Professor Eddie Glaude of Princeton recently stated in an interview that “America is not unique in its sins. . . we are not unique in our evils. Where we may be singular is our refusal to acknowledge them.” In speaking directly about race, he connects the dots between the ignored history of our country and the ever real violence and hatred that continues on today.
The idea is that when we refuse to acknowledge the devastation of the past, the way it was fueled by belief structures, and the way that it has evolved over time, we are less likely to acknowledge that the events of today-- a police shooting, mass incarceration, disparities in education, discriminatory lending practices, voter suppression-- are really just the latest manifestations of racial violence and injustice that have always been a part of our country.
Glaude says that we, as a community, have not been good at seeing the links between the past and the present. And he states that we need to “confront the danger of our innocence,” underscoring the significance of studying and learning about our past.
As teachers, we sit in an unusual position. We see ourselves as part of a progressive institution that promotes equality and justice. Historically, however, the classroom has been used as a tool to do the opposite. Slaves were prohibited from the classroom, for fear that teaching them to read would increase their desire for emancipation, which privileged their white peers who used education as the means of social advancement. The reign of fear which lasted through Deconstruction made school very difficult for Black students. Segregation laws of the Jim Crow era ensured that while Black students could go to school, they would not be given equal educational opportunities. Most of us know that Brown versus the Board of Education was certainly a symbolic milestone for racial justice, but few of us know that some districts throughout the country chose to entirely shut down instead of integrating their students. Some districts never did make any changes. And many of those that did, caused problems when suddenly all of the Black teachers from the predominantly Black schools found themselves unable to get a job in these desegregated schools.
In more recent times, educational access inequalities have been exasperated by school funding models that depend heavily on local property taxes. The policy has ensured that many of the communities who needed the most, often got the least. Underfunded schools, located in rural areas throughout the south and many urban areas throughout the north, struggled with staffing ratios, outdated facilities, and lower pay scales for teachers, making it difficult for these communities to keep well-trained, experienced professionals on staff.
As mass incarceration began to grow, many schools became a part of the “school-to-prison pipeline”, which refers to a number of zero-tolerance policies implemented by schools that would result in the arrest or detention of students for offenses ranging from truancy to insubordination and fighting. The passage of No Child Left Behind did wonders for documenting the gross inequities of our school system in regards to race, but ultimately it did more to punish low-income schools and students than it did to fix the underlying causes. Among other problems, No Child Left Behind created our dependence on high stakes tests, which meant that many students were held back or even unable to graduate because they could not pass these tests. In the intervening years, we have discovered the inadequacies of these tests not only because of issues like negative stereotype threat, but because of the many cultural and implicit biases of those assessments.
Even today, we struggle with many of these same issues. A close look at our statistics show that our schools and our classrooms remain segregated. In some cases our rules themselves, and the way we enforce and maintain them disproportionately impact our students of color.
As Professor Glaude reminds us, knowing and learning about this past is important. Doing so is an important step in addressing our ongoing racial inequities. On a more pragmatic level, studying our racialized educational history should also inform our current choices. From attendance and grading policies to dress codes and classroom management practices, knowing a little of our history enables us to make better choices and to re-think and re-imagine our schools in ways that empower and engage instead of silence and subvert.
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