevant pedagogy to build a more inclusive and equity-minded classroom. However, what precedes teacher practice is critical reflection of one's identity, background, and histories and interactions with folks from different racial, ethnic, or cultural backgrounds. The majority of elementary teachers are white women from predominantly middle-class backgrounds, and what they choose to include in curriculum and instructional practices is heavily influenced by their own lives and realities (Coopersmith & Gruber, 2009). Teachers must move beyond projects that promote color blindness. Elementary school hallways often show colorful self-portraits of children with similar facial features except for the color of their skin. Instead of these superficial ways of recognizing diversity, teachers must take steps to acknowledge diversity in intentional and authentic ways.

One way teachers can do this is through a curriculum audit. Take some time to understand whose voices you privilege within your curriculum and learning materials and whose are missing. Can your students see themselves, or does your science curricula often privilege white male scientists? Another way to move beyond the superficial recognition of diversity is to build sustained family partnerships within your classroom. This means inviting families to participate and share their culture during class throughout the year, not just for Hispanic Heritage Month or Black History Month. As the teacher learns more about their students' funds of knowledge, they can use that information to inform academic content.
Increase representation with multiple perspectives.
People of color are not a monolith. Black people are not a monolith. Teachers must move away from the single story of Black American history told from a slavery and deficit mindset. We must center and highlight the excellence in Black and Brown communities globally, nationally, and locally and read books written by authors of color with characters of color as protagonists. Picture books like Crown by Derrick Barnes and The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson build confidence and pride and center Black excellence; Leo Leonni's picture books discuss race and identity with younger children. For upper elementary students, we recommend Jerry Craft's New Kid or Christopher Paul Curtis novels.

Being a culturally responsive teacher is about including multiple perspectives in your classroom, pulling from the funds of knowledge of all your students' families, and engaging students to be critically conscious (Ladson-Billings, 1995). In our own experiences, teachers have understood our sons' funds of knowledge by building a sustained relationship throughout the year that is centered on asking questions and listening, as well as making home visits to see our sons where they are most comfortable. When students of color and their families challenge conventional narratives, we must listen and find ways to support them. It is okay to feel uncomfortable and vulnerable but not okay to forgo learning partnerships.

Notice name and talk about race outside the classroom.

Beyond formal classroom settings, children use the idea of race during pretend play and insinuate messages about power and privilege (Ryan & Grieshaber, 2004). When we witness these kinds of interactions, we must facilitate conversations to help children understand the magnitude and context of their words and actions. When Abigail was a kindergarten teacher, one of her students, who is African American, made a comment about how her skin was better than Abigail's because it was lighter. This was an opportunity for Abigail to ask her student where that idea came from, why that student believed it, and how ideas like that are harmful to people with Abigail's skin tone. Though the student's comment was hurtful on a personal level, Abigail approached it from a teaching perspective to teach the student a valuable lesson.

Talk about race at home with white children.

When your child notices differences in skin color or hair texture, do not "color silence" them by ending the conversation or making your child feel bad for discussing it. Instead, use the opportunity to answer their questions honestly, counter colorblindness, and address stereotypes that may be beginning to form (Tatum, 2017). First, it's important to acknowledge that your child is asking a great question and that you'd like to have a conversation. If it is a question rooted in a stereotype, you want to explain what a stereotype is and why the stereotype exists. Then, you want to point out how the stereotype is harmful and why it isn't true while providing counterexamples using books or TV shows. We think of books as both mirrors and windows for our children.

Discussing race and racism with children is not always an easy task. As adults, we all have a desire to protect children's innocence for as long as possible, whether that's leaving Tooth Fairy money under their pillow after we suspect they no longer believe or ignoring racism because we know it's something they'll have to learn eventually. When we shield children from racism, we miss a valuable opportunity to equip them with the tools to identify and call out racism and other forms of hate when it occurs. Silence, in any form, is complicity.

References

Bronson, P., & Merryman, A. (2009). NurtureShock: New thinking about children. London, U.K.: Ebury.

Coopersmith, J. & Gruber, K. (2009). Characteristics of public, private, and bureau of Indian education elementary and secondary school teachers in the United States: Results from the 2007-08 Schools and Staffing Survey: First look. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education.

Derman-Sparks, L., & Edwards, J. O. (2010). Anti-bias education for young children and ourselves. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Ladson Billings, G. (1995). But that's just good teaching! The case for culturally relevant pedagogy. Theory into Practice, 34(3), 159-165.

Ryan, S., & Grieshaber, S. (2004). It's more than child development: Critical theories, research, and teaching young children. YC Young Children, 59(6), 44.

Rogers, R., & Mosley, M. (2006). Racial literacy in a second grade classroom: Critical race theory, whiteness studies, and literacy research. Reading Research Quarterly, 41(4), 462-495.

Sangrigoli, S., & De Schonen, S. (2004). Recognition of own race and other race faces by three month old infants. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45(7), 1219-1227.

Tatum, B. D. (2017). Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? And other conversations about race. New York: Basic Books.

Brian R. Kayser (@bkayser11) is a doctoral student at the Curry School of Education and Human Development at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

Abigail Amoako Kayser (@AmoakoKayser) is a postdoctoral research associate at the Curry School of Education and Human Development at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

More on This Topic: Supporting Early Language Development for Diverse Learners

ASCD Express, Vol. 16, No. 6. Copyright 2020 by ASCD. All rights reserved. Visit www.ascd.org/ascdexpress.

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diverse classrooms and early childhood education

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No, Elementary Students Are Not Too Young to Talk About Race

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Brian R. Kayser and Abigail Amoako Kayser When our son was in 3rd grade, a poster his school displayed at the entrance to celebrate Black excellence during Black History Month became fuel for controversy. The poster featured a poem written by Mississippi teacher Jovan Bradshaw: "Dear students. They didn't steal slaves.

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Black History Month 2023: Facts, Origins & More | HISTORY

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February is dedicated as Black History Month, honoring the triumphs and struggles of African Americans throughout U.S. history.

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African American history and the history of more than one billion people of African ancestry around the world

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A District Profile | Black Lives Matter at School

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A District Profile | Black Lives Matter at School

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In September 2016, the opening fanfare of a high school soccer game in Rochester, New York, was interrupted when 18 varsity boys' soccer players took a knee during the national anthem. These players, who attend World of Inquiry School, were protesting racial injustice and police brutality. Their action was inspired by San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick's ongoing national anthem protest, which he had begun a month earlier at an NFL preseason game.

The protest kick-started the grassroots organizing efforts of a small group of Rochester City School District (RCSD) teachers, parents, administrators and community members. Inspired by the students' passion, the group decided to take action that would send a message to all students in the district: Rochester schools believe that black lives matter. Their work eventually evolved into a full-day event: "Black Lives Matter at School: A Day of Understanding and Affirmation," observed districtwide on February 17, 2017.*

The story of how the Day of Understanding came about is a valuable example of collective action within a school district for racial justice and racial equity.

Teacher Leadership

Chris Widmaier, a science teacher at World of Inquiry and a 2016 recipient of the Teaching Tolerance Award for Excellence in Teaching, was one of the leaders of the organizing efforts. "[The district] needed to do something to really educate everybody about why they took a knee, what the significance is, what the controversies were," he says. "We tried to do that in our own way here at our school, but I saw a need for a larger response."

Widmaier reached out to teachers and parents across the district. Together they researched the "Black Lives Matter at School" rallies in Seattle Public Schools, which were endorsed by the teachers union and involved more than 2,000 educators calling for racial equity in education. Widmaier and his colleagues asked themselves, What would something similar look like in Rochester?

After connecting with educators in Seattle to help determine their next steps, the group formed an organizing committee, which started to meet every other Sunday in the café area of a local grocery store.

Widmaier, who is white, saw the committee meetings as a space to engage in dialogue about race and racism, and to be critically conscious about what advocating for Black Lives Matter looks like in a district where, as of the 2015-16 school year, close to 60 percent of students are black and 75 percent of the teaching corps is white.

"We agreed, from the very beginning, Black Lives Matter is about self-determination. It's about black voices being out front," Widmaier says. "We knew that it was a tricky line ... because we're trying to educate and help students who are black find a voice and find leadership. In a way that's empowering rather than co-opting." He notes that key partners for the committee were local Black Lives Matter activists in Rochester, two of whom joined the committee.

Kirstin Pryor, an administrator in the Office of School Innovation and the parent of two RCSD students, joined the committee because she witnessed a profound disconnect.

"I knew that my 13-year-old daughter and her friends were talking about Black Lives Matter at home, at swim practice, in the backseat of the car, and yet their classes weren't always engaging in a conversation," she says.

For Lowan Brown, the assistant principal at Joseph C. Wilson Foundation Academy, the committee offered a much-needed outlet. In July 2016, when two black men-Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Philandro Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota-were killed in police-involved shootings within a day of each other, Brown felt compelled to take direct action. "I knew I could no longer just sit on my hands and do nothing," she says. "Students really didn't have a venue or an opportunity to discuss the loss of black lives that was occurring, not only nationally, but in their community."

A Plan of Action

The committee-a core group of about 12 people-sought to establish a district-wide day that affirmed the value of black lives and the concerns driving the organizing agenda of the Black Lives Matter movement.

"We talked about how we could use it as a galvanizing tool to bring really thoughtful, powerful discussions about race, racial justice into our classrooms for a day, and then use that as a platform for bringing about change on a broader level," says organizer Mahreen Mustafa-George, an RCSD parent.

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A District Profile | Black Lives Matter at School

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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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Bringing Black Lives Matter Into the Classroom | Part II

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Bringing Black Lives Matter Into the Classroom | Part II

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In my article " Don't Say Nothing," I warn about the dangers of teachers being silent on the issue of racial violence. And what I love about this profession is that, when teachers do speak, when we take a stance and choose to engage in the political, we plant seeds for the next generation. When we teach in ways that promote respect, love, empathy and understanding-despite the difficulties we may face in doing so-we have the power to influence young people who will eventually become doers and leaders in this world.

Teaching about the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement allows each of us to chew on multiple injustices simultaneously. We are able to teach not only about racism, its history and its present manifestations, but we also are able to point to solutions and methods of action so our students don't become disillusioned. When students are overcome with doubt, we can draw parallels to Standing Rock and say to them, "This is how people are fighting for change in spite of the obstacles they are experiencing." We can talk about sexism and patriarchy, but we can also leverage conversations about sexuality using gender-neutral and affirming language.

Teaching about BLM isn't just about police brutality and the ways an organization is seeking to end it. Bringing this movement to the classroom can open the door to larger conversations about truth, justice, activism, healing and reconciliation.

The work required to teach about Black Lives Matter is extensive and heavy, but this topic can be addressed effectively in classrooms-at any grade level.

Elementary Applications

Trinity Thompson and her colleagues, who teach second grade in Harlem, knew they wanted to teach about the BLM movement. However, a couple of false starts made it clear that, for their efforts to be sustained and successful, they needed to establish safety and provide students with context. They decided to form a Cultural Competency Committee to educate themselves about social justice issues, build lesson plans and incorporate family input. The committee developed a six-month curriculum that focuses on education professor Bree Picower's six elements of social justice curriculum design: self-love and knowledge, respect for others, issues of social injustice, social movements and social change, awareness raising, and social action.

"I think for me the biggest thing was providing both windows and mirrors," Thompson explains, "having their community and their history, even in Harlem, reflected in what they're learning ... but also providing them windows. We looked at Stonewall, we looked at South Africa and we looked at Palestine."

Thompson used text-based culture circles to initiate conversations about police violence and Black Lives Matter-a format she had already used with them throughout the curriculum. She began by reading to her students an age-appropriate text about what to do when bad things happen, then guiding them through a discussion, providing them the space and language they needed to process what they were experiencing. Thompson even took her students through Campaign Zero, a data-driven platform dedicated to ending police brutality in the United States. She admits that this was a difficult task, but she was able to make it work by referring to pictures on the Campaign Zero website.

Karen Shreiner, a second-grade teacher in Oakland, California, is another example. Shreiner works for a charter school network committed to equity and social justice. Because her students-like Thompson's-are so young, Schreiner has found creative yet age-appropriate ways to immerse them in the discourse necessary to understand and process such serious subject matter. She embeds current topics into pre-planned units, allowing her to meet content and curriculum demands while also teaching pressing issues in meaningful ways. To introduce students to her unit on activism, she used an activity her students were familiar with: gallery walks. In this case, she used images that captured moments of resistance.

"I have pictures of everything from the March on Washington to when the Bay Bridge was shut down because of Black Lives Matter protesters a couple years ago," Shreiner says. She has students go to each photo, then use questions and sentence frames they've practiced. "They can say things like, 'I notice that _____' or 'I wonder why this person is _____' or 'I think this person feels _____ because _____.'"

Schreiner is careful not to tell her students what to think about the images, letting them come to their own conclusions. "A lot of them will notice things like, 'Some of these pictures are from a long time ago. Some of them are from now,'" she recalls. "'A lot of these pictures involve the police. A lot of the pictures involve the police treating people in ways that aren't nice.'" If she hears students say things that reflect assumptions or implicit bias, she interrupts them to ask that they provide evidence. Her approach works, she says, because she establishes trust in her classroom and prepares students all year to talk about issues of identity, diversity, justice and action.

A Middle School Approach

Middle school students attending after-school programming through Breakthrough Providence learn about Black Lives Matter not from classroom teachers but from other students. Dulari Tahbildar is the executive director of this Rhode Island-based chapter of a national collaborative focused on the needs of middle-level students from low-income households. The organization offers supplementary curriculum developed and taught by high school and college students who are preparing-with the support of Breakthrough-for careers in teaching. Tahbildar says the organization was unanimous in its decision to focus on Black Lives Matter during the 2016-17 school year.

"A lot of people don't really recognize the voices and contributions of our youngest students," Tahbildar says. "We're working with 16- to 22-year-olds who don't have any formal teaching experience, and we basically give them a crash course in 'What is a lesson plan? What is an objective? How do you develop trusting relationships with students?'" The organization also emphasizes to its young teacher-students the importance of driving critical thinking and not telling students what to think.

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Bringing Black Lives Matter Into the Classroom | Part II

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In my article " Don't Say Nothing," I warn about the dangers of teachers being silent on the issue of racial violence. And what I love about this profession is that, when teachers do speak, when we take a stance and choose to engage in the political, we plant seeds for the next generation.

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Why Teaching Black Lives Matter Matters | Part I

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Why Teaching Black Lives Matter Matters | Part I

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For Trinity Thompson, the decision of whether or not to address high-profile killings of black people with her second-graders was a no-brainer. She was teaching in Harlem soon after Eric Garner was killed by a police officer in a nearby New York City borough.

"How do I respond to this?" Thompson recalls asking herself. "And then from there, it was like, How do I respond to this- again?" Each time news reports covered another black person dying at the hands of police, her students-most of whom were black-asked more and more difficult questions. A career-long social justice educator, Thompson was committed to a response that focused not only on the problem, but also on how people were resisting it and seeking solutions.

And that meant teaching second-graders about Black Lives Matter (BLM).

She knew it was risky. When the Black Lives Matter movement comes up in conversation, it is often characterized in one of two ways: as the work of strategic activists drawing attention to and combating issues that harm black people, black communities and humanity at large, or as a movement marked by violent outbursts and driven by an exclusionary, racist, anti-police agenda.

This split gives some educators pause when it comes to teaching about BLM. Others embrace the topic, recognizing it as an opportunity to teach about collective action and to link past racial justice movements to the present. But all educators, by virtue of the fact that their students have either direct or mediated exposure to Black Lives Matter, should know the basic facts about the movement's central beliefs and practices.

Not all of us are like Thompson; the students who sit in front of us daily are not always directly affected by the killing of unarmed black people or any of the other injustices that plague our nation. But as teachers who function as caretakers, truth-seekers and advocates of justice, we can acknowledge how the threat of justice in one community is, to borrow from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a threat to justice in every community. We have a civic responsibility to be educated about Black Lives Matter and, as we learn, we must teach.

The Beginning and the Hashtag

The Black Lives Matter movement began with a commitment to ending police brutality and state-sanctioned violence and injustice against black people. It is also dedicated to affirming black people's "contributions to this society, our humanity, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression," according to its founders. The movement was started by three black women-Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi-following the 2013 acquittal of George Zimmerman, a Florida man who had shot and killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager, the preceding year. Garza took to social media the night of that acquittal, stating in part, "Black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter." A year later, Michael Brown, another unarmed black teenager, was shot and killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri; the officer was not indicted. Shortly thereafter, the internet was filled with messages of outcry and support that included #BlackLivesMatter.

Since the Ferguson action in 2014, BLM has taken shape as a multichapter national organization; 37 chapters currently operate in the United States, one in Canada. Many BLM chapters and other organizations that embrace the movement mobilize people to demonstrate in communities where police shootings have occurred and to convene at large gatherings-such as political rallies-to bring awareness to police brutality. The website of the original group, blacklivesmatter.com, also lists other types of local and national events, such as teach-ins, panels and Twitter chats, and encourages organizers to submit their own events.

In an October 2016 interview with TEDWomen, Cullors explained what the movement means to her.

"Black Lives Matter is our call to action. It is a tool to a reimagined world where black people are free to exist, free to live. It is a tool for our allies to show up differently for us," she said. "I grew up in a neighborhood that was heavily policed. I witnessed my brothers and my siblings continuously stopped and frisked by law enforcement. I remember my home being raided. And one of the questions, as a child, I had was why? Why us? Black Lives Matter offers answers to the why."

Myths and Criticisms

People who don't follow Black Lives Matter usually become aware of the movement when news sites report on BLM actions or protests. What many people don't realize is that the leadership also embraces policy change and legislation as necessary elements to end oppression of black people-and that the work and the leadership are not limited to the Black Lives Matter network.

One common misconception about the BLM movement is that it is leaderless. But there isn't one leader; there are many. "BLM is composed of many local leaders and many local organizations including Black Youth Project 100, the Dream Defenders, the Organization for Black Struggle, Hands Up United, Millennial Activists United, and the Black Lives Matter national network," organizers explain on the website. "We demonstrate through this model that the movement is bigger than any one person."

Another misconception is that the movement is solely a mechanism for protest. In fact, the many people and organizations with agendas and goals that overlap and align with BLM have produced detailed policy demands and proposals for institutional reforms. Campaign Zero, for example, outlines a list of policy proposals largely focused on ending police brutality. It is a strategy for addressing one of the most visible, damaging and deadly symptoms of systemic racism. The Movement for Black Lives, a collective of more than 50 organizations, advances a platform covering six areas of domestic-policy reform, including economic justice and investment in equitable education and health care instead of criminalization and incarceration.

Many people, however, view the BLM movement as violent, seeking to "sow a racial divide" and intent on interrupting the work of police officers commissioned to protect and serve the public. For example, Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City, said in a television interview that the movement is "inherently racist" and "divides us." He further stated, "They don't mean 'black lives matter'; they mean 'let's agitate against the police matters.'"

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Why Teaching Black Lives Matter Matters | Part I

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For Trinity Thompson, the decision of whether or not to address high-profile killings of black people with her second-graders was a no-brainer. She was teaching in Harlem soon after Eric Garner was killed by a police officer in a nearby New York City borough. "How do I respond to this?"