How do you address the Black Lives Matter movement?
As an educator, what have you done, or what do you plan to do to address the Black Lives Matter movement?
For me, a teacher in an urban school, I am VERY conscientious of choosing a diverse set of artists to pull from as examples. If it's always "dead white guys," I am sending a message. This is also why my "If Picasso" series of books is purposefully diverse.
I also review my discipline reports and grades, carefully, to be sure I am not acting out of bias. Do my numbers match my classes demographics? Is one group less or more likley to get positive or negative attention? I may assume I am not, but I "check the data." I like to think I am "woke," and I am in some ways, but I also know there is a lot I do not know. As educators, in some ways, we set the stage for what is to come. If the roots of the trees we grow are given stagnate soil, how can we expect them to grow to their full potential. We need to check, at least once in a while, our practice, and see if the data shows we have acted fairly or based on biases we have not given light.
Because I shared a home with African Americans for many years, I witnessed some of these disparities. I would never claim to "understand" their whole experience based on those few years, but what I do know is that "the system" is built on and perpetuates inequality. I have no doubt of that, which is why I work to bring balance in my life, my classroom, and perhaps my school.
Author, Kimberly Jones, explains the underlying reasons for the Black Lives Matter movement. Her full statement is on Youtube but may not be appropriate for school due to her strong and passionate language.
At the five minute mark she says:
How Can You Win
You can’t win.
The game is fixed.
So when they say, "Why do you burn down the community? Why do you burn down your own neighborhood?"
It’s not ours! We don’t own anything! We don’t own anything!
Trevor Noah said it so beautifully… 'there’s a social contract that we all have–that if you steal or if I steal, then the person who is the authority comes in and they fix the situation. But the person who fixes the situation is killing us!'
So the social contract is broken!
And if the social contract is broken, why the F#*k do I give a sh*t about burnin’ the F#*kin' football hall of fame, about burnin' a F#*kin’ Target?
You broke the contract when you killed us in the streets and didn’t give a F#*k!
You broke the contract, for four hundred years when we played your game and built your wealth. You broke the contract, when we built our wealth, again on our own by our bootstraps in Tulsa, and you dropped bombs on us. When we built it in Rosewood and you came in and slaughtered us.
You broke the contract, so F#*k your Target, F#*k your Hall of Fame.
Far as I’m concerned they can burn this b*tch to the ground. And it still wouldn’t be enough.
And they are lucky that what black people are looking for is equality and not revenge.”
This is the reality, and the BLM movement is the responce.
So again I ask, as an educator, what have you done, or what do you plan to do to address the Black Lives Matter movement?
For me, a teacher in an urban school, I am VERY conscientious of choosing a diverse set of artists to pull from as examples. If it's always "dead white guys," I am sending a message. This is also why my "If Picasso" series of books is purposefully diverse.
I also review my discipline reports and grades, carefully, to be sure I am not acting out of bias. Do my numbers match my classes demographics? Is one group less or more likley to get positive or negative attention? I may assume I am not, but I "check the data." I like to think I am "woke," and I am in some ways, but I also know there is a lot I do not know. As educators, in some ways, we set the stage for what is to come. If the roots of the trees we grow are given stagnate soil, how can we expect them to grow to their full potential. We need to check, at least once in a while, our practice, and see if the data shows we have acted fairly or based on biases we have not given light.
Because I shared a home with African Americans for many years, I witnessed some of these disparities. I would never claim to "understand" their whole experience based on those few years, but what I do know is that "the system" is built on and perpetuates inequality. I have no doubt of that, which is why I work to bring balance in my life, my classroom, and perhaps my school.
Author, Kimberly Jones, explains the underlying reasons for the Black Lives Matter movement. Her full statement is on Youtube but may not be appropriate for school due to her strong and passionate language.
At the five minute mark she says:
How Can You Win
You can’t win.
The game is fixed.
So when they say, "Why do you burn down the community? Why do you burn down your own neighborhood?"
It’s not ours! We don’t own anything! We don’t own anything!
Trevor Noah said it so beautifully… 'there’s a social contract that we all have–that if you steal or if I steal, then the person who is the authority comes in and they fix the situation. But the person who fixes the situation is killing us!'
So the social contract is broken!
And if the social contract is broken, why the F#*k do I give a sh*t about burnin’ the F#*kin' football hall of fame, about burnin' a F#*kin’ Target?
You broke the contract when you killed us in the streets and didn’t give a F#*k!
You broke the contract, for four hundred years when we played your game and built your wealth. You broke the contract, when we built our wealth, again on our own by our bootstraps in Tulsa, and you dropped bombs on us. When we built it in Rosewood and you came in and slaughtered us.
You broke the contract, so F#*k your Target, F#*k your Hall of Fame.
Far as I’m concerned they can burn this b*tch to the ground. And it still wouldn’t be enough.
And they are lucky that what black people are looking for is equality and not revenge.”
This is the reality, and the BLM movement is the responce.
So again I ask, as an educator, what have you done, or what do you plan to do to address the Black Lives Matter movement?
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