“The only way to undo racism is to consistently identify it and describe it—and then dismantle it.” –Ibram X. Kendi
“It is a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others. … One ever feels his twoness — an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”
—W.E.B. Du Bois, sociologist, historian, activist, 1897
“The chasm between the principles upon which this Government was founded ... and those which are daily practiced under the protection of the flag, yawns so wide and deep.”
—Mary Church Terrell, clubwoman, businesswoman, activist, 1906
The public school system is fraught with inconsistencies, inequities, racist rhetoric, and practices – from the curriculum, materials and resources, testing tools, suspensions, parental contact practices and more. As educators we must actively implement ways to remix our curriculum -- even to the extent of disrupting the traditional thinking. Anti-racist curriculum and pedagogy forces its participants to delve deeper than the typical or ordinary expansion of multicultural items into a curriculum. “Allowing” the expression of multiculturalism is racist. When people of color experience “allowance” of existence or “celebratory or recognition” days by the majority is the norm, racism, perhaps not intentional, is at the core.
Racism in the curriculum can be found in the following ways:
- Social Studies Curriculum have historically promoted racist practices leading to the silencing of people of color who are disenfranchised.
- The baseline of what we know and have been taught as students and teachers can be disruptive to the true accurate account of history and events that represent all. Students, communities, and educators that have predominantly benefited from white privilege are sometimes unable to recognize longstanding institutional malpractice or the racist mindsets that often accompany those practices.
- From the time of the colonists there were the actions of patriarchal dominants which were involved in stealing land from the Indigenous people. That same thing has repeated throughout history where “incidences” were used to burn down neighborhoods and push blacks out of the land they owned.
- History books have demonstrated expansion and growth of white colonials and westward expansionists as normal. However, the acceptance of land-grabbing as expansion is reproduces inequality.
- Blacks were kept out of suburban neighborhoods after the Jim Crow Era into the 1980s. An example of this is in Chicago where the dominant residents used something called restrictive covenants—also known as blockbusting. Often city officials and regulations allowed these practices. For example, after the destruction of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma laws and zoning regulations kept its former inhabitants and landowners from rebuilding on the land.
- Irregularities whether it be from living conditions to disparaged neighborhoods and resources—the dominant white group has set up the system to communicate through a variety of vehicles (legislation, silence, erasure, etc.) the needs of minorities are addressed after theirs.
- Social Studies and other content areas do not create or support equality for all of its students. Instead, it is a system that has been set up from its inception to keep the races divided and to diminish the black and brown people.
- The silent majority behind all the world systems represents the white man and then the white race. This system seeks to keep land and knowledge out of the hands of the non-minority. Practices that create hierarchies and levels to be reached whether in the army, education, careers, medical field, psychology, economics and more exist.
- Being colorblind or claiming not to see color is racist.
It is my hope for other teachers and even students to experience American history as it really occurred and not in that matter that it was ghost written or edited.