One teacher reflects on what he and other white educators need to understand as they work to build anti-racist practices and identities. Last year, I realized that I didn’t have my first black teacher until I went to college...
Category - Diversity
In the 1860s, Black Codes, including vagrancy and loitering laws, were established to prevent black people, particularly black men, from coming together. These Black Codes were used to vilify and cement a distinct and racial...
I was recently in Hartford, Connecticut, at the invitation of Mama Gwen Samuel, an activist who works on behalf and with the community. I wasn’t prepared for what I was to encounter; callousness of Black bourgeois, disregard...
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” This is one of my favorite Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. quotes, but it leaves out a crucial point: the arc will not bend by itself. Someone has got to be...
“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”—Gloria Steinem Dear White People, Days ago, I, like many of you, watched in horror the vile display of bigotry and hatred, violence and terror that unfolded in...
When I saw this picture, I thought it is a dramatic illustration of the importance of little Black girls seeing themselves in children’s books! This picture of Michelle Obama is telling this girl that she can be anything she...
There are six Black male teachers in our school. They represent twelve percent of our classroom teachers. That sounds like only a few (and it is) but in a city where Black men represent four percent of classroom teachers, it...
MANY MEN. ONE CHARGE. SUIT UP. Wear something that shows you value our kids. SHOW UP. On the first day of school, join a community of Black men to welcome our students to a new year and a future of great possibilities through...
There is a well-known shortage of minority teachers in the United States educational system. Compounded by the fact there is a teacher shortage in general, many urban schools are constantly scrambling to find more teachers of...
Tom Rademacher penned an open letter to white teachers on Education Post’s blog page. Yes, I’m addressing you directly as White teachers. That may feel uncomfortable. You’re going to have to get over that, or this is...