In my opinion, one of the most important aspects of the current Black Lives Matters movement is the distinction “anti-racist.” For too long white people, like me, have been able to vehemently assure ourselves, and others, that we are not racist, while doing nothing meaningful to dismantle the systematic racism that lifts us up while keeping black people down.
As Ibram X. Kendi so articulately explains in How to be an Antiracist there is no such thing as passive anti-racism. Racism does not stop at the vocal, hate mongerer who supports policy that perpetuates the exploitation of black and brown people. Racism is ALSO the refusal of white people to tear down the systems that we benefit from so that we might promote equality for all.
The opposite of “racist” isn’t “not racist.”
Ibram X. Kendi, How to be an Antiracist
White people are generally quite enthusiastic to enumerate all the ways they are not racist, but when it comes to recognizing their privilege and actively giving up some of that privilege, they are generally much less likely to support antiracist policies.
The arena in which this is most evident is education.
A lot of parents right now are talking about how they are going to talk to their kids more about racism, and make sure their kids read books by people of color. They pledge that antiracist ideas will be shared and discussed regularly. But I wonder if those same parents are ready to embrace antiracist ideals at the most important of places, their children’s schools.
So far they have not been. Quite the opposite in fact. Brown vs. Board of Education determined that school segregation was unconstitutional in 1954, and yet schools are more segregated now than they have been in decades. White parents have been flexing their privilege to ensure that their kids get the best education possible, while allowing children of color to languish in underfunded public schools that white parents would never let their children attend. Finding ways to effectively segregate public schools, even though research shows that integration is the most effective way to close the achievement gap and promote equality, is one of the ways white parents – even the ones who believe they are not racist – are perpetuating systematic racism.
{This is especially prevalent in San Francisco, where the upper middle class families that don’t forgo the public school system entirely, cluster at a few well-regarded schools where they raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide technology the school otherwise couldn’t afford, and even hire teachers to run enrichment programs. Meanwhile the vast majority of schools in the city are Title 1, and struggle to raise enough money for teacher appreciation efforts.}
If you are a parent and you believe you are antiracist, I encourage you to answer these questions for yourself:
- Do you send your kid(s) to a private or public school?
- Do most of your kid(s)’classmates look like them?
- Do most of their classmates come from the same socioeconomic background?
- Do you send your kid(s) to school with a significant population of black and brown children?
- Do you send your kid(s) to school with a significant population of students who qualify for free and reduced lunch?
- Do you send your kid(s) to a school that is better funded, has more experienced and qualified teachers, and offers more electives and enrichment programs than the schools the vast majority of students of color attend?
How do your answers inform your understanding of yourself as an antiracist?
If you are realizing that your children are getting a higher quality education than most children of color, ask yourself if you’d be willing to send your kids to a school with a significant number of black and brown students, or a significant percentage of students that qualify for free and reduced lunch. Would you be willing to do either of those things if it were clear your child were getting an inferior education than is offered elsewhere?
This is where most white people absolutely refuse to cede their privilege. We always have really good reasons for why we make the choices we do, and how it doesn’t mean we are racist, but now that we understand that perpetuating systematic racism is a form of racism, we need to be more honest with ourselves about the choices we make for our own children, and the way those choices affect children of color.
If you have made a series of decisions (that you were only able to make because of your privilege) that ensure your child has access to a superior education, but you want to do more to ensure that ALL children have access to the same quality of education, I encourage you to answer these questions honestly for yourself:
- Would you support programs that incentivize teachers with more experience to teach at schools with under served populations?
- Would you support programs that incentive teacher retention at schools with under served populations?
- Would you support sharing PTA funds raised at your school with nearby school(s) that serve primarily students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds?
- Would you support pooling all PTA funds in your district to be distributed evenly between all the schools and/or shared with schools in a neighboring district?
- Would you be willing to abolish PTAs and EdFoundations so that wealthier parents are not able to subsidize their child’s public education while the students in lower income neighborhoods are left to make do with what is actually provided by the state and federal governments?
- Would you support policy that takes into account PTA and EdFoundation funding when distributing state and federal funds?
- Would you be willing to share a post that asks questions like this one with your family and friends?
- Would you be willing to have difficult conversations about how the systems that benefit you and your child(ren), simultaneously disadvantage students of color?
- Would you be willing for your child to have less so that other children who need more, could have more?
How do your answers to these questions inform your understanding of yourself as antiracist?
If you would answer no to many of these questions, I’m sure you have a good reason. We all do. But we have to recognize that our good reasons have been crafted and refined by decades of systematic racism that allow us, and our children, to benefit from structures of inequality. If we really are antiracist, and we really want to break down those systems, we have to start asking ourselves what we’re willing to give up so that all children have equal opportunities (even if that means it looks like socioeconomically disadvantaged kids are getting MORE, because initially they will need more to counteract the damage wrought by generations of oppression, white supremacy, and systematic racism).
All white people have a lot of work to do to start dismantling the systems that have bolstered our success by denying opportunities to others. White parents probably have the most work to do, and I worry we aren’t ready to do it. In the current culture of scarcity, when so many upper middle class parents already perceive the opportunities their children have to be dwindling, I doubt white, upper-middle class parents are willing to cede even small amounts of their privilege if they perceive it to mean their child(ren) might have fewer opportunities to succeed.
I think we’ll start to see if white parents really are embracing their new antiracist ideals in the fall, when districts have to make hard choices about how to bring students and teachers back safely while the coronavirus still rages. Some districts are already talking about prioritizing classroom time for students who were unable to effectively access distance learning because they lack adequate technology or internet service, and/or are in desperate need of other services the school provides. This might mean that students who can adequately access distance learning (and are not facing food scarcity, or homeless, or domestic abuse) will not be in the classroom as much, if at all.
Will middle and upper middle class parents support these decisions, understanding that lower income students really should be prioritized for classroom teaching so they can access services, make up lost learning, and not fall even farther behind? Or will they try to flex their privilege under the guise of “equality for all?”
Governor Newsom is already distributing more emergency funds to districts with higher percentages of lower income students, and privileged parents are already fighting to get those funds distributed evenly to all districts, regardless of the real needs of different student populations.
If you’re white, upper middle class, (and you haven’t previously been deeply engaged in the BLM movement), and you’re not doing something that makes you uncomfortable right now, you’re probably not supporting anti-racism in any kind of meaningful way. Reading books is not enough. Talking to your children is not enough. If what you’re doing doesn’t feel hard, or unfair, or scary, you’re not even approaching your privilege, let alone attempting to dismantling it. I know I’m not doing enough,* and I’m trying to think of ways I can do more.
Asking these questions is a first step. I hope you’ll take it with me.
*I am not trying to portray myself as some woke white woman who is making all the sacrifices when it comes to my kids’ education. Yes, I send them to a school where they are the in minority in being white (5%) and not qualifying for free and reduced lunch (15% – though our combined household income probably puts us at <3% at our school). I am also a teacher and I am probably more confident determining the quality of education my kids are receiving than most parents. Furthermore, I don’t plan to send my daughter to that school for 6th grade, because I don’t think she’ll receive an adequate education there. When I transfer my daughter to a different school where I think she’ll get a better education, I’ll be flexing my privilege ( I’m now considering schools I would not have, because of the BLM movement).
I also teach in a district that serves primarily upper-middle class families, and while I could paint a pretty picture about how I ended up there and why I stayed, the reality is that I don’t want to teach at a struggling school because (a) I make more money where I’m at and (b) it’s a lot harder to teach at schools with primarily under-served students. So while I’m trying hard to flex my privilege for all students, I could absolutely being doing more, both as a parents and teacher. I haven’t made all the right choices and I still benefit from my privilege in ways I recognize, and in ways I’m ignorant of, every day.
