The Goal of the White Educator Ally is to Stay Uncomfortable
Embracing Discomfort to Fight for Black Lives Matter in Our Classrooms
In the midst of everything lately, I have become laser-focused on the concept of my own comfort zone. This is not just a boundary of physical space, but also a mental periphery of my privilege that extends beyond the tone and color of my skin, my socioeconomic status, my personal education, access to resources and networks, and my formative years of experience. As a teacher, I have been thinking about the status of things that I have grown comfortable with for a long while. Because in my classroom, I am all things comfortable. I own that space because I have made it mine. I have filled it with two cups of love, one cup of understanding, a heaping mound of constantly learning new strategies and resources, and a dash of a look across the room that can say “Please, don’t try that same stuff with me today.” My classroom is where I often feel the most like me.
However, I wonder if that comfort zone is just a thing in my mind I have created to develop a sense of mastery. I am reminded in this process that there is no mastery when it comes to being an ally to my students who are Black, indigenous and people of color. There is only fighting against the comfort zone. While there are many things I disagree with about the system of education and my role as an educator, I have spent 10 years teaching and not much has changed. And seemingly, I have grown comfortable with a few things.
While I don’t like standardized testing, it is convenient as a form of assessment. Convenience is lazy.
The process for curriculum writing remains outdated and synchronizes with the Common Core State Standards. It is cozy to teach what we know.
I have come to adjust to bell schedules, inequitable class tracking, and achievement gaps that are damaging. Most often the response to questions regarding these issues is: “This is what we have always done. How could this change?”
There is a lack of resources for my students with disabilities, lack of support for students who speak other languages outside of the English language, and a lack of solutions for my students who are housing insecure.
The recent transition to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic has left our most vulnerable populations exposed and in need.
I have been an ally to my Black students and my students of color. But, have I been too comfortable?
Let me be clear. I have rebuked many of these oppressive systems in staff meetings, interdisciplinary team meetings, and at the district level. I have created a culture and climate in my classroom of rapport and relationship-building, but the issue that bothers teachers the most is the perception that we seemingly never do enough. It is why many teachers leave the profession. However, what have I done regarding these issues? I have not been silent, but have I been loud enough? Because the largest take-a-way for the white educator ally from all of the nationwide protesting in response to the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, and the outcry surrounding the murders of Breonna Taylor on March 13, 2020, Ahmaud Arbery on February 23, 2020, and countless others, has shown us that what we, as white educator allies, have simply not been doing enough. But, we have an opportunity to start now.
My good friend, Mrs. Dionna Roberts, posted a recent post on her blog Literacy Adventures titled “No, but, for real. What are YOU gonna do?” The question remains simple: I have raised my voice. But, what have I done? My activism so far has been focused on leading my peers during culturally responsive training, fighting for diverse texts on a district and state level, leading training for others about mentor text work and engagement in the English Language Arts classroom, and mandating more answers in department meetings and team meetings from colleagues that seemed flustered and out of solutions with our students of color-particularly our Black male students-who had issues with behavior, interpreted defiance, or lack of engagement. However, the overall status of race inequality remains a status quo-the norm-in our education systems.
The White Educator Ally’s Role in Education
This post isn’t about all of the things that are wrong with our United States educational systems. It couldn’t be. However, all of the things that are listed above as being flaws in our education system are all systemically connected to race. Ibram X. Kendi states, “Every policy in every institution in every community in every nation is producing or sustaining either racial inequity or equity between racial groups” (18). In order to fight for Black Lives Matter within our classrooms, we must address that the work we do on a daily basis is racial work. This post is specifically how white educator allies can start and continue to counteract inequities in their classrooms, districts, and states, and why that work remains to be uncomfortable throughout the process.
Uncomfortable (adj.) 1. causing or feeling slight pain or physical discomfort. 2. causing or feeling unease or awkwardness.
Discomfort in any form remains a privilege because people choose to be comfortable or not. In order to be an ally to counteract the systemic oppression of racial inequality in our educational systems, we have to do more. We also have to keep going with this process when it seems like we have done enough. And then do some more. While the entire system needs us to become revolutionary, we have a defined and necessary role to remain fierce advocates for Black Lives Matter within our classrooms for our Black students. As Ibram X. Kendi in How to Be Antiracist reminds us, “The good news is that racist and antiracist are not fixed identities. We can be racist one minute and an antiracist the next. What we say about race, what we do about race, in each moment determines what-not who-we are” (10). Therefore, the role of the white educator ally requires consistent action. This consistency builds a foundation for antiracism in our schools that is also a model for other white educators who are fragile or reluctant.
Because white educators are at risk of not taking action. Because many of us teach for, care about, and dedicate our professional lives to students who are Black and people of color, so we think we are doing enough. Robin DiAngelo states in her introduction of White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, “I believe that white progressives cause the most daily damage to people of color. I define white progressives as any white person who thinks he or she is not racist or is less racist, or in the ‘choir,’ or already ‘gets it.’ White progressives can be the most difficult for people of color because, to the degree that we think we have arrived, we will put our energy into making sure that others see us as having arrived. None of our energy will go into what we need to be doing for the rest of our lives: engaging in ongoing self-awareness, continuing education, relationship building, and actual antiracist practice” (5). DiAngelo reminds us that there is no moment of “having arrived.” If we grow comfortable, we have stopped engaging in the process.
Understanding the inequities in a system is one issue; however, fighting to stop the implicit bias and inequities in our buildings and districts requires a call to purpose. We Got This. Equity, Access, and the Quest to Be Who Our Students Need Us to Be by Cornelius Minor offers the white educator ally a roadmap to address concerns in the system. He addresses the power of transformation on the classroom level: “We are most powerful when we labor to understand young people and when we work alongside (not for) them. When our vision for kids and for classrooms is guided by a community’s vision for their own children, our work becomes real to children and to parents. Relationships are appreciably challenging to maintain, but they become infinitely easier when they are grounded in a shared vision and genuine collaboration. Teaching without this kind of engagement is not teaching at all. It is colonization” (28). The last line grounds the white educator ally in purpose to conduct research, raise their voice, and act. We are fighting for the decolonization of our schools and the education system. And, when reminded how large of a task this is, some responses that are natural could be reluctance, fear, anger, and most of all-discomfort.
3 Reasons Why the White Educator Ally Will Remain Uncomfortable
1. Loss of sense of belonging
When talking about the role of the white educator in education, keywords pop up such as privilege, prejudice, implicit bias, and white fragility. Robin DiAngelo in White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism address the idea of white fragility as “summarizing the familiar patterns of white people’s responses to racial discomfort” and “...triggered by discomfort and anxiety, it is born of superiority and entitlement” (2). White teachers were born into a culture where they belonged naturally. Robin DiAngelo summarizes a long list of cultural markers that are examples of her “belonging” from birth and childbirth preparation to tv and media to history to the beauty industry(51-53). It is no different in the field of education. As white teachers, we feel we belong in context, strategies, and resources. However, the white educator ally is up for fighting against this sense of belonging. They are open to the alienation that sometimes occurs from white groups that don’t understand or don’t identify as allies. They don’t belong to these white groups anymore, but they also don’t belong to a minority group of any kind. Because they aren’t a person of color. The white educator ally engages in the discomfort that goes along with this outcast phenomenon.
2. You are not a primary source.
You have a voice, but it is not and will never be a primary source voice in the conversation about race. You are constantly learning, researching, reading, and discussing the work with others. You have the privilege as a guide to life, not experience. You may feel out of place mainly because you will always be a student. This will bother those that want mastery. It will utterly bother those that need control. The white educator ally dedicates themselves to the idea that they are constantly going to be a learner. This idea must come into their classrooms as well in a way that they are not being taught by their Black students and students of color, but they are actively learning about resources, strategies, and practices that can make their classrooms more inclusive, welcoming, and responsive.
The white educator ally may even feel like sometimes that they aren't enough. Your students of color will see you as an advocate, but you will never replace the existence of a teacher of color. Because our students can’t see themselves in your skin, and again, you cannot replicate the same experience. You can be a warrior for justice. An advocate in the classroom. A voice outside of silence. But, you are not a teacher of color. We need more teachers and educators of color in our systems. The white educator ally understands their role of fighting for inclusion in these local college and university teaching programs, and they create an environment of engagement and inspiration that shows the power of teaching for others.
3. Sometimes (maybe most times) you are wrong about ideas.
Sometimes the easiest way to fire someone up is to tell them that they are wrong. When I say wrong, I don’t mean the opposite of right. White educator allies are not the experts in the conversation about race because they are not primary sources (see point #2). They can be knowledgeable, secondary sources of information, heavily researched, and well-spoken. However, without the experience of racial inequity, the white educator ally has to remember to pause before explanation. Listen before giving a rationale. The concept of whiteness as a social construct reminds the white educator ally that they are conditioned to not see their whiteness.
Because our society is trained to think that any conversations about how white culture maybe perhaps wrong seems even un-American. Michael Eric Dyson in his foreword of Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism states a comment from Beyonce Knowles, “No less an authority than Beyonce Knowles recently remarked, ‘It’s been said that racism is so American that when we protest racism, some assume we’re protesting America.’ DiAngelo proves that the flow of white identity into American identity-of racist beliefs into national beliefs-must be met head-on with a full-throated insistence that what it means to be American is not what it means to be white…” (xi). Our efforts will be met with resistance to those that feel threatened. The role of the white educator ally is to maintain feeling uncomfortable having conversations with all people about race, racism, and the structures that make up the education system.
What the White Educator Ally Must Constantly Do
Embrace moments where you feel fragile or when others in the room feel fragile. These are moments of growth.
Talk to white family members, friends, neighbors, and others who are fragile when talking about race or racism.
Interrogate roles, positions, policies, and structural components in your school’s building.
Become a fierce advocate for diverse texts that disrupt the curriculum. Stories matter. The characters matter. The authors matter.
Create a classroom environment where all students feel included. Cornelius Minor states, “Inclusivity in the context of teaching and learning does not simply mean that ‘you are allowed to be present here.” To be included means ‘we have changed ourselves and our practices to make ‘here’ a place where you can thrive” (36).
Revisit internal work quarterly. Encourage yourself to reflect, listen, and process.
Become an Action-Research Educator. Cornelius Minor suggests in Chapter 3 of his book We Got This. Equity, Access, and the Quest to Be Who Our Students Need Us to Be called “Do Your Homework and Then Go for It,” 5 steps each educator can take to make the change within their own classrooms and share that change with others. These steps are found on pages 52-53.
Imagine how this change might happen.
Select a small population of students to study.
Make a five-day plan for how you will implement the changes you have chosen.
Choose how you will measure the impact that your work is having on students.
Decide how you will share your findings.