Tag: privilege

The Book Group We’ve Been Waiting For

#wellrED logo

You and anyone you care to invite are invited to join the new book group on GoodReads – #wellrED.

Jose Vilson and I have started the group, and our first book study will start March 19 when we dive into Lisa Delpit’s inaugural work Other People’s Children. The book is scheduled to last 5 weeks, with a second book starting not long after that.

I anticipate online discussion forums, hangouts, and twitter chats will be on the schedule as we move forward.

More than all that, though, is my excitement over the conversations we’ll be having. For me, it’s been a jarring experience heading to Colorado after being on the East Coast for 5 years. Here, there is little-to-no practical conversation about race, class, privilege, and all of the other difficult conversations that should come up when we consider what it means for people of all backgrounds to come together for a joint educational enterprise.

I’ll let Jose explain his hopes for the group, and I’d like to think this is a continuation of his EduCon conversation with Audrey Watters – “The Privileged Voices in Education.”

I don’t expect the conversations to be easy. I expect some folks will be uncomfortable. That’s how growth and change usually work. I also expect that it’s an important conversation we’re not having enough of in our schools, in our district’s, and in our country.

Join us.

25/365 The Hidden Racism of Brown v. Board of Education

Brown v. Board

It’s been a while since I’ve really looked at Brown V. Board of Education. I could quote you the key line, “Seperate is inherently unequal,” but I haven’t had occasion to sit and read the decision since I was an undergrad.

I welcomed the chance when both the initial decision and SCOTUS’s second decision directing states and districts on the path to equity as part of my education policy class this week.

As is usually the case when I return to a text after some time, my perspective has changed.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Warren wrote, “We must look instead to the effect of segregation itself on public education.”

This is great. Not surprisingly, I found myself agreeing whole-heartedly with Warren’s words.

What was surprising was the degree to which I found myself bristling at what I interpreted at the implicit value statement of the entire decision. If you take the time to read through the text, it starts to become clear that the Court was working to protect African American students from the negative effects of being segregated from white students.

Though never quite naming the move, the Brown v. Board decision has a subtext of, “You’re right, we should make sure black students can hang out in our schools, because our schools are great.”

Warren even quotes the lower Kansan court:

Segregation of white and colored children in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children.

What a missed opportunity.

In this brief opinion, the Court had the chance to gently nudge a reframing of the way we think about what it means to go to a school that is dominantly black or dominantly white. It could have taken a sentence to point out that it was white students who were also detrimentally affected by segregation. Instead the decision reified the position of white schools as more legitimate places of learning.

True, to make such a move would have invited the application of whatever the 1954 version of “activist court” was upon the justices. Then again, there’s was already an activist interpretation (thank goodness).

As history and Chief Justice Warren have robbed me of my druthers, I’ve started considering the multiple times teachers have spoken to me, taught me about Brown v. Board. Each one, to a person, has framed the decision as one allowing black kids to be around white kids (though I’m simplifying language).

And so, it makes me sad. Sad that I was 31 years old before I tripped over this new understanding. Sad I’m not in a classroom to have this conversation with students. Sad that several times along my way I’m sure I’ve reinforced this traditional interpretation of the decision that reinforces white privilege and undermines human value of African American students.

I’m sorry for that.

Things I Know 207 of 365: We might have First World First World Problems

She dropped her Kindle into the foot tub when she nodded off during her pedicure.

– First World Problem

Normally, I’m a fan of first world problems. Without them, we would be without series such as Seinfeld and Curb Your

Enthusiasm (both of which I’m told are quite good).

First world problems, when you take notice of them, help to put perspective back in the daily game.

“My online grocery order is late,” or “The projector isn’t working properly during the trailers for the movie I’m watching.”

These are problems of the First World that set people’s blood pumping.

(Let me add to those first two, “I can’t think of suitably ridiculous first world problem examples.”)

Pointing out sadly ironic first world problems is one of those gifts of privilege given by being fortunate enough to be born into the First World.

For those who are self-aware enough to note such problems when they arise, such realizations can serve as suitable gut-checks to the consumption-induced cloud of modern consumerism.

A danger lurks in such global mindfulness.

In making a distinction between the “worlds,” it’s easy to discount the strata that divide citizens within whatever world of development we live.

As I sat with my dinner tonight in the airport, I watched the following exchange between a restaurant cashier and a visibly disgruntled customer. The customer had breezed his way to the register, but his continued look of concern gave the cashier reason to pause.

“Is something the matter, sir?”

Grumble, grumble, grumble. “Yeah, I’ve got a four-hour flight.”

“Well, I’ve heard of bigger problems. Have a safe flight.”

Exchange complete.

Now, bear in mind, the cashier’s last line with spoken with a tone of complete empathy and frankness. It was a sort of “Gee, buddy, that’s tough” line.

The customer’s huff arrived, and he left in it.

I was left behind wondering about what had transpired and what happened in the minds of both men.

Did the cashier hear a whiny voice in his head, “Oh, poor baby, got to sit on a plane for four hours while I keep the beverage cooler full”?

Did the customer realize his complaint and accompanying frustration were first world problems?

Obviously, there are many pieces to this puzzle to which I will never have access.

What I saw were two men separated by station, one relaying a problem of privilege that the other, in that moment at least, did not have access to.

It wasn’t about access to privilege, it was about access to the problems of that privilege as well.

Compared to someone who must struggle each day for access to clean water or suitable nourishment, these men stood together a world away. Compared to one another, they stood a world apart.

The entire exchange has been filed away under the archive of Types of Moments in which I will Keep My Problems to Myself.

I’m a firm believer in the idea behind “Think globally, act locally.”

After today, it might not be a bad idea to make sure I’m thinking locally as well.