DON’T ACT LIKE YOU “CARE” ABOUT SCHOOL REFORM, BUT IGNORE THE LIFE AND DEATH ISSUES BLACK PEOPLE IN AMERICA FACE
In recent months, notable people within school reform circles have locked horns over a trifling question: Does the inclusion of social justice activists, people derided as “warriors,” in education reform threaten the bipartisan peace by introducing unrelated issues into the mix?
Are we marginalizing white conservative school reformers by making them confront the life and death issues people of color and other marginalized populations face every day as Americans?
I’ve been asked repeatedly, “Do we really need to include those other issues if our goal is to improve education?”
My response has been, “other issues?”
As if any of us live compartmentalized lives where our hearts, minds, and bodies are only impacted by one institution at a time.
As if we aren’t the sum total of a maddening portfolio of experiences—many of them negative—across institutions that reaffirm the Dred Scott ruling saying Black people have had “no rights which the White man was bound to respect.”
That portfolio of experience comes with compounding interest over the life span of a Black person, and it pays dividends in frustration, anger, and resistance.
If you are without this portfolio of experience you might be inclined to first deny, invalidate, belittle, reframe, obfuscate, and sequester Black pain so you can remain comfortably dispassionate, and plausibly ignorant to the factors CONTINUE READING: Don't Act Like You "Care" About School Reform, But Ignore the Life and Death Issues Black People in America Face - Philly's 7th Ward
