“Helping kids of color to feel they belong has a negative effect on white, Christian, or conservative kids,” Mary Beeman, the campaign manager for a Republican school board candidate in Connecticut, said in October. Beeman’s comments were made during a virtual forum on the subject of critical race theory (CRT), and to what extent it was or wasn’t being taught in public schools.
Beeman later apologized for what she called her “poorly worded” statement, which, she claimed, was shown “out of context.” What she apparently meant to express instead, according to her new, re-worded statement, was that children with “Judeo-Christian values” are being “bullied into submission” by liberal teachers and classmates.
Following last year’s national reckoning with racial injustice, prompted by the murder of George Floyd, conservative and mainly white parents and politicians (like Beeman) are now on a crusade to discredit concepts such as systemic racism and white supremacy.
Their efforts are focused on fighting the use of teaching tools like the 1619 Project and the supposed malicious influence of CRT. This has led to hostile school board meetings as well as a slate of state-level laws designed to make it so the only history that gets taught is the kind that makes white people comfortable.
The truth is that white children don’t suffer on account of creating more diverse, equitable, and inclusive environments in schools.
The truth is that white children don’t suffer on account of creating more diverse, equitable, and inclusive environments in schools for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) children. On the contrary, children of color, particularly Black children, suffer when anti-racism isn’t made a priority by majority white educators. The evidence bears this out.
According to the Civil Rights Data Collection, Black, Indigenous, and other children of color are harassed and bullied because of their race and ethnicity more often than white children are.
In October, a U.S. Justice Department investigation into a Utah school district found “serious and widespread racial harassment” of Black and Asian American students and a persistent failure by school officials to respond.
According to the investigation, Black children were subject to a racially hostile environment, where they were called racial slurs by students and faculty, weren’t allowed to create student groups, and were disciplined more often and harshly when compared to white students for similar behavior. Asian American students were also called racial slurs and were told to go back to China.
The Utah district settled with the Justice Department, agreeing to hire a consultant to review race discrimination polices as well as train staff on matters of responding and investigating any claims of racism. “The district takes these findings very seriously,” the superintendent said. “The district is wholeheartedly committed to creating and maintaining a safe and welcoming environment for all students free from harassment and discrimination.”
These revelations of ramped-up racial animus in schools reflect the nationwide escalation of racial animosity that has occurred over the past year.
According to a 2021 FBI report, hate crimes are at their highest mark in twelve years, and roughly 62 percent of all victims were targeted because of their race, ethnicity, or ancestry. According to the report, 56 percent of all race-based hate crimes were motivated by anti-Black racism, increasing by 40 percent from 2019 to 2020, while race-based hate crimes against Asian Americans increased by 70 percent in the same year.
Meanwhile, white parents storm school board meetings to protest CRT, as well as the use of masks, claiming fear of how their children will be impacted. As a white mother shared at a school board meeting in a Philadelphia suburb: “We do not want our children to be taught that they are oppressed or they are oppressors by virtue of their color. These are my babies. Not yours. If you are embarrassed or ashamed of your skin color, that’s your issue. Not mine or my children’s.”
Teaching about systemic racism and white supremacy can educate white people about why Black people and other people of color experience racism.
But teaching about topics like systemic racism, white supremacy, and racial capitalism isn’t only rooted in a desire to make Black children and other children of color feel good about who they are. It is, instead, an effort to prevent what happened in Utah from happening again.
These lessons are for all children so that they are aware of how the history of our nation’s formation and development has contributed to our modern-day circumstances. In other words, teaching about systemic racism and white supremacy can educate white people about why Black people and other people of color experience racism and how we can undo these forms of injustice.
As Paulo Freire once said, in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed, the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed is to liberate themselves and their oppressors. Therefore, the work of authors like Nikole Hannah-Jones (the 1619 Project) and Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw (CRT & Intersectionality) is not simply to liberate Black people, but to liberate us all through education.
CRT, as Crenshaw explained it, “is a way of looking at law’s role platforming, facilitating, producing, and even insulating racial inequality in our country, ranging from health to wealth to segregation to policing. We believe in the promises of equality, and we know we can get there if we confront and talk honestly about inequality.”
Anti-racist work—ridding our schools of anti-Blackness, for example—will require that all children are taught historical truths to understand how racism impacts our society, while being empowered with the tools to eradicate it. Liberation for our society means liberating all peoples.
Sadly, our nation has too many people unwilling to be liberated because being white matters more than being whole.