Data, White Supremacy, and YOU!
Becoming a better person of privilege starts with a willingness to admit your way of thinking was wrong, and embracing the uncomfortable feelings of shame, anger, and guilt that haunts us all.
Dear friends and fam,
For whatever reason, an email didn’t go out last Thursday with the newsletter. I’m sure this is 100% my fault, but now you get two newsletters this week!
The way in which urban students’ mental health is not just neglected but actively sabotaged through the very structure of public education itself, is the same damage we do to ourselves by refusing to sit with discomfort, especially when it comes to gender and racial privilege.
I spoke about just that this past week for a conference for the Shuttleworth Foundation’s Flash Forward event titled, “What does data obscure about the reality of systemic racism? A frank discussion about whiteness and how it limits our perspectives.”
Through the lens of the recent history of deregulation and privatization of public education, I showed what white privilege and its concomitant refusal to engage with our own internal biases around race does to… well, everything. But what I’m most concerned about is what it does for Black and brown students’ futures. I spoke honestly about my problematic Southern background, and all of the fights I’ve gotten into with family members et al about race and white supremacy. What I learned is: no matter how “nicely” I put it, some are still gonna be pissed regardless bc white fragility is a helluva drug.
I spoke on the mis-use of data on race in education fields, which ranges from an over-reliance on standardized tests (here’s to you, common core, you monster) to believing the self-reported data from charter schools, whose ‘research’ methodology is so lacking in rigor even I, a freaking art historian, could spot the biased sampling and gross misinterpretation of statistics. The reality is that we use problematic quantitative metrics as the sole indicator of student learning. Even if we could trust that these quantitative metrics were in fact a reflection of reality, they still cannot account for the lived reality of what those numbers represent. What’s this gotta do with racism, you ask?
All of these “data” pitfalls can be directly traced back to how we, as individuals, conceive of white supremacy and privilege. What white people too often fail to understand is that our white privilege puts blinders on our ability to truly understand racism and our own identity.
The questions I got afterwards opened up a whole other angle to this that I hadn’t considered, in that beautiful way that is too rare at conferences these days. One woman drew a comparison between the rise of authoritarianism in Poland to the draconian discipline policies endemic to urban charter schools, which sent shivers down my spine since, let’s be honest, we’re all a little doubtful that the US is a functioning democracy. (if you’re interested in learning more about this, I highly recommend Ann Applebaum’s Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Allure of Authoritarianism published last year).
The other questions I got centered around how to be anti-racist, and what steps individuals can take to educate themselves and hopefully de-colonize their own minds. While I am hesitant to wear the title of ethicist, much less that of anti-racism expert, I can speak to my own process of reckoning with my privilege and what it allowed me to see in my students and myself.
Becoming a better person starts with a willingness to admit your way of thinking was wrong, and embracing the uncomfortable feelings of shame, anger, and guilt, that haunt our own perceptions of white privilege.
Once you work through to the other side, the world is a much more beautiful place. Again, I can only speak to my own experience not anyone else’s, but I highly recommend psychologist Janet Helm’s A Race is a Nice Thing to Have: A Guide to Being a White Person or Understanding the White Persons in Your Life, which has great discussion questions for either group or individual work on this. And, of course, Ibram X Kendi’s How to be Anti-racist.
For the talk, I didn’t even get into what devastating consequences are wrought by intensely problematic white teachers with a savior complex does to adolescent socio-emotional development, but rest assured, I’m comin’ for em.
What I’m Reading:
This NYT op-ed titled “Can We Stop Fighting About Charter Schools,” by the impressive Eve L Ewing (whose book about public school closures in Chicago is a fascinating read, even if you don’t care about education). In the article, Ewing calls upon democrats to look behind the overly simplistic “bad or good” argument to charter schools, to instead actually demand “high-quality, well-financed schools for all children.” She is adept at cutting through this thorny debate and keeping it focused on what we should all be fighting for, which is, a functioning education system.
To prep for the my talk, I re-read this wonderfully short book by psychologist Janet Helms’ A Race is a Nice Thing to Have, which I’ve found to be a great resource both for myself as well as for creating a rich and rewarding discussion about race with white people
(yes— that is possible, but first, we white folk need to fix our attitudes).
I’ve been turning more and more to the writing of James Baldwin as I’ve been chewing on the whole conception of whiteness. Baldwin pin points exactly why it’s so impossible to talk about race with many white folk, noting that, when you do:
“A great deal of one's energy is expended in reassuring white Americans that they do not see what they see. This is utterly futile, of course, since they do see what they see. And what they see is an appallingly oppressive and bloody history known all over the world. What they see is a disastrous, continuing, present condition which menaces them, and for which they bear an inescapable responsibility... The guilt remains, more deeply rooted, more securely lodged, than the oldest of fears."
-James Baldwin, "White Man's Guilt" 1965 in the edited collection Black on White: Black Writers on What It Means to be White, which I also highly recommend.
Woof. How utterly accurate and damning is that. Damn that man could write.
White people: isn’t it time we do better?
What’s going on with Post-PhD:
A while back, I was honored to receive a FlashGrant from the Shuttleworth Foundation to begin research on systemic racism and white teachers in urban education. Beyond giving money so that I could focus full time on writing, what the grant really gave me was an outside source of validation and support. I extend my sincerest thanks to Jason Hudson and all of the team at the Shuttleworth Foundation for the amazing work they support and advocate for, I have so enjoyed this past week!
My fellow radical academic Chris Hartgerink nominated me for it. As a Shuttleworth Fellow, he’s currently building a community and platform for science researchers that hopes to provide an alternative to the stranglehold of a handful of scientific research publishers. You can read all about Liberate Science and the manifesto I helped them write.
That’s all from me for now, wishing you all an easy Thursday and Friday and a swift end to winter for all,
Allison
NSFS: Not Safe for School, your snark-filled antidote to racism and corruption in education. Follow @postphdtheblog on Twitter and @allisonharbin_postphd on Instagram
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