Since the tragic murder of George Floyd, I personally have endured countless conversations of folks trying to make sense of it all, or even yet numerous baseless attempts to engage in “righteous dialogue” that tries to convenience you it is “those other folks” not “them”. Further, I heard from some who expressed “anger” because the “George Floyd” headlines was removed from the local paper. This person was outraged, “how can they just stop talking about the injustice” – my question, is right. how can you stop talking about the injustice. Right, stop talking about it and do something! Let me offer a recent experience as further explanation, as to why I constantly say I am not interested in the checkmark. I am so beyond the theatrics and the performances at this point…
Recently a friend shared an article with me written by Dr. Bettina Love. The title of the article was “How to Make Anti-Racism Work More than a Performance. I will share the link here in case you want to check it out.
https://www.edweek.org/leadership/opinion-empty-promises-of-equity/2021/01
After reading the article, I simply replied to the person who sent it to me; “two snaps”. If you haven’t read it, seriously I encourage you to read it.
Fast forward a few weeks, I see that my District who is currently engaged in Anti-Racist work assigned the same article as pre-work for an upcoming training/discussion with colleagues. For a minute, I was encouraged. However, my temporary glee was quickly diminished… I wonder if the person that “sanctioned” the assignment actually read it at all. I should mention here, this is the same person that was “outraged” that the headlines disappeared about George Floyd. The rage, now we can safely call it what it was, “fake rage” didn’t sustain itself. It took 6 whole months to begin the conversation/training (call it what you may) with colleagues and less than 4 weeks to start leveraging their oppressive power. Let me describe here what I mean by leveraging their power in oppressive ways. As the article suggests, my District has fallen into the trap of trying to hold conversations, for the sake of holding the conversations; but haven’t even started looking at the systemic changing in policies that are needed to improve working conditions for adults in the system and subsequently student achievement for all students. As I mentioned previously, it took more than 6-months to start the work; the Anti-Racist professional learning series and less than 2 minutes to completely mess it up. Specifically, I learned recently, for the upcoming session we are only allowing 45 minutes for over 100 administrators to discuss the “important” work. And before you start getting worked up about that madness, let me add another layer of BS to the mix. The next module is entitled, “The Impact of Microaggressions”. So you tell me how we are supposed to both define and unpack the impact of microaggressions?
Help me understand what that looks like?
Let me be clear, not 45 minutes just on the “topic” if you will. But 45 minutes to discuss our work as Anti-Racists. Our collective work of over 100 administrators. How does that happen? Tell me if we are working towards “recognizing that the system is inequitable by design and we are vigilantly working to confront and interrupt inequities that exist to level the playing field and provide opportunities for everyone to learn, grow and reach their greatness “, if we are doing this work; how can we do it in 45-minutes?
#beyondfebruary
drtiffanyspeaks 