Read. Watch. Listen. Learn. Media that's made an impact. Post #2

When we talked as a department a couple of weeks ago about using our knowledge as librarians to discuss various media that have changed our thinking about race and the institution of systemic racism in our country, the first thing that came to mind was the PBS series Eyes on the Prize.  The first 6 episodes aired in 1987 and the last 8 in 1990.

I realized that it provided a pivotal moment in my understanding of the organized efforts to dismantle the legalized racism in our country

The 14-part series documents the Civil Rights Movement through interviews with various people involved in it and presents archival footage of protests, speeches and news coverage.  I wondered, at first, if this series was too old for the purpose of this post.  As I thought more about it, I realized that it provided a pivotal moment in my understanding of the organized efforts to dismantle the legalized racism in our country that prohibited People of Color from accessing basic human rights, laying the groundwork for the protests of today.

As a White child growing up in the 1970's and 1980's, I learned about the Civil Rights Movement through a single story, a myth really, of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr.  It was the story of a black seamstress who, exhausted from a hard day at work, chose not to give up her seat to a white man.  She was arrested, and Martin Luther King fought back by leading a bus boycott in Montgomery.  This action led to the Supreme Court ending the Jim Crow laws.  While in high school and college, I read more and began to understand the complexities of the movement.  This documentary fundamentally changed my understanding of this revolution and made me see that it never ended.  Hearing the personal stories of those involved in the movement taught me that the movement wasn't a single story of a single event at a single point in time.  I think of this documentary often today in my roles of teacher and librarian.  When I talk to students about the Civil Rights Movement, I incorporate biographies of people that the children may not have heard of before, like Audrey Faye Hendricks, the youngest child arrested during the Children's March and the African American political activist, Fannie Lou Hamer.  I must also make sure to ask students questions to help them make parallels to the work that continues today.

The book that changed my thinking was Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson.  I read it three years ago when it was the Read Across Rhode Island Book.  It is a memoir about Stevenson's work as a lawyer in Georgia and Alabama and as the co-founder of the Equal Justice Initiative.  The first part of the book focuses on his defense of Walter MacMillian, a man wrongly committed of murder and sentenced to death.  The second part of this book affected me the most deeply, as he describes his battle to end the practice of punishing children with the death penalty.  I was moved by the additional trauma these kids faced while on death row.  Stevenson adeptly manages to personalize the stories of these predominantly Black men and boys awaiting death and makes the connection to how our justice system perpetuates the legacy of slavery in this country.  I think that before I read this book I understood that our system does not rehabilitate criminals, but it is much more than that.  We do not, in fact, have a justice system.  We have a system that unfairly punishes Black men and boys far more severely and it is designed to do so.  As a White female teacher, I must continually question whether I redirect my students equitably.  Do I give harsher consequences to my students of color?

As a White female teacher, I must continually question whether I redirect my students equitably.
Do I give harsher consequences to my students of color?

While considering this post this past weekend, a friend of mine forwarded this week's episode of the podcast On Being, with Krista Tippett, called "Talking About Whiteness: an Awkward, Inadequate and Urgent Conversation", an interview with author Eula Biss.  The episode originally aired November 2016, but it is particularly relevant today.  Tippett and Biss begin by talking about a research study at a diverse high school in Evanston, IL where the researchers looked at the differences in educational opportunities and outcomes for Black versus White students, even within the same building.  The study described a topic I had never heard of nor ever considered, something called "opportunity hoarding".  This idea was that White parents want their children to flourish and encourage them to take advantage of every opportunity that is available to them, and while it's not conscious, this accumulation of opportunities comes at a cost to someone else's child.  An example they used is that 90% of White students at the school participated in at least one AP class whereas only 50% of African American students did the same.  There is no way that this fact can be the true indicator of the abilities of these children.  It makes me think of my own teaching and that I must take time to think about whom I call on and what I ask them to do.  I need to practice checking my own biases and continually question whether the assumptions I make about my students' abilities are, in any way, based on their race.

As Biss states, "If you can't talk about it you can't think about it." Wow, did this statement hit the mark.

Later in the episode, they discuss the language we use when we talk about race and how we as White people often stumble trying to find the right words to use.  Biss believes that we need to worry less about the language we use in order to have deeper conversations about race.  When we focus on policing one another's language, we do it because we aren't sure how to address the real problems of race and privilege in our communities.  As Biss states, "If you can't talk about it you can't think about it."  Wow, did this statement hit the mark and make me think of my own thought process over the last several years.  I tend to shut down when I cannot find the right words to express how I am feeling and, consequently, the examination of the idea stops.

 

I need to give myself time to figure my way through an idea and not let myself off the hook because I don't have the right words.  If we don't have these discussions we lose the opportunity to move our thinking forward and expand our understanding.