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Respond & Reimagine: Moving Schools Forward December 10, 2020 | Volume 16 | Issue 7 Table of Contents
Dena Simmons
After George Floyd's public execution earlier this year, many of us—and many of our institutions—made public, impassioned statements and promises to commit to antiracism. Some of us put black squares on Instagram. Others posted #BlackLivesMatter on Twitter. However, over the past few months, I have watched the enthusiasm fade while white folks carry on with their comfortable lives. I have witnessed people lay back, put their feet up, and pour all of their faith into government officials who they believe will eradicate anti-Black racism.
What I have been reminding those around me, especially those friends who were surprised about how close this year's presidential election results were, is that white supremacy will not go away overnight. Our country's commitment to anti-Blackness is the same as its worship of whiteness. No president or elected leader will save us. We have to save ourselves.
Not all of us have the privilege to walk away from eradicating racism. My life depends on my fight for the white world to acknowledge and respect my humanity, my Black humanity. Most days, I am tired of fighting. Most days, I feel like the frustration, anger, and sadness from the injustice of the anti-Black racism I experience will suffocate me. But after I listen to and handle the messages in my feelings with care, I crawl out of my funk because I must. Even when I'm hurt. Even when I don't have any answers. I refuse to allow every person, every policy, every law that has tried to kill my spirit to have the pleasure of watching me die. I remember my ancestors' strength, and I remember mine, too.
Black educators, I want you to remember what our fierce elders survived and what we have already survived to be here today. I want you to remember the many times this year—and many years before—when we have saved ourselves.
And I want all educators to lean into their gifts, into the moments of eureka in their classrooms, into their resourcefulness and resilience. I want all of us to remember how we have been showing up to hybrid and online classrooms despite the frustration, anxiety, and fear we have felt as a result of COVID-19. I want us to remember our creativity, conviction, and dedication to guiding young people to believe in themselves. I want us to know that we are capable of being part of the necessary change to ensure that our nation can live out its values of equality and justice for all by teaching our students to know their power, too.
The fight for racial justice, however, needs to be everyone's fight—not just mine, not just Black people's, not just those forced to the margins of society. We save ourselves by collectively coming together and working toward racial harmony.
In order to save ourselves, it is important that all educators flex their self-awareness muscles. We can do this by checking in not only on how we are doing, but also on what we need, on what in our lives does not serve us, and on where we are thriving. For a long time, I ignored my pain and let it become a toxin in my body. My unaddressed hurt and the constant wear-and-tear of white doubts and attacks disguised as kindness and mentorship made it difficult for me to know my power. Once I committed to a practice of checking in with myself, I started to remember who I was and to rediscover my voice.
Now, I start each day by reflecting on the following questions during my morning meditation or as part of my daily communal writing practice (a group of friends and I hold each other accountable):
Once I have identified some revelations, themes, and areas of growth, I create an action plan to fill the gaps. I set reasonable goals and timelines so that I do not overwhelm myself, and I usually work on one goal at a time. I commit to something each day—whether it is calling to apologize to someone, sharing my gratitude with another, or saying, "no" to something that isn't good for me.
I invite educators to check in with themselves and to invite their students to do the same if they find it useful. A daily check-in builds the necessary self-awareness that allows us to focus on our self-care and healing—and the care of others, too. This self-awareness helps us make racial justice and equity a daily practice in our personal and professional lives as part of collective care. That is, we have to know how our power, privilege, and positionality influence our lives, how they give us access to resources or not, how they show up in the world, and how they can be abusive, and even toxic, to others if we are not mindful.
As we build our self-awareness daily, we must also hold ourselves accountable to the racial equity work that many educators, corporations, and schools have communicated is suddenly important. With that in mind, I invite you to ask yourself—as well as your institutions—the following questions:
The responses to these questions help us gauge what more we educators can do for racial justice. If we find that we have not done anything, then we know it is time to change how we live, teach, and lead so that racial justice is at the core. My article "How To Be an Antiracist Educator" as well as my video Six Ways to Be an Antiracist Educator are useful blueprints for getting started. Though this practice starts as self-work, we can also invite a trusted group of colleagues to be accountability buddies who remind us of our goals and who we say we want to be. Together, we can create protocols for holding each other accountable. One such protocol is having a scheduled "buddy briefing" for sharing challenges, engaging in collective problem-solving, and calling each other in.
As we hold institutions accountable, it is important that we do so as a collective. We can find a core group of people aligned with a vision for racial justice and work with them to push our organizations strategically and collaboratively. Eradicating white supremacy culture in our schools and districts includes using tactics from successful social movements and community organizing. Some strategies comprise identifying a clear purpose, recruiting partners-in-justice, building trust among constituents, partnering with community groups and families, and deploying effective, culturally relevant messaging around the desired change for a racially just school environment.
Transforming institutions is challenging but not impossible. There will be rejection, misunderstandings, and fragile feelings. Leaning into people's general desire to be and do good can serve as fuel to sustaining actions for racial justice. However, ensuring that Black people in our nation have the right to dignity, respect, and humanity should be enough reason for all of us to do this work. We must also recognize when it is time to leave a place for somewhere else that is more aligned with our values of social and racial justice.
Through developing an accountability practice and harnessing self-awareness, educators can begin the process of healing from our collective, unprocessed trauma of racism, which affects every single one of us. We can begin to recognize our gifts, our fears, our needs, our barriers, and our potential so that we do not have to rely on others to save us.
In our current reality of multiple pandemics, the one consistent theme is our country's sin of racism. Black, Indigenous, and Latinx folks are suffering from COVID-19 at higher rates than white folks, as they continue to disproportionately suffer from financial hardships, homelessness, discrimination, and death by the police state. We save ourselves by staying woke and committed, by asking for help when we need it, by decentering our egos, and by remembering the promise of education and bending its arc toward justice.
Dena Simmons (@DenaSimmons) is a lifelong learner, educator, and activist who supports schools throughout the nation in implementing social and emotional learning and culturally responsive and equitable practices for racial justice and healing. She is the author of the forthcoming book, White Rules for Black People (St. Martin's Press, 2021).
More on This Topic: Why We Can't Afford Whitewashed Social-Emotional Learning
ASCD Express, Vol. 16, No. 7. Copyright 2020 by ASCD. All rights reserved. Visit www.ascd.org/ascdexpress.
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