June 08, 2020 Growing up in South Central Los Angeles, I, like many black children, was raised by my single mother. Our fathers weren’t there for us; some by choice, and others in prison or dead. Since childhood, I have...
Tag - police brutality
When speaking out directly against injustice, our white counterparts are perceived as brave, while Black leaders see our anger weaponized. Like most of us, my inbox has been flooded for weeks with pointed statements from...
Four weeks ago, a Black man was lynched. In 2020. I remind myself of that fact each day so that I do not forget what we saw, what happened—that we witnessed a man take his last breath. In the days following, we watched...
Last week, I watched American cities burn: Minneapolis, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, and Philadelphia. And while the murder of George Floyd was the catalyst, Amy Cooper played a role. It’s easy to...
Courage, commitment, and foresight are consistently needed when you work in schools, districts, and organizations that claim to be doing the work of anti-racism. There are too many organizations and school/district leaders today...
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...
While The Hate U Give is a best-selling book and top-rated film, I’m getting some real pushback from my administration about having my students read the book and see the film in my English Language Arts class, despite its...
You must never get discouraged in struggle, you will build something and the enemy will knock it down, and you will have to start from zero… -Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) I had the honor of starting my teaching career...
It has been great to see the activism of students be expanded. While student activism didn’t begin with the Parkland youth, I am still glad to see them join the ranks of students of color who have been on the front lines for as...
“History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history. If we pretend otherwise, we literally are criminals.” -James Baldwin The Eagles have celebrated their first national...