by Bree Picower
21. Eileen Curtright, “My daughter’s history text book explains that saying ‘slavery was bad’ is too simplistic & many slaves were probably fine with it,” Twitter photo, April 16, 2018, https://twitter.com/eileencurtright/status/986056826604138497.
22. John H. Bickford III and Cynthia W. Rich, “Examining the Representation of Slavery Within Children’s Literature,” Social Studies Research and Practice 9, no. 1 (Spring 2014): 66, http://www.socstrpr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/MS-06544-Bickford.pdf.
23. Bickford and Rich, “Examining the Representation of Slavery Within Children’s Literature.”
24. Hasan Kwame Jeffries, “The Courage to Teach Hard History,” Teaching Tolerance, February 1, 2018, https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/the-courage-to-teach-hard-history.
25. Melinda D. Anderson, “Why the Myth of Meritocracy Hurts Kids of Color,” Atlantic, July 27, 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/07/internalizing-the-myth-of-meritocracy/535035/.
26. David Boddiger, “Texas Charter School Apologizes for Quizzing Students on ‘Positive Aspects’ of Slavery,” Splinter, April 21, 2018, https://splinternews.com/texas-charter-school-apologizes-for-quizzing-students-o-1825446212.
27. Nadia Judith Enchassi, “Homework Assignment Asks Students to List Positive Aspects of Slavery,” KFOR, April 23, 2018, https://kfor.com/2018/04/23/homework-assignment-asks-students-to-list-positive-aspects-of-slavery.
28. Associated Press, “‘Give 3 Good Reasons for Slavery’: Wisconsin School Apologizes for Slavery Homework Assignment,” KDVR, January 11, 2018, https://kdvr.com/2018/01/11/give-3-good-reasons-for-slavery-wisconsin-school-apologizes-for-slavery-homework-assignment.
29. Trameka Brown-Berry, “Does anyone else find my 4th grader’s homework offensive?,” Facebook photo, January 8, 2018, https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10105094231351598&set=a.10101629687669908&type=3&theater.
30. Enchassi, “Homework Assignment Asks Students to List Positive Aspects of Slavery.”
31. Aaron Blake, “Trump Tries to Re-Write His Own History on Charlottesville and ‘Both Sides,’” Washington Post, April 26, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/04/25/meet-trump-charlottesville-truthers.
32. Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson, Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years (Milwaukee: Rethinking Schools, 1998).
33. Associated Press, “‘Give 3 Good Reasons for Slavery.’”
34. Hierospace, “Morrison White Gaze,” October 5, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHHHL31bFPA.
35. Stan Grant, “Black Writers Courageously Staring Down the White Gaze—This Is Why We All Must Read Them,” Guardian, December 30, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/31/black-writers-courageously-staring-down-the-white-gaze-this-is-why-we-all-must-read-them.
36. Eric Wilkinson, “Mom Calls Edmonds School Assignment Racist,” K5 News, March 5, 2018, https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/its-just-unbelievable-mom-calls-writing-assignment-racist/281-526038356.
37. Danny Wicentowski, “Missouri School Investigating ‘Slave Trade’ Homework Assignment,” Riverfront Times, December 9, 2019, https://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2019/12/09/missouri-school-investigating-slave-trade-homework-assignment.
38. Wilkinson, “Mom Calls Edmonds School Assignment Racist.”
39. Michelle Lou and Brandon Griggs, “State Test Required 10th Graders to Write from a Racist Point of View,” CNN, April 4, 2019, https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/04/us/massachusetts-test-racist-underground-railroad-trnd/index.html.
40. Lou and Griggs, “State Test Required 10th Graders to Write from a Racist Point of View.”
41. “Educators’ Unions and Civil Rights Groups Demand That DESE Withdraw Racially Offensive MCAS,” Massachusetts Teachers Association, April 3, 2019, https://massteacher.org/news/2019/04/unions-and-civil-rights-groups-demand-that-dese-withdraw-racially-offensive-mcas.
42. Ravi Baichwal, “Naperville Central High School Student Charged with Hate Crime after Allegedly Posting Racist Craigslist Ad,” ABC7 Chicago, November 20, 2019, https://abc7chicago.com/naperville-student-charged-with-hate-crime-after-allegedly-posting-racist-craigslist-ad/5709478.
43. Vikram Dodd, “Children Whitening Skin to Avoid Racial Hate Crime, Charity Finds,” Guardian, May 29, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/may/30/children-whitening-skin-to-avoid-racial-hate-charity-finds.
44. Bethania Palma Markus, “‘Kenyans Are Able to Run Very Fast’: Publisher Blasted for Kids’ Books Full of Racial Stereotypes,” Raw Story, September 10, 2015, https://www.rawstory.com/2015/09/kenyans-are-able-to-run-very-fast-publisher-blasted-for-kids-books-full-of-racial-stereotypes.
45. Markus, “‘Kenyans Are Able to Run Very Fast.’”
46. Monique Judge, “I have a rant incoming about racism and the messages that are sent to our children on the low in their schools. (Thread),” Twitter posts, February 14, 2017, https://twitter.com/thejournalista/status/831723476524294145?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E831723476524294145&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fmic.com%2Farticles%2F168666%2Ffor-black-history-month-black-second-graders-at-la-school-receive-math-.
47. Jorge Rivas, “Atlanta School Sends 8-Year Olds with Math Homework About Beating Slaves,” Colorlines, January 10, 2012, https://www.colorlines.com/articles/atlanta-school-sends-8-year-olds-math-homework-about-beating-slaves.
48. Lia Eustachewich, Joe Tacopino, and Yoav Gonen, “Midtown Teacher Includes Questions About Slavery in Elementary School Math Homework,” New York Post, February 22, 2013, https://nypost.com/2013/02/22/midtown-teacher-includes-questions-about-slavery-in-elementary-school-math-homework.
49. Bult, “Alabama Middle School Causes Outrage for Handing Out Math Quiz with Blatant Gang References.”
50. Marc Torrence, “See Controversial Math Quiz That Got Alabama Teacher Put on Leave,” Patch Across America, June 2, 2016, https://patch.com/us/across-america/see-8th-grade-math-quiz-got-alabama-teacher-put-leave-0. Stephen A. Crockett Jr., “Ala. Teacher Gives Test to 8th-Graders Asking How Many Tricks Would a ‘Ho’ Have to Turn to Support Pimp’s Crack Habit,” Root, June 1, 2016, https://www.theroot.com/ala-teacher-gives-test-to-8th-graders-asking-how-many-1790855483.
51. Bult, “Alabama Middle School Causes Outrage for Handing Out Math Quiz with Blatant Gang References.”
52. Julius Davis and Christopher C. Jett, Critical Race Theory in Mathematics Education (New York: Routledge, 2019).
53. Andrew Scott Baron and Mahzarin R. Banaji, “The Development of Implicit Attitudes: Evidence of Race Evaluations from Ages 6 and 10 and Adulthood,” Psychological Science 17, no. 1 (January 2006): 53, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2005.01664.x.
54. Jean Anyon, “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work,” Journal of Education 162, no. 1 (Winter 1980): 67–92, www.jstor/org/stable/42741976.
55. Annie Reneau, “This Kids’ Worksheet Is a Perfect Example of How Implicit Bias Gets Perpetuated,” Our Three Winners, January 16, 2019, https://ourthreewinners.org/this-kids-worksheet-is-a-perfect-example-of-how-implicit-bias-gets-perpetuated.
56. Aqkhira S-Aungkh, Facebook post, January 3, 2019, https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10155648000740356&set=a.55411285355&type=3&theater.
57. Reneau, “This Kids’ Worksheet Is a Perfect Example of How Implicit Bias Gets Perpetuated.”
58. Peter Holley, “‘Super Racist’ Pool Safety Poster Prompts Red Cross Apology,” Washington Post, June 27, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/06/27/super-racist-pool-safety-poster-prompts-red-cross-apology.
59. Holley, “‘Super Racist’ Pool Safety Poster Prompts Red Cross Apology.”
60. Ellen Moynihan and Ben Chapman, “Mock Student Slave Auction Rocks Private Westchester School,” New York Daily News, March 8, 2019, https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/ny-metro-mock-slave-auction-riles-westchester-school-20190308-story.html.
61. Headlines may be found at the following sites: https://13wham.com/news/local/watertown-teac
her-accused-of-making-black-students-act-as-slaves-in-mock-auction; https://www.complex.com/life/2019/03/teacher-white-students-bid-black-classmates-mock-slave-auction; https://www.theroot.com/wisconsin-teacher-reportedly-asks-7th-graders-to-create-1834003878; https://www.wect.com/2019/03/09/monopoly-like-slavery-game-played-by-fourth-grade-nc-class-outrages-african-american-grandmother/; https://www.loudountimes.com/news/for-black-history-month-this-loudoun-county-elementary-school-played-a-runaway-slave-game-in/article_9cecd568-35ef-11e9-8540-6372d03d3025.html; https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2019/09/10/western-middle-school-indiana-cancels-slave-ship-role-play-lesson/2276633001/; https://www.amren.com/news/2019/02/south-carolina-mom-outraged-after-kids-told-to-pick-cotton-sing-slave-song-as-game.
62. Anderson, White Rage.
63. Joshua Espinoza, “Elementary Teacher Placed on Leave After Allegedly Holding Mock Slave Auction,” Complex, May 31, 2019, https://www.complex.com/life/2019/05/elementary-teacher-on-leave-holding-mock-slave-auction.
64. Matthew Grant, “South Carolina Mom Outraged After Kids Told to Pick Cotton, Sing Slave Song as ‘Game,’” FOX 46 Charlotte, February 26, 2019, www.fox46.com/news/south-carolina-mom-outraged-after-kids-told-to-pick-cotton-sing-slave-song-as-game.
65. Southern Poverty Law Center, Teaching the Hard History of American Slavery (2018), https://www.splcenter.org/teaching-hard-history-american-slavery; Melinda D. Anderson, “What Kids Are Really Learning About Slavery,” Atlantic, February 1, 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/02/what-kids-are-really-learning-about-slavery/552098; P. R. Lockhart, “American Schools Can’t Figure Out How to Teach Kids About Slavery,” Vox, May 30, 2019, https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/3/13/18262240/mock-slave-auction-new-york-school-teacher-investigation.
66. Erhabor Ighodaro, “Curriculum Violence: The New Civil Rights Issue—How Efforts at Standardization Impact the Academic Achievement of African Americans,” in Still Not Equal: Expanding Educational Opportunity in Society, ed. M Christopher Brown II (New York: Peter Lang, 2007), 229–38.
67. James W. Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (New York: New Press, 2008); Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States: 1492–Present (New York: Harper Perennial, 2003).
68. Carter Godwin Woodson, The Mis-Education of the Negro (Washington, DC: Associated Publishers, 1933), 24.
69. Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011).
70. Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor, 2.
71. Maria Trent et al., “The Impact of Racism on Child and Adolescent Health,” Pediatrics 144, no. 2 (August 1, 2019), https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2019-1765.
72. Vincent J. Felitti et al., “Relationship of Childhood Abuse and Household Dysfunction to Many of the Leading Causes of Death in Adults: The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Study,” American Journal of Preventative Medicine 14, no. 4 (May 1, 1998), https://doi.org/10.1016/S0749-3797(98)00017-8.
73. Vanessa Sacks and David Murphey, “The Prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences, Nationally, by State, and by Race or Ethnicity,” Child Trends, February 20, 2018, https://www.childtrends.org/publications/prevalence-adverse-childhood-experiences-nationally-state-race-ethnicity.
74. Angela Helm, “Pediatricians: Black Children Suffer Significantly from Racism,” Root, August 9, 2019, https://www.theroot.com/pediatricians-black-children-suffer-significantly-from-1837105296.
75. Sacks and Murphey, “The Prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences, Nationally, by State, and by Race or Ethnicity.”
76. Sacks and Murphey, “The Prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences, Nationally, by State, and by Race or Ethnicity.”
77. Melissa Merrick et al., “Prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences from the 2011–2014 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System in 23 States,” JAMA Pediatrics 172, no. 11 (September 17, 2018): 1038–44, https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2018.2537.
78. Carrie Gaffney, “When Schools Cause Trauma,” Teaching Tolerance 62 (Summer 2019), https://www.tolerance.org/magazine/summer-2019/when-schools-cause-trauma.
79. Trent et al., “The Impact of Racism on Child and Adolescent Health.”
80. Emily Alford, “Long Island Teacher Reportedly Asked Students to Provide Funny Captions for Images of Slavery,” Jezebel, September 27, 2019, https://jezebel.com/long-island-teacher-reportedly-asked-students-to-provid-1838508745.
CHAPTER 2: THE ICEBERG
1. Paul P. Murphy, “White Nationalists Use Tiki Torches to Light Up Charlottesville March,” CNN, August 14, 2017, https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/12/us/white-nationalists-tiki-torch-march-trnd/index.html.
2. In Racism Without Racists, author Eduardo Bonilla-Silva described the process of avoiding the recognition of race as “color-blind,” yet critical disability scholars have complicated the term, critiquing the way it “likens a lack of vision to ignorance” (Subini Ancy Annamma, David Connor, and Beth Ferri, “Dis/Ability Critical Race Studies (DisCrit): Theorizing at the Intersections of Race and Dis/Ability,” Race Ethnicity and Education 16, no. 1 [2013]: 1–31), and recommend a shift to Ruth Frankenberg’s (White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness, [Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993]) and Anna Stubblefield’s (Ethics Along the Color Line [Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005]) use of the term “color-evasive,” which “refuses to position people who are blind as embodying deficit” (Annamma et al., 6). In a past coedited book, Confronting Racism in Teacher Education: Counternarratives of Critical Practice (New York: Routledge, 2017), Rita Kohli and I began using the term “race-evasive” because we found meaning in Bonilla-Silva’s definition of the concept and in Annamma et al.’s critique, but additionally wanted to avoid the use of “color” as a proxy for “race.”
3. Joel H. Spring, Deculturalization and the Struggle for Equality: A Brief History of the Education of Dominated Cultures in the United States, 7th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013).
4. Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, Vol. 2 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992).
5. Tatum, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?
CHAPTER 3: REFRAMING UNDERSTANDINGS OF RACE WITHIN TEACHER EDUCATION
1. Arianna MacNeill, “A Boy Was Sent to the Principal’s Office. Then an Administrator Used the N-Word,” Boston.com, October 8, 2019, https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2019/10/08/maine-student-racial-slur-incident.
2. Sarah Jackson, “Pennsylvania Teacher Placed on Leave for Racist Rant to Parent after Fender Bender,” NBC News, October 11, 2019, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/pennsylvania-teacher-placed-leave-racist-rant-parent-after-fender-bender-n1065121.
3. Eli Rosenberg, “Idaho Teachers Dress as ‘Mexicans’ and Trump’s MAGA Wall for Halloween,” Washington Post, November 5, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/11/03/these-school-teachers-dressed-up-mexicans-wall-halloween-it-didnt-go-well/.
4. Elise Solé, “‘Trump Can Deport You’: Teacher Terminated for Threatening Boy Who Didn’t Say, ‘Yes, Sir,’” Yahoo! Life, August 30, 2019, https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/trump-can-deport-you-teacher-terminated-for-threatening-boy-who-didnt-say-yes-sir-210141857.html.
5. Ben Chapman, Andy Mai, and Stephen Rex Brown, “Blackface Photos Used in Brooklyn PTA Fund-Raiser Message Ignite Outrage,” New York Daily News, February 12, 2018, https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/blackface-photos-pta-fund-raiser-message-ignite-outrage-article-1.3814759; Kia Morgan-Smith, “Teacher Fired after Telling Elementary School Student, ‘You’re Lucky I’m Not Making You Pick Cotton,’” Grio, June 13, 2019, https://thegrio.com/2019/06/13/teacher-fired-after-telling-elementary-school-student-youre-lucky-im-not-making-you-pick-cotton.
6. AJ Willingham, “Middle School Teacher Secretly Ran White Supremacist Podcast, Says It Was Satire,” CNN, March 6, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/05/us/dayanna-volitich-white-nationalist-florida-school-
podcast-trnd/index.html; Ibn Safir, “Teachers Pose With Noose, Earn Suspensions Alongside Principal,” Root, May 11, 2019, https://www.theroot.com/picture-of-smiling-teachers-holding-noose-lands-all-fou-1834694657; Montana Couser, “Teacher Who Made a Noose Symbol Toward Black Kid Won’t Face Charges; DA’s Office Said It Wasn’t a Hate Crime,” Root, July 25, 2018, https://www.theroot.com/teacher-who-made-a-noose-symbol-toward-black-kid-doesnt-1827870718?fbclid=IwAR1NMojNYei73XcvT_6gEQLqLeXN_DFEM2kmwYOLk0ftL1aOpWyJfgs7MJE.
7. “Prosecutor Admits It Was Wrong to Charge a Child Playing Dodgeball,” NewsOne, August 9, 2019, https://newsone.com/3883947/prosecutor-admits-wrong-dodgeball-kym-worthy; Luke Darby, “Florida Police Officer Arrested and Handcuffed a 6-Year-Old Black Girl for a Tantrum in Class,” GQ, September 23, 2019, https://www.gq.com/story/six-year-old-black-girl-arrested-for-a-tantrum.
8. Michael J. Dumas, “‘Losing an Arm’: Schooling as a Site of Black Suffering,” Race Ethnicity and Education 17, no. 1 (2014): 1–29, https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2013.850412.
9. Jamila Lyiscott, Black Appetite. White Food: Issues of Race, Voice, and Justice Within and Beyond the Classroom (New York: Routledge, 2019).
10. Kevin K. Kumashiro, The Seduction of Common Sense: How the Right Has Framed the Debate on America’s Schools (New York: Teachers College Press, 2008), 3; George Lakoff, Don’t Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate: The Essential Guide for Progressives (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2004).
11. Kumashiro, The Seduction of Common Sense, 3.
12. Data was collected from eight years of coursework for a yearlong social justice and curriculum design course. The course had several major objectives. It was designed to orient the students to the context of Newark, New Jersey, to support them to teach from a racial justice perspective, to help them develop an assets-based view of the city, and to teach them the foundations of curriculum design. Data included periodic reflection papers ranging from three to five pages, a racial autobiography of five to ten pages in which they reflected on the role that race has played throughout their life, and blog postings in which they reflected on community events they attended. The bulk of the data came from a reflection paper from the two-day Undoing Racism workshop by People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond and their course culminating final papers, approximately ten to fifteen pages, in which students were specifically asked to reflect on their journey of the year, new understandings they felt they developed, and which experiences helped to shape this new awareness. I read through the papers for examples of new understandings of race the teachers identified. I wrote codes in margins, creating short line-by-line units, staying as close to the participants’ words as possible. After finalizing line-by-line codes, I lifted the codes and corresponding text out of interview transcripts and recategorized them into “focused codes” based on connections across line-by-line codes that represented larger themes. I physically cut these line-by-line units, with only a color-coded system as to who said what, creating piles of data that shared similar themes. These piles were checked for consistency and put into envelopes, each titled with a label that described the phenomenon within. As I arranged these labels and thought about the relationship among them, my conceptual framework emerged as the story these labels told together.