Last week, two Black men were arrested for sitting in a Starbucks here in Philadelphia. They were waiting for a friend who arrived shortly after
From the post:
As a White man in America, I may not be a racist, but I am racist. I may not be a bigot, but I am biased. I may love and honor and serve my students of color, but I will never be able to fully comprehend their experiences, nor they mine. I may fight for my students and work for the access to high-quality education that is their birthright, but I am also complicit in the perpetuation of systems of racial oppression by enjoying and benefiting from the systems that give me and my two sons a head start in the race for wealth and prosperity.
On one hand I think it’s not only important but *imperative* for white/all educators to reflect on their own racial biases and how this impacts children, especially black children. On another hand I’m also interested in us doing more to uplift the voices of black educators who’ve done a lot of writing and works in this area.
I feel like in the field of education we call it everything under the sun but “racial bias training” - right now the big buzz word is “culturally responsive pedagogy/teaching” which is actually an important concept but what it ISN’T is explicit training on racial bias.
We do way too much to protect the feelings of white and privileged educators and are way to comfortable letting the black and brown children pay the price.
