Def Racism
It’s not just you; it’s not just me
It’s civilization; it’s our society.
If you could be ANYONE other than you, who would you choose to be?
A president? A man on the moon? A man in the street?
If you had to live the life of someone different from you, whom would you choose?
A Mexican? A Black man? An Indian? A Jew?
People shake their heads, “I’m not a racist,” they say.
I don’t burn crosses. I don’t wear sheets. I don’t hurt anyone.
THEY do it to each other.
Who are they?
A Mexican? A Black man? An Indian? A Jew?
An old woman says “I’m tired of all this racist talk. Things are better.”
“Ain’t no more lynchings.”
A young man sneers, “So, you’re taking a RACE class. I’d like to see that textbook.”
“They got more rights than white folks.”
The abuse is silent, but deafening.
A stare. Pursed lips, furrowed brow, rolling eyes, turning head.
Silence.
Overpowering stillness.
Torturous, abusive,
Invisible hate.
Inherited by our young.
Ingrained in their psyche
Reinforced by schools catering to the affluent suburban crowd
Offering business math, statistics, algebra and trig
Teaching German, French, Japanese, Spanish, and Latin
But not welcoming those who speak a different language, or wear different clothes
Or wear different colored skin.
They go to the school of no choices.
Not challenged. Not praised. Not enriched.
They drop out.
The rates are inequitable
Just as are their circumstances
The United States of America, the home of the free and the brave
Built of Democratic stone, bought with Capitalist money.
Where all men are equal under the law – all White men
(women and black men -not human, mere property.)
The United States of America
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free
(as long as they are just like us)
Has Lady Liberty forgotten?
When we gonna see; it’s not just you and me?
It’s our world.
So what can we do?
Unconditionally
“Red and yellow, black and white
They are precious in his sight”
Rhyme taught early to a child
Values soon misplaced
Young and old, bright and slow
Tall and short, lean and large
Brown eyed. Blue eyed, blonde, brunette
Some rich, some poor, boy or girl
Your neighbors and mine, his neighbors and theirs
What a wonderful place this world would be
If we were accepted
Unconditionally
Instructions:
Colloquium: Colloquium sessions are sessions of critique and analytical discussion of issues raised in texts and in class. In these sessions, students will present on assigned readings as well as participate in a critical discussion of the issues raised regarding the impact of CRT in educational contexts.
Specific Guidelines for Colloquium Presentations
a) Each presentation should not be more than 15 minutes. You will be expected to rehearse your presentation so that you will not go beyond that allotted time. Failure to adhere to the time limit will result in a loss of points.
b) Each presentation is not a summary of the readings for the week. Rather it is a critical analysis of the readings as related to theoretical concepts articulated by critical race theorists in general and by critical race theorists in education.
c) It may be helpful for students to construct an outline for their presentation that includes (i) their thesis statement that describes their own position regarding the readings (ii) their supporting arguments that draw on the readings that support their position (iii) spaces where their positions differ from those of the readings and why they do so; (iii) their conclusion that holds implications for their own educational praxis as teachers and/or educators.
d) All presentations should be articulated in the first person because as a class we are interested in what you think about the issues we have discussed and how these issues implicate/sustain/transform you as an educator/scholar.
e) Presenters must also be prepared to respond to questions and/or defend their positions to the class.
Specific Guidelines for Colloquium Attendees
a) All attendees are expected to come to colloquium sessions intellectually prepared (which means, among other things, having carefully read the texts and thought about the issues) and being able to engage the issues in a sustained manner.
b) Attendance is mandatory, and therefore anyone who misses a session will write a two-page critique of the issues/texts discussed in that session. If a two-page critique is not submitted within two days of the missed colloquium, a student will lose two points from your grade.
c) Participation in the colloquium requires active/critical/thoughtful listening on the part of the attendees. An active listener is one who is able to build one’s own comments upon others transforming the discussion into a genuine conversation. A critical listener is one who can make connections between different readings/experiences/different parts of the course and who can respectfully but forthrightly articulate differences between your thinking and other positions articulated in the course. A thoughtful listener is one who can participate regularly in discussion without drowning out other people who want to speak, while at the same time taking risks to consider novel ideas and to struggle with difficult questions.
d) You are not expected to know everything or to be perfect; those are not human qualities. You are expected to be genuinely interested in learning and understanding and to help create a class atmosphere in which genuine learning can take place.
WEEK II CRITICAL RACE THEORY IN EDUCATION
Mon, May 19 CRT in Education
Readings:
(ARTICLE) Billings & Tate, Toward a Critical Race Theory of Education
Colloqium:
(ARTICLE) Tate, Ethics, Engineering and the Challenge of Racial Reform in Education
(ARTICLE) Lopez, The (Racially Neutral) Politics of Education: A Critical Race Theory Perspective
(ARTICLE) Yosso, Whose Culture has Capital?
Billings & Tate, Toward a Critical Race Theory of Education
The authors posit that CRT has not been theorized in education. The CRT as developed since the 70’s has been legally theorized.
1)Race is a significant issue in the U.S.
2)U.S. society is based on Property rights rather than HUMAN rights
3)The intersection of RACE and PROPERTY creates a tool for understanding inequity
Examples:
Billie: (active Church lady in a church that was an active part of the civil rights era in Tuscaloosa)
I’m tired of hearing about racism.”
Tommy: (Young man from Ms. Delta, fireman) Oh, really. I’d like to see that textbook.)
Everyone thinks they have their own story – and everyone of them infringes on “them” in some way or another.
Jonathan Kozol: Savage Inequalities
“Discussions of race and racism continue to be muted and marginalized.”
Tensions between CRT and the educational reform movement: “Multiculturalism”
Ex: Teaching Tolerance, character ed
SCHOOLS:
The same educational process which inspires and stimulates the oppressor with the thought that he is everything and has accomplished everything worthwhile, depresses and crushes at the same time the spark of genius in the negro by making him feel that his race does not amount to much and never will measure up to the standards of other peoples.”
Examples:
- Overabundance of AA males in SpEd,
- Under-representation of AA kids in Gifted Ed (Must TAKE A TEST to be creative and get out of direct instruction, test taking activities”) Whose idea of creative, anyway?
- “How not to talk to your kids”
- Their examples of the magnet school – just like Central)
Tate, Ethics, Engineering and the Challenge of Racial Reform in Education
Lopez, The (Racially Neutral) Politics of Education: A Critical Race Theory Perspective
Yosso, Whose Culture has Capital?
I know this poem has probably been heard or seen a hundred times, still if it helps us to maintain our commitment to all children, it's worth seeing again. Children's Defense Fund founder, Marian Wright Edelman often suggests that we replace the words "We pray for..." with "I take responsibility for..."
______
We pray for children
who sneak popsicles before supper,
who erase holes in math workbooks,
who can never find their shoes.
And we pray for those
who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,
who can't bound down the street in a new pair of
sneakers,
who never 'counted potatoes,'
who are born in places we wouldn't be caught dead,
who never go to the circus,
who live in an X-rated world.
We pray for children
who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,
who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.
And we pray for those
who never get dessert,
who have no safe blanket to drag behind them,
who watch their parents watch them die,
who can't find any bread to steal,
who don't have any rooms to clean up,
whose pictures aren't on anybody's dresser,
whose monsters are real.
We pray for children
who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,
who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at
their food,
who like ghost stories,
who shove dirty clothes under the bed, and never
rinse out the tub,
who get visits from the tooth fairy,
who don't like to be kissed in front of the carpool,
who squirm in church or temple and scream in the
phone,
whose tears we sometimes laugh at and
whose smiles can make us cry.
And we pray for those
whose nightmares come in the daytime,
who will eat anything,
who have never seen a dentist,
who aren't spoiled by anybody,
who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,
who live and move, but have no being.
We pray for those who want to be carried
and those who must,
for those we never give up on and for those
who don't get a second chance.
For those we smother...and for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it.
-Ina J. Hughes
ALL / Human FamilyLEADER / Poem by Dr. Maya Angelou
Read at the dedication of the Disney Millennium Village
Narrator 1 / I note the obvious differences
in the human family.
Some of us are serious,
some thrive on comedy.
Narrator 2 / Some declare their lives are lived
as true profundity,
and others claim they really live
the real reality.
Narrator 3 / The variety of our skin tones
can confuse, bemuse, delight,
brown and pink and beige and purple,
tan and blue and white.
Narrator 4 / I've sailed upon the seven seas
and stopped in every land.
I've seen the wonders of the world,
not yet one common man.
Narrator 5 / I know ten thousand women
called Jane and Mary Jane,
but I've not seen any two
who really were the same.
Narrator 1 / Mirror twins are different
although their features jibe,
and lovers think quite different thoughts
while lying side by side.
Narrator 2 / We love and lose in China,
we weep on England's moors,
and laugh and moan in Guinea,
and thrive on Spanish shores.
Narrator 3 / We seek success in Finland,
are born and die in Maine.
In minor ways we differ,
in major we're the same.
Narrator 4 / I note the obvious differences
between each sort and type,
but we are more alike, my friends
than we are unalike.
Narrator 5 / We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
ALL / We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.
On The Pulse of Morning
ALL
/ A Rock, A River, A TreeHosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon.
The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.
Narrator 1 / But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow
I will give you no hiding place down here.
Narrator 2 / You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance
Your mouths spilling words
Narrator 3 / Armed for slaughter.
The Rock cries out to us today, you stand on me,
But do not hide your face.
Narrator 4 / Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song,
It says, come rest here by my side.
Narrator 5 / Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege
Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.
Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
Narrator 2 / If you will study war no more. Come,
Clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the Rock were one.
Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
Brow and when you yet knew you still
Knew nothing.
The River sings and sings on.
Narrator 5 / There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing River and the wise Rock.
So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African, the Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.
Narrator 1 Narrator 3 / They hear the first and last of every Tree
Speak to humankind today. Come to me, here beside the River.
Plant yourself beside me, here beside the River.
Narrator 2 / Each of you, descendant of some passed
On traveller, has been paid for.
You, who gave me my first name, you
Pawnee, Apache, Seneca, you
Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then
Forced on bloody feet, left me to the employment of
Other seekers--desperate for gain,
Starving for gold.
You, the Turk, the Arab, the Swede, the German, the Eskimo,
the Scot,
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought
Sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.
Narrator 5 / Here, root yourselves beside me.
I am that Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved
I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree
I am yours--your Passages have been paid
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.
History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, but if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.
Narrator 4 / Lift up your eyes upon
This day breaking for you.
Give birth again
To the dream.
Narrator 1 Narrator 3 Leader / Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.
Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Narrator 4 Leader / Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.
Leader / The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out and upon me, the
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.
No less to Midas than the mendicant.
No less to you now than the mastodon then.
All / Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, and into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.
Marian Wright Edelman
We pray for children
who sneak popsicles before supper,
who erase holes in math workbooks,
who can never find their shoes
And we pray for those
who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,
who can’t bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers,
who never “counted potatoes,”
who are born in places we wouldn’t be caught dead,
who never go to the circus,
who live in an X rated world.
We pray for children
who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,
who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.
And we pray for those
who never get desert,
who have no safe blanket to drag behind them,
who watch their parents watch them die,
who can’t find any bread to steal,
who don’t have any rooms to clean up,
whose pictures aren’t on anybody’s dresser,
whose monsters are real.
We pray for children
who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,
who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at
their food,
who like ghost stories,
who shove dirty clothes under the bed, and never
rinse out the tub,
who get visits from the tooth fairy,
who don’t like to be kissed in front of the carpool,
who squirm in church or temple and scream in the phone,
whose tears we sometimes laugh at and
whose smiles can make us cry.
And we pray for those